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So You Think You Want To Breed Tricolor Holland Lops?
Breeding Tricolor Holland Lops
Tricolors (IMO, at least) are the absolute most gorgeous color you can find. I am obsessed with a vibrant orange blanket and black spots. I have dedicated a major portion of my life to improving on this color for my show rabbits.
That being said, I am the first to try to discourage new breeders from working with the beautiful color and a lot of people have asked me about why that is. The simple answer is that it is HARD! It can be very disheartening to try to work with a color with so many DQs associated with breeding it, and to be totally honest, there is a stigma associated with trying to show this color Holland Lop.
I want to take this opportunity to throw it all out there for people considering working with this stunning color so that you can know what you are getting into before you make the decision to embark on this very difficult (but eventually rewarding) journey.
1.
If you already work with Holland Lops or another dwarf breed, you are familiar with Peanuts, but just in case you are a total newbie to dwarf rabbits;
The dwarf gene is what makes Holland Lops (and other dwarf breeds) tiny and compact with shortened features. All showable Holland Lops have one copy of the dwarf gene.
Peanuts are what we call babies born with 2 copies of the dwarf gene. Any rabbit born with 2 copies of the dwarf gene is incompatible with life. This means it will die, usually within the first week after being born. A lot of people have difficulty with this aspect of breeding dwarf rabbits, and that is understandable, and dwarf rabbits may not be for you if you feel very strongly about it.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you get babies born without the dwarf gene who get too large to be show rabbits and typically have some less desirable features such as a longer face, ear and limbs. These rabbits, despite not being able to be shown, can be used to breed with a true dwarf holland lop to make more showable babies, but the difference in the features can make it difficult to make breeding decisions at times since their proportions can be so different than what would express for them if they had the dwarf gene. The other issue that I have found when using false dwarf does to breed to my show bucks is that they can be much more difficult for them to tie with to even produce babies.
FD x FD = 100% FD
D x FD = 50% D/50% FD
D X D= 25% P/50% D/25% FD
2.
In Holland Lops, the wool gene was introduced at one point and since it is recessive it still pops back up regardless of the line .You can very much reduce the occurrence of wooly (or more commonly, fuzzy) Holland Lops in your line, but even if you were to test breed every Holland Lop in your barn to a Fuzzy you still could not guarantee that the gene doesn't exist in your line. It can be very frustrating when you work hard on a show line to have DQ features like this pop up.
FC X FC = 25% F/50% FC/25% NFC
F X FC = 50% F/ 50% FC
F X NFC = 100% FC
FC X NFC = 50% FC/ 50% NFC
NFC X NFC = 100% NFC
3.
Charlies are a DQ for any color in Holland Lops. A Charlie has been defined as any broken patterned Holland Lop with less than 10% color, however in the newest SOP, it seems to just be any rabbit without markings on both eyes, both ears and both whisker beds without a percentage mentioned (from what I read at least). Either way, Charlies are a DQ and the occur when the rabbit has 2 copies of the broken gene (En) and this is no exception for Tricolor.
EnEn X EnEn = 100% Charlies (EnEn)
EnEn X Enen =
Enen X Enen =
Enen X enen =
enen X enen = 100% Solid (enen)
4.
Harlequins are the solid version of tricolor and they are not a showable color in Holland Lops. This is the only color in the breed that is not showable in the solid variety, which puts you at a huge disadvantage in breeding for show Hollands. Breeding to solid will give you unshowable harlequins, so you may be more inclined to breed just tri to tri (or other broken color), which will give you both harlequins AND charlies. You really are starting out with a lot of DQ colors just working with tricolor to begin with.
see #3 above for %
5.
Booted tricolor has become more common as reds have increased in popularity, since so many people want to bring in the rich red color to improve on the orange of the tricolor. Booting is what happens when the wideband gene is introduced and modifies the presentation of the broken pattern. I advise against this, but many people still do it, so when you have a tricolor with red in the line, you risk getting booted tricolors. Booted is a DQ color. The new SOP has redefined what booted means and it is no longer a DQ if the rabbit has color above the elbow, but there are a lot of judges who are still not aware of this change and the previous definition of greater than 70% color is still how some judges decide to DQ or not with a booted Holland. The other issue is that booted pattern tricolors, rather than blanket pattern ones will have more of the brindling of the harlequin rather than the spotting that is correct on a tricolor.
6.
Magpies are what happens when a tri or harlequin has a chl or chd gene express. Any rabbit with a full color gene can hide a chinchilla or shaded gene and when bred to another carrier, or a REW/REW carrier, these genes can express in offspring. These gene express by preventing orange (in essence) so Magpies are black/grey/white spotted rabbits. While they are very pretty, they just another DQ color that will interfere with your ability to produce showable/show quality tricolors.
7.
Rufus modifiers are genes that determine how orange your tricolor (or orange) rabbit will be. The goal is to get a rich, vibrant orange in your line, but it is very easy to have oranges that look more cream because of a lack of rufus mods. It can sometimes be difficult to find a balance in your herd because you may have to decide between a tri with great coloring and one with poor coloring but great type.
