Popple Color ID Wanted! *PIC HEAVY*

[bikegurl]

Here they are! The lovely kits out of these parents...

To help sort those colors, the parent's genotypes are..

Doe is either a blue self, or a masked gold tipped blue steel
__ Bb Cc dd EsE
Buck is magpie harlequin with a history of throwing chocolate magpies as well.
A_ Bb cchd_ D_ ej_

It's easy to ID chocolate and black based kits right now, but it will take a few days to sort chinchilla from agouti, and full extension from steel. Harli marks are possible on any of them, but not the whole harlequin patten. More like regular chestnut, chinchilla or steel colors with dark brindling mixed in with the regular pattern.
Hard to describe...anyone have a pic of a harlequinized something or other?

[album]3313[/album]
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[album]3310[/album]
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[album]3315[/album]
[album]3314[/album]
[album]3307[/album]

 

[Zass]

Oh, I see harli marks on some kits!! I guess you don't need pics for that now

The agouti marks, very white inside the ears, around the nose and white bellies indicate the presence of the dominant agouti gene A_
Along with at least one copy of the normal extension gene E

Since both parents carried chocolate as a recessive gene. Some kits would have received two copies of the dominant not chocolate gene (BB) Some would have received two copes of the recessive chocolate (bb those would be your visibly chocolate kits) and some would just be visibly black chocolate carriers (Bb)

I still can't sort the chinchilla based rabbits from the full color ones by the pics, but you can probably see some difference up close. Full color is C_ and will produce the chestnuts and gold tipped steels. Where the bucks chinchilla (cchd) pairs up with the does extremely recessive copy of rew (c) You get cchd c rabbits, which will be visibly chinchilla or silver tipped steel. (assuming they have agouti as well
So for chinchilla colors: A_ __ cchd c __ E or Es_)

None of the kits are dilute, but every single one carries a recessive copy from their blue mother. So Dd. One dominant copy of not dilute(D) and one recessive copy of dilute(d)

When the agouti marks are washed out and seem really faded on kits, it generally indicates the presence of both agouti and another very dominant gene, steel: A_ __ __ __ Es_


The those black brindle marks show up(the dots on the bellies and such), indicates the presence of the extension japanese gene (aka harlequin pattern)
A_ __ __ Dd (Es or E)ej

ej is considered recessive to both full color extension E and steel Es. Your kits can have only one copy, from the buck, which is why they do not have the full harlequin pattern.

__________ Fri May 29, 2015 1:43 pm __________

Ones who look self colored may be aa (two copies of recessive self...which would mean my magpie buck had a very undesirable gene)

Or they also may be agouti based A_ and have steel paired with harlequin, which sometimes creates the false-self-trick steel is known for A_ Esej

The is absolutely no 100% accurate way to distinguish selfs from false selfs by looking at them, no matter what any websites might say.


And sorry, I didn't exactly give you easy colors to sort out

You have possibilities like "harlequinized chocolate chinchilla steel". :lol:

 

[Celice]

I'm not seeing the harly or chinchilla in them at all actually. I see LOTS of agouti though.

Chestnut agouti, Chocolate Agouti, Black, and one solid chocolate.

here is a picture of my choco. agouti kit:

 

[bikegurl]

Thanks! That is detailed and comprehensive!
We don't mind the complicated colors/genes...we like all the variety!
My husband has a question - how does the harlequin show, when there are more dominant extention genes?

 

[Zass]

Look at those spotty bellies (you too Celice). Particularly on the kit in the 8th picture. Those dark blotches on the belly and legs are harli brindling showing up only where the coat is light enough to see it.

When it appears like that under a more dominant pattern, it's referred to as harlequinized chestnut, or whatever color it's affecting.

__________ Fri May 29, 2015 5:10 pm __________

Since we're showing off kits Here's one of my chocolate agoutis (chocolate chestnut) too.

Well, lynx, opal, chocolate agouti and chestnut agouti.



Normal agoutis have nice white bellies and ears with no blotches:

 

[Celice]

Okay!! know I see it!!

I don't get chocolate agouti often so I hope to get more of it soo! such a pretty color!!

 

[TF3]

So much cuteness!!
I have a thread in this forum 'giant tiger bunnies' and some kits with agouti and partial harlequin/brindling to see it on a fawn background.

 

[bikegurl]

I have a thread in this forum 'giant tiger bunnies' and some kits with agouti and partial harlequin/brindling to see it on a fawn background.

I saw that thread...so that is part harlequin! They are cute! <br /><br /> __________ Sun Jun 07, 2015 7:22 am __________ <br /><br /> 9 more popples born this morning!! Pictures to come in a couple days, once the colors start to show up! opcorn:

 

[TF3]

My new litter look like chestnut agoutis based on looking at the babies here and have harle again, like these, showing up where the agouti white is

 

[bikegurl]

New litter and some more pics of the previous litter...

