question about skin color

Rabbit Talk  Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Apr 16, 2022
Messages
25
Reaction score
28
Location
Southwest Missouri
Is there a correlation between skin color and coat color? I've recently done some culling and butchering and observed that some of my blue rabbits had a mottled skin color. I didn't take pictures unfortunately but I'm referring to skin that, if it were a coat of fur, would appear to be a "broken". Is this a sign that what I thought were selfs were steels? I did suspect that.
 
That has always startled me when tanning pelts, the skin colorur patterns do not match the fur colour. No idea if this has anything to do with the coat colour type, or if it's something completly different.
That's really interesting. In my experience, our rabbits' skin color has always matched coat color, though I admit that I have never tanned hides without fur so I may have missed it. I know our goats have colored spots on their skin that are concealed by completely white fur, but I've never seen anything like that in our rabbits. I'd love to hear more about the specific differences you've seen.

Is there a correlation between skin color and coat color? I've recently done some culling and butchering and observed that some of my blue rabbits had a mottled skin color. I didn't take pictures unfortunately but I'm referring to skin that, if it were a coat of fur, would appear to be a "broken". Is this a sign that what I thought were selfs were steels? I did suspect that.
My steels never looked any different other than having the banding pattern on the hairs pushed up toward the top of the hair shaft, and the self steels didn't look different at all. There was no difference even as newborn kits, except that what appeared to be selfs had faint nape triangles in the steel kits; their bodies were indistinguishable from selfs. In fact even my otter's, martens' and agoutis' bodies are indistinguishable from selfs as newborns - only their markings set them apart on Day 1, before the fur starts getting longer.

The only thing I can think of might be a blue sable or especially a blue seal; those are shaded varieties, and in the diluted form the shading can be pretty subtle. They may appear to be blues, but their skin might reflect the shading (I've never looked for that). Were your growouts' skin patterns spotted, like the pattern on the rabbit at the top left of this post, or was it more like a blanket with the extremities trending different?

What colors are you used to seeing in your rabbits? Any sables in the line?

If you could find a photo of a broken rabbit that had the pattern you saw on your growouts (somewhere on the internet, maybe?), that might be helpful.
 
Were your growouts' skin patterns spotted, like the pattern on the rabbit at the top left of this post, or was it more like a blanket with the extremities trending different?

What colors are you used to seeing in your rabbits? Any sables in the line?
Yes, the skin (from underneath, at butchering) had spots like in your picture.

I raise pedigreed American blues and whites and the deviations from the standard that I've observed are agouties and steels, although I am pretty much unschooled in genetics. Way back I did have what we called an "opal" or "smoke pearl". (Didn't have enough knowledge to know the difference.) My original pair from 2010 threw blacks but I haven't seen any blacks for years.
 
Uh Oh After reading up on genetics from some of the references in RT threads, it seems I might have to refine my pedigrees. It seems that some rabbits I've labeled 'blue' are -? "blue self steel", and a "blue agouti" is maybe ? some kind of chin. Confusion setting in . . .
 
Uh Oh After reading up on genetics from some of the references in RT threads, it seems I might have to refine my pedigrees. It seems that some rabbits I've labeled 'blue' are -? "blue self steel", and a "blue agouti" is maybe ? some kind of chin. Confusion setting in . . .
I'm still confused a lot. If it is say, blue agouti.... check for the basic agouti markers. Agouti controls the colour pattern (or lack of pattern) .
Look at a photo of an Agouti hair pattern... are there rings?
@Alaska Satin
@MsTemeraire

I am on my phone which is always correcting my languages... but I will follow.
 
I bought four rabbits at the flea market. I had no idea what "breed like a bunch of bunnies" truly meant. I now have 28 rabbits, plus a female New Zealand Giant, a rescue.
I have now fallen twice while trying to care for them. (I was in a bad wreck in 2011, and my balance is not what it once was, and I have a hard time getting up. You should Never try to wrap a truck around a tree.
I am looking for a good home for the rabbits. I was told they are English dots. They were white with black spots, but several litters have had black or gray bunnies.
Back to the questions: Are they truly English Dots or did someone else have some fun? If I sell them to a breeder I do not want to mislead them.
Second question, how do I know they will be well cared for if I sell them to individuals? The New Zeland Giant was a rescue. I do not want to put them in the situation I found her in.
Any guidance will be appreciated.
 
