These will be my breeders in a few months.

[squirrel]

Mom is a reddish Castor Dad is likely a black steel with chinchilla genetics (two pure chinchillas and squirrel in the litter) . I plan on breeding them back to the dad as they are for meat and fur .
This is what I think that they are.
Squirrel: A_bbcchd_ddE_
Gold: A_bbcchd_ddEs_
black ?
breeder #2?
Papa Brown : A_ B_ cchd_ Dd Es_

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Looks like Chinchilla, Chinchilla, Chestnut, Black Otter, Black Otter, Chestnut, and I think Harlequin? It looks like a Tricolor without the white but I can't remember what that's called

 

[Alaska Satin]

Mom is a reddish Castor Dad is likely a black steel with chinchilla genetics (two pure chinchillas and squirrel in the litter) . I plan on breeding them back to the dad as they are for meat and fur .
This is what I think that they are.
Squirrel: A_bbcchd_ddE_
Gold: A_bbcchd_ddEs_
black ?
breeder #2?
Papa Brown : A_ B_ cchd_ Dd Es_

You've got some nice colors to make exciting litters!

Squirrel (aka dilute or blue chinchilla) is, I think, a regular (black) chinchilla. Your rabbit has very distinctly black ticking and ear lacing, so it's not a dilute. You may be thinking dilute because of the eye color, but chinchillas can have brown, blue-gray or marbled eyes.
So, my call for Squirrel is: <A_B_cchd_D_E_> (not bb, as b is the allele for chocolate)
Here are photos of a chinchilla and then a squirrel (both Satins), for comparison:




Gold: This one is a little trickier, partly because a steel is an agouti, but with an additional gene that disrupts the agouti markings and ring placement on the hairshaft. At first glance she looks like a chestnut agouti (aka castor in Rex), but there are a few hints that she's actually steel. Her agouti markings are quite minimal, though there is a range of those markings in both agouti and in steel. But the real detail that makes me lean toward steel is that fur shot - a chestnut will have rings, while a steel looks tipped - in this case, gold-tipped. A chestnut would have black-tipped hairs. So I would suggest that Gold is steel: <A_B_C_D_Es_> (The convention is that "Steel" indicates a gold-tipped black steel, while all other colors of steel are denoted by the base color plus the tipping color, e.g. "gold-tipped blue steel" or "silver-tipped black steel.")
Here's a chestnut agouti (called "copper" in Satins), and a steel Satin, for comparison:


Papa Brown, I agree, is a variety of steel, in this case probably a silver-tipped black <A_B_cchd_D_Es_>, though the photo makes it hard to be sure. The silver tipping is caused by the chinchilla gene, which removes most yellow pigment, leaving the tips silver instead of gold.

Your black is a black otter: <at_B_C_D_E> The otter variety comes from the <at> allele, which is midway in dominance between the most dominant agouti <A> and the recessive self <a>. If you cross this one with Papa, you may get silver marten, which is an otter with the chinchilla gene turning the tan markings silver.

Breeder 2 is a harlequin <A_B_C_D_ej_> This is the "japanese" variety of harlequin. If you cross this one with Papa Brown, you may end up with the "magpie" variety, which is black and white instead of gold and white (due, again to the chinchilla allele preventing the expression of yellow pigment).

Are all of these siblings and/or offspring of Papa? If so, you can figure out a lot more about the genotypes!

 

[squirrel]

You've got some nice colors to make exciting litters!

Squirrel (aka dilute or blue chinchilla) is, I think, a regular (black) chinchilla. Your rabbit has very distinctly black ticking and ear lacing, so it's not a dilute. You may be thinking dilute because of the eye color, but chinchillas can have brown, blue-gray or marbled eyes.
So, my call for Squirrel is: <A_B_cchd_D_E_> (not bb, as b is the allele for chocolate)
Here are photos of a chinchilla and then a squirrel (both Satins), for comparison:
View attachment 38619View attachment 38620
View attachment 38617View attachment 38621

Gold: This one is a little trickier, partly because a steel is an agouti, but with an additional gene that disrupts the agouti markings and ring placement on the hairshaft. At first glance she looks like a chestnut agouti (aka castor in Rex), but there are a few hints that she's actually steel. Her agouti markings are quite minimal, though there is a range of those markings in both agouti and in steel. But the real detail that makes me lean toward steel is that fur shot - a chestnut will have rings, while a steel looks tipped - in this case, gold-tipped. A chestnut would have black-tipped hairs. So I would suggest that Gold is steel: <A_B_C_D_Es_> (The convention is that "Steel" indicates a gold-tipped black steel, while all other colors of steel are denoted by the base color plus the tipping color, e.g. "gold-tipped blue steel" or "silver-tipped black steel.")
Here's a chestnut agouti (called "copper" in Satins), and a steel Satin, for comparison:
View attachment 38622 View attachment 38623

Papa Brown, I agree, is a variety of steel, in this case probably a silver-tipped black <A_B_cchd_D_Es_>, though the photo makes it hard to be sure. The silver tipping is caused by the chinchilla gene, which removes most yellow pigment, leaving the tips silver instead of gold.

