Chocolate rabbits

[tortoise]

I love chocolate rabbits. On Easter Sunday, I always eat the ears first.

That was my first thought when I saw the title to the thread.

Me too.

 

[dmiravalle]

When you breed choc to choc multiple generations you do not get the dark chocolate that most breeds want. They can lighten up, also if you look at the genes it is possible to (depending on your chocolates) to throw the dilute Lilac color if each parent is carrying a recessive dilute d allele which changes your chocolate to lilac whenever it is inherited homozygously by the bunny.

But lilac's are gorgeous on one of my favorite angora colors.

 

[dmiravalle]

I just saw ya posted the recessive stuff, yeah!! Sorry bout that.

 

[ChickenPotPie]

From my understanding, simply put, Choc x Choc = Choc or Lilac depending one what each parent is hiding. That said, genetics can be fun and surprise you. I've got a Black buck with a uninteresting pedigree as far as colors go but when I breed him to my does that also have very ordinary color backgrounds, I get a rainbow of colors from him. Fun. lol

I don't get the idea that Choc x Choc gets you lighter colored Chocs. To me, that sounds like the myth that breeding blue to blue gets you lighter blues so people suggest breeding back to black every now and them. Or that breeding dilute to dilute will give you an increased percentage of rabbits with white nails. That is not so. You cull for color and nails just as you would cull for anything.

I've seen Polish, that were bred Blue x Blue for generations, that almost looked black in the shade of the show room because they were so darn dark blue. The breeder also did not have problems with white nails because she refused to breed rabbits with mismarked nails. White nails are just bad genes. You cull for it. The breeder proved the myths wrong by just culling to get her colors deeper and correct nail color.

 

[cattlecait]

there is a book floating around out there on Netherland Dwarf color genetics (Which applies to all colors) it will help a lot.

But generally, breeding Choc to Choc, you can weaken you color as well as your type. You should look to type first. I usually breed choc to black if the color is weaking or nice deep blue.

The color won't have anything to do with the type unless you're not selecting on body type too. Try to keep chocolate bred to the four basic colors - blue, black, chocolate, and lilac. Keep in mind if you breed blue in to chocolate or lilac you run a chance of the eye color possibly changing up on you, but its unlikely.

 

[cattlecait]

From my understanding, simply put, Choc x Choc = Choc or Lilac depending one what each parent is hiding. That said, genetics can be fun and surprise you. I've got a Black buck with a uninteresting pedigree as far as colors go but when I breed him to my does that also have very ordinary color backgrounds, I get a rainbow of colors from him. Fun. lol

I don't get the idea that Choc x Choc gets you lighter colored Chocs. To me, that sounds like the myth that breeding blue to blue gets you lighter blues so people suggest breeding back to black every now and them. Or that breeding dilute to dilute will give you an increased percentage of rabbits with white nails. That is not so. You cull for color and nails just as you would cull for anything.

I've seen Polish, that were bred Blue x Blue for generations, that almost looked black in the shade of the show room because they were so darn dark blue. The breeder also did not have problems with white nails because she refused to breed rabbits with mismarked nails. White nails are just bad genes. You cull for it. The breeder proved the myths wrong by just culling to get her colors deeper and correct nail color.

Very, very true! Breeding those colors to eachother does NOT weaken the color at all. White toenails genetically create a broken (weird, right?) but most don't think of them that way. The only way to get broken is to have other broken (or white toe-nailed) rabbits in the last two generations.

 

[ChickenPotPie]

White toenails genetically create a broken (weird, right?) but most don't think of them that way. The only way to get broken is to have other broken (or white toe-nailed) rabbits in the last two generations.

Really? lol I'd never heard or thought about that. So, if you only have solids in the background that have white nails, and you get a broken, as you said, what determines the color percentage of the resulting brokens?

I've "discovered" that color percentage and pattern is linked to the modifiers (am I using that term correctly?) that is found in the ancestry. Say, one broken with 10% color is bred to a solid with no brokens in the background. Any broken offspring will have about the same percentage of color and similar pattern (like half butterfly, spot pattern or blanket pattern).

I'm wondering about these things because I'm not great with genetics (I do have that ND color book - just need to read it. lol) but I'm working on a broken project with a friend - trying to get heavier patterned JWs on the West coast.

Sorry if I just hijacked this thread. >.< At least the nail color does have a little something to do with Chocolates and Dilutes.

Back on topic....One more note - I don't know what breed you're working with Rilly10 but do make sure you know what colors are recognized by the ARBA before you get far into it or just plan to cull for unrecognized colors if you feel you need to. For example, Polish are recognized in Black, Blue, REW, BEW, Broken, and Chocolate but not Lilac. It's being worked on and some keep their Lilacs but I'm just sayin'.

I have one unrecognized brood doe because she's got awesome type and wool and I do get recognized colors from her and I'm trying to make more of her color because I want to work on it and obtain a COD just in case the current holder does not pass for some reason. So, unrecognized colors are not always bad but they do take up cage space. Just something to think about.

 

[cattlecait]

I heard it from a judge, because I raise Harlies and there's a big problem with white toenails in the Japanese (orange w/ blue, black, chocolate, or lilac) and he told us that we're essentially raising a bunch of tri-color rabbits. He also specified that white toenails are different than toenails with no color.

I'm not sure about what you'd get breeding them, I personally had Magpies (white w/ blue, black, chocolate, lilac) so white toenails didn't really matter. It'd make sense though to breed a rabbit with white toenails to a lightly patterned broken and you'd get some moderate to heavy brokens. I always considered a rabbit with white toenails to be a VERY heavily patterned broken, but would breed them as a solid. I'm also silly though and considered any rabbit over 50% to qualify in my barn as a solid.

As I see it, it has something to do with color, so I don't think we hijacked it too bad

I had Britannias for a long time and they have lots of unrecognized colors floating around, so our brood does mostly were unrecognized colors but they had beautiful type so I just showed the showables and sold the goofy colors as brood stock. Also though I had a Blue Magpie Harlequin who had brown eyes and swept her class at every show no problem, no one ever noticed. I just never registered her.

 

[tortoise]

ummm.... so a solid colored rabbit is recessive homozygous enen. Punnit square proves a solid x solid rabbit cannot produce colored. Unless there is another en gene?

I saw wwenen on one pedigree, no one could tell me what it meant.

 

[cattlecait]

I don't know much about the letters, numbers, etc. From what I understood from the judge, because they had white toenails, that genetically made them a broken, not a solid. Of course Harlequins are weird so who knows, it might not even apply to regular colors.