BlueSkyAcresRabbitry wrote:
Oh okay.
Yeah I'll get some non-blurry photos in a little while, but yah, she does have a spot on her nose. It's visible in the second photo, as being a light brown/tannish spot.
So, how would she be non-showable? Will her toenails have to bea dark colour?
I'm sure that her colours will darken up to chocolate, or black. I'm at least hoping so!
Emily
Hi Emily! This is an interesting thread and I hope that what I'm about to share won't sound snotty or anything - but I wanted to post something before I went to bed and then would forget I wanted to post here.
I'm not sure how much you know about the color genetics....so I thought I'd share a few things.
When people talk about the various colors - they generally refer to five different genes (A through E). I thought I'd address three of them here.
The "A" gene determines the "family" sort of. The most dominant gene is "A" which is agouti - which would be the chestnuts, chinchillas, opals, etc. The next most dominant gene is the "at" gene which is the tan pattern. This includes the martens, tans and otters. Finally, the lowest in the dominance chain is the "a" gene which is the "self" gene - which gives us black, blue, chocolate and lilac rabbits.
The "B" gene is really very easy for me to understand (one of the easiest). "B" is for black and blue. "b" is for chocolate and lilac. You'll understand why I give two colors for these when I talk about the "d" gene next...
The "D" gene stands for the density or diluteness of the color. If a rabbit has "D" it means that it has dense color. It can only be black or chocolate. If it has two "d" genes (one from each parent) - then it can only be blue or lilac.
If your rabbit is a blue - there is a chance it can carry chocolate...but it is only a chance. The rabbit would most likely have to have chocolate somewhere back in its pedigree.
Now let me go with what we know of the two parents you've mentioned...
Dad is a chinchilla. This means that he is:
at _ , B_, D_
Each of the _ means that there is a gene there that we don't know what it is. Dad could carry self and be "at, a" and he could carry chocolate and be "B,b" and he could carry dilute and be "D,d". Or he could be any number of combinations. One good way to try and figure them out is to look at his pedigree - do you happen to have it?
Now let's look at mom....she's a blue or lilac. I'm guessing that since ARBA judges would DQ her if she was a lilac being shown as a blue - that she must be a blue. (Lilac looks different than blue - I've had lilac lionheads).
Lilac is actually the dilute of chocolate...but we're gonna go with blue.
That means she is
a, a, B, _ and d,d
The only thing we don't know is - does she carry chocolate? Is it somewhere in her pedigree? We know she HAS to be "a,a" because she is a self and that is the lowest in the levels of dominance. Since she is a dilute (blue) - we know she must be "d,d".
As far as the himis go....that is carried on a gene that is so much more confusing to me....the "C" gene and I'm not even going to touch on that here.
But my point that I'm trying to lead up to is....
....would you happen to have the pedigrees of the parents that would give the colors of their parents and grandparents? If so - it would help us rule out some possibilities...
I'm sorry if this is too confusing - here is one good website to help with genetics - there are many many more out there...
http://islandgems.net/mygenetics.html
