# Chocolate Chin/Squirrel/Lilac Chin



## Edge of the Wilderness (Jul 24, 2019)

I'm wondering if anyone can give any pointers on how to tell the difference between Chocolate Chinchilla, Blue Chinchilla (Squirrel), and Lilac Chinchilla.  Pictures that I have been able to search online look very similar and don't give me confidence I am looking at the correct thing.  I have a rabbit with a Blue Self-Chin litter-mate and Chinchilla, Himalayan, REW & Chocolate Self-Chin half-sibling/cousins (same sire/dam aunt).  Both Dams are Himalayan and the Sire is Chinchilla.  Because of the colors produced, I think it could be any of those colors, but am not sure how to determine which color that it is.  Thanks in advance!


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## promiseacres (Jul 24, 2019)

Lilac will have a tan tinge base, lighter than chocolate. But it may be hard to determine until they get their adult coat.


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## AmberLops (Jul 24, 2019)

It's hard when they're young...do you have any pictures of them?
As @promiseacres  said...lilac has a tan tinge and next to a chocolate it's easier to tell the difference 
What kind of rabbits are they?


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Jul 24, 2019)

Okay, I'll try looking closer at the rabbit in question and maybe getting a current picture (10wks).  Here are a few pictures of the rabbit in question with its Blue Self-Chin litter mate at 1wk.  Ignore the respective pink and green ears.  That was just coloring for my identification.


  

They're meat mutts. Dam is California/NZ.  Sire is Satin/NZ.


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## AmberLops (Jul 24, 2019)

Edge of the Wilderness said:


> Okay, I'll try looking closer at the rabbit in question and maybe getting a current picture (10wks).  Here are a few pictures of the rabbit in question with its Blue Self-Chin litter mate at 1wk.  Ignore the respective pink and green ears.  That was just coloring for my identification.
> 
> View attachment 64650 View attachment 64651 View attachment 64652
> 
> They're meat mutts. Dam is California/NZ.  Sire is Satin/NZ.


Oooh that's a tough one...I would have to say lilac chin though. Looks more dove-y than chocolate to me


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Jul 25, 2019)

Here are a couple quick pics, but I can try to get some better shots tomorrow when it's light out.


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## AmberLops (Jul 25, 2019)

I'm saying lilac...
@promiseacres  what do you think?


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## Bunnylady (Jul 25, 2019)

Chocolate is brown, brown like a milk chocolate candy bar.

Lilac, being the dilute of Chocolate, is a pinkish dove-gray, while even the gray of a dilute Chin is more of a bluish gray.

When dealing with Agouti-patterned animals, one thing you can do is blow your breath into the coat.




(obviously, this is somebody using a blower on an angora)
This turns the bands on the hairs into a series of target-like rings, making it easier to see the color of each band.

Another thing you can look at is eye color. Chocolates have brown eyes, though it's not quite the same dark brown as is found in rabbits of black-based colors. Chins may have brown, blue-gray, or mottled eyes, so a simple dilute Chin (Squirrel) _should_ have blue-gray eyes. When you combine the effects of both Chocolate and Chin on eye color (particularly when you throw dilute in the mix as well), you often get an eye that looks more lavender than blue-gray.


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Jul 26, 2019)

Okay, I had been guessing it was Lilac for a while, but wasn't sure how the Chinchilla color pattern would affect brown coloring for Chocolate Chinchilla since my understanding was that it reduces/removes yellow pigment.  I had a difficult time finding anything labeled as Lilac Chinchilla and pictures that I could find labeled as Chocolate Chinchilla and Squirrel looked very similar to each other and to my rabbit in question that I thought was Lilac.  It ended up raining most of the day yesterday so I didn't get a chance to do any photos in better light conditions.  The rain set me back on some things I needed to do so we'll see if I get a chance for any photos today.


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## Bunnylady (Jul 26, 2019)

Pheomelanin (the yellow/red pigment) really isn't in any way involved in producing Chocolate coloring.. The gene that causes chocolate (b) causes changes to the eumelanin (black/brown pigment) granule itself, making it reflect light differently. The Chinchilla gene does reduce the amount of the eumelanin slightly, so a Chocolate self Chin is a bit lighter than a true Chocolate self, but it's nowhere near light enough to be confused with Lilac.


