Genetics Crash Course

Rabbit Color Genetics

If you don't have any basis in genetics, the one thing you should know before we start here is that DNA is double stranded.

DNA is the blueprints to make all the cells in the body and everyone's is unique. DNA has one strand that come from the mom, and one strand from the dad and the strands work together to create the person or animal it belongs to. Each little section of the DNA codes for something and there are two parts to that code, the part that came from mom and the part that came from dad. These are called Alleles. Remember that word because I will use it throughout this.

If this is all too confusing, that's okay, there is an amazing website called Khan Academy and the guy who does the lessons explains all this in more detail and with pictures, so if you get lost in this section, take some time to watch some of his videos about genetics and then come back here for the rabbit details of it all.

It will be helpful to also know that dominant means that the trait from that allele will present physically/outwardly, while recessive means the trait from that allele will not show if there is a dominant counterpart, but will show if both alleles are the same recessive gene. Co-Dominant means that you will see aspects of both of the traits that are coded for on the alleles. (I feel like this is a lot for someone who has never taken a biology class, so seriously, Khan Academy, because if you are lost here, the rest of this page will just confuse you more)

The main alleles that control the coat color of rabbits are the following;

A- Determines Self vs Agouti

B- Determines Black base or Chocolate base

C- Determines color, no color (albino), or partial albinism (shading). It also can determine the ability for yellow to be expressed in the coat

D- Full color vs Diluted color

E- Modifies black pigment expression in the coat

but also you may come across;

V- this creates BEW and VM rabbits

W- This is only in red rabbits

I want to try to cover all of these alleles and what they do to give a general overview of color genetics and how these genes present physically so that when I get into the details of color projects below it can make a lot more sense (hopefully).

A- This codes for the color through the hair shaft, so one single hair can have many colors and that is what makes an agouti patterned rabbit. Capitalized letters symbolize the dominant trait, while lowercase letters represent the recessive trait. To try to put it simply;

AA or Aa is an agouti patterned rabbit

aa is a self patterned rabbit

When you see it written A_, this means that rabbit is an agouti, but the breeder does not know if it is A or a for the other allele, because either way it will be agouti patterned.

B- This codes for whether the rabbit will have a black base color or a chocolate base color. Black is dominant so;

BB or Bb will be a black based rabbit

bb will be a chocolate based rabbit

Remember B_ will be a black based rabbit because whether it is B or b for the unknown allele, it won't matter since the dominant one will be expressed.

C- This codes for color expression in a few different ways. Instead of the 2 options like you have seen above, there are more here. The dominant "complete color" allows for the other genes (A, B, D, and E) to be expressed, but 2 copies of the recessive gene with be an albino rabbit. To put it simply;

CC or Cc will have color expression of other genes

cc will be a REW (Ruby-Eyed White)

The other alleles that can be found at this locus are;

c(chd)- this will create a chinchilla rabbit and is recessive to C, but dominant to the others and will be expressed regardless of what other allele (c, c(chl), or ch) is present.

c(chl)- this will give you shaded rabbits. This is a partial albinism gene that is controlled by temperature, so the warm parts of the rabbit's body will be light and the cooler parts (ears, nose, feet) will be darker.

ch- this is the himi gene. you get pointed whites with red eyes. For this to be expressed, the other allele must be ch or c.

D- This determines intensity of color, so D is dominant full color expression, while d is recessive dilution of color. to put it simply;

DD or Dd will give you a black or chocolate rabbit (as determined by the B genes)

dd will give you a blue or lilac rabbit (again, as determined by B genes)

E- this is the extension gene which effects the black in the coat. This is a fairly complicated thing to explain, so I will just give the most basic version;

EE or Ee is a rabbit with normal expression of the other genes mentioned above.

ee prevents expression of black (which is your widebands and tort, as well as sable point)

E(s) is steel, but I will leave that to someone with more experience to explain.

ej is the harlequin gene. It separates the distribution of black and yellow pigments.

I hope this makes sense, and I may try to fill in more for steel later, but definitely not any time this year.

I intentionally did not go back to Vienna and W (wideband) because they are super confusing and it makes more sense to explain them in the Red and BEW sections below.

Color Project Information

Please reach out to us on our facebook page www.facebook.com/cospringshollands or via text messaging at (720) 506-0058 if you cannot find an answer to your question.

Tricolor Holland Lops

This is the basics of Tri breeding, so if you read it and have more questions, let me know.

Genotypes for Tricolor Holland Lops;

A_ B_ C_ D_ ej_ = Orange/Black

A_ bb C_ D_ ej_ = Orange/Chocolate

A_ B_ C_ dd ej_ = Cream/Blue

A_ bb C_ dd ej_ = Cream/Lilac

aa B_ C_ D_ ej_ = Torted Tricolor (not showable)

I am going to ignore the self tricolors for now, but the genotype aa B_ C_ D_ ejej will supposedly give you a "clean" tricolor, but I still doubt their showability. When I confirm or deny this, I will come back and share what I learn.

