Why is REW more accepted in the rabbit community??

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CapellaFarm

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I have been wondering this for a while now. I have been into rabbits for three+ years or so now and I do not understand the rabbit community's obsession with Red Eyed Whites and the rejected of Blue Eyed Whites. I can sort of understand this preference with meat rabbits but I do not understand at all with other breeds like angoras, lionheads, etc.

A lot of buyers think that the red eyes are scary. I don't necessarily think that but I do like blue eyes. Blue eyes are just plain old pretty. I do believe that there is some link with the vm so perhaps that is the reason. If so, I'm calling BS. It doesn't make any sense to me why we should try to limit our selling capabilities by breeding blue eyes out of our stock.

To take this a step further, I really don't understand the limitations we put on acceptable color variations from breed to breed. Why do this? I understand this with breeds like dutch, rhinelander, and hotot. But with angoras, lops, and other non-meat breeds I don't get it.

I'm sure that I am missing something here. Someone please straighten me out. Also, am I the only one who feels this way?
 
:lol: Honestly, I've probably seen more BEWs and marked buns than any other color in my time lurking on the internet lately. Everyone seems to love BEW, but they wig me out. Much prefer my soft-eyed REWs.

It's doubling up the Vienna gene that causes BEW, so breeding BEW to anything besides another BEW or Vienna-marked will give you a full litter of marked kits, which I think are disqualified from showing? So I suppose babies that can't be shown and get any wins aren't really worth the time and effort. Seems to me that BEW can be hard to acquire as well, and a lot of folks are adverse to inbreeding.
I think certain colors just aren't accepted in some breeds because there hasn't been enough interest to get them accepted, and most breeders would rather invest in something they can show without the extra bother and cost. But that's just a hunch...I've never shown anything, I just lurk a lot. :?
 
Vienna marks

I keep getting white marks, usually on my best looking BPetite, because one of my foundation rabbits was a carrier :cry:

I could switch my focus to BEW except my focus was on sable marten and the two BEW I have produced have funky purply eyes :angry: and likely genetic sables
 
For two reasons we see REWs more

REW is an older color, and it's found in way more breeds & gene pools. Most the breeds that accept BEW only added it because people wanted the color; and those are mostly small breeds. Since people are breeding for color instead of type in many of those cases, BEW remains uncommon in the show world (their type just not as competitive) while being fairly common in those breeds (ex. holland lop, netherland dwarf) in the pet world. The only six class breed that comes in BEW is Beveren; which is the oldest BEW breed we have (the direct descendant of the first breed with the vienna gene, which is now extinct), and it doesn't accept REW -- all white Beverens are BEW ;) As the BEW gets introduced to more breed standards (just recently it was added to yet another; britannia petite) and those breeders continue to work on type, I think BEWs have a chance to get more popular in the show world. In meat breeding, though, they already have some whites; red eyes, sure, but eye color doesn't matter on a pelt so there isn't as much push to breed BEWs.

The other reason BEWs often aren't accepted is because of vienna marks (the BEW gene is the same as the vienna gene). These are unshowable, and the vienna gene can hide for generations, so people breeding some non-BEW color, if they get a vienna mark popping up, can't tell where it came from, and would have to nearly scrap their whole if they wanted it to breed true again. For this reason, only people specifically breeding BEW want BEW; with some other colors if you find a nice one, you can cross colors, but with BEWs it's not that easy. The ARBA standards committee and national breed club have to approve colors when people want to add them to the standard; and one of the things that they consider is how well the color mixes with other colors in the breed. BEW doesn't do that very well, leaving eye color problems and white markings in many of its crosses.

And about limiting colors to the standard; it takes generations of breeding to get a color consistent and good enough of type to add to the standard. It takes a minimum of 4-5 years just proving that it can show by presenting it at ARBA conventions before it can get recognized. There are plenty of people doing it, though, and if you are very dedicated to breeding a color, you could even attempt it too. For a color to be consistent enough to pass the ARBA's presentation, it means no vienna marks; they need a solid body color (no brokens allowed at this stage, even) and a consistent eye color. ARBA has said that it will not allow dutch coloring (which would, imo, include vienna), for a color COD in a non-dutch breed. In short, for a color to be able to be shown it has to pass certain quality tests, which is why many colors aren't accepted. In the breeds that aren't really color specific (like dwarfs and angoras) they are adding colors all the time; netherland dwarfs have champagne and maybe cinnamon with CODs right, english and satin angora are working on adding brokens, giant angoras were working on adding black, even. If they added every color, without having a standard for color, they couldn't know what to judge it on, and if no color had a standard many of the colors that take selective breeding beyond just the basic color to get today (like reds, tans, etc) wouldn't be as high quality, with no standard pushing them forward in that breeding. Asking why only certain colors can be shown is sort of like asking why only certain breeds can be shown, and not mixed breeds; we just only have a limited number of standards.

For a bit of history lesson here; all varieties of rabbit used to be shown differently. For example, black silvers and fawn silvers and black flemish and white flemish would all compete for separate awards and have separate standards. Variety and breed went hand in hand. When the ARBA combined those into varieties of breeds in the standard, they kept those varieties as the only ones that could be shown instead of just scrapping variety altogether.

BEWs are accepted in angoras (though the gene's newer than the standard; when the standard was written breeders sat down and just wrote all the colors they could think of to add. Angoras are an old breed, and it was done much differently then), and lionheads have been actively working on getting it accepted, btw. A new breed has a limit of 5 colors, which for lionheads was REW, black tort, blue tort, choc tort and lilac tort, and now that lionhead itself is recognized they're going through and adding the rest of the colors. So far they've added chocolate and seal.
 
