The English angora bunnies here at Hillside Farm Hawaii help us create Hula Bunny yarn. Since the yarn isn't dyed, the colors of the bunnies are what creates the color of the yarn. That means bunny color is pretty important for us and knowing the genetic color code for the various colors helps us balance and breed the herd colors to match the demand for the different colors of Hula Bunny yarn. The only rabbits we have are English angoras so all the color names are the ones used for English angoras. Different breeds of rabbits will sometimes have different names for the same color AND, just to keep the confusion going, the names of the colors can be different depending on what country you're in.
Before we get to color, there's another part of the English angora's coat which is much more important. The most important thing for an angora's coat is the texture and quality. When breeding English angoras, they should be selected for a soft silky textured coat. Coarse coats are a DQ and cottony feeling coats are either a DQ or will lose a lot of points on a show table. It's supposed to be a loose free flowing silky feeling coat, not a cottony mass. Angoras - any breed of angora - is a fiber critter, first and foremost. They are bred to grow some of the most exquisite fiber on the planet, possibly in the entire universe. So stay true to the angora breeds and breed for the best fiber as the primary consideration. Then worry about ear carriage, IMHO. That's just me, however, your breeding goals may differ.
The length of the coat only matters up to a point at a show. I think it's supposed to be a minimum of two inches or 5 centimeters, although the minimum may be different, check your local show requirements, but there is a minimum length. After it's a certain length at a show - was it six inches? no additional points are given. For spinning, the minimum length is several inches as well, so when harvesting the fiber clip it off in long lengths, not in little chopped up bits.
The only bunnies we have are English Angora. We try to breed to the American Rabbit Breeders Association's "Standards of Perfection". (Humble, ain't they?) Frequently, in the world of bunny breeders, this will be referred to as "ARBA's SOP" or just the "SOP". I do, however, believe it is spelled out as "S" "O" "P" and not called out as just "sop" as in "sopping wet". But I could be wrong on that, most of my 'chatting' with other breeders is via emails, mostly due to our lack of bunny shows as well as being on a fairly remote island.
To begin with, there's only a few ARBA approved colors for an English angora bunny. If the bunny isn't one of the approved colors, then it is an instant disqualification (also known as a 'DQ') on the show table. Not that we have all that many rabbit shows on our island, but we do try to breed to ARBA standards.
Before we get into specific colors, there's some general things to look for. Any white spots on their nose, face, front feet, etc., are 'Vienna Marks' and that's an immediate disqualification on the show table. A few white hairs are enough, it doesn't have to be a big spot at all. A white toenail on a colored bunny is also a sign of the Vienna gene and another instant DQ. The Vienna gene is used to breed for Blue Eyed Whites, which genetically speaking is entirely different than the albino Red Eyed Whites. These are commonly referred to as 'REWs' and 'BEWs'. Pronounced "Roo" and "Boo", should you be among bunny breeders. The Vienna gene is recessive and pernicious, if you're breeding any Vienna Marked rabbit, put VM on their pedigree and either VM for Vienna Marked or PVC or VC for "Possible Vienna Carrier or Vienna Carrier on all unmarked offspring.
A BEW is an allowable color for an English angora. Once you get a pair of them, breeding BEW to BEW produces either BEW or REW, both of which can be shown. The BEW parents of a REW on a pedigree will inform breeders of the Vienna gene, so the pedigrees don't need to be marked 'VC'. Since angoras are a fiber bunny and most of the time you can't see their eyes anyway so, IMHO anyway, breeding for blue eyes should be a really low priority.
There's also several other coat conditions to look out for. One is called 'snowballing' and that's when there is a white undercoat on a colored bunny. The coat color on most allowable colors for an English angora is supposed to go all the way down to the skin and not have a white undercoat. Another oddball thing to watch out for is 'silvering'. That's when there's scattered white hairs in a colored coat. Not 'ticking' which is just the ends of scatterd hairs, but silver hairs for the full length of the hair shaft. Some breeds such as 'Silver Fox' rabbits are required to have the silvering gene, but in English angoras, it's not approved. Snowballs and Silvers shouldn't be bred if you are breeding English angoras for show.