Tricolor holland lops are my passion. Even though they are a big, important part of my life, they are undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges I have encountered. Allow me to try to break it down.

DQs: there are a ton of DQs in holland lops already (Fuzzies! Charlie! False Dwarves! And of course the lethal peanuts) so who wants to breed a color that has a DQ counterpart? Harlequins, which are the solid version of tricolors are not showable. If the c(chd) gene gets into your line, it will produce magpies, and whether they are broken are solid, they are not showable. The unfortunate part is that they are common as pets, so a LOT of tri breeders intentionally add this into their lines. That makes it hard to avoid when you are looking for new stock. So when you think about it, if you breed a show rabbit to a show rabbit you get about 25% peanuts and 25% false dwarves so only 50% of your newborn kits can even have a chance at being show quality. If you bred tri to tri, then about 25% will be charlies and about 25% will be harlequins, neither of which are showable (you may get lucky on a charlie and it could have over 10% color and be showable). If both your tri carry the self (recessive a) gene, then about 25% of your tri born babies will be torted tricolors, but if you breed to tort to improve on type it will be about 50%. Then if your rabbits are carriers of the fuzzy gene, 25% of those left will not be showable. If you add magpie into the mix you have more rabbits that are not showable... This is why tri is hard. You can breed 5 litters and be LUCKY to get 1 or 2 showable tricolors. If you were breeding torts, you would almost certainly get something out of each litter that is worth growing out for show. It's a whole different world working with tricolor.

VIENNA GENE: One of the other things that causes a lot of DQ colors is the Vienna gene. A LOT of breeders breed BEW to tri to sell blue eyed tricolor pets. Finding stock that doesn't carry the vienna gene can be difficult, especially because there are a lot of breeders out there that don't mark that they are VC (vienna carriers) on their pedigrees, because even though the vienna gene can cause mismarked rabbits, it doesn't always do so and it can be hidden. This makes tri even more challenging.

COLOR DISTRIBUTION: On a normal broken rabbit, this just means a butterfly and a banket, but with tricolor this means the butterfly and blanket AND the distribution of black and the presentation as spots rather than splotches. You can have an amazingly marked tricolor with even spotting and it can still produce a rabbit with one little cluster of black and nothing else. The good news is that this goes both ways and these poorly spotted rabbits can produce great color, but it make showing difficult. I have often had the color of my rabbits be the difference between a leg and second place.

RUFUS MODIFIERS: Rufus modifiers are a set of genes that determines the intensity of color. It is the difference between a pale rabbit and a vibrant orange. This is not something you can true breed unfortunately. A rabbt with fantastic orange coloring can produce a pale, cream rabbit. When breeding orange this is fine because they will still be showable as creams, but if you have a pale orange that looks cream with black spots, that is a problem. I know that color is only 5 points on the show table, but I promise it has made a difference for my rabbits more often than I would like it to.

(Supposedly) In order to maximize your rufus modifiers and increase your chances of good orange coloring, both parents should have good orange coloring, but I have had 2 pale rabbits give me vibrant orange and 2 vibrant oranges bred together give me pale offspring and in my experience it is pretty much a shot in the dark.

Tri is probably the hardest color in Holland Lops, so before starting a tri project, I highly recommend that you establish your lines with tort first and get to a point where you are confident that you understand type and all the points they are judged on before working with any color. The best way to transition into tri from there would be to establish oranges and then work into tricolors. Thanks to the dedication of many amazing breeders, Orange really has become a strong color in Hollands and I see a lot of them that do well on the show table now days, so it should be a quick transition to orange from tort.

Red Holland Lops

***This section is a work in progress. I will add to it in the weeks to come.

Breeding red holland lops has been so incredibly rewarding for us here at RLR. After years of working to get show quality tricolors, red feels like a breeze!

That is not to say red doesn't have it's challenges. Like tricolor, you have a non-showable counterpart in red. In tricolor, the solids are not showable, but in red the brokens are often not showable as they are booted.

If you have good solid stock to breed red to that will improve on type, I recommend sticking with solid rabbits in your red project, but as you can see I don't follow my own advice and I have many broken/booted reds in my rabbitry. This is because my original red stock was line bred to GC P&J's Cozmo who was a broken tort. Cozmo did a wonderful job adding quality to our red line, but because he was broken and my primary goal is great type in my reds, I absolutely will keep a booted with good type over a solid red with ok type. I do one day hope to phase out the brokens, but in the meantime, I am working on breeding to the ARBA standard for type.

Breeding orange into your red line can be beneficial to improve type, but make sure your oranges have good rufus if possible. they should have rich orange color and not be pale.

