What color is this rabbit?

[JHP Homestead]

This rabbit is out of a (supposed) black buck and a broken black doe. I say supposed on the buck because he had a couple stray whitish hairs that I don’t know if black rabbits can have.

I dabble is keeping/preserving the pelts and I like this color. If I breed him back to his mom, am I likely to get more? I tried playing around with a color genetics calculator but I can’t figure out what color he is, so i didn’t get very far. All his siblings are black, pointed, or broken black

Sorry the picture is not great. I can take others if it would be helpful.

 

[GypsyG]

He's an non extension red agouti which should not be possible with two blacks. Two copies of the steel gene will make a false black.

 

[JHP Homestead]

If the sire had two copies of the steel gene, wouldn’t he be unable to have a non-extension kit? Could the sire look black with only one copy of steel?

Here’s the sire:

and the Dam:

 

[GypsyG]

If the sire had two copies of the steel gene, wouldn’t he be unable to have a non-extension kit? Could the sire look black with only one copy of steel?

Here’s the sire:
View attachment 64486

and the Dam:
View attachment 64485

Are you 100% sure he's the sire of the litter?

 

[JHP Homestead]

Are you 100% sure he's the sire of the litter?

Yes.

 

[JHP Homestead]

Here’s a couple more pictures of the kit in question when he was younger

 

[GypsyG]

Here’s a couple more pictures of the kit in question when he was younger

View attachment 64487

View attachment 64488

That's just baffling. Are you sure the litter only has one sire? Did you foster a kit and forget?

 

[JHP Homestead]

Yes, I am sure. I didn’t do any fostering with this litter either.

I don’t know if it helps, but I also had another litter between the same buck and another broken black doe that had a brown and broken brown kit like these. I sold them before I decided I liked the color, but I think I might have a couple pics.

The mom of these other ones looks exactly the same as the doe of the rabbit in question.

Here are the other two brown ones from a litter earlier this year. I don’t know if they’re the same color of if it helps at all, but figured it wouldn’t hurt. The pictures aren’t great but they’re all I have of that litter

 

[GypsyG]

I'm stumped.

@Bunnylady

 

[Bunnylady]

One copy of Steel(Es) and one of non-extension(e) or harlequin(ej) can look solid black, even on a rabbit with Agouti (A). I bred a NZW doe to a pedigreed Harlequin buck, and got entire litters of solid black babies. I know the buck had no self genes, and I have to assume the doe had two copies of Steel, since those two never gave me anything else when bred together. Some of the kits developed very light ticking as adults, but some remained solid black.