"Broken" or "Harliquin" are not approved colors for English angoras, although they seem to be showing up all over the place. Well, not at bunny shows, but in the pet trade of English angoras there's loads of it. Going back to the origin and purpose of this breed being a fiber critter, having two different colors of fiber on one rabbit just doesn't work well for fiber production.
This is - as far as I know - all the allowable colors for showing an English angora in the United States. I think it's the same list as for the Satin angora as well. The French angora is allowed a few more colors, notably the 'broken' colors, which aren't allowed in the English. If you know of any other allowable colors for English angoras, let me know and I'll fix the list. There are some folks working to add some more colors to this list, but I don't know how far they have gotten with them yet.
English angoras are shown in a 'white' category and a 'colored' category. Here's the AEBA allowable 'white' varieties:
The Himilayan white variaties have a white body with 'points' of color on the nose, ears, feet and tail. The 'Himilayan' gene is written as ch and is recessive to everything except the albino gene, 'c'.
There's two other ARBA approved 'white' colors:
There's another white variety called 'ermine', but that one isn't showable.
Here's the 'colored' category of ARBA allowable colors, starting with the 'self' colors. A 'self' colored bunny is one who does NOT have the agouti color pattern - which is the white around the nose, eyes, in the ears, under the tail and the whole undercarriage.
This is a continuation of the 'colored' category with the colors that have the 'agouti' pattern as part of their color.
I'm not a geneticist, there's loads of folks out there who know this stuff better than me, but this is what I've learned over the years while trying to keep the ratio of bunny color matched to yarn color. After all, one can't breed for specific colors if one don't know how they got there in the first place.
There are five basic color genes, although they may actually be 'allele' or some such, but for general purposes, I'm using the term 'genes'. There's a few additional ones as well for Vienna, Broken, Silvering, etc., but I'll start with the Basic Five and go from there.
To keep it nice and simple, the five main color genes are labeled 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' and 'E'. Each gene comes as a set of two. They get one from their sire and one from their dam. So a complete gene color code can be something like: AA BB CC DD EE FF. If it is a capitol letter, such as "A", then it's called a 'Dominant' and that means the color or condition that the letter represents will be what you see on the bunny. The Dominant gene expresses itself over any recessive genes. The recessive genes are usually written out as a lower case letter, such as an "a". You won't know the recessive gene is there unless you can determine it from it's parents or from it's offspring.
Agouti Color Pattern
The first color gene is 'A'. It isn't really a color, but a color pattern. If a bunny has a white or light tan nose, white or light tan inside it's ears, under it's tail and it's whole undercarriage is white or light tan, then it has the Agouti color pattern. So, a dominant 'A' means "Agouti". If the bunny has a pair of recessives there, "aa", then that bunny is what is called a 'self'. It will NOT have the white around the eyes, in the ears, etc. If an Agouti bunny has a 'self' parent ("aa"), then it will have an 'Aa' on it's color chart and will have the ability to engender 'self' colored offspring. Oh, if the second gene is unknown, then folks just put an underline there to indicate the second gene of the pair is unknown. An 'A_' means it could be either 'AA' or 'Aa'. The 'AA' bunny can NOT engender any non-agouti colors, only agouti based colors. The 'Aa' bunny can engender both agouti and self colored offspring.
The 'A' gene is nice and straight forward, it's either 'A' for Agouti or 'aa' for non-agouti which is also called 'self'.
Both the bunnies in the picture there on the right are 'agouti' bunnies with the white color pattern. There are a variety of agouti colors, but all of them will have the white pattern. What they will also usually have is colored 'bands' on each hair shaft. If you blow into the coat, the hair shafts will lay over and you'll see little circles of color in the coat. Angora bunnies will have two or three coats growing in at any particular time, though, so sometimes you will also see these circles on a self bunny, but on a self bunny the circles will be the same color as the bunny's coat. In an agouti colored bunny, the circles will be different colors than the bunny's coat.
