Pictures! Agouti kit from 2 Self parents? Steel gene

[Zass]

Those older kits with the chestnut doe do not look like steels to me. It's possible that their eye circles will come in better as they age.


6-8 days old is my favorite time to ID the good agoutis.
Their bellies will be the give away, if they are a good clean white, and the underside of the tail is nice and white, they are definitely not steels. Out of curiosity, who is the buck who fathered them?

This is the mature belly color on my heavily ticked chocolate steel doe:

 

[Zinnia]

Your rabbits are adorable. What a cutey he is.

Millie is the dam. I love her density, markings and color. Not to mention she has an awesome personality.
The REW buck is Snow Ride. His sire is an Eric Stewart buck called Space Cowboy. I really like his shape and his wool.

I sure hope those guys are not Steel. Let me find the right age photos of them....

What do you think of that newborn... Steel? I'm betting yes... but maybe too early to tell?

Here's the Chestnuts of Millie's at 9 days old. The one on the upper far left and far right had Spinabifida and were culled. The one on the right appears to have darker Agouti markings, so maybe a Steel. But, the others look good, I think.

 

[Zass]

Be thankful you aren't working with super steels!!!! It would be a lot harder. If you breed a steel carrying buck who is just (Es_) to a clean visual agouti you will get some agouti kits that you know are not steels. (Like my little opal)

I can't ID my steels as newborns. It might look like self in a few days or steel.
Or...it might wait a few weeks to start looking like a steel. (or never bother to)

If it looks agouti in a few days, then you will know for sure what it is!

__________ Thu Jan 22, 2015 9:47 pm __________

I'm seeing NICE white ears on those kits you just posted!!! Only the one on the far right isn't showing up well enough for me to confirm steel-free. Not saying it isn't, it's just that the angle is a bit difficult.

 

[Zinnia]

Another one I'd consider keeping from the Lilac's litter



__________ Thu Jan 22, 2015 8:02 pm __________

And an Opal from her litter...

Same Opal several days older...not quite three weeks old.

 

[Zass]

All those with the pretty white markings are 100% steel free.

 

[Zinnia]

Yippee! I have lots to choose from!

__________ Fri Jan 23, 2015 12:46 pm __________

This guy here. This is not what a Self Chocolate kit has looked like for me.
But, he doesn't look the same as the Chocolate Steel litter mate in the center here...


Would the difference be modifiers? Could a Self Steel (aa) in Angora have this very different fur color?

This kit, pictured first, is developing what appears to be Chinchilla bands in his fur... That could be the difference.

 

[Zass]

This is a good steel-free litter I had before introducing the Sf genes.

Opal(A_ E_) to opal(A_ E_), making steel a genetic impossibility

See all those pretty white bellies and ears?
Well, you would if had I taken the pics with consideration for showing their markings, instead of cuteness factor :roll:
One copy of steel always wreaks agouti markings to some degree, so you can always see the difference between good agouti and steel around this age.

 

[Zinnia]

Cuteness factor, indeed!

You've got some lovely Opals and Lynx there?

__________ Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:05 pm __________

What kind of success rate would you say you've had with sifting out the Steel using this method (nice white ears and bellies at this age)? Have you ever selected nice white ears and it ended up being Steel?

 

[Zass]

I can expect 100% success rate at this age.

The steels will NEVER have the white ears and bellies. Instead their agouti marks always look sootier or creamier...like.. bad or poorly marked agoutis. Once you have seen a few litters of both it will become easy to spot.

You will never visually be able to tell the difference between selfs and dark or masked steels, but the steel-free agoutis are plain to see.

I don't know how the wideband gene and rufus may affect your success rates though. With those in place, a chestnut can have some red or orange color on it's agouti marks, and it might makes things trickier.

 

[Zinnia]

Yes, I do think the wide band complicates things. But, I don't like what the wide band does to the bands anyway. So, I will not select any that are not snowy-white.

__________ Sat Jan 24, 2015 5:25 pm __________

Since there are 4 possible Steel carriers in two litters with Steels. How would I know if the "Clean" kits I am selecting are not EsEs? Is it true that EsEs may not show ticking? Will the kit still have off colored ears as a nestling to show me it's Steel?

 

[Zass]

EsEs is your classic super steel. By not showing ticking, they mean it will look like a self with no steel ticking.
Not an unsteeled agouti.

 

[Zinnia]

OK. Now I get it. Thanks.

__________ Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:25 pm __________

I looked back at old photos of Elderberry's previous litter (the oops with her brother). There were only Agoutis in the litter. All squeaky clean white inner ears. If Elderberry was a Steel, I can't imagine how she could have pulled off a clean litter like that. The buck was AA and Ee. 9 Agouti babies, some with high rufus, some wide band... a Fawn... I thought I remembered them being odd colors, but their kit pictures are clean. All clean ears and bellies as nestlings. I know Elderberry and the buck carry a recessive non-extension. So, you'd think it was a small miracle that (if she was Steel) Es e X E e wouldn't create some obvious Steels out of those Agoutis. I think the chances were 50% Steel 25% normal Agouti and 25% non-extension. And the Steel possibility would be divided into two expressions... Es E and Es e. If Es E looks like a dirty Agouti, there were none. If a Es e looks like a Solid, there were none.

So, I now suspect the buck more than the doe. Both this current litter and the other current litter with a Steel have one thing in common.... two Solid siblings I recently bought from a breeder that (I recently inquired and found out) had Steels and thought she got rid of them.

If he was the Steel responsible for the litter with Elderberry, he has to be Es e (there was a Tort and a Fawn kit so far this year from him to prove that e). But, he'd also have to be A (for all the surprise Agoutis I got). I guess he'd have to be Aa bb Cc (although SOMEone is giving Chins in there, so...) Dd Ese. This genotype could be mistaken for Chocolate Self, right? Because I'm drifting from my previous suspicion... even though Elderberry very well may have had Steel siblings (can't find baby pictures).

