Chocolates into Steels? Or Crazy Rabbit Genetics?

A chocolate kit was born and fifteen days later it turned into a steel. Chocolate steel.  Crazy.

Rabbit color genetics is really hard to understand, especially when you are nine.  My mom says it's not that bad.  She's nuts.

Anyway, both of Cookie's parents are steel, one lilac steel and one a broken chocolate steel.  The genotype for both of them is EsE.  Es (steel gene) is dominant to E.  But!  If you have two Es genes, then sometimes the steel phenotype disappears, and the rabbit appears to be EE.  We believe this is what happened with Cookie, who is very clearly a broken chocolate. A most adorable broken chocolate.

What this means is that all of Cookie's offspring will be steel.  In this case, when bred with Snowball, chocolate or lilac steel.  Every single one. 

So all the chocolate and lilac kits are chocolate and lilac steel, and all the broken chocolate and broken lilac are broken chocolate steel and broken lilac steel.  Except that the brokens aren't looking very steel-like.

We are so confused.

Self chocolate (left) and chocolate steel (right)

The Kits Are Here!

Snowball’s kits started arriving on Sunday, May 25, at dinnertime.  Unfortunately, we had the missionaries over, and we couldn’t run in and out to check the kits without being rude to the elders.  Snowball produced a total of nine kits, and three died.  We gave one of the kits to Tootsie to foster, so Snowball is now nursing five kits.  At four days old, the kits are now little rolly pollies.  Snowball is doing fine.  We have learned a lot. 

Snowball, as you may recall, is a ruby-eyed white (REW).  We bred her with Cookie, who is a broken chocolate.  We believe her kits to be the following colors:  three self chocolates, one self lilac, one broken chocolate, and one broken lilac or blue.