New owners are always a gamble and circumstances change. Think to hard about it and you'll either keep or euthanise/eat them.
Color wise, the description points to responsibly paired english dots. Problem with broken (white + a color) is the linked intestinal problem known as megacolon in homozygote (broken gene from both parents) broken rabbits. They are also known by the term "charlies". So your rabbits carry one broken gene as shown by their coatpattern and a solid one (as proven by the offspring), some will get solid from both parents and so are solid. For a breeder that wants to show, such animals are usefull to downright nessecary, because a charlie i.e. 2 broken genes and thus very little color can't be shown.
 
I'm still confused a lot. If it is say, blue agouti.... check for the basic agouti markers. Agouti controls the colour pattern (or lack of pattern) .
Look at a photo of an Agouti hair pattern... are there rings?
@Alaska Satin
@MsTemeraire

I am on my phone which is always correcting my languages... but I will follow.
Yes, blue agouti, sometimes called opal, has the normal agouti 'trim" around the eyes and jaw, inside the ears, inside the feet and under the tail and belly, as well as the normal banding on the fur; the difference is that anywhere there would have been black tipping, it is diluted to blue instead. It's a more subtle banding but it's there. Opals can look pretty similar to blue otters if you aren't paying attention or aren't sure what to look for.
I don't have any photos of opals in normal fur, but Green Barn Farm has a great color chart of what the varieties look like in Holland Lops: http://www.gbfarm.org/rabbit/holland-colors-agouti.shtml

It gets even more subtle in a blue chinchilla, also called squirrel. There the black is replaced by blue, and the tan ring is replaced by a pearly color. The ticking and banding pattern still remains, but there can be very little difference in the ring colors if the blue is a pale blue. Below is a squirrel Satin.
Squirrel top.JPGSquirrel rings 3-2023a.JPGSquirrel 3-2023.JPG
 
Last edited:
Uh Oh After reading up on genetics from some of the references in RT threads, it seems I might have to refine my pedigrees. It seems that some rabbits I've labeled 'blue' are -? "blue self steel", and a "blue agouti" is maybe ? some kind of chin. Confusion setting in . . .
It can be easy to confuse these colors because they are visually pretty similar (they all look basically like blue-gray rabbits), and because there are different common names for the colors. In spite of it being tedious for some readers to encounter a series of letters <A_B_C_dd_E_> in the middle of an otherwise English sentence, I often include the genetic code for colors, since it keeps everyone talking about the same thing (and allows others to correct me when I write something incorrect or unclear! :ROFLMAO: ).

Self Blue Steel <aaB_C_ddE(S)_> looks just like a self blue rabbit <aaB_C_ddE_>, which is all one color with no agouti "trim," ring pattern or shading. The two self alleles <aa> do not allow expression of the trim or the banding at the end of the hair that shows up in a steel rabbit with an agouti <A>. The Grand Champion Satin buck below was shown as a blue, but in retrospect he may have been a self blue steel (he was sold before I had a chance to test that). What looks like tipping in the fur shot is satin sheen, but you can see that there are no rings. (Incidentally, it may very well be that his incredible depth of color was the result of his carrying a steel allele).
Kokomo 3-2023.JPG Dogstar fur 3-2023.JPG
You can also get what looks like a self blue if the rabbit gets two copies of the steel allele <A_B_C_ddE(S)E(S)> called a blue supersteel, or if a chinchilla rabbit gets two self alleles <aaB_c(chd)_ddE_>, called a self blue chin aka self squirrel. In most of these cases you're only going to know what you have if you know certain things about the pedigree, or if you have unexpected varieties show up in a litter. The same thing goes for what look like self blacks, or self chocolates or lilacs, for that matter.

Clear as mud, eh? :LOL:

Some other "blue" rabbits:

Blue Agouti aka Opal <A_B_C_ddE_> looks like a chestnut with the black tipping replaced by blue. It'll still have the tan ring color and markings around the eyes, jaw, inner ears, inside edges of feet, and belly and tail. I only have a reference photo of opal in Mini Rex (colors in rex coats can look quite different than normal coats) from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html, which is a fabulous photographic guide to rex coat colors. You can see that the fawn ring color actually shows through on the surface color:
1731281707153.jpeg
Photo from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html,

Chinchilla <A_B_c(chd)_ddE_> can look like a gray rabbit, but I find a better description is "salt and pepper." The ticking on the hair is jet black. The key to a chinchilla is that the tan color of a typical agouti is mostly or completely eliminated and is replaced by silvery pearl:
Silverado surface color.jpgSilverado rings.jpg

Blue chinchilla aka Squirrel <A_B_c(chd)ddE_> is that chinchilla with the black diluted to blue. It's a much more subtle pattern, but if you see any rings at all, you can call it a blue chin or squirrel (see photos in the post directly above).

