What colors is this buck????

[Cosima]

I have a really confusing buck he looks like a Charlie opal but his babies are weird.

the buck.

doe orange Vienna. Looks to me like oranges, lilacs, brokens, solids, and a Charlie? The runt is from the other doe.

Chinchilla Vienna. The dad might not be sheep. looks to me like one solid blue one chocolate Vienna (maybe) two whites a something charlie (you can’t see charlie markings in the pictures) and a broken maybe a Vienna chocolate or something else dark that’s not black?



what colors is the buck? Is he a English broken a broken dutch because I don’t think he’s a Charlie. What is he?

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hard to be sure when a rabbit has so little color, and his eyes are covered by the name, but from the shading on his ears he looks like he may be a broken tort. Could be a charlie (double broken gene <EnEn>) or just a lightly-marked broken (<Enen). If he really is the (only) sire of the litter, he's a lightly-marked broken, since charlies' litters are 100% broken with no solids at all.

 

[Cosima]

But there are Charlies, solid, and broken in his litter?

 

[Alaska Satin]

I suppose you could use the term charlie for a lightly-marked broken, but usually it refers to a rabbit that is genetically homozygous for the broken gene (i.e. <EnEn>).

A solid-colored rabbit is homozygous for recessive non-broken <enen>. Broken <En> is dominant, so if a rabbit has a single copy of the broken gene <Enen> it is a broken-colored rabbit. Think of the broken gene as throwing a bucket of whitewash over a colored rabbit. If a rabbit gets *two* copies of the gene <EnEn> throw *two* buckets of whitewash - you'll get a mostly-white rabbit as a result, called a charlie due to the fact that the color tends to appear in predictable places - ears, eyes, nose, like Charlie Chaplin's eyebrows and mustache - but the body markings vary quite a bit.

So if you have a charlie <EnEn> it will *only* produce brokens and/or charlies; it can't make solids because a solid requires two copies of <en> which the charlie doesn't have to give (since it can only pass En to its kits). If bred with a broken, that litter will be brokens and charlies.

Charlie x Charlie: EnEn x EnEn = 100% EnEn charlies
Charlie x Broken: EnEn x Enen = 75% EnEn charlies and 25% Enen brokens
Charlie x Solid: EnEn x enen = 100% Enen brokens
Broken x Solid: Enen x enen = 50% Enen brokens and 50% enen solids

*** Note that these are statistical predictions and any one litter may not have exactly the ratio shown.

If you get any solids at all (except REWs, which aren't technically solids, they're colorless), you know that neither parent is a charlie. So, because there were solids in your buck's litter, you know he is not a charlie (genetically speaking).

It's difficult to predict exactly where the whitewash will land, but the pattern does tend to run in hereditary lines. It also seems to be affected by modifiers. Some lines will produce very heavily-marked brokens (blanket patterns or even booted), and others will produce very lightly-marked rabbits, some of which can look like charlies.

Here is a picture of a young satin buck that I know was genetically a broken <Enen> but he could pass for a charlie.

 

[Cosima]

now I understand.