Cute and Confusing Colors

We are still unsure about some of the kits' coat colors.  We know we have one self black and one self chocolate for now.  They could become steels in the future.  We know we have a chocolate chinchilla.  We believe we have a chinchilla and two blue chinchillas.  The last one we just don't know about.  If it was from Snowball's litter, I would say it was an agouti.  But Tootsie and Ninja are both selfs, and thus they cannot have agouti offspring. 

Left to right, darkest to lightest--self black, ?, chinchilla, two blue chinchillas, chocolate, chocolate chinchilla

He was born black, just as black as the other black.  But in less than a week, a tannish golden color started coming in. 

Here are the genotypes of the two parents:  Ninja is aaBbCcDdE_.  Tootsie is aabbCcchlDdEs_.  So what is this little guy?  All guesses and any suggestions would be appreciated.

Fur Color in Tootsie's Current Litter of Kits

When Tootsie's current litter of kits was born, we thought there were two self blacks, two self chocolates, and three self lilacs.  As they have grown their fur this past week, we have seen some changes.  We have seen that Snowball's self chocolate is a much deeper shade.  Snowball's lilacs are also much lighter than Tootsie's lilacs.  I am beginning to suspect that Tootsie's "lilacs" are actually smoke pearls or chinchillas.  The chinchilla light gene, written in the genotype as cchl, occurs in Tootsie's maternal and paternal grandparents.  If so, this means that Ninja and Tootsie will produce a much wider range of colors in their kits than I previously thought. 

One of the two blacks looks like it is becoming an agouti, which is impossible, so....  The other one just looks black.

Well, actually, the camera makes it look like there are only three colors.

But, trust us, they are very different in color in person.

The two "chocolates" are different colors.

The three "lilacs" are all different colors.

It's all very suspenseful.

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)