The other sibling from the same breeder is a Lilac doe with at least one Steel kit. I guess she could be either a Self Steel or Agouti Steel. Bred to an Agouti, though... so I can't tell....

__________ Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:31 pm __________

Oh, and that newborn kit I recently inquired about... Zass, I think you said to wait a while to make any judgments about it... You were right. It doesn't look Steel Agouti to me after all. It does look Black. So, my REW buck isn't high on my list of suspects.

__________ Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:41 pm __________

The youngest images I have of Elderberry (far right) and her litter mates. Missing from the photo is one Blue which I thought had Steel tips that I sold just before this 8 week old photo shoot. I know there may not be much to determine from this photo... But... This image keeps disappearing.... I need to get a better system of posting photos.

 

[Zass]

Awwww

They are so cute

__________ Thu Jan 29, 2015 10:19 pm __________

My lynx and a heavily marked lilac gold tipped steel kit as fryers for comparison.

I showed you a pic of these kits back in the nestbox when they were MUCH easier to tell apart. Here they are again: newborn-bunnies-picture-thread-t22498-240.html You can clearly tell the steel free kit VS the steels at that age.

I still know who is who, but man, the difference at this age is more subtle than I would have thought!!!

There is rufus on their bellies to help confuse us a bit, the ear lacing is a little better on the lynx(hard to see in these pics), and the lilac GTS belly (especially visible on the tail) is smokey colored instead of truly white.

As adults the color differences should be more distinct

 

[Zinnia]

Wow, Zass! I can't tell them apart except for the belly picture. Thank you for posting these. It's a great reminder of how Steels are Stealthy!

I am going to post pictures of Fawna's litter with Snow Ride tomorrow evening (they'll be 10 days old). Fawna is a Fawn :roll: and Snow Ride is the REW buck. So, Steel could only be Ese. I think I'm seeing Ee right now (Chestnuts and one Black)... and REW, of course. Snow Ride is not really high on my list of suspects. I think he's clean.

I'm going to breed a Tort to the Chocolate buck that sired the Steel litter. If he was the Steel, he'd need to be an Agouti Steel (as I got Agoutis out of 2 "Self" parents). Any Agoutis I find in this Tort mom's litter would prove that buck to be a Steel.

Not sure yet how I'll determine if my Lilac doe is a Steel.....

 

[Zass]

Yeah, they sure are closer than I thought they would be. It's actually as close as I've ever seen, but, the only thing concrete about steel is that one copy of it WILL always show up on an agouti if you know what to look for. I suspect the color difference on an adult angora might be REALLY had to see though, so you will have to work through your kits.

Since I know one of those rabbits is A_ EsE and one is A_ E_ I can further my project.

The visual EsE can still be used to make EE kits with the right buck.
Actually, if I really wanted to I could breed these two together for 50% lynx and 50% lilac GTS.

Test breeding your current stock will be harder than you think, because Ese so often looks like self. At least you know for a fact that clean chestnuts(and chinchillas) and all non-extensions are good.

I never was 100% sure which rabbit (between the black new Zealand doe and silverfox buck) was the hidden agouti. They were BOTH super steels (EsES). But one had to be a A_ to produce visual steels when they were bred together.
I think it was the new zealand, since when bred to selfs the silverfox only ever produced visual selfs, but even bred to agouti's they rarely produced visual steels. I'd be lucky to get one visual steel in a litter of 10 when bred to agoutis (trying to work through steel to get rid of it). Other people have had visual steels pop up when two purebred SF were bred together....so...

Yeah.
The reason they say agouti steels can be passed on hidden in self lines for generations is because they are so hard to ID without AA rabbits. Breeding to agouti helps force it out into the light...so to speak.

 

[Zinnia]

Here are the photos of the Fawn's kits. The only thing these guys could be is Ese or Ee. Nice clean ears and bellies, I think, but two have dark undersides of their tails. 10 days old here.... What do you think Zass? This REW is the sire to one other litter that has a Steel... didn't know if it was the sire or dam. Do these photos indicate Steel as would appear in Ese or are these tails OK? See that the other two Chestnuts have very white tails!

dark tails...



And one of the two with light tails...


Ears... pretty white on all? Or not? The two on the left have white undersides of their tails... Two on right have dark. Not much difference in ear color, though!



Can I trust any of these?

 

[Zass]

Those are all steel-free kits, Zinnia!!! Looks like your REW is pretty safe from suspicion. I bet their tails will be nice and white when a little more fur has grown in. At this age steel is pretty easy to spot just with the ears and belly.

The tail is a better indicator on older animals, when it can be difficult to spot elsewhere.

 

[Zinnia]

Really?!

What do you suppose the difference in tail coloring is... wide band is here too.... maybe that?

__________ Sun Feb 01, 2015 9:30 pm __________

Well, that would be NICE!

So, now I wonder.... OK, the Steel kits found in the original post in this thread. They are Steel. That I can see clearly. BUT. I went hyper Steel-suspicious and thought I found a Blue Steel in another litter. But, is he a Blue Steel? Could that tawny coloring under the Blue be anything else? It's primarily at the nape... so I had guessed Steel. Here he is again.

<br /><br /> __________ Sun Feb 01, 2015 9:33 pm __________ <br /><br /> No bands, though... just tawny.

 

[Zass]

It looks like a really lightly ticked blue steel to me. I have some pics of light ones...let me find em...

 

[Zinnia]

He's changing, too. These pics are at least a week or two old. Now he has more tawny color on his head, too.