So I posted in the new member forum, but thouht I'd ask more here.

[Thekidd747]

I'm curious what people think of the buck I have that I've called black but he seems to have silvering and the now 4 black kits.

The kits are looking mostly black but also seem to have some silvering. Two are REW.

Also curious what exactly will be different with the eyes if one of the black kits is a self chin.

Here is dad, mom and the kits.

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Looks like normal Blacks to me, maybe with a few white hairs

 

[ladysown]

He looks like he's developing some silver fox traits. it develops over time so if one of the kits is showing that silvering bonus!

 

[Alaska Satin]

I'm curious what people think of the buck I have that I've called black but he seems to have silvering and the now 4 black kits.

The buck does look to me like he's silvered. There is such a thing as "scattered white hairs" without the silvering gene, but in my experience, his whites look much too even to be simply scattered whites.

Silvering can come from either the Silver Fox or the Champagne D'Argent breeds, both of which are meat breeds that are experiencing a resurgence of interest in the US. My guess would be that your buck has one of these breeds in his background.

Below are images from the ARBA's Recognized Breeds page.

The Silver Fox has silvering that looks fairly similar to your buck. It also has a unique coat type that stands straight up when brushed towards its head. It was originally recognized in black and blue but then the blue variety was dropped. The ARBA has recently recognized chocolate and they are working on bringing blue back as well.


The Champagne D'Argent is much more heavily silvered than the Silver Fox. That may be due to modifiers, the existence of more than one silvering gene, or both. Champagnes only come in black but there are other Argent breeds (the word argent means silver in French) that are chocolate (Argent Brun) and orange (Creme D'Argent).


There is another breed called the Silver but it is smaller and less common. Its silvering falls somewhere between the other two.


The gene for silvering is one of the oldest known but least understood genes; in fact as noted above, there may be more than one. Silver rabbits are all born solid black and develop silvering over time. It usually takes between 6-8 months to become fully silvered. Most genetics books call the silver gene <si> a recessive one, but in my experience it is at least partially dominant, meaning even one copy will produce silvering in the kits..

I have recently been crossing Champagnes with Satins and it is striking how silvered their kits are, which bear only one copy of the silvering allele. I'll try to post some photos later today. I have noticed that they took longer to start silvering and the development of silvering is different from the normal progression on the Champagnes.

The kits are looking mostly black but also seem to have some silvering. Two are REW.

Also curious what exactly will be different with the eyes if one of the black kits is a self chin.

Self chinchillas can have blue-gray, marbled, or brown eyes; I've seen all three in my Satins. A brown eye isn't a gaurantee that a rabbit isn't a self chin, and an off-colored eye is not a guarantee that a rabbit is a self chin, but if you know if has chin in the background it's a good hint. I can't see the eyes on kit 1, but kit 3 looks like it has normal brown eyes in that photo. But I'd suspect that the blue-gray eye of kit 2 indicates self chin:

Here's a brown eye for comparison:


Since you got REW kits, you know that the black sire is <C c> (full color carrying REW) and the dam is <cchd c> (chinchilla carrying REW). That means you would expect at least one/some of the kits to get the chin gene + REW gene, in which case they would look like chins (unless they got two self genes <aa> as well - see below).

Since you got self black kits, and you know your buck is homozygous for self <aa> since he is a self, you now know your chin doe is agouti carrying self <Aa>.

Together, those facts increase your chances of getting self chins <aa B_cchdcD_E_>.

I'd also say that your kits may get some silvering if they inherited the silver allele from their sire. The key will be to watch them as they develop.

Here is a series of the silvering development of a young Champagne D'Argent buck:

7 weeks


8 weeks

10 weeks

 

[Thekidd747]

That is more slivering than what I thought was possible. I would already be able to tell if they were chinchilla right? They can’t still turn that grey

 

[Alaska Satin]

That is more slivering than what I thought was possible. I would already be able to tell if they were chinchilla right? They can’t still turn that grey

Yes, if they were chinchillas they'd look like chinchillas by now. In my experience, newborn chinchillas start out looking black, except that they have white bellies and ear linings, which makes it obvious they are not blacks. (Look at your chinchilla doe and see that her body is not all the same color - she has agouti markings on her belly, ears, undertail, and around her eyes. Those markings are there from birth.) But fairly quickly, you can also see that each hair shaft has more than one color on it. The ring color doesn't come in nice and clean till later, but it never looks like a black rabbit with white hairs, as your kits do.

