# Odd coloring on a baby bunny or 4



## samssimonsays (May 28, 2015)

I welcomed a healthy litter of French lops on Memorial day and they looked to be fawns. On day two, however, I checked them and 4 of the "fawns" had an odd coloring... one more so than any of the others. dad is broken cream and mom is chestnut, no history of tort for either side... 




 I am thinking smutty fawn for this one or orange as it has a very orange coloring on it's head already 


 
the solid has a white stomach so I am thinking a smutty fawn still but I have never seen a tort either so it could be either one?


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## Hens and Roos (May 28, 2015)

it's so neat how the colors can change day by day on the kits!


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## samssimonsays (May 28, 2015)

Hens and Roos said:


> it's so neat how the colors can change day by day on the kits!


It is, isn't it?! I am so happy for healthy babies and excited to see how these little ones turn out!


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## Bunnylady (May 30, 2015)

In lops, both Cream and Fawn are wide-band colors. "Normal" Agouti-patterned animals have a band of lighter color between the dark tip and the base color on their body hairs. Animals with the wide-band gene (w) have a wider-than-normal middle band. When wide-band (w) is combined with the non-extension gene (e), the dark color can be pushed completely off the tip of the body hairs, resulting in light-colored hairs with no dark tips at all. Fawns and Creams all have two copies of both non-extension (ee) and wide-band (ww).

You say the doe is a Chestnut. Chestnut is neither a wide-band color, nor a non-extension color, so we know the doe has at least one copy of the non-wide-band gene (W) and the extension gene (E). Since both wide-band and non-extension are recessive, a baby would have to get a copy of each from both parents to show the resulting lack of the dark tip on the body hairs.

You didn't say whether the doe has any other wide-band or non-extension colors behind her. These odd-color babies may be wide-band without non-extension, or non-extension without the wide-band; the white belly on the one does point to them at least being agouti-patterned rather than self (tort is a self-patterned color). It'll be interesting to see how they grow out.

Did any of that make sense?


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## samssimonsays (Jun 1, 2015)

It makes total sense  I have had fawns but never an orange born here before, owned them but never got anything from them. I took photos last night of the little guys and we do have 2 solid orange, sooty, 2 broken orange, sooty, one broken blue chin(most likely), and one broken cream like daddy. 

The Chestnut does pedigree goes:
                         Sire:Chestnut
Sire:Chestnut
                         Dam:Blue steel silver tp'd

                          Sire:Black Gold Tp'd Stl
Dam: Broken black
                         Dam:Broken Chestnut

And mostly Chestnut after that on both sides, some Chin and some opal on the blue steel's side. Buck had opals, chestnuts, chins, and blacks on his side. No orange and only two cream between both parents pedigrees. 

I am still learning color genetics so I knew about the wide band gene but not the specifics of the Extension gene you shared thank you! 
So... if I keep one of these sooty orange babies, say a buck? and breed it to my kinda sooty broken orange doe, I would have a chance to clean up the soot in the coloring for a more crisp orange coloring in future generations? That is sort of what I am taking away from it... That if it is a smutty/sooty orange they only have one W not two... so any babies COULD potentially get both W's if bred to a pair that each has one? Then breeding THAT one to another that carries or has the WW could potentially make the color cleaner? 

Here are some updated photos! babies are 1 week old today


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## Hens and Roos (Jun 1, 2015)

Very neat coloring!


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## Bunnylady (Jun 3, 2015)

It's such fun watching them grow, isn't it?

Your Chestnut doe may or may not carry non-extension. Other than cream, nothing you mentioned on the pedigrees is a wide-band color. A good fawn, cream or orange will have both non-extension (ee) and wide band (ww) to push the dark color off the body hairs. A rabbit that has either non-extension _or_ wide-band will have the wider middle band, but still the dark tip - and a "sooty orange" might have non-extension, without the wide-band, or it might have wide-band, but not non-extension. An Agouti-patterned rabbit with wide-band _can _look an awful lot like a non-extension Agouti; both have a wide yellow/orange band on the body hairs, with a relatively short dark tip. 

It's hard to say whether breeding a theoretical buck from this litter to your sooty broken orange doe would have the potential to produce good, clear orange/fawn/cream babies. Most of the colors you mentioned as being on the pedigrees are not wide-band colors, so whether any of them actually carry wide-band is hard to say. My understanding is that wide-band is fully recessive; you have to have two copies to see the results. In the case of a (non-extension) sooty orange, for example, you couldn't be sure whether it had one copy or no copies of wide-band - it would look the same, either way. Obviously, if you are working with a sooty orange that has no copies of wide-band, it can't give wide-band to its babies, so even if bred to an animal that has two copies of wide-band, the babies would still be sooty.


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## samssimonsays (Jun 3, 2015)

WOW! That is a lot of information...Thank you! I will remember that.   I hope! LOL! Either way, French it isn't imperative they be a clean orange for showing like a lot of them. But it seems as they grow, they are also getting much more orange. It was cool because the solids had a copper head, not orange to them but now they are starting to turn a bit more orange. The brokens are more crisp than the solids for sure but I am just over the moon I got them!


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## Bunnylady (Jun 3, 2015)

You're quite right - soot or smut is just a fault, not a DQ, in the French Lop. 

Knowing how your breed does certain colors can be important. In the Rex, for example, Red is a wide-band color, and even the belly is supposed to be deep red. In the Mini Rex, Red isn't a wide-band color; the belly is cream or whitish. Without the wide band to help deal with the dark tip, how do you get rid of the soot? Answer - chocolate! Good red Mini Rex have chocolate genes; the brown of chocolate is close enough to that good, rich red that it doesn't really show up. Unless you have a breeding program that is exclusively red, though, you can get some funky colors turning up when you start playing with chocolate. For example, I have a litter from a Castor doe and a Red buck that are a few days old; my daughter was checking on them earlier today.  While peering into the nest box, I heard her exclaim,"what in the heck is _that_? I've never seen that color before; I'm not even sure what to call it." "Oh, that's an 'oops'," I told her. "Chocolate agouti; sometimes called Cinnamon. Not showable, but very pretty - especially with all the red in that line!"


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## samssimonsays (Jun 3, 2015)

Oh fun!!!  I'd love to get an oops like that hahaha! Not many reds in French lops. Chocolates either! And Man are they spendy...  I looked into it. Hahaha. I'd love to see pics of baby! I've never seen anything quite like it. A friend of mine, 13 miles away, wants red mini Rex but they are hard to find.


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