There are also blue otters <a(t)B_C_ddE_>, which look like blue agoutis with the trim, but have no ring pattern - they're kind of like a self on the top of the body and an agouti on the bottom. Below you can see the self blue surface color and the tan edging on the trim of this blue otter Satin.
Kotzebue.JPG

Blue Silver Marten <a(t)_B_c(chd)_ddE_> is basically a chinchilla otter - same <a(t)> pattern of self body and agouti trim, but the chin allele <c(chd)> eliminates the tan edging, leaving only silvery pearl.
silver marten.JPG

One more wrinkle: in a self blue, adding a shaded aka sable allele <c(chl)> in the dominant position at the C locus will produce a blue sable, aka smoke pearl <aaB_c(chl)_ddE_>. This differs from a self blue in that the shaded allele produces shading towards the extremities, as well as giving the blue color a smokier look. I don't have any smoke pearls, but there are good photos at https://hickoryridgehollands.com/holland-lop-color-guide and http://www.lotsoflops.com/smoke-pearl.html
 
Last edited:
Yes, blue agouti, sometimes called opal, has the normal agouti 'trim" around the eyes and jaw, inside the ears, inside the feet and under the tail and belly, as well as the normal banding on the fur; the difference is that anywhere there would have been black tipping, it is diluted to blue instead. It's a more subtle banding but it's there. Opals can look pretty similar to blue otters if you aren't paying attention or aren't sure what to look for.
I don't have any photos of opals in normal fur, but Green Barn Farm has a great color chart of what the varieties look like in Holland Lops: http://www.gbfarm.org/rabbit/holland-colors-agouti.shtml

It gets even more subtle in a blue chinchilla, also called squirrel. There the black is replaced by blue, and the tan ring is replaced by a pearly color. The ticking and banding pattern still remains, but there can be very little difference in the ring colors if the blue is a pale blue. Below is a squirrel Satin.
View attachment 43659View attachment 43660View attachment 43661
I like the colour of squirrel. Thank you.
 
It can be easy to confuse these colors because they are visually pretty similar (they all look basically like blue-gray rabbits), and because there are different common names for the colors. In spite of it being tedious for some readers to encounter a series of letters <A_B_C_dd_E_> in the middle of an otherwise English sentence, I often include the genetic code for colors, since it keeps everyone talking about the same thing (and allows others to correct me when I write something incorrect or unclear! :ROFLMAO: ).

Self Blue Steel <aaB_C_ddE(S)_> looks just like a self blue rabbit <aaB_C_ddE_>, which is all one color with no agouti "trim," ring pattern or shading. The two self alleles <aa> do not allow expression of the trim or the banding at the end of the hair that shows up in a steel rabbit with an agouti <A>. The Grand Champion Satin buck below was shown as a blue, but in retrospect he may have been a self blue steel (he was sold before I had a chance to test that). What looks like tipping in the fur shot is satin sheen, but you can see that there are no rings. (Incidentally, it may very well be that his incredible depth of color was the result of his carrying a steel allele).
View attachment 43675 View attachment 43674
You can also get what looks like a self blue if the rabbit gets two copies of the steel allele <A_B_C_ddE(S)E(S)> called a blue supersteel, or if a chinchilla rabbit gets two self alleles <aaB_c(chd)_ddE_>, called a self blue chin aka self squirrel. In most of these cases you're only going to know what you have if you know certain things about the pedigree, or if you have unexpected varieties show up in a litter. The same thing goes for what look like self blacks.

