# Chinchilla Factor



## cattlecait (Feb 23, 2011)

I already have Harlequins and want to get American Chinchillas after I get out of prison (college). We've had AmChins before, and I want to help get better body type on both the Harlies and the AmChins.

I've HEARD (don't know, but heard) that the Californian pointed color was connected somehow to the Chinchilla color. If I got some Californian does and bred them to a AmChin buck, would I get properly colored babies or would it completely screw up the Chinchilla color?

I also once bred a Black Magpie Harlie doe to a NZW buck (with black in his background) and wound up with chinchilla babies. Does this mean that Magpie is connected to Chinchilla? And, being connected to Chinchilla, would be related somehow to Cal color?

I'm asking because if I'm going to get does of a different breed and color I want them to be the same breed, it'd be nice if they are all connected and I can work with them all together.

Please don't answer with the letters like A_bb_E_? stuff because I can't understand it, it's like reading German to me. I've tried, and failed.

If I'm wrong and breeding my Harlie and AmChin bucks to Californians would not produced desired results, what could I use that would work how I want it to?

Thanks!


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## rabbitman (Feb 23, 2011)

Well first off if you bred them you would get A_b_E hahaha just kidding I have no clue what that means either. But I would get a chinchilla buck, because I have tried breeding A Cali to Chinchilla doe, I had before and I got brown babies, which is fine one of the does turned out to be the sweetest thing ever. She is so tame and loves attention, she was more tame than her mom and dad. If I were you and I wanted purebreds for sure, than definalty get the same breed buck because you never know.

Here is a video of her so you can see what she looks like 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5PpYoUv9Vs


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## cattlecait (Feb 23, 2011)

rabbitman said:
			
		

> Well first off if you bred them you would get A_b_E hahaha just kidding I have no clue what that means either. But I would get a chinchilla buck, because I have tried breeding A Cali to Chinchilla doe, I had before and I got brown babies, which is fine one of the does turned out to be the sweetest thing ever. She is so tame and loves attention, she was more tame than her mom and dad. If I were you and I wanted purebreds for sure, than definalty get the same breed buck because you never know.
> 
> Here is a video of her so you can see what she looks like
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5PpYoUv9Vs


I would normally get the same breed of buck but AmChins are losing body size and its hard to get them to wait, not to mention it's difficult to find breeding stock. I'd try my best to get a purebred buck, but I want to help improve the breed's size and meat quality while I'm at it. I won't do much of it and will breed them right back to AmChins.


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## Bunnylady (Feb 25, 2011)

OK, I'll leave out what a friend of mine dubbed the "alphabet soup" if that confuses you. (IMO, genetics isn't hard; once you learn what the genes do and how to recognize them, it's very logical)

Basically, every rabbit has the potential to produce two pigments in its coat, a yellow/red pigment and a black/brown pigment. How much of each pigment actually appears in the coat, and where it appears, are controlled by the combined efforts of a bunch of different genes.

There are three different gene series you are talking about here. One series decides whether or not a rabbit has agouti-type markings (banding on the hairs, white eye rings, white belly, etc.) or self-type markings. The Harlequin and the Chinchilla have the agouti gene; the Californian has the self gene.

The second series has about 6 possibilities in it, ranging from a full color gene that allows the rabbit to produce lots of both pigments, to the REW gene that shuts down production of both pigments. The Japanese Harlequin has the full color gene. That one is at the top of the series, and overrules all the others (or to use the genetic lingo, is fully dominant). The Chinchilla genes come next. They remove all or nearly all of the yellow/red pigment from the coat, and different amounts of the black/brown pigment. The chinchilla genes are kinda weird. While they are fairly high in the laddar of dominance of this series, they don't completely overrule the genes that come lower down. When a rabbit inherits one copy of a chinchilla gene and, say, one of the REW gene, the rabbit's color will be significantly lighter that one that got two copies of the chinchilla gene. Chinchillas (obviously) and Magpie Harlequins have chinchilla genes. The Californian has himilayan genes. The himi gene comes pretty low in this series, meaning that it is recessive to most of the others (it is dominant only to the REW). 

The third series is where the harlequin gene comes in. The harlie gene concentrates lots of the black/brown pigment in the hairs (like the self gene) in some areas, and pretty much removes it (like the non-extension gene) from others. The Californian and the Chinchilla have the full-color gene for this series, which normally overrules the harlequin gene. I say "normally," because sometimes you can get harlie markings bleeding through on agouti-marked animals (I'm not sure how this happens, but I have seen it a few times in my Mini Rex. An example would be a Castor with black bands on the belly).



> I've HEARD (don't know, but heard) that the Californian pointed color was connected somehow to the Chinchilla color. If I got some Californian does and bred them to a AmChin buck, would I get properly colored babies or would it completely screw up the Chinchilla color?


If both of these (hypothetical) animals are purebreds, then they should each have two copies of the respective genes. So, if you breed a Cali to a Chin, your first generation should be all Chins. Since they inherited one chin gene from the Chin parent and one himi gene from the Cali, they will be lighter in color than a rabbit that inherited the chin gene from both parents. They will have inherited one agouti gene from the Chin parent, and one self gene from the Cali. The agouti gene is fully dominant, so this won't make any difference in the appearence of the first generation. However, you have introduced the self gene into your gene pool, and it can lurk unseen for a long time until someone puts two animals together that are both carrying it (but not expressing it), and poof! self-colored babies, and you  get an irate call from someone who wants to know what kind of mixed-breed junk you dumped on them!! (I'm being facetious, but I do have Harlequins that throw the odd REW because of a NZW outcross many generations back. I call 'em my paint-by-number Harlies!)

