What do you genetic gurus see?

[Dimplz]

These kits are from rabbits with known genotypes of :

DAM:
AaB_cchd_DdEE ww possibly si2 or si3

SIRE:
AaB_cchlcchlDdEsE possibly si2/3

What do ya'll see in these 3 week old kits fur structures?

 

[ladysown]

two have the defined rings of agouti. Another has light ring. three have i think snowballed coats which might change as they mature, the last perhaps good tipped steel? as to the alphabet... @Alaska Satin is a better option.

 

[Dimplz]

Thank you. I know the steel + chin gene combo would cause silver tipped steel, but would the steel + sable genes cause gold tipped steels?

I have not seen any gold tipped steels from my chin or sables. They have all shown silver.

On the defined ringed rabbits, would you say they are agouti chinchilla or agouti sable? Those are the only two phenotypes in the C locus that those parents have expressed through test breeding to rews. I think the dam is actually chin carrying sable because those are the only two C locus phenotypes I have seen her produce. I know my buck is homozygous for the sable gene because every time he is bred to a rew, I get nothing but sable based color modifiers. When I breed him to a black tort, I get all dense, full color black based rabbits. With him and the torte, I get black gold tipped steels, blacks, and chestnuts.

With a rew, the dam produced 5 kits, 3 solid, 2 broken. One was born a very thin layer of fur, that was soooo shiny, and solid blueish silver color, the rest were born hairless with dull or matt black skin.

The solids were a dark black, that one blue, a lighter black that seemed to go from black to grey, to an ashy color with white ticking, and chinchilla markings. The 2 spotted ones were just broken versions of the two born all black. One stayed deep black, the other looked like the ashy grey with white ticking and agouti markings. I wish I had the pictures available.

two have the defined rings of agouti. Another has light ring. three have i think snowballed coats which might change as they mature, the last perhaps good tipped steel? as to the alphabet... @Alaska Satin is a better option.

 

[ladysown]

the pics 101 and 552 have me thinking sable, 813 looks chin on my computer, and the 346 looks chin, but lighter. 009 is most likely sable.

But colours are weird on different computer screens.

 

[judymac]

but would the steel + sable genes cause gold tipped steels?

No. Steel moves the central yellowish agouti band out to the end of the hairshaft, becoming the gold tip (gold-tipped steel, GTS). However, both chin and sable genes greatly reduce/eliminate the production of yellow pigment. So, chin and sable agouti have pearl white instead of yellow tones for the middle band. When steel moves the middle band to the tips, they are silvery white instead of golden yellow, making them silver tipped steel (STS).

 

[Alaska Satin]

These kits are from rabbits with known genotypes of :

DAM:
AaB_cchd_DdEE ww possibly si2 or si3

SIRE:
AaB_cchlcchlDdEsE possibly si2/3

What do ya'll see in these 3 week old kits fur structures?

So here are my two cents:
043 - looks like sable steel or possibly smoke pearl steel (aka dilute, or blue sable steel)

101 - smoke pearl steel; this is one that makes me wonder if there's silvering involved

552 - seems to be a pretty correct chinchilla, though I'd like to see its belly

813 and 009 could be wideband chins or STS - from these photos I wouldn't really be able to commit since I cannot see some of the more helpful parts of the rabbit, those being the belly and ear lining (though 813 seems to have pale inner ears). If they are steels, they will most likely (though not always) have bellies roughly the same color as their backs; if they are chins, they will certainly have clear silver bellies, probably with darker undercolor.

346 could be a wideband blue chin or a blue STS; again, would need to get a clearer look at other parts of the rabbit to feel confident.

635 looks like a sable steel

When you combine chinchilla <cchd>, sable <cchl>, steel <Es> and wideband <w>, you really do sometimes create a puzzle, since the first two eliminate most or all pheomelanin production, leaving only shades of black and/or sepia; the first produces agouti markings and the second causes shading, and they are, to apparently varying degrees, co-dominant; and the third and fourth mess with the agouti markings and/or banding. I have mostly endeavored to keep sable and steel out of my lines because of this, but have dealt with sable in limited amounts in Satins, American Sables and Holland Lops, and have had all four alleles rear their heads in the Satins.

