What will my babies look like?

[Tonya]

I have 4 mini Rex rabbits 2 bucks & 2 does, my bucks are castor(Bunny) & blue broken(toby) which I got a month ago, My does are REW with broken hidden gene(Elsa) & broken castor her daughter Anna, I breed Elsa & bunny and got broken castor I kept a female. Anyways, I breed both my females with Toby the broken blue, my question is what will the babies look like with these 2 pairings? Thank you!

 

[Kirsten miller]

Hi I cannot make a totally accurate assumption without seeing pedigrees but I've raised minirex for 15 years so i can give what assumption I believe will happen. You will definitely get broken from Elsa depending on what else she carries as for your other doe Anna you will probably get broken caster since she carries the agouti gene (which is the granddaddy of dominant genes) however things like what they carry in their lines deeper can affect what seems obvious as well. For example I raise lionheads now and have a herd of 20 I bought a black doe although I don't raise blacks just for the reason that I know she carries a shaded gene and a non extension gene so I bred her to my seal I just had 4 smoke pearl and 1 seal born yesterday. If I were to breed her to a Tort (non extension) she would also throw torts. I reccomend reading a genetics page on a website. They are very helpful once you can grasp the different possibilities

 

[Bunnylady]

If breeding rabbits has taught me anything, it's that there are no guarantees when it comes to color. Unless you know that both rabbits are homozygous for a certain color (for example, REW), you can't be absolutely sure what you will get. There are high probabilities, but in a sample group as small as one litter, probability can go right out the window.

I've probably told you about the REW Holland Lop I had at one time. I bred her to a Smoke Pearl buck, and the first 3 litters I had from them all were either Smoke Pearls or REWs. In the fourth litter, there were some broken Smoke Pearls, and for a bit, I was wondering if I had bred her to a different buck . . . but then I remembered, her father was a broken; clearly, she had the broken gene, I just couldn't see it because she was a REW. Some of the REW's in those first three litters may have had the broken gene, but of course, nobody could see it in them, either. The odds might say that at least some of the 10 or so Smoke Pearls in those first litters should be brokens, but they weren't.

I had a Broken Tort Holland Lop doe that wound up with regular role on the show "One Tree Hill" that was produced here in Wilmington. She was 3 years old when she got the role, and I would have dearly loved to have bred an "understudy" for her in case something unfortunate happened to her (if you've been in rabbits for long, you know, "something unfortunate" can happen at any time with rabbits). Tort is an astonishingly common color in Holland Lops; I would estimate that at least 80% of the Hollands I have seen on show tables have been either Torts or Broken Torts. With the genetics running around in my rabbits, I should have had plenty of candidates to choose from, but during the time that rabbit had that role, I didn't have a single Broken Tort Holland Lop born in my rabbitry. That's why I tell people, "you should be able to get _____, but if that's what you're looking for, it'll be the last thing you see." Just one more way the rabbits work on making us crazy.

One thing you might want to know about - since both of your does have broken genes, if you breed to a broken buck, one possible outcome is a bunny that inherits the broken gene from both parents; something rabbit people often call a "Charlie." The problem with Charlies is that the broken gene doesn't just put white on the rabbit's coat, it affects the way the digestive system is formed. A Charlie's digestive system doesn't work properly; how bad a problem it is for a particular rabbit is variable. Some just don't grow as fast as their siblings, but otherwise don't seem to have much of a problem, some die before they even get out of the nest box. The issues can develop over time; a rabbit that seemed fine as a baby may get worse as it gets older. The most common way this issue gets expressed is for the rabbit's digestive system to just stop working entirely, and the rabbit ends up sitting in a corner, grinding its teeth in pain, until things get moving again or the rabbit dies. A lot of rabbit people would rather not create rabbits like that, so we avoid it by not breeding broken to broken.

 

[Tonya]

Ok thanks, well both my does didn't get pregnant then, but my REW is now, my other one her daughter I decided not to breed her with him im get a solid color for her! Thanks for the info on genetics!

 

[Kirsten miller]

Ok thanks, well both my does didn't get pregnant then, but my REW is now, my other one her daughter I decided not to breed her with him im get a solid color for her! Thanks for the info on genetics!

Just want to clarify I have bred black and orange tris for years and have gotten perfectly healthy Charlie's and harlis so don't let that discourage you with breeding brokens! It's merely something that has been known to happen more with them kind of like seizures and BEW/Vienna rabbits