Basic Color Genetics: The Principle

This is an English Angora black junior doe.   
Her photo here is for attention, her basic color genes are:
aaB-C-D-E-   

We made a post on May 24, 2021 comparing Chestnut Agouti and Black.   I received questions about the basic principles.   I'll try to use the layman's terms to make it very simple and very basic.  

(1) The basic color components are shown in five letters: ABCDE.   When it's written in upper case, that means it's a dominant color.  If you see the lower case letters of abcde, then we are talking about recessive color.   

(2) Each rabbit takes a copy of the color gene from each of the two parents.   If the parents do not have certain color genes, the babies cannot have these genes.

(3) The dominant color is visible while the recessive color may or may not be visible.

(4) Here are the 5 basic color genes:

A: Agouti pattern, a: non-agouti pattern or self.  A is dominant of a.  If at least one parent is an agouti pattern, the offspring may be agouti patterned.   If neither of the parents has the agouti gene, the offspring cannot be agouti pattered.     The post on May 24 Northern California Angora Guild: Basic Color Genetics: Black and Chestnut Agouti (ncag.blogspot.com) is a discussion of this topic by comparing chestnut agouti and black.

B: Black.   b: brown (chocolate in rabbit terms).   Black is dominant of chocolate, one or two black parents may produce chocolate offspring if both black parents carry the recessive chocolate gene b.  Two chocolate parents cannot produce a black offspring.   

C: full color gene.    c(chd); dark chin gene, or just called the chin gene.     c(chl): light chin gene or the sable gene.     c(h): himi gene or the pointed white gene.     c: albino gene, or the REW gene. (REW: ruby eye white).    The order listed above is in the order of dominance, C is the most dominant and c is the most recessive where the chin gene, the sable gene and the himi gene rest between C and c.    The chin gene, the sable gene and the himi gene are partial color genes.   c albino, no color or white.

D: Dense gene or the non-dilute.    d: dilute gene.

E: Extension gene.     e: non-extension gene.

We will return to using photos to compare the color genes starting tomorrow.  

(6) Eyes:  The Dense (non-dilute) gene D results in brown colored eyes.  The dilute gene dd results in gray colored eyes.   If you are having doubts, look at the eyes.