If you bred a Cali to a (Magpie) Harlie, the first generation should, again, be all chins. Each rabbit would have inherited the self gene, a himi gene, and a full-color (E, sorry about that!) gene from the Cali, and an agouti gene, a chin gene, and a harlie gene from the Mag. You probably won't see any harlie markings bleeding through, but it can happen (particularly on the belly). In the second generation, you could get some unwanted combinations. If the self genes paired up in an animal that also got a harlie pair, you could get a very smutty-nosed Mag (basically, a harlie-marked tort without the orange). You could get what looks pretty much like a Cali, with only half of a nose marking, and one dark ear and one light one . . . . You get the picture! With luck, though, you would get some "good" harlies to work with. It might take many generations to weed out a lot of the undesirable genes, but as long as everyone knows that an outcross took place somewhere in the background (lots of people do outcrosses, it's no secret), then you could get some animals that would knock 'em dead on the show table!


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## cattlecait (Feb 25, 2011)

Thank you Bunnylady, exactly the answer I needed!

Looks like I'll be eating a lot of rabbit


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## chinbunny1 (Feb 26, 2011)

If you breed a chin buck to a cal doe you will get brown or black gold tipped steel colored babies. Tried that crossing with a standard chin and a cal.It doesn't work. If you breed a cal buck, to a chin doe, you have a better chance at getting chins. 

Now for the down side to crossing these two breeds. If you do this, you will fix in the cal, or white gene(or both) it will wreak havoc in your herd somewhere down the line, and its very hard to breed out. Some american chin lines already produce cals, due to cross breeding. All three chin breeds produce whites and 'ghost chins' due to cross breeding. The ghost is a dilute chin color that lacks the black pigment. 

My suggestion is invest in the best quality purebred american chins, and work your lines from there. It will take you a few years to improve your line. If you work hard at it, it will pay off in the end. The breeding genetics for good body type is there in the breed. Just need to hold back the best in each generation, and try to improve them so the babies are better then the parents after each culling. There are some good American chins lines out there. janet miller used to be a good friend of mine. She raised some of the best american chins in the midwest. If you can locate a line that's out of hers, you will have a very good start. there is very limited gene pool in the chin breeds. So chances are you will come across stock bred down from hers. You will also end up doing a lot of line breeding to get where you need to be. 

I raise standard chins.It took me ten years to get them to the point where they would be considered for group,or 4-class. It took me ten years to win a group with one. & he nearly had a best in a show that same day.


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## Bunnylady (Feb 26, 2011)

chinbunny1 said:
			
		

> If you breed a chin buck to a cal doe you will get brown or black gold tipped steel colored babies. Tried that crossing with a standard chin and a cal.It doesn't work.


Chinbunny, are you saying that Californians carry steel? This is the first I've heard of it. I mean, it's possible; they appear to be selfs so how could you tell? But even the steel gene doesn't put yellow back on the coat once the chin gene takes it out. At worst, you should be getting steeled chins, gold tipping should be impossible from that cross. With all that I've heard and read on the subject of genetics, I cannot think of an explanation for the result you got.  



> If you breed a cal buck, to a chin doe, you have a better chance at getting chins.


This statement doesn't make any sense. There are no sex-linked color genes in rabbits; it doesn't matter which way you do a cross. However, since there is the possibility of genes picked up in some outcross lurking hidden in the gene pool, a particular individual (gender unspecified) may have something that another does not.  If you get different results from breeding a buck of breed A to a doe of breed B than you do when you breed a buck of breed B to a doe of breed A, it will be because of the genetics of those particular rabbits, rather than the gender of the A's and B's.


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## chinbunny1 (Feb 27, 2011)

Bunnylady said:
			
		

> chinbunny1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep that's what I got from the crossing. Little black babies with gold tipped fur. These were solid colored, not aguotis. They were pretty. not what I expected to get out of them.

I was basing the other on my own experience. I did breed a cal buck to a chin doe and got all chins. But every time I bred a chin buck to a cal doe I always got steels. The cal I used was a purebred, pedigreed doe, weird huh? She was a show rabbit. No crossing done on her that I am aware of.everytimei bred her I got all steels. Its been a long time.I think i did use different bucks.


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## cattlecait (Feb 28, 2011)

So, then, what is the difference between Steel and Chin?


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## Bunnylady (Mar 1, 2011)

Well, for starters, the steel gene occurs in the same place as the non-extension gene and the harlequin gene (the E series), the chin gene is in the C series. 

The action of the steel gene is totally different. While the chin gene acts primarily by taking yellow out of the coat, the steel gene acts on the black pigment, and leaves the yellow pigment alone. The steel gene allows more of the black pigment to run up into the hair shaft, so that it almost covers the intermediate band on the agouti. A Steel is really dark, with just a little bit of lighter ticking on the coat. A steeled Chin would have silver ticking, a steeled Chestnut would have gold. Steels can be black, blue, chocolate or lilac, all with just enough ticking to show that they are really agoutis rather than selfs. On a self-colored rabbit, there is so much dark pigment already there that the steel gene produces no noticeable difference. Another interesting thing about the steel gene is that it is dominant to the normal full-color gene in the E series. A rabbit with one copy of the steel gene, and one copy of the full-color gene, is a visual Steel. A rabbit with two copies of the steel gene is solid colored, and looks for all the world like a self!


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