A "proper" chinchilla is an agouti that is completely and only shades of black/gray/pearl, with a clear ring pattern and no sepia tones (although kits often start out with rustiness across their shoulders and backs, sometimes extensively so, which molts out as they develop). Here is an example of good chinchilla ring color and pattern:


A "proper" sable is a self, with shading on the rabbit's extremities from black to sepia, and no rings. When you combine agouti with sable, you get what looks to my eye like a faintly off-colored or "rusty" chinchilla with shaded points. You should still be able to discern rings on the hairshaft, though they seem less clear, to me anyway, because there is less contrast between the dark and light bands. I don't have any photos but the rings are similar to what is pictured above. Combining agouti with both <cchd> and <cchl> might give you the same effect, since there seems to be a battle between those two c alleles that results in only partial dominance, but I've not done that experiment.

The steel <Es> as you noted squashes the banding pattern up to the top of the hairshaft. (This looks different than the wideband <w>, which basically widens the middle ring, but doesn't really push the rest of the rings up to the top.) One tricky thing is that steel kits, being at their base agoutis, seem to go through a banded phase, at least in my barn.
Here is a GTS at 3 weeks with pretty typical coloration (sorry about the poor photos):

and the same kit at 4 weeks, going through a surprisingly dramatic (to me, anyway) "agouti phase":

He ended up looking like the original 3-wk photos. I don't know if it just happens with this particular line (as I said, I've tried to avoid steel and this just popped out when I bred one of my "blacks" with an agouti), or if this is normal steel development.

And here is his belly color, which can really help in determining whether you have a steel or non-steel agouti:


The wideband gene <w>, which is supposed to be recessive, has sometimes appeared to be only partially so in my Satins. This is a squirrel, aka blue chinchilla, which I believe carries one copy of <w> based on her bands and her pedigree (she's young and just had her first litter so I haven't been able to test that):

Here's a comparison between hers and the correct pattern:

Thank you. I know the steel + chin gene combo would cause silver tipped steel, but would the steel + sable genes cause gold tipped steels?

I have not seen any gold tipped steels from my chin or sables. They have all shown silver.

Silver-tipped steels are made by removing the yellow pigments (via the chin or sable genes) on an otherwise GTS. So if your rabbits are a chin and a sable, you should not see any GTS kits. The gold-ish color on 635 I believe is due to the sable (eumelanin-derived sepia rather than pheomelanin-derived tan/orange).

Would love to see pictures of these kite as they grow, since the sable coloring, especially, goes through some interesting developmental phases. In normal (self) sables, the kits look pale bluish, then very "tipped" or "frosted" before they become chocolatey sepia.

 

[Dimplz]

No. Steel moves the central yellowish agouti band out to the end of the hairshaft, becoming the gold tip (gold-tipped steel, GTS). However, both chin and sable genes greatly reduce/eliminate the production of yellow pigment. So, chin and sable agouti have pearl white instead of yellow tones for the middle band. When steel moves the middle band to the tips, they are silvery white instead of golden yellow, making them silver tipped steel (STS).

That is what I thought? Thank you.

 

[Dimplz]

So here are my two cents:
043 - looks like sable steel or possibly smoke pearl steel (aka dilute, or blue sable steel)

101 - smoke pearl steel; this is one that makes me wonder if there's silvering involved

552 - seems to be a pretty correct chinchilla, though I'd like to see its belly

813 and 009 could be wideband chins or STS - from these photos I wouldn't really be able to commit since I cannot see some of the more helpful parts of the rabbit, those being the belly and ear lining (though 813 seems to have pale inner ears). If they are steels, they will most likely (though not always) have bellies roughly the same color as their backs; if they are chins, they will certainly have clear silver bellies, probably with darker undercolor.

346 could be a wideband blue chin or a blue STS; again, would need to get a clearer look at other parts of the rabbit to feel confident.

635 looks like a sable steel

When you combine chinchilla <cchd>, sable <cchl>, steel <Es> and wideband <w>, you really do sometimes create a puzzle, since the first two eliminate most or all pheomelanin production, leaving only shades of black and/or sepia; the first produces agouti markings and the second causes shading, and they are, to apparently varying degrees, co-dominant; and the third and fourth mess with the agouti markings and/or banding. I have mostly endeavored to keep sable and steel out of my lines because of this, but have dealt with sable in limited amounts in Satins, American Sables and Holland Lops, and have had all four alleles rear their heads in the Satins.

