Should a self blue (HLop) white hairs? Added pedigree

[TF3]

Just curious~ we assume this is a self blue buck (pedigree says blue), but he has a funny little pattern of white hairs in a ridge over his nose and on the base of each ear which are becoming more obvious (approx. 12 weeks old)~ the same on each side, and the bottom of his feet are white (maybe that is normal?) ~ we're newbs and just want to make sure what we are calling blue is actually blue! He has lots of shaded rabbits behind him.
Or is he blue (aa bb __ dd __) with something else in there?

 

[Susie570]

He's blue... not sure about the whitish areas, except the bottom of his feet are normal

 

[JessiL]

"Should" self blue rabbits have any white hairs? No, it's a fault or DQ, depending on how many we're talking about. "Do" self blue rabbits often have white hairs? You betcha, especially in certain breeds where color is de-emphasized, like Americans.

When there's white hairs in patterns or concentrated areas, it often represents spots where the rabbit was injured as a young kit and the hairs grew back white. Overzealous grooming by mom, nest box squabbles, etc. can all cause this. Yours might be something along those lines. But I'm not sure, the white doesn't really stand out much on my monitor.

Another possibility is steel-based ticking sneaking through. Does the pedigree show some steels, agoutis, or REWs in the background?

Feet are normal.

 

[Prisma]

Is either parent a broken? While it isn't thought of a whole lot, a white spot or few white hairs in a clump can signify a broken too that is just really heavy patterned. I've had the bad luck of getting a few in HL and MR along the way, look solid except for a small patch of white AND when bred to a true no doubt solid....brokens where in the litter. Technically even a few hairs on a "solid" could signify a broken (have had that happen on a black doe that had at most 10 hairs on her foot that were stark white, she had a broken parent, bred to a true solid black I ended up with a half litter of decently marked brokens and rest poorly marked brokens, no chase of miss marking buck/etc). Like Jess said, its not ideal on solids; fault or dq. It can be a accident/injury/doe pulling fur come back in white OR can be a genetic problem (sparse hairs not in one area is more likely a genetic boo boo than an accident IMO). Some of it depends upon the judge, most dq for more than just a hair or 2 in one place in my experience. Others I've been told won't dq unless its pencil head sized. Stiffer competition, stiffer holdings as well.

 

[TF3]

Interesting.
I find this all so fascinating.
I've seen it with injury in lots of animals, now that you mention it. But this is balanced on both ears and either side of nose.

Hmmm... this is interesting~
Sire: Harle (blk/orange) ~ grandsire broken blue, granddam, choc tort
Dam: broken black~ grandsire siamese smoke pearl, broken tort
back further there is a solid black and a solid blue, bu t the rest are tort, harle, tri and shaded.

Now that does make me wonder if something is masked/ poorly marked somehow?
We plan to breed him to our broken choc doe so that might show if we get charlies LOL