Bunnylady
Herd Master
I have never heard or read anything to indicate that the dilution gene is anything other than fully recessive. I have seen blue rabbits with brown eyes; this became a real problem for some local breeders of Holland Lops a number of years ago. I'm not quite sure how that one happens (one theory has it that it's a modifier that allows some chins to have brown eyes), but judges now check pretty closely to make sure that the eye color on a blue is correct. I've never heard of the opposite happening; every gray-eyed black rabbit I have ever seen (and I've had a few of them) has been a self chin. If there is some other gene that could cause it, I haven't heard of it (doesn't mean it's not out there, of course, just that I haven't encountered anyone that has mentioned it).
Interesting that the breeder has only seen this in the lines carrying blue. Blue is a new color in the NZ; it was introduced a few years ago and only passed its third showing to become an accepted variety at the convention last year. They had to get the gene for blue from somewhere; no telling what else may have gotten picked up in the process. Lots of people do outcrosses all the time to acquire a new color or some other trait, or just because they feel like the gene pool is getting a bit shallow. As long as the resulting animals look enough like a certain breed, they may not be too careful about mentioning everything else that is in the background, especially if they are breeding for meat or "pretty" rather than trying to produce show bunnies with impressive pedigrees. (I once bought a Harlequin doe from a very respected Harlie breeder that wound up a full pound over the weight limit for the breed when she stopped growing. When I mentioned her in a later conversation with the breeder, she asked, "does she have ______________ [a certain rabbit] on the pedigree?" "Yes, as her maternal grandfather." "That rabbit came from a breeder who also has New Zealands, and has done outcrosses to the NZ's to try to improve type. I have a complete pedigree on him, and everything on it is a Harlequin, but there's no telling what may be just a generation or two back from that." I admitted that the doe in question did look a lot like a New Zealand with a fancy paint job. I used that doe and her progeny quite a bit, and number of years later, I wound up breeding a couple of her descendants together, and found out that type wasn't the only thing that had gotten passed down. There were REW's popping up in my pedigreed Harlequin litters - at least a half-dozen generations from that NZ ancestor. I jokingly referred to them as "paint-by-number Harlequins.")
Interesting that the breeder has only seen this in the lines carrying blue. Blue is a new color in the NZ; it was introduced a few years ago and only passed its third showing to become an accepted variety at the convention last year. They had to get the gene for blue from somewhere; no telling what else may have gotten picked up in the process. Lots of people do outcrosses all the time to acquire a new color or some other trait, or just because they feel like the gene pool is getting a bit shallow. As long as the resulting animals look enough like a certain breed, they may not be too careful about mentioning everything else that is in the background, especially if they are breeding for meat or "pretty" rather than trying to produce show bunnies with impressive pedigrees. (I once bought a Harlequin doe from a very respected Harlie breeder that wound up a full pound over the weight limit for the breed when she stopped growing. When I mentioned her in a later conversation with the breeder, she asked, "does she have ______________ [a certain rabbit] on the pedigree?" "Yes, as her maternal grandfather." "That rabbit came from a breeder who also has New Zealands, and has done outcrosses to the NZ's to try to improve type. I have a complete pedigree on him, and everything on it is a Harlequin, but there's no telling what may be just a generation or two back from that." I admitted that the doe in question did look a lot like a New Zealand with a fancy paint job. I used that doe and her progeny quite a bit, and number of years later, I wound up breeding a couple of her descendants together, and found out that type wasn't the only thing that had gotten passed down. There were REW's popping up in my pedigreed Harlequin litters - at least a half-dozen generations from that NZ ancestor. I jokingly referred to them as "paint-by-number Harlequins.")
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