# What color are my new lionhead kits?



## sideWing

Hello All! 

We had 4 new kits arrive this morning and I wondered if you folks could help me decide what color they are. The breeding was a Sable Point buck x Siamese Sable doe (pics below).

I punched the breeding into the genetic calculator and found the Phenotype options to be Pointed White, Siamese Sable, White Point, Black, and Chocolate. The kits are all pink including the fifth one that passed away. We found it that way :-( .  So I'm guessing no black or chocolate. I would appreciate any help.

Here are the kits.






Buck




Doe


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## Hens and Roos

Congrats on the kits!  Usually pink kits end up with white(ish) fur from what we have seen.  Maybe others would be able to help out
@Samantha drawz might have some insight


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## promiseacres

Pointed varieties are born white and get their points later. Not sure how old though


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## Bunnylady

I'm sorry, but I have a very poor opinion of a genetic calculator that could come up with black or chocolate as a possibility for sable point x siamese sable. Frankly, it's impossible to get a black from a cross of those two colors (or a solid chocolate, for that matter), and introducing chocolate into a breeding program that involved shaded colors would be a very bad idea: most people wouldn't do it, so chocolate genes shouldn't be available in the first place. Also, there's no such color as a white point - are you sure that's what it said?

There is a color called Seal, that could come from crossing two shaded varieties. Seal is a very, very dark brown color, nearly black, but if you tried to enter a rabbit of that color in a show as a chocolate or black, a judge would DQ it as a non-showable color (unless you happen to be dealing with one of the few breeds that are shown in that color).

But that's pretty much rhetorical, since none of your babies are showing dark coloring.

What are on your rabbits' pedigrees? Your doe's color is pretty light; I'm thinking she may have a Ruby-eyed White gene. It's a bit hard to say with the buck; but he might have REW as well. I noticed that no dilute colors were among the possibilities listed; are there any blues/blue torts or smoke pearls in the background?


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## samssimonsays

It is extremely difficult to tell this young, Wait it out a week or two and you will have a better shot at being able to tell. I know it is VERY hard to wait, I myself HATE it, but it is the truth LOL. The longer you wait the better chance of knowing what you have. Usually if they are all white, their tips will come as they age, some older than others. If their eyes open and they are not ruby, they will develop a shaded tipping, just a matter of when.


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## sideWing

Bunnylady said:


> I'm sorry, but I have a very poor opinion of a genetic calculator that could come up with black or chocolate as a possibility for sable point x siamese sable. Frankly, it's impossible to get a black from a cross of those two colors (or a solid chocolate, for that matter), and introducing chocolate into a breeding program that involved shaded colors would be a very bad idea: most people wouldn't do it, so chocolate genes shouldn't be available in the first place. Also, there's no such color as a white point - are you sure that's what it said?
> 
> There is a color called Seal, that could come from crossing two shaded varieties. Seal is a very, very dark brown color, nearly black, but if you tried to enter a rabbit of that color in a show as a chocolate or black, a judge would DQ it as a non-showable color (unless you happen to be dealing with one of the few breeds that are shown in that color).
> 
> But that's pretty much rhetorical, since none of your babies are showing dark coloring.
> 
> What are on your rabbits' pedigrees? Your doe's color is pretty light; I'm thinking she may have a Ruby-eyed White gene. It's a bit hard to say with the buck; but he might have REW as well. I noticed that no dilute colors were among the possibilities listed; are there any blues/blue torts or smoke pearls in the background?



Thank you for the help on BYC Bunnylady! Here is the calculator I used http://www.ephiny.net/tim/pedigrees/color_calc.php

They do have Pointed White on the list, strange.

I will just wait a week and see what we have. There is some black in the pedegree but I don't have the pedegree in front of me for the buck. I don't have a pedegree at all for the female. I'm not hoping for black or brown so I'm really happy with the light fur coming in.


