Black Diamond Kits

Black Diamond Kits
Sage's Kits, Nine Weeks Old

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Anticipated Colors from the Breeding of Snowball and PB

As you already may know, Snowball and PB were bred ten days ago. 

PB's phenotype is A___C_ddee.  His color is called fawn.  We believe his genotype is AaB_CCddee.  Snowball's phenotype is AaBbcc_dE_.  She is a REW. 

The A gene determines whether a rabbit is agouti (AA or Aa), tan (at--we have none of these in our rabbitry), or self (aa).   If PB is Aa, then 1/4 of the litter will be self.  If he is AA, they will all be agouti. 

The B gene determines whether the base color is black (BB or Bb) or chocolate (bb).  If PB is BB, all of the litter will be black-based.  If he is Bb, 1/4 of the litter will be chocolate-based. 

If we are correct, and PB is CC, there will not be any REWs in this litter, but all the kits will carry the REW gene.

The D gene determines whether the color is dense (DD or Dd--dark--black or chocolate) or dilute (dd--blue or lilac).  If  Snowball is Dd, 1/2 the litter will be dense/dark, and 1/2 will be dilute.  If she is dd, they will all be dilute.

The E gene determines whether a rabbit has full color extension (EE or Ee) or is tortoiseshell or fawn (ee).  There is also the steel gene (Es) which is dominant to E.  Based on previous litters, we know that Snowball has at least one E.  If the other gene is E, all the of kits will have full color extension.  If Snowball is Ee, half the kits will be tortoiseshell or fawn. 

All of these genes work together to determine rabbit color. 

I will probably have a lot of agouti rabbit kits. 

3 comments:

  1. This is so confusing. I'm still trying to figure it out

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  2. This is so confusing. I'm still trying to figure it out

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  3. You are so right! Trying to understand how all the genes work and how they may affect one another is a bit difficult. And then it becomes a whole new layer of difficult when you try to translate the genotype (i.e., something like aaBbCcDdEe to the phenotype (what the rabbit looks like), i.e., self-black. This is partly because the kits' colors can change so very much from day to day as they develop.

    It all comes with practice.

    Sarah Cuthill has a helpful Youtube for explaining rabbit color genetics. You might like to check it out. http://fmicrofarm.com/french-angora-colors/

    Maybe I can get the girls to write some posts on each of the gene color groups.

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