A "proper" chinchilla is an agouti that is completely and only shades of black/gray/pearl, with a clear ring pattern and no sepia tones (although kits often start out with rustiness across their shoulders and backs, sometimes extensively so, which molts out as they develop). Here is an example of good chinchilla ring color and pattern:
View attachment 36155

A "proper" sable is a self, with shading on the rabbit's extremities from black to sepia, and no rings. When you combine agouti with sable, you get what looks to my eye like a faintly off-colored or "rusty" chinchilla with shaded points. You should still be able to discern rings on the hairshaft, though they seem less clear, to me anyway, because there is less contrast between the dark and light bands. I don't have any photos but the rings are similar to what is pictured above. Combining agouti with both <cchd> and <cchl> might give you the same effect, since there seems to be a battle between those two c alleles that results in only partial dominance, but I've not done that experiment.

The steel <Es> as you noted squashes the banding pattern up to the top of the hairshaft. (This looks different than the wideband <w>, which basically widens the middle ring, but doesn't really push the rest of the rings up to the top.) One tricky thing is that steel kits, being at their base agoutis, seem to go through a banded phase, at least in my barn.
Here is a GTS at 3 weeks with pretty typical coloration (sorry about the poor photos):
View attachment 36156View attachment 36157
and the same kit at 4 weeks, going through a surprisingly dramatic (to me, anyway) "agouti phase":
View attachment 36158View attachment 36159
He ended up looking like the original 3-wk photos. I don't know if it just happens with this particular line (as I said, I've tried to avoid steel and this just popped out when I bred one of my "blacks" with an agouti), or if this is normal steel development.

And here is his belly color, which can really help in determining whether you have a steel or non-steel agouti:
View attachment 36165

The wideband gene <w>, which is supposed to be recessive, has sometimes appeared to be only partially so in my Satins. This is a squirrel, aka blue chinchilla, which I believe carries one copy of <w> based on her bands and her pedigree (she's young and just had her first litter so I haven't been able to test that):
View attachment 36160
Here's a comparison between hers and the correct pattern:
View attachment 36164View attachment 36161


Silver-tipped steels are made by removing the yellow pigments (via the chin or sable genes) on an otherwise GTS. So if your rabbits are a chin and a sable, you should not see any GTS kits. The gold-ish color on 635 I believe is due to the sable (eumelanin-derived sepia rather than pheomelanin-derived tan/orange).

Would love to see pictures of these kite as they grow, since the sable coloring, especially, goes through some interesting developmental phases. In normal (self) sables, the kits look pale bluish, then very "tipped" or "frosted" before they become chocolatey sepia.

Thank you for all that information. I have Siamese Sables and have seen the changes on a self coat, and now witnessing them on agouti. I wish this puzzle was less complicated. I am breeding my doe to a black aaB_CcD_E_ NZ/SF buck to try and get away from the sable gene in my agouti lines. I do not have sable in that line by choice.

I thought I was getting SFs 3 years ago. In my ignorance, the breeder convinced me they were silvered silver foxes expressing the ancestral genes use to create the SF. Needless to say, I am not as foolish as I was, and have fallen in love with my trio. However, I want my Sable Agoutis, STSs, and AmChin lines to be seperate.

I have been working on trying get American Chinchilla color and type with that mutt trio of AmChin/SF we picked up as our starting trio. I have tried finding AmChin breeders for pedigreed stock near me, and the closest is a 10hr round trip.

I am communicating with a few of the closest breeders, but I have to schedule it so I can get away for two days and travel to another state. Also has to be around the breeder's schedule too.

So, in the mean time, I have my handy ARBA SOP, and my wideband AmChin genotype. I have saved pictures on my phone of what an ARBA judge considers perfect rings, in definition and density. I will be able to see the differences more distinctly when they are 16 weeks old, and when I will decide if any of this litter will be held back.

Here are the parent's phenotypes. First 5 are the dam with wideband. Last 3 are the sire. He is pretty much the same color all over, except on the ears, feet, and tail. His sire was a heavily silvered black SF, his dam was a AmChin phenotyped mutt.

Pics taken with and without flash.

 

[Dimplz]

That wideband gene really give an normal chinchilla coat a much whiter and lighter look.

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

That wideband gene really give an normal chinchilla coat a much whiter and lighter look.

Such big ears and small eyes-

 

[Dimplz]

Such big ears and small eyes-

Going thru growth spurts will do that an animal. I have a cat who is 5 months old and his body is hiuge compared to his head right now.

This little kit is only 6 weeks old. Should see the ears on the older litters. Each litter has one parent with HUGE ears. The kit in this pic was about 9 weeks old when I took the pic.