Four of the popples from the previous litter...black, chocolate, and two that I don't know what to call...
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This is one of the ones that looked black before...what would this coloring be called?
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This is the biggest (I think...I haven't weighed him, but he sure feels fat!)
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The nestbox of new kits....
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The harli-ish ones...
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Two blacks...
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And four Chocolates...one agouti, three selfs. (I think! I'm not confident about this genetics identification yet... )
[album]3329[/album]

 

[Celice]

New litter and some more pics of the previous litter...

Four of the popples from the previous litter...black, chocolate, and two that I don't know what to call...
[album]3327[/album]

This is one of the ones that looked black before...what would this coloring be called?
[album]3326[/album]

On the top picture is chocolate agouti, black, chocolate, and what looks like a STS chocolate chinchilla but I can't see it very well.

on the bottom picture is a classic GTS chestnut agouti.

 

[Dood]

Four of the popples from the previous litter...black, chocolate, and two that I don't know what to call

Top to bottom I see

Self chocolate

Harlequinized chestnut/sandy

Self black

Chocolate chestnut/sandy or Fawn

 

[bikegurl]

This is one of the ones that looked black before...what would this coloring be called?
[album]3326[/album]
It is a classic GTS chestnut agouti.

How is it Gold-Tipped Steel if the tips of the hairs are black? And, how is it agouti if its belly isn't white?
(Still trying to learn all these genetics things... :? )

 

[Zass]

I'm pretty sure that single one you posted is a gold tipped steel. Very dark steels are common to the lines.

When you first start to see ticking, it's down on the coat because it's on new hairs that are just coming in.
They are not all the way grown out yet.

When it matures and those hairs are just as long as the rest, the steel ticking will be present only on the tips.

Any visual steel is always a modified agouti(or chinchilla, which can be thought of as another modified agouti).
The gene usually covers up most of the the agouti marks. So far as the rest of the rabbit is concerned, it can look almost agouti with yellowish, greyish, washed out, or faded white marks, or mostly black with just ticking, or all the way black.
I've had kits wait until after 8 weeks to show me any ticking at all.
Steel is super variable.

Beautiful kits, BTW

__________ Thu Jun 11, 2015 1:58 pm __________

How is the second litter coming along?

 

[bikegurl]

Wow! Thanks! That is very interesting, and answers my questions!


The new litter is pictured in that previous post...the little kits! They are doing great...very similar colors to the first litter. The doe, Dovetuft, bled for three days afterword, but appears to have stopped now. I guess that is normal with some does?

She is so much calmer than Heather! Now that they are settled in, their personalities are just as you described... I think I will replace Heather as soon as she grows out her litter....I just don't like being nervous to put my hand in her cage! :x She is a great mother though! Her kits are growing nicely.
They were licking me today. :lol:

 

[Zass]

The doe, Dovetuft, bled for three days afterword, but appears to have stopped now. I guess that is normal with some does?

It's never happened to her, or any of my does before. Usually her milk comes in on the late side though(runts rarely survive in her litters unless I let them get their first few drinks off someone else), but after that she produces tons of milk.

Heather wasn't ever a favorite here either :lol: She's really pretty :roll: and can raise a litter well, but simply too nervous and high strung.
Feel free to cull her whenever you get tired of her antics. If you hadn't taken her, she would already have been a roast (and a gorgeous pelt) . :twisted:

__________ Thu Jun 11, 2015 5:20 pm __________

It makes sense that the litters were similar since the does are pretty similar genetically.
Dovetuft aa bb CC dd EsE (she was bred to a rew repeatedly and never produced rew offspring)
Heather aa Bb Cc dd EsE

In both cases, the "self"(aa) status is debatable, since they could very well be masked agouti steel.

They should carry self, however, due to their ancestry. They are either either masked Aa or true self aa.

I can now safely say my magpie buck doesn't carry dilute.

Chances are, all of your self kits are actually masked agouti steels. I'll be test breeding my magpie buck for a recessive copy of self, but I have a hunch that he probably doesn't even carry that gene, and thus wouldn't be able to produce true genetic self offspring.
(Since it's recessive, it must come from both parents to be expressed visually)

The squirrel doe I have should be a self carrier with no steel to murk things up. She's as good place to start as any.

Oh yeah, if you want to see some REALLY fun colors, you could cross a harlequinized kit from each litter. They would be able to produce dilute colors (since both mothers are dilute, each kit is guaranteed to have copy of the recessive gene), and also be able to able to produce harlis(again by pairing up that gene) in black, dilute, possibly chocolate(if both kits selected are chocolate or carriers), and maybe lilac (again if both happen to have chocolate). Plus chestnut variants (including opal and maybe lynx and harlequinized versions of either).