SableSteel already beat me to most of what I was going to say, but here is a little more :)
First of all, I wouldn't say that REWs are accepted and BEWs are rejected. I raise both, and honestly I like blue eyes better. But their is nothing wrong REWs:) You have to remember REW is basically albino, so you really never know what color that rabbit really is unless you have the genotype. Therefore you can have a REW of almost any color, making them a lot easier to breed and get accepted in to other breed standards. The BEWs however are a lot more complicated for all the reasons SableSteel mentioned, especially because of the VC/VM genes.
Regarding your question about new colors in a breed, It takes a ton of effort, space, time, money, energy, and emotion to get a new color recognized with the ARBA and that is not for everyone. It is one thing to have a pair of BEW French Lops, it is a whole other matter to spend thousands of dollars and years of your life, to be sure they breed true, confirm with breed standard, fill out all the paperwork, attend 3+ ARBA conventions regardless of the location, ect. I am not going to go too deep on the details, but you can read all the requirements at http://www.arba.net
And just so you know this is only my opinion on the matter :)
 
Ozarkansas":1edjxag1 said:
BEW French Lops
Wait, actually I forgot. French lops DO accept BEW, as do english lops, so technically there are other 6 class breeds with BEW :oops: However, while they accept BEW, the color isn't actually seen in those breeds (or if it is, it's extremely rare; I've never seen one). It was just sort of thrown in for the lop color guide (I do believe there are BEW mini lops)

Yes, adding colors is a TON of work. The process is listed at the beginning of the standard of perfection. Usually the only times colors are added are if the COD holder is an extremely experienced breeder (you need to have an ARBA membership for 5 years before you can get a COD -and an adult, which means the process for getting a COD has more age/membership requirements than becoming a judge-, but I wouldn't suggest even thinking about a COD until you've been showing for 10 years) and that is their main project (or one of their main projects if they have absolutely massive herds; for example Randy Shumaker, who is working on a lutino dwarf color project at the same time as the rest of his stuff). From the COD holders I know, they say it takes 50+ holes completely dedicated to that variety (maybe a bit less if the variety is completely compatible with another variety; an example would be smoke pearl and sable; a non-example would be blacks & chestnuts, because first gen will get chestnuts with poor banding, or steels; another non-example would be BEWs & anything else because first gen will get VM) for a good chance at passing.
 
SableSteel":1248fa5w said:
Ozarkansas":1248fa5w said:
BEW French Lops
Wait, actually I forgot. French lops DO accept BEW, as do english lops, so technically there are other 6 class breeds with BEW :oops: However, while they accept BEW, the color isn't actually seen in those breeds (or if it is, it's extremely rare; I've never seen one). It was just sort of thrown in for the lop color guide (I do believe there are BEW mini lops).
Um, I thought BEW French Lops were just somthing I saw on Craigslist once, not a actual variety of French Lop :oops: That's why I used them as a example, because I knew they existed but I didn't think they were recognized :oops: I guess I should check my standard of perfection before I go assuming things.
 
Ok. This is making a bit more sense to me now. Thank you all for explaining the process. I kind of figured the BEW thing had to do with the VM mark. And that makes the most sense--because you would end up with bunnies in a line you had been working on that can't show and cannot be sold for top dollar or bred back into your line for the same reason. Genetics are weird. Who would have ever thought that blue eyes would be linked with a strange line of different colored fur.

I also like the part about the white fur covering up whatever is the true D color underneath it as a strategy. I hadn't quite thought of it from that perspective. So bottom line, if someone keeps injecting REW into their lines they are more likely to do well on the show table (because it may possibly cover up unaccepted colors), their bunnies will sell better and for a higher price for the same reason, and they prevent DQ's by going REW instead of BEW because of that rascally vm. Got it.

You guys are great!!!
 
I despise BEWs because of the Vienna marks. If someone wants to breed BEW to BEW, fine, but as soon as they breed a BEW to anything else, then generations later, bunnies can show up with a Vienna mark and be unshowable. That just happened to the last litter, one showed up with a Vienna mark so I culled the entire litter as well as the doe.

I may just start breeding all REW, it would save ever so much bother. REW will cover everything, even BEW, so they'd all be REW if REW were bred to REW.

I also find BEWs to be spooky looking, I much prefer REW, maybe just because they're more familiar.
 
hotzcatz":anc6mlaf said:
I also find BEWs to be spooky looking, I much prefer REW, maybe just because they're more familiar.

Me too lol The really pale skin around the eyes of the BEW make their eyes look weird, imo, while in the rews, the pink skin just blends seamlessly into the gorgeous ruby red eyes. Red eyes are more expressive, imo, with magical red pupils instead of black blobs :lol:
 
SarniaTricia":166y9i8y said:
I am a big fan of BEW (My next breed will be Beverens)
THat being said... I hate the Vienna Gene as it shows up a lot in my Magpie Harlequins!!!!
Although not a DQ, I need to cull hard for it regularly.

When I did harlequins, white spotting was the worst! :lol: harlequins actually have a separate white spotting gene, that's not vienna that accounts for most of the white spotting in that breed
 
I despise BEWs because of the Vienna marks. If someone wants to breed BEW to BEW, fine, but as soon as they breed a BEW to anything else, then generations later, bunnies can show up with a Vienna mark and be unshowable. That just happened to the last litter, one showed up with a Vienna mark so I culled the entire litter as well as the doe.

I may just start breeding all REW, it would save ever so much bother. REW will cover everything, even BEW, so they'd all be REW if REW were bred to REW.

I also find BEWs to be spooky looking, I much prefer REW, maybe just because they're more familiar.
I also have fallen in love with REW! I would have a bunny shed full if I could. I find their eyes so beautiful. I have acquired 2 from the US, as I’m in Canada, and I cannot wait to work on them and I know they will become my focus. They have my heart!
 

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