8.
Torted tricolors are genetically; aa (any variation of b) C_ (any variation of d) eje
A torted tricolor may look like a tri when it is young, but by the time it becomes a senior it will look like a broken tort with black spots. These are yet another color you can (and will) produce with your tricolors that you cannot show.
9.
Showable tricolors are genetically; A_ (any variation of b) C_ (any variation of d) eje or ejej
*note* some people breed for; aa (any variation of b) C_ (any variation of d) ejej (I myself have not bred for self-based tri, but others breeders swear it is showable)*
It would make sense for troi breeders to breed back to tricolor it increase the number of tricolor babies (especially with AA rabbits), which is a reasonable thought, but because there is not a lot of good type in tricolor it is absolutely necessary to breed to other colors to bring in type.
10.
Pet breeders are another huge obstacle in breeding tri. The color is gorgeous so of course people want them as pets and there are a lot of breeders out there who do not breed for show type and many of those breeders work with tri. This means there are a lot of tri out there that are lacking in type and many with very serious structural flaws, making showing this color an uphill battle.
11.
Another big impact the pet breeders have had on this color is that many, many of them have brought the vienna gene into their lines which is something that is (outside of a very serious BEW program) best kept out of show lines as it can create DQ markings and eye colors.
Even if you take measures to reduce the possibility of a lot of these things in your tricolor line, it is still very difficult to breed for this color and you need to have more cages than you would for a tort, or most other color programs, to dedicate to it. I never recommend breeding tricolor to anyone just starting out for all of these reasons and that there is a stigma associated with the color because of its tight association with pet breeders who have animals with poor type. This stigma may lead to certain show breeders refusing to sell to you because they don't take you seriously.
So You Still Want To Breed Tricolor Holland Lops?
Buying Tricolor Holland Lops
If you read through all of that and still feel like you are up for the challenge, the first step is to acquire some rabbits to breed that will give you tricolor babies. I highly recommend that you find a reputable show breeder to get your foundation stock from. This is a hard program as it is, so don't make it harder for yourself by settling for whatever is convenient. If you can find a breeder who shows their tri, that would be the ideal situation, but there are some show breeders who still work seriously on tri but have not yet reached a point where they feel their tri rabbits can be competitive. A breeder like this could still be worth working with, either way, you just have to decide whose line will go better with what you already have, or other stock you plan to buy. If, for example, the breeder you are looking at has a lot of shoulder length in their rabbits, you don't want to purchase from them if the rabbit you plan to breed to has the same flaw.
Once you have found the breeder that you think will be best for your start to tricolor, seriously consider purchasing a DQ color such as harlequin or torted tri. If they have a nice tri available, definitely go for it, but often the best rabbits that are available from a show line are DQ colors. Show breeders have limited cages and in general, preference goes to the showable rabbits, so the nicest tri get to stay and the nicest harlequins/torteds get moved on sooner. Put type before color, even in a color project. Color is worth 5 points out of 100 and if you start to lose it, it is easier to get back than type is.
I also recommend purchasing a very nice orange or broken orange to work into your tri project. It is the color least likely to give you extra DQ colors and much more likely to be available with good type. There are many more serious show breeders working with orange than tricolor.
How to Identify Junior Torted Tricolors
This handsome guy is RLR's Hucklebunny. This is what a senior torted tricolor looks like. They can have any amount of black spotting anywhere on their blanket, face, ears etc. Senior torted tricolors are very easy to distinguish from showable tricolor, but most junior torted tri are harder to tell.
This is RLR's Moltres, a torted tri junior doe, with RLR's Zapdos, a showable tri junior doe. This girl is old enough that she has a distinctly torted face, this is referring to the darker, more brown color around the nose and muzzle. This will appear in torted tri as juniors BUT they are usually born without it in my experience and may take 3-4 months to first appear.
Prior to the color change on the muzzle you should be able to see that the ones who will end up torted have consistent color across the face/under the nose, while the showable tri has blonde hair in that area. Unfortunately, Moltres, farther from the camera, has white there which obscures that for this particular torted tricolor, but Zapdos shows the blonde under the nose distinctly here.
This is a picture of the same girls, the same day in the same lighting. Obviously they have different black spotting pattern and one has a larger, more full blanket pattern, but I don't see anything apparently different which would show who is torted from this angle. I do know which is which and the one on the right with the larger blanket is Moltres and is torted, but if I wasn't familar with the
From the side I can't see much difference either. I do see that Moltres (torted, farther from the camera) has some lighter orange around the edges of her color, near the table. This is the fur that will eventually show a tort skirt, but at this age, I wouldn't expect very many people to notice it. It would be very easy to dismiss their body color difference as Zapdos having better rufus.
With juniors it can be really hard to tell the difference between the outer ear because while one is a touch more brown than the other, this is still such a subtle difference that it can be easily missed. Moltres, torted, is farther from the camera.
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