Clear as mud, eh? :LOL:

Some other "blue" rabbits:

Blue Agouti aka Opal <A_B_C_ddE_> looks like a chestnut with the black tipping replaced by blue. It'll still have the tan ring color and markings around the eyes, jaw, inner ears, inside edges of feet, and belly and tail. I only have a reference photo of opal in Mini Rex (colors in rex coats can look quite different than normal coats) from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html, which is a fabulous photographic guide to rex coat colors. You can see that the fawn ring color actually shows through on the surface color:
View attachment 43673
Photo from https://wildriverrabbitry.weebly.com/mini-rex-color-guide.html,

Chinchilla <A_B_c(chd)_ddE_> can look like a gray rabbit, but I find a better description is "salt and pepper." The ticking on the hair is jet black. The key to a chinchilla is that the tan color of a typical agouti is mostly or completely eliminated and is replaced by silvery pearl:
View attachment 43669View attachment 43670

Blue chinchilla aka Squirrel <A_B_c(chd)ddE_> is that chinchilla with the black diluted to blue. It's a much more subtle pattern, but if you see any rings at all, you can call it a blue chin or squirrel (see photos in the post directly above).

There are also blue otters <a(t)B_C_ddE_>, which look like blue agoutis with the trim, but have no ring pattern - they're kind of like a self on the top of the body and an agouti on the bottom. Below you can see the self blue surface color and the tan edging on the trim of this blue otter Satin.
View attachment 43676

Blue Silver Marten <a(t)_B_c(chd)_ddE_> is basically a chinchilla otter - same <a(t)> pattern of self body and agouti trim, but the chin allele <c(chd)> eliminates the tan edging, leaving only silvery pearl.
View attachment 43677

One more wrinkle: in a self blue, adding a shaded aka sable allele <c(chl)> in the dominant position at the C locus will produce a blue sable, aka smoke pearl <aaB_c(chl)_ddE_>. This differs from a self blue in that the shaded allele produces shading towards the extremities, as well as giving the blue color a smokier look. I don't have any smoke pearls, but there are good photos at https://hickoryridgehollands.com/holland-lop-color-guide and http://www.lotsoflops.com/smoke-pearl.html
Thank you for explaining the "blues" and adding the photos and links. I had a few blue/lilacs in my Rex line ,plus the blue satin I had. I really like shaded and chins.
 
It can be easy to confuse these colors because they are visually pretty similar
Thank you so much for your explanation! However I have these two rabbits, purebred Americans but "sports", who don't seem to have the banding (or maybe it's too subtle for me to recognize). I've called them "blue agouti", but I'd love to get your eye on them. So here goes: the first four pics are of Chamomile(blue dam x white sire) and the last two are Happy Girl, niece to Chamo (different blue dam x different white sire).Chamomile.jpegChamo face.jpegChamo eye.jpegChamo fur.jpegHappy Girl face.jpegHappy Girl fur.jpeg
 
Thank you so much for your explanation! However I have these two rabbits, purebred Americans but "sports", who don't seem to have the banding (or maybe it's too subtle for me to recognize). I've called them "blue agouti", but I'd love to get your eye on them. So here goes: the first four pics are of Chamomile(blue dam x white sire) and the last two are Happy Girl, niece to Chamo (different blue dam x different white sire).
That is really interesting coming from purebred Americans; to me these look like blue silver martens (a dilute otter with a dominant chinchilla allele) with silvering. I do not see obvious banding, though I wonder a little bit about Chamomile..see below.

All of that white ticking in the blue surface color could come from either silver <si> or steel <E(S)>. I would lean toward <si> for the reason that in that last photo of Happy Girl, there are distinctly white hairs, rather than the telescoped banding of steel.
Happy Girl fur.jpeg
Silvering is more likely to hide in the REW buck(s) as it often functions as a partially dominant allele, so it frequently shows up when there is only one copy, but of course wouldn't show in a REW. However I have recently had some chestnut Champagne x Satin crosses that show no silvering whatsoever, even though I know for sure they carry a copy of <si>. Also, in my experience, rabbits with only one copy of <si> tend to have noticeably less silvering on their faces compared to their bodies, which seems to be the case in your bunnies.