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## sideWing

Maybe I'm reading the calculator results wrong? Under variety I'm assuming the first color in the list would be the Phenotype. So I assumed (Black, Siamese Sable, Seal, Seal - 14.0625%) Meant 14%ish chance the Phenotype would be black.


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## Bunnylady

I'm not sure what the first results that come up are supposed to mean, but if you look at the top of the chart, there is a breakdown of the genotype of the rabbits being considered as parents (aaB_cchl_D_eeenen, for example), where you can put in what you know about the rabbit (for example, if you know that it had a REW parent, you can put "c" in the blank after "cchl"). By fine-tuning the input to your specific animals, you can get much more accurate results. A lot of breeders will put notes on what they know of the genotype of a rabbit on the pedigree, just to remind themselves about the possibilities when they breed it.

I asked about blues and smoke pearls in the background; in the picture that you posted on BYC, it looks like the kits might have a bluish color coming in on their ears. If that is what is going on, then they may be dilutes.  The parents are expressing the dense colors (Siamese Sable and Sable Point), so clearly, they have at least one copy of the Dense allele (D). But since dilute is fully recessive, for a baby to be a dilute color, it had to get dilute (d) from both parents. So if your Dense parents have even one dilute baby, you know they both carry dilute, and you can put "d" in the blank after the "D" in the genotype. Incidentally, the dilute of Siamese Sable is Smoke Pearl, and the dilute version of Sable Point is called Blue Point or Pearl Point.


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## sideWing

This has been very educational. I know the buck has Smoke Pearl in his bloodline I'm just not sure how far back. I will get the pedigree and tweak the calculator a bit. Is there a calculator that you use or do you do it by hand?


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## Bunnylady

I'm afraid I'm an old-fashioned bunnylady - I still bump a couple of brain cells together, and see what falls out . . . .


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## sideWing

I'm going to start doing it by hand so that I can get it stuck into some brain cells.  I know I would get a better understanding of it if I do.


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## sideWing

Looking at the pedigree of the Sable Point buck father of these kits. His father (kits grandfather) is Black and his mother (kits grandmother) is Tort Black. Blue great grandfather. And some smoke pearl down the line.


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## sideWing

They are looking a little more seal or maybe Siamese sable?


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## Hens and Roos

very cute- we always find it cool to see the fur/color coming in!


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## Bunnylady

Not seal - seal is very dark brown, almost black 





(This isn't my picture, I found it online. These Holland Lop kits are a few days older than your little Lionheads, but the colors will look pretty much the same as they come in. The kit in the middle is a Seal, the brownish one to your left is a Siamese Sable, and the grayish one on the right side of the screen is a Smoke Pearl.)

Some of those kits' ears are still looking pretty blue-gray to me, so I'm still thinking about them possibly being Blue Points. Time will tell - they are looking good!


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## sideWing

They do have a lot of blue in their lines. At least the bucks lines. After they grow out a little more we will know a little more about moms lines. Thank you for the correct pic. I have seen pic of a more brown colored Seal, but I trust your experience a lot more.


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## samssimonsays

Yes. Too light to he seal. Even experienced breeders mistake seal for black. Lol I know...  I bough a seal. Was a true black. Some are so dark that the only way to tell is to see a Ruby tint in their eyes and have them in just the right lighting to see a chocolaty /brown /copper tint. They are quite beautiful but will appear black.    they are looking very nice! I can't wait to are what they turn into!     it is definitely my favorite part Lol


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## sideWing

It is so much fun. I can't believe how much they are growing everyday. I think they have almost doubled in size in a week.


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## Hens and Roos




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## sideWing

They are about as cute as can be. Not sure I can tell what color they are yet though with my limited experience. Smoke pearl? Blue point? What age can you start to tell the sex? One of them does look a shade darker than the rest. Too soon to tell still maybe.


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## sideWing

I wanted to post an update of our kits and see if I can find out what color they are. Are they still too young, or can you tell what color they are? My guesses would be sable point on the two lighter kits and siamese sable on the slightly darker two? They do have blue in the bucks line. Any help is appreciated.


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