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Aug 21, 2019)

Finally got her picture taken in some decent light.  Only took me a month. 


On a separate note, I have a couple of "black" kits (from different litters) that I'm not quite sure what is up with their coloring.  I can provide more details on their parents, etc, but wanted to just put the pictures up and get first impressions.  Also including a picture of a 3rd kit that I know is black self-chinchilla done with the same camera in the same light for reference.  Kits are aged 3wks.  Kit #1 & #2 were born on the same day.  Kit #3 is a day older.  Feel free to click on the images to see a larger version.

Kit #1
  

Kit #2
  

Kit #3


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## AmberLops (Aug 21, 2019)

#1 and 2 almost look like seals to me 
They're beautiful!


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## Bunnylady (Aug 21, 2019)

#1 is a dark Steel - did you know that you were working with Steel genes?

#2 could be a Seal, but Seal is two copies of the shaded gene (cchl). If either parent cannot have cchl (being either a Himi or a REW),that could be another self Chin (baby colors can be weird that way).


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Aug 21, 2019)

Kit#1 Comes from a Chestnut Buck and a Himi Doe.  I know they both carry (c) as #1 has a REW littermate.  I suspected the buck had steel as he is much darker than his Chestnut littermates, but I wasn't sure.  I have a couple (not great) pictures of him at around 12wks old last year.  I only have kit#1's littermates for gene reference as this is the first successful litter for both.  In addition to kit#1, the litter produced 2 Blue, 2 REW, and a Himi.
  
His fur is a bit dingy right now so I'd have to groom him before I could attempt to get an accurate newer photo.

Kit#2 Comes from a Chinchilla Buck and Himi Doe.  I would suspect they both carry (c) based on their littermates, but can't confirm that yet.  The doe produced a Blue Self-Chin and the Lilac Chin we were discussing in a previous litter with a different buck. Kit#2's littermates include:
Chinchilla
Although, I will say this kit seems darker than my last Chinchilla kit.
 
A kit that I'm pretty sure is Squirrel.
And a Himalayan. 

I had marked Kit#2's base color as black, but as it got older I kept thinking that its color looked more like a dark brown vs my other black base kits.  I thought maybe I had miss-marked it.  I had ~40kits born in a 4 day period and could have made a mistake, but I know my previous Chocolate Self-Chinchilla (also pictured above) was much lighter than that.  The brown tone and lighter tips have really been making me question it.


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## Bunnylady (Aug 22, 2019)

This is another Steel. Since I'm not seeing anything that looks yellowish, I'm guessing what is known as a silver tipped Steel (steeled Chin).



Edge of the Wilderness said:


> I had marked Kit#2's base color as black,


It is. Remember what I said about Chocolate?


Bunnylady said:


> Chocolate is brown,* brown like a milk chocolate candy bar.*



Though we call it black, the eumelanin pigment isn't actually black as ink, it's really a very, very dark brown color. When it gets the right genes thinning it down, it stops looking black, and begins to look brown (think about Siamese Sable - that's your normal, "black" eumelanin, looking varying shades of brown).




This is a Chocolate Mini Rex. If you are looking at a rabbit, and you see "brown" areas on its coat that are darker than this, the rabbit you are looking at is some black-based color.


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## Edge of the Wilderness (Aug 22, 2019)

Okay, so we'll go with Kit#2 is Black Self-Chinchilla.  Do you think the lighter tips is just weird baby fur stuff or something else going on with genetics?

BTW, sorry for all the second guessing and thank you for all of the feedback.  I know I'm not raising purebreds or anything, but I find it really interesting and love information.   Being in the middle of nowhere and not knowing anyone rabbit versed, you all have been a great resource to help fill in gaps.  I do have a book on rabbit keeping, but I don't think it really has any information as far as colors.  And I search what I can online, but with all the conflicting labeled photos out there, I'm always a bit skeptical if I'm associating the right traits to the appropriate colors.


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