Your black is a black otter: <at_B_C_D_E> The otter variety comes from the <at> allele, which is midway in dominance between the most dominant agouti <A> and the recessive self <a>. If you cross this one with Papa, you may get silver marten, which is an otter with the chinchilla gene turning the tan markings silver.

Breeder 2 is a harlequin <A_B_C_D_ej_> This is the "japanese" variety of harlequin. If you cross this one with Papa Brown, you may end up with the "magpie" variety, which is black and white instead of gold and white (due, again to the chinchilla allele preventing the expression of yellow pigment).

Are all of these siblings and/or offspring of Papa? If so, you can figure out a lot more about the genotypes!

Thank you for such a thorough answer. Yes, the lilac eye color was making me wonder if she was a dilute. She was a massive baby and had wavy hair that the others didn't. The two chinchilla siblings have gray blue eyes. And a yes all of these rabbits except breeder 2 are siblings and Papa Brown is the dad of everyone. They also threw three castors with nice black tips but not much red. A beautiful chocolate otter a silver Martin and then that steel tipped black otter but she has all the little brown patches on her feet. She seemed to have a lot going on color wise so I didn't think she was just a black otter. I showed the picture of gold's under fur because she does not have the rings and has very distinctive gold tips on her fur in the sunlight also before she got her winter coat. I'm trying to get a list of everyone's genetics in order to put them into the omnic calculator. The Harlequin has been bred repeatedly to a tricolor dilute broken buck but has not taken and I just learned today about magpies so yeah likely will not breed her with him. Maybe with chocolate otter buck that is his son.

 

[squirrel]

Thank you for such a thorough answer. Yes, the lilac eye color was making me wonder if she was a dilute. She was a massive baby and had wavy hair that the others didn't. The two chinchilla siblings have gray blue eyes. And a yes all of these rabbits except breeder 2 are siblings and Papa Brown is the dad of everyone. They also threw three castors with nice black tips but not much red. A beautiful chocolate otter a silver Martin and then that steel tipped black otter but she has all the little brown patches on her feet. She seemed to have a lot going on color wise so I didn't think she was just a black otter. I showed the picture of gold's under fur because she does not have the rings and has very distinctive gold tips on her fur in the sunlight also before she got her winter coat. I'm trying to get a list of everyone's genetics in order to put them into the omnic calculator. The Harlequin has been bred repeatedly to a tricolor dilute broken buck but has not taken and I just learned today about magpies so yeah likely will not breed her with him. Maybe with chocolate otter buck that is his son.

I forgot there were also two boys who looked almost just like Dad. Just a little bit lighter. Here is a picture of the litter that squirrel and gold came from. Squirrel is obvious the enormous one.

 

[Alaska Satin]

And a yes all of these rabbits except breeder 2 are siblings and Papa Brown is the dad of everyone. They also threw three castors with nice black tips but not much red. A beautiful chocolate otter a silver Martin and then that steel tipped black otter

Since you got otters, you know that Papa has either an otter <at> or a self <a> behind his agouti <A.
If you got a chocolate otter, you know Papa has a chocolate <b> behind his black <B>.

that steel tipped black otter but she has all the little brown patches on her feet. She seemed to have a lot going on color wise so I didn't think she was just a black otter.

Otters can vary in the extent and intensity of their markings, but a black otter should have tan edging on all of the markings, including the belly and feet. They also have ticking that carries up their flanks and shoulders to various degrees, but that's not steeling.
I don't have any good photos of my otters, but here's a Silver Marten from the ARBA website Silver Marten where you can see the ticking very well:


As far as I know, steel looks like steel only when in combination with an agouti <A>. If a rabbit has a dominant tan allele <at_> along with the steel <Es_>, it ends up looking like a self on the top, but with poor, very reduced otter markings underneath, like this:


So your black otter doe is most likely either a very heavily ticked otter, or has stray white hairs (which can show up without the steel gene). I have noticed in my otters that rabbits homozygous for the tan allele <at at> have more extensive markings than heterozygous <at a> rabbits, so maybe your doe is homozygous for tan.

I forgot there were also two boys who looked almost just like Dad. Just a little bit lighter. Here is a picture of the litter that squirrel and gold came from. Squirrel is obvious the enormous one.

That size is impressive!!!