 

[bikegurl]

I am planning on keeping a couple kits from these litters for breeding. It should be fun! :mrgreen:
I also liked what you had been saying in some other threads about how the harlis were good foragers. Hopefully by keeping a couple with the harli genes, I can catch some of that ability.

That's strange that both does seemed to have difficult deliveries...

I'll be watching for your posts regarding the squirrel doe's match with the harli. Then I'll know if these girls are self or steel...

 

[Zass]

I am planning on keeping a couple kits from these litters for breeding. It should be fun! :mrgreen:
I also liked what you had been saying in some other threads about how the harlis were good foragers. Hopefully by keeping a couple with the harli genes, I can catch some of that ability.

That's strange that both does seemed to have difficult deliveries...

I'll be watching for your posts regarding the squirrel doe's match with the harli. Then I'll know if these girls are self or steel...

Difficult deliveries is a surprise. Maybe they were stressed from the move and diet change, since we did relocate them while pregnant? With 9 kits, they shouldn't have had too much trouble. (larger litters usually means smaller kits at birthing)

Hmm, I doubt you will ever know if the mature girls are genetically self or steel (because they do each have one copy of both self and steel, it can be REALLY HARD to separate selfs who carry an invisible copy of steel from masked genetic agouti steels that carry self and look like one)
If you bred them with a pure genetic self and had visual agouti or steel kit...that would be a give away, but they could just as likely produce more hidden steel kits, hence how agouti steel can hide in a line that is supposed to be self for generations sometimes..

Paired with an agouti who doesn't carry self, they shouldn't produce any self kits either way.

Erm, yeah, steel is easily one of the trickiest genes.

We can at least figure out what the kits are by sorting out my buck.
If you save only white-inside-the-ears offspring you will not have to worry about steel in the next generation.

The harlis have had AWESOME forage ability so far, but have had slower growth than my meat mutt line. It was a hunch I had... That the really commercial lines that get the best growth have probably been on pellet-only diets the longest, and thus may be the worst forage rabbit prospects.

My harli tempers are just plain excellent. You might want to check to Dovetuft's kits for does with nice tempers. Both of their mother's were great, but something went wrong when I introduced the SF genes, even though the bucks were awesome. Since Dove is mellow herself out of a mellow mother, I think she's probably the better prospect for more nice girls.

 

[bikegurl]

Interesting...and complicated...
So if you can see agouti markings, steel is not present?

That is good to know that the bucks were nice. I have my eyes on a buck out of Heather already....but we'll see how he turns out. Right now there seems to be something going on with a couple of their digestive systems... :x
I'm hoping for a couple does out of Dovetuft to try. Then I'll choose the best one or two to keep. I'm considering trying a doe from Heather too, but not sure about that yet...we'll see who looks promising...

 

[Zass]

Interesting...and complicated...
So if you can see agouti markings, steel is not present?

If ALL the agouti marks are present, and crystal clear, there will be no steel present. It always expresses it's self at least a little bit.
That is about the one and only guaranteed thing about steel. :lol:

I've had steels that were almost chestnut with agouti marks that were present, but faint, with greyish or yellowish agouti marks instead of white.

It gets pretty easy to spot an "affected" coat on kits (snow white inside the ears and on the belly on day 7 = no steel), but heavily marked steels can get a little trickier to sort out as they grow into longer coats.

I have LOTS of photo references for steel. I kind of LOVE/HATE it.

Blue steel next to opal. Notice the lighter but washed out belly color on the steel.
[album]2178[/album][album]2927[/album]

Two gold tipped steels, one very lightly ticked kit that looked black until almost 8 weeks old, and one that shows most agouti marks and may have been able to pass as a poorly marked chestnut if someone didn't notice his off colored belly.
[album]2379[/album][album]2378[/album]

__________ Sat Jun 13, 2015 1:36 pm __________

Mystery (the magpie buck) produced 9 chinchilla and chocolate chinchilla kits with Daisy (blue chinchilla)
I believe his genotype is AA Bb CC DD ejej

I'm pretty sure she has a recessive copy of self, but I have no way to test that conclusively right now.

I didn't really expect the harlequin buck to throw selfs, since that gene would be considered highly undesirable in the breed. (It would produce unshowable torted harlis) My hunch is that none of your self kits are genetic self (aa). Instead they are probably A_ Esej although I strongly suspect the doe's line can throw A_ EsE kits that have the appearance of self. (This is controversial in the rabbit world)

It's not any kind of problem in meat mutts, actually, some have a theory that steels grow better.
So it's just kind of a fun genetic curiosity that I've been spending the last few years trying to sort out..