Help Picking A New Bun

[MelissaPenguin]

I breed mainly Mini Rex, and have a Black Otter buck. I also have two mixed breed (Mini Rex x) that I breed for the pet bunnies I am asked for. I am looking to add to my brood, and know I want a Harlequin. I found a breeder expecting Harlequin's this summer, but she has others that she thinks I might be interested, some ready now, and a few others ready in 2 weeks.
These are what she has:
1 Tort Buck
1 Broken Black Otter Buck
1 Broken Tort Buck

My first question is, is a 'Broken Black' and a 'Broken Black Otter' the same thing, and I just never realized it? I tried googling broken black otter and all I can up with was what I would call a Broken Black. If that's what it is, I think I'd rather get another color, since I already have two Broken Black mixed breeds who predominantly produce Broken Blacks, from what I've seen with past litters. Would it be safe to go with a Broken Tort? Would the color genetics throw some ugly colored babies if the Broken Tort and Broken Black were to be bred? I don't know much about color genetics, or what genes are dominant. I just started breeding, and would like to get better and breeding for best color, ect. I am curious as to what would be suggested for my brood.

 

[TinysMom]

A Ver y Basic Genetics Discussion

Broken black is NOT the same thing as broken black otter.

Black: dark black.
Black otter: black body with lighter underside, hair may be orange tinted at the border of the black and lighter color.

http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/rabbits/a/rabbitcolors.htm

 

[TinysMom]

Breeding a harlequin to a black will most likely give you blacks that carry harlequin - but not harlequin babies.

I used to breed harlequins to torts and fawns due to the "ee" extension (which is hard to explain right now as I'm fighting a major headache).

 

[TinysMom]

http://mr-colors.tripod.com/

 

[HappyFarmBunnies]

If you want harlequins I suggest you get a harlequin and a tri-color. They compliment each other well and give you a really great variety.

 

[MelissaPenguin]

Thank you for your suggestions. I'm not 100% if I will be breeding the Harlequin yet. I just know I would love to have one, they have such gorgeous coloring. I've now been informed that she has Opals and Broken Opals as well. I honestly wasn't expecting such a selection from one person. It's making choosing hard =( lol

And thank you for the links! I will definitely be going over them.

 

[SNM]

OOOOh those Tri-colors are beautiful, but they hard to find and difficult to work with if you don't know the genetics to them.

Torts, Blacks, and , Otters would go well with each other. You could interchange the blacks and otters, and breed the Torts and blacks together. I love my Otters, they are gorgeous

I've never worked with opals or castors..so I can't really give you any info on that

 

[MelissaPenguin]

I had Castors growing up, and if I remember right, when breeding them to Broken Blacks we ended up with a lot of Broken Black kits and not very many Castor kits. I love my Otter buck, he's gorgeous and so very soft!

 

[dragynflye]

in all species, black is recessive to agouti (castor/chestnut). if you have two black animals, they are are genetically unable to produce agoutis. there cannot be "throwbacks", because the gene for agouti is simply not there. breeding aa (black) to aa (black) cannot suddenly make AA (agouti not carrying black) or Aa (agouti carrying black). the babies would all get one recessive (a/) gene from each parent, making them ALL aa (black). different genes would determine if they otter or broken, i am not familiar enough with RABBIT genetics to know what those are. if you bred your castor to a black (broken or otherwise), and produced mainly blacks with only a few castors, that would mean your castor was Aa (agouti carrying black). if the castor had been AA, all the babies would have inherited one dominant agouti gene from the castor parent, and one recessive agouti gene from the black parent, meaning they would have been Aa, or agouti carrying black. the only way to get both castor and black in the same litter is for at least one parent to castor carrying black. if both parents are castor carrying black, you would get a pretty even mix of black and castor. if one parent was castor carrying black, and the other was black, you would get more black babies than castor.