Black Bunnies
aa B_ C_ D_ E_
Chocolate Bunny
aa bb C_ D_ E_
The 'B' gene is another pretty simple gene. There's two choices, the dominant 'B' for Black or 'bb' for chocolate. Chocolate can come in a variety of shades, anything from a milk chocolate to a deep dark chocolate, but they're all still from the same double recessive 'bb' for chocolate.
The other thing with angora bunnies is that the color fades as the hair shaft gets longer. What starts out black will turn a silvery gray by the time the wool has reached it's full length. In some countries, the black angoras are called 'smoke' because of this effect.
Ruby Eyed White bunny
__ __ cc __ __
The 'C' gene is probably the most complicated one. It's got five possible modifiers/genes/alleles, or whatever the proper technical term is for them. Some of them are more dominant than the rest of them. Here they are in order of the most dominant to the least dominant:
The 'C' gene pretty much means 'full Color' for the dominant 'C' and zero color for the two recessive 'cc'. Between those two extremes are the Dark and Light Chinchilla as well as the Himilayan. The Dark Chinchilla, cchd is always paired up with the Agouti gene and it removes some of the color bands from the Agouti colors. The Light Chinchilla, cchl is paired up with the 'self' colors, "aa". It creates the 'shaded' colors where the body color lightens from the darker extremities to a lighter shade on the back and middle of the body.
This shading is not to be confused with the tortoiseshell gene, 'ee'. That one removes the non-yellow colors from e3ach hair leaving a blond bunny with different color on the nose, ears, feet and tail. Which, just to keep things confusing, is called 'sooty fawn' in some countries. However, we will get to that when we get to the 'E' gene.
When the shading is done by the Himilayan gene, ch, then the body is a clean white with the extremities and the eyes the color of the bunny. The Himilayan - or 'pointed white' - bunny will have a pink iris and red pupil.
The 'cc' for a Ruby Eyed White bunny is entirely different genetics from the one which creates the Blue Eyed White. We will get to that at the 'Vienna gene' part. A REW is dominant over pretty much everything so no telling what's under the albino whitewash.
Black & Blue Bunny
aa B_C_D_E_ & aa B_C_dd E_
The 'D' gene is another pretty simple gene. There's two choices, the dominant 'D' for Dense color or the 'dd' for diluted colors.
Black will become Blue
Chocolate will become Lilac
Chestnut or Wild Gray Agouti will become Opal
Chocolate (Cinnamon) Agouti will become Lynx
Chinchilla will become Squirrel
Dark Sable will become Smoke Pearl
Fawns will become Cream.
There's whole variety of different agouti colors although they will all have the same agouti color pattern.
You may have noticed that we didn't show an agouti color with a double recessive 'cc'. That double 'cc' makes a Ruby Eyed White or albino bunny. The albino is like a whitewash that covers the whole bunny. It will look like a white rabbit with red eyes and there could - genetically speaking - be any color of rabbit hiding under that whitewash. REW is dominant over BEW as well, so never use albino rabbits in any breeding program trying to get BEW rabbits.
We haven't gotten to the 'C' gene yet, but there's five of them. Some of them are more dominant than others so depending on which one your bunny has, different things will show up. I'll write more about the 'C' gene further down the page, but here's the different agouti color patterns with the different 'C' gene variations.
Chinchilla is an agouti based color and it is sort of an agouti without the brown bands on each hair shaft. It's not scattered solid white hairs, that's 'silvering' and not desirable. Chinchilla comes across as black and white mixed together, but it's bands of color on each individual hair and not black and white hairs mixed together.
There are three agouti colors that don't have the circles of color when you blow into their wool. They're frequently referred to as 'solid' agouti colors.
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