The Harlequin has been bred repeatedly to a tricolor dilute broken buck but has not taken and I just learned today about magpies so yeah likely will not breed her with him. Maybe with chocolate otter buck that is his son.

Breeding your harlie doe to a dilute tri will not necessarily give you magpies unless both rabbits carry chinchilla. Magpie comes from chin <cchd_>, not dilute <dd>. Tricolor is simply a broken harlequin, nothing necessarily to do with either magpie or dilute.

I'd avoid the harlie x otter pairing unless you want torted otters, which are weird and not really a color most people want, because they're confusing. Harlequin expresses properly with an agouti <A>. So a harlie x tricolor pairing would be great, because you'll most likely get at least some homozygous <ejej> harlies and tris, which tend to be better marked and colored.

 

[squirrel]

I think the otter came from Mom she has really clear rings around her eye but she has a clear slate layer then red then black on the hair shaft. I am trying to get a picture of her. I sent her to my friend who I am doing the rabbit project with he has a proper rabbitry now and all of the siblings and mom are with him. I have a video but it says it's too big to upload. And for clarification, the Harlequin was purchased by my friend with the intent of breeding to the tricolor diluted buck but since she's not taking, we are wondering if he went sterile from heat stroke? My friend did not have his area set up well last summer and that buck got some sun and was not looking good for a while. We also bred him to the original mom of everyone. The red castor that might have otter. She is definitely fertile but doesn't seem to have taken either. So that just leaves us with Papa Brown and his son that looks like him and the chocolate otter . So I'm understanding that my one that I thought was squirrel is actually a black chinchilla? And the siblings that are solid blue with blue gray eyes are the dilutes?

 

[squirrel]

I took screenshots from the video to show the rest of the litter. There were two black otter looking babies that didn't make it. They died before they had fur but they were black skinned with white bellies. Still waiting for my friend to send a picture of Mom but she looks just like Castor to the right of the chocolate otter in the middle pic, but she has a lot more red. I really appreciate everyone's help. I've been trying to figure out genetics on my own. It's been quite a lot to learn.

 

[squirrel]

Okay I got pics of Mom finally! Do you all think this is where the otters are coming from? If she doesn't take from the dilute tricolor buck that we are testing to see if he is actually sterile, then we are considering whether or not we want to breed her anymore.

 

[Alaska Satin]

So I'm understanding that my one that I thought was squirrel is actually a black chinchilla? And the siblings that are solid blue with blue gray eyes are the dilutes?

The "blue" ones also look like normal chinchillas to me, neither self nor dilute. If you blow into their fur you should see pearl and black rings; squirrels are really light and have no black anywhere. The thing is that rex fur really changes the look of surface colors compared to normal-furred breeds, especially in the agoutis. So your big doe looks different in her normal coat. But I'd call them all chinchillas.

Here's an image of a chinchilla Rex from VARIETIES | NRRC Website (this one might actually be just a touch light in its surface color)

And here's an image of an American Chinchilla rabbit from American Chinchilla

Okay I got pics of Mom finally! Do you all think this is where the otters are coming from? If she doesn't take from the dilute tricolor buck that we are testing to see if he is actually sterile, then we are considering whether or not we want to breed her anymore.

Since both the doe (castor) and the buck (steel) are agoutis, otter (aka tan) could come from either or both.
Castor is <A_B_C_D_E_>
Steel is <A_B_C_D_Es_>

It's that second spot on the A locus where you'll find the tan <at> allele. So either one or both rabbits could carry a tan <at>. All you know is that neither rabbit is homozygous for agouti <A>, since all of the kits would have been agouti if that was so.

 

[squirrel]

The "blue" ones also look like normal chinchillas to me, neither self nor dilute. If you blow into their fur you should see pearl and black rings; squirrels are really light and have no black anywhere. The thing is that rex fur really changes the look of surface colors compared to normal-furred breeds, especially in the agoutis. So your big doe looks different in her normal coat. But I'd call them all chinchillas.

Here's an image of a chinchilla Rex from VARIETIES | NRRC Website (this one might actually be just a touch light in its surface color)
View attachment 38643
And here's an image of an American Chinchilla rabbit from American Chinchilla
View attachment 38644


Since both the doe (castor) and the buck (steel) are agoutis, otter (aka tan) could come from either or both.
Castor is <A_B_C_D_E_>
Steel is <A_B_C_D_Es_>

It's that second spot on the A locus where you'll find the tan <at> allele. So either one or both rabbits could carry a tan <at>. All you know is that neither rabbit is homozygous for agouti <A>, since all of the kits would have been agouti if that was so.

I'm going to look through and process all this information. I spent so much time trying to figure this out myself. I wish I would have come here sooner. So I guess I'm aiming for rainbow chinchillas thanks everyone for your help.