Rufus modifiers are the genes that impact the intensity of the red color. The more rufus modifiers, the deeper and richer the color of the rabbit.

Red torts make great brood rabbits, so don't move a rabbit on with great type just because it is torted. When bred to a red or even an orange, they can give you beautiful red babies (Just look at helios!).

One the biggest challenges we have run into with our red project is bringing back that rich color. Rufus modifiers are a big part of that, but there is another gene that plays into it. This is the ww gene which causes me endless confusion. My understanding is that it is recessive and works with rufus modifiers to produce the red belly color breeders are working towards. One of the most noticeable differences between red and orange is the belly color.

Sable Point

***This section is a work in progress. I will adding to it over the next several weeks

I played with sable point years ago, but I let the project go to focus on my tricolors. I have returned to working on sable points with a fellow breeder and I share what I know and what I learn here.

The genotype of sable point holland lops is: aa B_ c(chl)c D_ ee

When you get into breeding SP you will get these other colors too;

aa B_ c(chl)c D_ E_ = Siamese Sable

aa B_ c(chl)c(chl) D_ E_ = Seal

aa B_ c(chl)_ dd E_ = Smoke Pearl

Obviously you can get more variations of these genes (for example chocolate based ones), but these are the only ones that are currently showable colors.

Sable point is one of the easier color projects to bring type into. They breed easily to tort, but your tort should carry REW to allow the expression of the c(chl) gene. It is my understanding that the ch (himi) gene will alter the look of the SP and it will not be showable, but I have never personally worked with the himi gene at all.

Seal is a rabbit who carries 2 copies of the c(chl) gene. They are overall darker, but have the same points. These tend to look black as babies, and they are often sold before you can tell their actual color.

Siamese Sable is a sable point with a full extension gene. The coat on the body will be different (darker).

Blue-Eyed Whites

BEW are one of the harder colors to breed correctly for show. There is quite a few things that will mess with the color of the eyes on these guys, and for show you really want a clean and vibrant blue.

The easiest way for me to put this is that it is best to avoid anything that has anything in the C locus that is not the C (dominant full color gene). REW (Ruby-Eyed Whites) will express over the Vienna gene and you will get REW instead of BEW if you have cc rabbits. If you can find a line clean from REW to start with, you can save yourself the disappointment of having what you think is a BEW kit open it's eyes and actually be REW. All of the other variations of the c allele (see above) will alter your eye color to purple or red, instead of blue.

The other big thing to avoid is the chocolate gene (b) because this can also cause purple eyes which are not correct for show.

The other reason that BEW is considered a more difficult color to work with is because of Vienna-marked rabbits. If you breed a BEW to a standard color, you will get white markings that are incorrect for show (DQ). Most of the time it will look like a poorly marked Dutch rabbit, but more and more often, pet breeders are trying for white ears, so you see all variations of the color, but it is typically not a butterfly and blanket pattern. You can have Vienna carriers (VC) that have no outward signs of carrying the vienna gene (none of the mismarked white), but in my experience these are not common, but it is important to mark potential vienna carriers for this reason.

If you breed BEW to BEW you will get all BEW (and REW if both parents carry it) but you wont be improving on type without outcrossing, so while it may seem like the straightest route to getting BEW, it is definitely not the fastest way to get show quality BEW. If you have a solid buck (preferably something that has already granded) to breed to a BEW doe, this is the fastest way I have found to bring quality into a BEW line. Breed solid only if possible so you can see who carries the vienna gene in the offspring. Then line breed a doe from that first litter, back to the sire to set type (see my breeding blog for more info, also see the care page breeding section). You can do this another time to to better set type if you are patient. Keep your absolute best vienna buck from these breedings and breed to the female offspring from the most set litter to get BEW rabbits. Then if you need to repeat the process and outcross again to another nice quality (preferably granded) buck, so the same thing again.

The short version of breeding BEW;

-BEW bred to BEW will make 100% BEW babies

-BEW bred to VM/VC will make 50% BEW, 50% VM/VC

-BEW bred to standard color (non-VC/VM) will produce 100% VC/VM babies

-VM/VC bred to VM/VC will make 25% BEW, 50% VM/VC and 25% standard (non-VC/VM) babies

-VM/VC bred to standard color (non-VM/VC) will produce 50% VM/VC and 50% standard (non-VC/VM) babies

Etiquette: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you mark all VC/VM rabbits or possible carriers on your pedigrees. A lot of breeders do not want to work with the Vienna gene and they do not want it in their show line, so please be honest when you are breeding these guys.

Realm of Lapine Rabbitry

Dedicated to raising high-quality show rabbits, especially of color.

Genetics Crash Course

Rabbit Color Genetics

Color Project Information

Realm of Lapine Rabbitry

Dedicated to raising high-quality show rabbits, especially of color.

Genetics Crash Course

Rabbit Color Genetics

Color Project Information

This website uses cookies.