This is the second series trying to profile the color genetics of my rabbits. As I pointed out in Part 1, Magician and Buckbeak wound up with a broken yellow kit.

Now, we discovered that Beaky is an A_B_CchdD_E_.

We can then find out what Magician is. She has had several litters (mostly broken kits like her). It is difficult, as most of her body patterns are hid from her English spot heritage, as you can’t tell color on a white rabbit. However, we can look at her colored segments to make some deductions. 

A: She has the same type of A pattern as the wild rabbits, with the white ring around her eyes.

A_

B: There are only two genes in this gene set, B (black) which is dominant and b (chocolate) which is recessive. She is chocolate, which is recessive… so she can only be bb.

bb

C: If your rabbit is an agouti, white bands will appear between the dark color bands. Usually it’s the yellow pigment that is reduced to white. However, in her case, she doesn’t have any whites in the bands, and she shows color, so she is a C.

C_

D: She is brown, and brown dilutes to lilac. So she is

D_

E: This one is harder for me to determine. She has dark fur near her base, and then changes to an orange color. She is either a gold steel with color extension (Ese), or a not fully saturated, ee.

We are going with an Ese (for now).

A_bb_C_D_Ese

Neat!

She only had three kits in this last litter, so it is difficult to ascertain some things. However, from past pairings, I know that Magician has NEVER had a solid colored kit, thy have all been multicolored (even though my other buck that I use a lot carries a gene for solid colored blues), so she is most likely AA.

So, in looking at her kits, the yellow means that the coloration is dilute, meaning that both Buckbeak and Magician need to have a small d, so they are both Dd.

Now, since the yellow is a dilute coloration of a brown, Beaky also needs to carry a recessive b, as the baby is brown. Beaky is a Bb.

Magician AAbbC_DdEsE

Buckbeak A_BbCchd_DdE_