Seal or something else?

[CeroBlanco]

Hi, in a previous topic I posted some photos of two little bunnies to identify their color. The darker bunny is a black, the lighter should be a seal, but now I'm not so sure anymore. This is one of the photos:

Now, other updated photos at one month of age, also a detail of the fur:


Not all the fur is in this way yet, but it is becoming with these white tips as the days passed, what is this?

 

[sunrise]

Could be silver tipped steel or the silvering gene. What color were the parents?

 

[CeroBlanco]

Both father and mother are black Vienna Marked. I also noticed some stray white hair on both the parents, especially the mother, but I thought it was because of the Vienna gene. How to tell the difference between silver tipped steel and silvering?

 

[akane]

Steel colors the ends of the hairs while silvering makes entire white hairs mixed with entirely colored hairs. If the individual hairs are 2 colors it is not silver and usually it means they have an agouti gene with other genes like steel. It's possible your blacks are actually hidden steel agoutis instead of self black or at least one of them.

 

[CeroBlanco]

Both father and mother were born in my rabbitry. None of their siblings were agouti, so I think it's strange that they or one of them could hide agouti gene, but your explanation makes perfectly sense. I'm repeating this mating, it is more interesting than I thought, the doe should deliver in a week.

 

[akane]

Some breeds that are all supposed to have a black self appearance like silver fox are actually majority hidden steels with agouti genes. Bred together though they usually just keep producing more hidden steels. If they are related it's even more likely there is hidden steel in the group. Although why it appeared when crossing within the same herd I am not sure. The only site I've seen with a theory on how hidden steel works doesn't hold water because it pairs it with the nonextension "e" gene and if that were the case you'd consistently get torts when breeding them.

Although to have silver tipped steel you'd have to have a self chinchilla rather than a regular black too. I'm not sure the impact of that on your herd genetics or occurance of steel. A self chinchilla mostly appears as a self black but might go through some off black appearance similar to a shaded while maturing.

 

[SableSteel]

Im not seeing any steel, just looks like the normal silvery tinge that sables/seals get as babies.

 

[akane]

I've never had white show up on a sable. Mine were solid tan-chocolate that varied a bit on depth of color and obviousness of points as they grew but never white hairs or tips in netherland dwarf or american sables.