Colors Day Two

maybe a REW?

Olivia & Caesar's babies are a day older and now they're twice as old as they were yesterday. Olivia is a chocolate doe, Caesar is a tortoiseshell buck and the babies are going to be what kind of colors? Yesterday, the babies were all different colors of pinks and grays. Now that the babies are a tiny bit older, it looks like we may be able to have more of an idea of their eventual colors. Looking at them today, it looks like there may be one black one, one chocolate one, er, and two torts? and a Ruby Eyed White? Well, the colors still aren't certain, but a bit more than they were yesterday.

Starting from the left, the one with the feet in the air, that could be a blue or lilac or another tort? Possibly even another chocolate? Of course, if we could see more than the feet, it might be easier to guess but I didn't want to mess with the nest very much so it was just a quick picture. I'm guessing either blue or lilac, although that's just a guess for today, we may guess some other color tomorrow.

The next one over from the left looks like a tortoiseshell, perhaps? Maybe a lilac? Oooh! A lilac tort? Some pale color, but a color of some type and not white. The one in the middle, the very pink one, will most likely be white. Which is an albino, aka a Ruby Eyed White or 'REW' (pronounced 'roo'). The black one was gray yesterday and he is much darker today and will most likely be black when s/he's grown up. Although, as an adult, a 'black' angora looks pretty gray since there is only so much color per hair and it fades when the hair gets longer. The baby on the right end of the picture looks to be a chocolate. A fairly dark chocolate at that. It could possibly even end up looking like a black, although it would be a black with a recessive for chocolate, I'd think?

This litter has a lot of colors in it and we now know a lot more about the color genetics of the parents. The REW, chocolate and blue/lilac colors all require a pair of recessive genes before those colors will be visible. We knew Olivia has two recessives for chocolate since, after all, she is chocolate. We know Caesar has the recessives for tortoiseshell, because that's his color. Since each parent has to give a recessive gene to see the colors of chocolate, REW, blue and tortoiseshell in the kits, we now know both parents have those recessive genes.

There's only about five genes that we keep track of for colors in the bunnies. They're usually called out as "A,B,C,D & E". When the gene is dominant, it is written as a capitol letter. When it's a recessive gene, it's written as a lower case letter.

Genes show up in pairs, two of them at each spot designated by the letters A thru E. When there's a dominant gene, that's the color we will see and we won't know if there's another dominant gene or a recessive gene along with it since we see the color of the dominant and don't know if there is a recessive gene color hiding behind it. So dominant genes are written with a line after them to indicate that we don't know what the other gene of the gene pair is - it will be written like: "A_" .

The first gene, what we designate with a capitol "A" when it's a dominant, stands for "Agouti" which is the color pattern of a wild rabbit. There's white around the eyes, in the ears, under the tail and the entire undercarriage is white. To go along with the white pattern, each hair shaft is banded in different colors so if you blow into the rabbit's coat, you'll see rings of color as the hair shafts bend over and the rings on the shafts line up. Usually the overall look to an agouti rabbit will be a warm gray or grayish brown color. If a rabbit doesn't have this white patterning, then it's called a 'solid' color and it requires a double recessive 'aa' in order for the bunnies to not have the white patterning around their eyes, ears, etc. Since both parents are 'solid' colored bunnies, they only have recessive 'a's to give to the babies. The babies get a 'aa' and that's called a 'double recessive' and that's the only time we can see the color or pattern of the recessive genes instead of a dominant gene patterns or colors.

So both parents and all the babies have 'aa' as the first gene pair of their color genes.

The next pair of genes are designated with a "B" for Black/brown. The dominant color is Black. If there's two recessive genes there, 'bb', then we will see a chocolate bunny. Since Olivia is chocolate, the only gene she can give at this location is a recessive 'b' so for these babies, we know they all have at least one recessive 'b'. Since one of them is chocolate which requires a recessive 'b' from each parent, we now know that Caesar has a recessive 'b' to give even though as a black tortoiseshell he doesn't show it.

The next set of genes is designated with a 'C' for 'Color'. If it is a dominant 'C', then the bunny will show it's Color, if it's a double recessive 'cc', then the bunny will not show color and be albino. They show up as a Ruby Eyed White or REW (pronounced 'roo'). There's some other things on the 'C' gene, but for this litter we will just use the Color/no color aspect of the 'C' gene. Since neither parent is REW (albino) we don't know that any specific baby bunny has the recessive 'c' gene except for the albino one which has a double recessive so it will show the lack of color.

There is another way to get a white rabbit and that is a Blue Eyed White and involves the Vienna gene, but we won't go into that at this time. The albino is also like a white washed rabbit. Genetically speaking, the rabbit still has the genes for colors, but the double recessive 'cc' keeps that color from being seen.

The 'D' genes are for Dense color or dilute color. When there's dominant 'D' here, then the color of the rabbit will be dense and dark. When there's a double recessive 'dd' here, then a black rabbit will be diluted to blue, a chocolate rabbit will be diluted to lilac.

The 'E' gene pair is wierd. What the E stands for is 'Extension'. When the gene is dominant, the color of the hair extends down the entire shaft of the hair. When there's a double recessive at this location, 'ee', then all the colors on the hair - except for the yellows - don't extend the length of the hair shaft. Weird, eh? Since Caesar is tortoiseshell, all his offspring will have at least one recessive 'e' even if they don't show tortoiseshell.

Starting from the left kit in the picture, I'll try to list their genetic color codes.

• Lilac? feet in the air baby bunny = aa bb Cc dd Ee
• Lilac Tortoiseshell? = aa bb Cc dd ee (all recessives except on dominant 'C' to show color)
• REW fat pink baby = aa _b cc __ _e (a lot we don't know)
• Black baby = aa Bb C_ D_ Ee
• Chocolate baby at the right end = aa bb C_ D_ Ee

That should be the color genetics for each of the babies. Some of the hidden recessive genes were able to be filled in due to the color of the parents, the rest is from the color of the babies.

Since there's a chocolate baby, we now know Caesar has a recessive 'b' for chocolate. We also now know that because of the baby REW, both Olivia and Caesar must have a recessive 'c' gene. (Yay!) If that first baby in the picture that has his feet in the air, is a blue or lilac, then both Olivia and Caesar will have a recessive gene for dilute colors. Since it looks like at least one tort of some type, that would mean that Olivia has a recessive 'e' gene. We've mapped out a lot of recessives with this litter.