How do you breed for specific colors?

[Somebunny2love]

I admit it....I don't understand all the genetics links. It gives me a headache trying to figure it all out. Lol! After much discussion with my husband today, I have decided to keep 2 babies out of our current Lionhead litter, a sable point and a black tort. I do intend to breed these babies (NOT to each other) when they are old enough. Here's where the genetics come in. I would really like to have more kits in those 2 colors. Initially I was thinking if I got them each a mate of the same color, surely they would produce at least some babies that color as well, but since I am very new to this still and honestly don't understand the whole genetics thing, I was hoping for some input. What will give me the best chance of getting the colors I want? These babies came from a black mother and a black tort father.

 

[Bunnylady]

I assume that since you are talking about not breeding these two together, that they are a male and a female? If they were both females, I'd say that getting a Sable Point male would give you the best chance.

Tort and Sable Point are both self colors in the A series, and non-extension colors in the E series. These are both recessive, which means that the bunny must inherit the gene from both of its parents for you to see it.

Your black rabbit carries the non-extension gene, but doesn't express it, because it also has a full-extension gene which "outranks" it, and gets expressed instead. You know that black has a non-extension gene, because some of its babies are expressing it. They had to get two copies to express it, the father can only give them one, so the mother had to give them one, too. Not all black rabbits will be carrying non-extension genes, but if a rabbit has a parent or a baby that is a non-extension color, you know that rabbit must have one, as well.

Sable Point gets a bit tricky. In the C series, you have to have one copy of the Light Chinchilla (also called Shaded) gene. Two copies of that gene gives you a rabbit with a coat so dark, it almost looks black (called a Seal). The non-extension version of that would look really smutty, A good Sable Point has one shaded gene, and one either REW or Himi gene. That gives you the really light body and darker points. If you bred 2 Sable Points together, you could get the dark, smutty non-extension Seals, Sable Points, and REW's or Himi's, depending on which of the 2 they were carrying.

Tort x Tort will most likely give you torts, though you could get some surprises from the C series (like REW, or Sable Point) if the rabbits happen to be carrying the appropriate genes. You might also get dilutes (Blue Torts) or even Chocolate Torts, depending on what is going on in the background. Pedigrees can be very helpful at hinting what may be lurking in the background, but even with a known pedigree, you can get recessives hiding where you least expect them. I once bought a Siamese Sable Marten Netherland Dwarf that had nothing but Chestnuts on its pedigree. When it was born, the breeder had no idea what it was, he didn't work with such funky colors!

 

[Somebunny2love]

These babies are only 2 weeks old, and I'm just learning how to sex them as well, but right now I am fairly confident in saying that my sable point is female, and my tort is male.

 

[Somebunny2love]

Sable Point gets a bit tricky. In the C series, you have to have one copy of the Light Chinchilla (also called Shaded) gene. Two copies of that gene gives you a rabbit with a coat so dark, it almost looks black (called a Seal). The non-extension version of that would look really smutty, A good Sable Point has one shaded gene, and one either REW or Himi gene. That gives you the really light body and darker points. If you bred 2 Sable Points together, you could get the dark, smutty non-extension Seals, Sable Points, and REW's or Himi's, depending on which of the 2 they were carrying.

Tort x Tort will most likely give you torts, though you could get some surprises from the C series (like REW, or Sable Point) if the rabbits happen to be carrying the appropriate genes. You might also get dilutes (Blue Torts) or even Chocolate Torts, depending on what is going on in the background. Pedigrees can be very helpful at hinting what may be lurking in the background, but even with a known pedigree, you can get recessives hiding where you least expect them. I once bought a Siamese Sable Marten Netherland Dwarf that had nothing but Chestnuts on its pedigree. When it was born, the breeder had no idea what it was, he didn't work with such funky colors!

So would I be better off to get a REW or Himi to breed with my Sable Point?

 

[Somebunny2love]

Scratch that last question...after some more reading on my own this morning, I'm thinking a Himi would be my best choice. (But someone please correct me if I'm wrong!)

 

[Bunnylady]

Himis are supposed to be self based (I have known some that weren't, but at least you could see it) so there is the advantage that you wouldn't be mixing things up with agouti or tan patterning. A REW has the most recessive possibility in the C series, but without a pedigree to tell you otherwise, you can't be sure what else the REW has going on in the other gene series that affect color. REW's can hide all kinds of things that can pop up to surprise you generations later.

To get sable points, you need to have self in the A series, non-extension in the E series, and the combination of shaded and something more recessive in the C series (also black in the B series and non-dilute in the D series, but we're taking that as given, just like we are taking it for granted that these aren't blue-eyed whites!) A good Himi is going to have self in the A series, so you are good there. It will also not have anything more dominant than the shaded gene in the C series, so that's good, too - any bunny that inherits the shaded gene from that sable point female will be visibly shaded (Siamese - type patterning). The tricky part is the E series. The non-extension gene pulls a lot of black out of the coat, leaving the yellow pigment visible. There is still some black on the "points," but it isn't a very dense black. The Himi gene takes all of the yellow out of the coat, and some of the black, leaving some on the points, but even the very best Himis aren't truly black on their points, more like a dark brown. A Himi that also had non-extension genes would have very light, almost ghostly points, with the white body - not what most people want to see. So most Himis won't have non-extension genes. If you breed a Sable Point to a Himi with two normal extension genes and no non-extension genes, you most likely will get Siamese Sables, but you won't ever get Sable Points. Now, if the Himi has one non-extension gene and one normal gene, then sooner or later, you will get a Sable Point. Knowing what colors are behind your breeders can be helpful here - if you knew that a given Himi had a Sable Point or Tort for a parent, you'd know that it had to have a non-extension gene, even though it wasn't expressing it.

Be aware, though, that I think the rabbits know what color you are looking for, and somehow can arrange for you not to see it! The probability ratios that you see mean nothing when it comes to a sample group as small as one litter, or even the entire production of one pair over their reproductive lifetimes. As an example - I had a pair of Holland Lops, a Smoke Pearl buck and a REW doe. I bred them together twice, and got REW's and Smoke Pearls twice, a total of about 12 babies (I don't remember exactly, this was some years ago). In their 3rd litter, I had a broken Smoke Pearl - where did that come from?!? Did I have the right buck? Yes, I did, I had forgotten that the doe's sire was a broken. The doe was a "broken REW," but of course, you couldn't see that. No telling how many of the REW's I got from that cross also inherited the broken gene, but I had to get almost 20 babies from them before I knew she had inherited the broken gene - and it's dominant! I swear, I think they put their heads together when I'm not there and ask each other, "how can we drive her crazy today?!"