Identifying Coat Colors and Associated Genetic Information

This section organizes photos by Holland Lop ARBA Color Group. Adult color photos in a MATRIX format can be seen HERE. Check it out!

AGOUTI Group. Chestnut, Chocolate Agouti, Chinchilla, Chocolate Chinchilla, Lynx, Opal, and Squirrel (Blue Chinchilla). These are all "A" and Full Extension(E).

POINTED WHITE Group. Black, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac Pointed Whites.

SELF Group. Black, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac, REW and BEW.

SHADED Group. Sable Point, Siamese Sable, Seal, Smoke Pearl, Black Tort, Blue Tort, Chocolate Tort and Lilac Tort.

TAN PATTERN Group. Black, Blue, Chocolate and Lilac Otters. I also have some Marten pictures on this page.

WIDE BAND Group. Cream, Fawn, Frosty, Orange, Red and Tri-colors. These are all "A" and Non-Extension (ee).

TICKED Group. Gold Tipped and Silver Tipped Steels in Black, Chocolate, Blue and Lilac.

Four day old Chestnut Agouti kit. Sable Point kit eight days old. Odessa's babies.

NEW! Understanding Coat Color Genetics

This is IN PROCESS....

Every color of a rabbit (or any other animal for that matter) has a series of letters that genetically make that color. This is called a Genotype. Being able to recite a genotype for a color is fairly simple (really). All you need to know are [1] some 'base' genotypes for the primary coat colors, [2] how to change those base colors into chocolate, dilute or lilac versions, and [3] what the naming convensions are for the colors so you can turn that into a genotype.

"Why on earth would I want to understand all this ABC stuff?" you may ask. If you ever venture into breeding any "color", you need to understand what you are doing. You also may want to figure out the color of a kit you have in the box - understanding the genotype of the parents is key to figuring that out, and then understanding how these 'ABC's flow from parent to child is also key.

Think of a genotype as a 10-digit part number (if you have ever worked in manufacturing, this may help you understand better). There are quite a few other possible 'digits', but MOST of the basic colors are covered with these 10-digits.

The 'part number' is broken down into five groups (Genes) of two (Alleles) each. These groups (Genes) are called the A, B, C, D, and E-series, and are in that order.

Each group of digits (each Gene) has certain codes that can be used (alleles) in those two digits. Alleles are just different variations of a Gene. For a part number, a Gene could be likened to Fitting Type. The fitting could be steel, bronze or copper. There are codes for these steel, bronze and copper fittings and those codes go in those two positions of the part number.

I personally, really dislike reinventing the wheel. There are many websites that do a great job of explaining the alleles and their order of dominance for rabbit genetics. I will defer you to my personal favorite here: List of the known rabbit gene groups and their alleles by Amy Hinkle. Understanding these alleles is essential to grasping coat color genetics. There is a gene series missing from this list however. It is the Satin Gene - Sa. Sa is dominant and equates to normal fur. The recessive allele, "sa" gives the satin type fur.

More to come.... If you like this so far, could you let me know?