Sounds like you've got the "rabbit bug" as so many of us do!
You'll be amazed at how much you learn in just a short time when you start raising rabbits. But, just a note with regard to truth in advertising... There isn't really such a breed as a Magpie/Harlequin mix, or a breed called Ermine, at least not in the US. When you're just getting into rabbits, the terminology can be very confusing. Some words refer to both a breed, as well as to a color or pattern, which appears in that breed but also other breeds as well. I think that might be what's happening here.
For instance, a rabbit can be a Harlequin, the breed, or it can be harlequin, the color/pattern, which can appear in
any breed. The Harlequin is a breed with very particular markings; in fact, it is the only breed in the US which is allowed to be shown in the harlequin pattern. The breed is fairly rare, so it's not likely to just show up in a pet store, a swap meet, or marketplace. It can look like this black/orange rabbit picture in
https://arba.net/harlequin/, or it can be blue-gray/tan, chocolate/tan, lilac/tan. That set of colors is called the "Japanese" variety.
View attachment 42805
Harlequins (the breed) also come in the variety known as "magpie," which are black/white, blue-gray/white, chocolate/white, lilac/white. The orange or tan color of the Japanese variety is replaced by white in the magpie variety because of a dominant chinchilla allele, <
c(chd)>, that prevents expression of yellow pigment, leaving white in its place:
View attachment 42807
Every U.S. breed has what's called a Standard of Perfection published by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA), which details the size, shape, color, weight, etc. that the rabbit has to be to be considered an example of that breed. The ARBA is the organization that recognizes and describes all breeds accepted for show in the Unites States and Canada, among others. They publish an entire book, called, of course, the Standard of Perfection (SOP), which lists every recognized breed and variety. If you're interested in getting into rabbit breeding, it would be a very good idea to join the ARBA, which will send you a Guide to Raising Rabbits, as well as a beautiful bi-monthly magazine that contains articles on every rabbit question or area of interest you can think of. (The SOP is sold separately, but I'd recommend getting a copy of that, too.) More info here:
https://arba.net/about-the-arba/join-the-arba/ Once you're a member, you can register and list your rabbitry with the ARBA, as well.
But back to harlequin - I use a lower-case letter to distinguish the variety from the breed of the same name. The harlequin pattern shows up in many breeds and lots of mixed breeds for several reasons. First, it's a very cool pattern, which people love, so it is becoming very common in crossbreed pets. Second, it's part of what's needed to produce tricolors - which are basically broken harlequins - and while no other breeds recognize a harlequin variety, tricolor is recognized in quite a few different breeds. And any breed with tricolors will end up producing some harlequin kits too.
Ermine is not a breed in the US, but it's another color that can pop up when you've got a rabbit with the allele (gene) for chinchilla in its genetic mix...which is why you can sometimes get both ermine kits and magpie kits out of the same parents.
So the take-home is that while your rabbits may have some of the characteristics of breeds you can look up on the internet, unless you've got pedigrees, you can't be completely sure that your rabbits are any particular breed at all. There are hundreds of thousands of rabbits out there that are beautiful combinations of several or even many breeds; this does not make them any less lovely or wonderful! It's just that you don't want to advertise them as something they may not be.
Good luck with your rabbit venture and your name search!