Here is a 10-week-old blue chinchilla Satin, aka squirrel; bands are indistinct but still definitely there:

This is the same rabbit at about 4 months:


This is an adult black chinchilla Satin with excellent ring color:


This is a Champagne D'Argent with overly light surface color (they get lighter/more silvering as they age), but you can still see that it's black hairs interspersed with white hairs, as well as some white tips, but no bands/rings on the hairs:

 

[Thekidd747]

The buck does look to me like he's silvered. There is such a thing as "scattered white hairs" without the silvering gene, but in my experience, his whites look much too even to be simply scattered whites.

Silvering can come from either the Silver Fox or the Champagne D'Argent breeds, both of which are meat breeds that are experiencing a resurgence of interest in the US. My guess would be that your buck has one of these breeds in his background.

Below are images from the ARBA's Recognized Breeds page.

The Silver Fox has silvering that looks fairly similar to your buck. It also has a unique coat type that stands straight up when brushed towards its head. It was originally recognized in black and blue but then the blue variety was dropped. The ARBA has recently recognized chocolate and they are working on bringing blue back as well.
View attachment 36075

The Champagne D'Argent is much more heavily silvered than the Silver Fox. That may be due to modifiers, the existence of more than one silvering gene, or both. Champagnes only come in black but there are other Argent breeds (the word argent means silver in French) that are chocolate (Argent Brun) and orange (Creme D'Argent).
View attachment 36074

There is another breed called the Silver but it is smaller and less common. Its silvering falls somewhere between the other two.
View attachment 36076

The gene for silvering is one of the oldest known but least understood genes; in fact as noted above, there may be more than one. Silver rabbits are all born solid black and develop silvering over time. It usually takes between 6-8 months to become fully silvered. Most genetics books call the silver gene <si> a recessive one, but in my experience it is at least partially dominant, meaning even one copy will produce silvering in the kits..

I have recently been crossing Champagnes with Satins and it is striking how silvered their kits are, which bear only one copy of the silvering allele. I'll try to post some photos later today. I have noticed that they took longer to start silvering and the development of silvering is different from the normal progression on the Champagnes.


Self chinchillas can have blue-gray, marbled, or brown eyes; I've seen all three in my Satins. A brown eye isn't a gaurantee that a rabbit isn't a self chin, and an off-colored eye is not a guarantee that a rabbit is a self chin, but if you know if has chin in the background it's a good hint. I can't see the eyes on kit 1, but kit 3 looks like it has normal brown eyes in that photo. But I'd suspect that the blue-gray eye of kit 2 indicates self chin:
View attachment 36077
Here's a brown eye for comparison:
View attachment 36078

Since you got REW kits, you know that the black sire is <C c> (full color carrying REW) and the dam is <cchd c> (chinchilla carrying REW). That means you would expect at least one/some of the kits to get the chin gene + REW gene, in which case they would look like chins (unless they got two self genes <aa> as well - see below).

Since you got self black kits, and you know your buck is homozygous for self <aa> since he is a self, you now know your chin doe is agouti carrying self <Aa>.

Together, those facts increase your chances of getting self chins <aa B_cchdcD_E_>.

I'd also say that your kits may get some silvering if they inherited the silver allele from their sire. The key will be to watch them as they develop.

Here is a series of the silvering development of a young Champagne D'Argent buck:

7 weeks
View attachment 36082

8 weeks
View attachment 36080
10 weeks
View attachment 36083

So the kits are now about 25 days old and the eye colors are a lot more distinct.

We have 3 black kits with light grey-blue eyes, and one with a darker brown eye