On the other hand... in the fur closeup of Chamomile, I wonder if I might see some of the telescoped banding of steel. Steel could be hiding in the REWs, but it could also hide in the blues as either self steel (selfs have no banding, so no appearance of steel) or supersteels (two copies of the steel allele produce what looks like a self-colored rabbit, though they can have some limited patches of ticking). An agouti allele hiding in a REW (though not so a tan allele) would allow expression of both the steeling and the agouti trim. But, if this is the case and she was a blue steel, she would most likely not have that extensive agouti trim, especially that bright silver belly.
Chamo fur.jpeg

If you can pull some of those white hairs and look at them individually, you may be able to tell the difference. Here is the difference between the all-white hairs of silvering (first two pictures), that on a whole pelt look like white tips,
Champagne D'Argent tanned pelt KRI2 section.jpg Champagne D'Argent tanned pelt KRI2 single guard hairs.jpg
and the scrunched rings of a steel (third and fourth pictures), which on the pelt looked like white-tipped hairs but actually have dark tips:
Black Gold Tipped Steel bunch from midsection Broken Steel NZ.jpg Black Gold Tipped Steel Single Guard Hair b.jpg

So you could have silvering in one rabbit and steel in the other. And you could possibly have both silvering and steel in one rabbit! 🤪 But again, I have major doubts about steel, seeing that white belly and classic chinchilla/marten trim.

A blue silver marten requires not an agouti but a tan allele <a(t)> and a chinchilla <c(chd)>, which together would turn a self blue into a blue silver marten. The REWs could carry the tan but not the chinchilla since REWs are the completely recessive <cc>. The solid blue does, if they are in fact self blues, will not be able to carry tan <a(t)>, but they very well could carry - or even be - chinchilla, since their two self alleles <aa> would block the effects of the chinchilla allele, as selfs have no banding or trim. If that is the case, they're called self blue chin (aka self squirrel) which look just like self blues. In that case, breeding them with a tan-carrying REW would allow expression of the tan (in this case, marten) markings but preserve the self-colored body.

BTW, looks like you have a nice set-up... and your rabbit pictures were excellent! :)
 
Last edited:
That is really interesting coming from purebred Americans; to me these look like blue silver martens (a dilute otter with a dominant chinchilla allele) with silvering. I do not see obvious banding, though I wonder a little bit about Chamomile..see below.

All of that white ticking in the blue surface color could come from either silver <si> or steel <E(S)>. I would lean toward <si> for the reason that in that last photo of Happy Girl, there are distinctly white hairs, rather than the telescoped banding of steel.
View attachment 43702
Silvering is more likely to hide in the REW buck(s) as it often functions as a partially dominant allele, so it frequently shows up when there is only one copy, but of course wouldn't show in a REW. However I have recently had some chestnut Champagne x Satin crosses that show no silvering whatsoever, even though I know for sure they carry a copy of <si>. Also, in my experience, rabbits with only one copy of <si> tend to have noticeably less silvering on their faces compared to their bodies, which seems to be the case in your bunnies.

On the other hand... in the fur closeup of Chamomile, I wonder if I might see some of the telescoped banding of steel. Steel could be hiding in the REWs, but it could also hide in the blues as either self steel (selfs have no banding, so no appearance of steel) or supersteels (two copies of the steel allele produce what looks like a self-colored rabbit, though they can have some limited patches of ticking). An agouti allele hiding in a REW (though not so a tan allele) would allow expression of both the steeling and the agouti trim. But, if this is the case and she was a blue steel, she would most likely not have that extensive agouti trim, especially that bright silver belly.
View attachment 43703

If you can pull some of those white hairs and look at them individually, you may be able to tell the difference. Here is the difference between the all-white hairs of silvering (first two pictures), that on a whole pelt look like white tips,
View attachment 43704 View attachment 43705
and the scrunched rings of a steel (third and fourth pictures), which on the pelt looked like white-tipped hairs but actually have dark tips:
View attachment 43706 View attachment 43707

So you could have silvering in one rabbit and steel in the other. And you could possibly have both silvering and steel in one rabbit! 🤪 But again, I have major doubts about steel, seeing that white belly and classic chinchilla/marten trim.

A blue silver marten requires not an agouti but a tan allele <a(t)> and a chinchilla <c(chd)>, which together would turn a self blue into a blue silver marten. The REWs could carry the tan but not the chinchilla since REWs are the completely recessive <cc>. The solid blue does, if they are in fact self blues, will not be able to carry tan <a(t)>, but they very well could carry - or even be - chinchilla, since their two self alleles <aa> would block the effects of the chinchilla allele, as selfs have no banding or trim. If that is the case, they're called self blue chin (aka self squirrel) which look just like self blues. In that case, breeding them with a tan-carrying REW would allow expression of the tan (in this case, marten) markings but preserve the self-colored body.

