Color identification help appreciated

[Anna t]

Hello,
I am back again now that my Lionheads are older about 3 months now. I had posted a forum prior to color identification.. but had two different suggestions due to bad lighting and the bunnies being too young too tell. For the female (black) I had the suggestion she was a seal but the breeder prior told me she was Siamese sable. Now I just wanted to be sure if she was a seal or a Siamese sable being that she is older..

If she could still be a siamese sable would her adult color be in by now?

Also I did receive an answer if she was a Siamese sable what’s colored kits they would produce..
if she is a seal what colors would they be? Do I have a chance at getting a sable point? Or not at all?

 

[Bunnylady]

Now, that's wild - in the first pics you posted a few weeks ago, they both looked bluish at first; now they both look brown. Are they? If this

is an accurate representation of their coloring, they are both Siamese Sables. And if they are 12 weeks old, they really need to be separated NOW.


As to color possibilities: as they both appear to be VM, there is the possibility of BEW. They'd have rather funky colored eyes, almost more lavender than blue, but that's what you get when you cross BEW with things like Chocolate and Shaded.

Siamese Sable is one copy of the Shaded gene, and one copy of either Himalayan (Pointed White) or Ruby-eyed White. A Shaded with REW is usually a bit lighter than one with Himi. Depending on which of the two is present, you could get either REW or Himi. You can get Siamese Sable, of course, and Seal (which is a very, very dark brown all over, with very little variation of shade). Could you get Sable Point? That could only happen if both parents are carrying non-extension. Do they have any Sable Points or Torts on their pedigrees?

 

[Anna t]

I’m sorry it’s very hard to get good natural lighting in my house as they are indoor bunnies and where I live doesn’t seem to have good lighting during the day either I’m always blocked by buildings.

I hope these pictures help more I tried my best with and without flash it is night time. I would describe the male as a light grey and the female to be almost black with like an ombré effect of her mane growing out the lightest part being white. She’s a variation of black? Dark grey to white. To the naked eye. And like brown tips only on the outer fur.

As for the pedigree im not too sure where or how to obtain that here in Hawaii. And from what the breeder communicated to me the male had a sable point sister from what I had also seen. He did not want to rehome her to me unfortunately, he wanted to keep her for breeding purposes.

 

[Anna t]

Also about the eyes they have this really pink tinge but if you look closely one is brown and the other is a dark grey but at a first glance it’s pink. Is this normal?

 

[Bunnylady]

Because the color granules get spread down a much longer hair shaft, wool is almost always much lighter than normal fur, and that can make color identification tricky. I'm trying to look at the non-wooled parts of the rabbits.

Your doe's back appears to be a good bit lighter than her paws, face, ears and tail; if that is what is going on, that would be the work of the Shaded (Siamese) gene - in which case, she can't be black, her darkest parts would be dark brown.

These are black Lionheads - see how the body color is the same as the color on the points?

This is a Smoke Pearl Lionhead (and yes, it appears to be VM too):

And here are your rabbits again:

Pay close attention to the color on the nose. The color around your buck's nose looks awfully, awfully dark to be any type of dilute color.

And finally, this is a Siamese Sable:

So is this:

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but one can tell some pretty strange stories, too. There's nothing like having the animal right there in front of you; I'm trying to tell you what to look for, so you can figure this out for yourself (doing an online search can get really confusing if you don't already know what you are looking for; a lot of the pictures I've just sifted through aren't even the right breed, let alone the right color!).

I hope this helps.

As to the eye color - what you are seeing is probably the "ruby glow" that is typical of rabbits with Chocolate or Shaded coloring.

 

[Anna t]

Ahh I see, thank you much for that detailed info . I do believe now she is a Siamese sable however I don’t think the male is.. he isn’t brown at all I think my camera pulled darker shades on his face. He’s pretty much all the light grey color with slightly darker ears, tail and right around the white nose but around the nose it doesn’t extend just like a lining. And it’s a darker grey.