Hey guys! Haven't been able to be on here in a while, but I'm hoping to see what thoughts you might have on this tri buck's coloration? Trying to decide on keeping or selling or culling otherwise... Thanks!
@Alaska Satin @judymac @ladysown ~and anyone else, too!
His pattern is well-balanced; he might be a little heavy on the black versus the amount of orange, but that's slight. But he does have quite a bit of brindling in his color. It is preferable to have distinct spots of orange and black, rather than a mixture of the two colors. His orange color looks good in one photo, but in the other it looks like it may be a bit faded; blow into it and see how far down toward the skin the orange color goes without fading.
The rex SOP (Standard of Perfection) allots 10 points out of 100 to color; in the brokens, color gets 5 points, pattern gets 5 points. Good pattern = 5 points, some brindling in his color = 1-3 points, which is a drop in the bucket out of the total 100. So even though a tricolor's color and pattern are a dominant feature of the rabbit, his type and fur should far outweigh concern over his coloring. As far as showing, only if everything else is the same would he lose on the brindling.
If you're not showing but looking for flashy rabbits, he would be fine; he's an attractive rabbit. Some might suggest cleaning up the spots (eliminating the brindling), but on the other hand, a brindled pattern is very appealing to some people.
See
@Buknee's well-patterned tricolored rex buck here:
https://rabbittalk.com/threads/who-here-is-active-in-the-arba.35912/page-3#post-352271He has well-placed and distinct spots, though his nose marking is off-balance (again, worth only a point or so).
I thought that a broken/tricolor could have colored toenails? ??
A tricolored rex is shown in the "broken group" in which one or more colored toenails is a fault but not a DQ. That's explicitly stated in the Rex SOP because in the ARBA list of General Disqualifications, mismatched toenails are an automatic DQ. It makes sense, though, since the rex broken group includes tris (broken harlequins), and harlequins typically have different colored feet. In fact, in the Harlequin breed SOP, it explicitly states that toenails may be light, dark or mismatched. Only in the japanese variety are completely white toenails a DQ.