BTW, looks like you have a nice set-up... and your rabbit pictures were excellent! :)
So selfs《aa》can block other alleles like chinchilla yet still carry? Like the <es>?
Is this like <cc> hides all colours?
 
Thank you so much for your explanation! However I have these two rabbits, purebred Americans but "sports", who don't seem to have the banding (or maybe it's too subtle for me to recognize). I've called them "blue agouti", but I'd love to get your eye on them. So here goes: the first four pics are of Chamomile(blue dam x white sire) and the last two are Happy Girl, niece to Chamo (different blue dam x different white sire).
This interests me a great deal, since it appears to be a modified agouti or steel. What it really reminds me of, is the unusual colour of Flemish Giants in the UK (where I am).

A potted history lesson: around the end of the 19th century, a British breeder of Flemish, Christopher Wren, created a 'new' colour in Flemish and didn't tell anyone how he created it. This colour became very popular and eventually - via rabbit club politics - became the ONLY recognised colour of Flemish in Britain, which it still is. Some of these were exported to the USA and were recognised by the forerunner to ARBA, the National Pet Stock Association which was formed in 1910. The pic below is from the NPSA's breed standards in 1915 and shows a Flemish of the 'British' colour. Other colours of Flemish were listed separately as 'Giant Rabbit'.
Flemish Giant.jpg
The colour of those, and the UK Flemish of today is something of an enigma. While it resembles Steel, it has a white belly, nostrils and lacing but is not Steel, and does not have the Chinchilla gene to be a Marten; the chinchilla gene didn't exist when this colour was first created. It is also not silvered. It's regarded as genetically unique, and is thought to be a form of darkened Agouti (chestnut).

I'm getting to the point now! The American breed was first created in 1917, and the originator didn't disclose what breeds he used (sounds familiar!). But he is said to have used Flemish, which would have been of the 'unique' colour at the time, among other breeds. This is why I'm finding your rabbit to be so interesting, as it looks a LOT like a blue version of the UK Flemish colour. I am wondering if the gene/s which make up this colour have been preserved in the American breed, for all this time.

To help decide if your rabbit is this unusual, ancient 'Flemish' colour, have a look at the colour description in the standard above, and also the modern-day British Rabbit Council Flemish colour standard:

"Colour - Dark steel grey, with even or wavy ticking over the whole of the body, head, ears, chest and feet alike, except belly and under tail which shall be white, upon the surface of the fur. Any grey, steel, sandy or other shade on the belly or under tail, except a streak of grey in each groin, shall disqualify."

Pic is a young British Flemish of this colour.

Flemish 1.jpg
Flemish 3.jpg
Flemish 2.jpg
 
Last edited:
So selfs《aa》can block other alleles like chinchilla yet still carry? Like the <es>?
Is this like <cc> hides all colours?
Yes, homozygous self alleles <aa> completely block expression of the agouti and tan patterns. So any alleles that interact with those features, like chinchilla changing the middle ring and trim to pearl, or steel extending the undercolor up the hairshaft and changing the placement of the rings, are sort of neutered, since they don't have band color to act on. It's not as far-reaching an effect as REW or BEW, but in any variety with ring color or trim, those elements are blocked.

This is a self blue chinchilla <aaB_c(chd)_ddE_>
Squirrel's Self Blue Chin doe 8-2023.JPG

Below is a Satin litter that included steel (in the middle), self steel (in the back) and what we concluded is a non-extension <E(S)e> steel in the front that basically has a "haze" of gold ticking (thanks to @reh for help identifying this!):
Self Steel, GTS, Non-Extension Steel 4 wks.JPG Self Steel, GTS, Non-Ext Steel kits 4 wks.JPG

The middle allele on the list of the A series, tan <a(t)>, partially blocks expression of those agouti features. In a chinchilla, that means the trim is left but the body's surface color basically becomes self, as the ring pattern is eliminated (called a marten aka silver marten).
blue marten.JPG

A steel with a tan allele <a(t)> in the dominant position becomes what we've always called a "tweener," or steeled otter, which looks like a self on top as the little bit of steel banding is blocked, and which has very reduced trim as well, usually little patches of ticking on the mid-belly and vent, and a bit around the mouth. Here's an example:
Moon.JPG Moon belly.jpg
Moon chin.jpg

And of course the top <A> allows complete expression of all the agouti features.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top