Basic Color Genetics: Chocolate and Chocolate Tort

This post compares the chocolate and chocolate tort.

 

Chocolate, the color genes are: aabbC-D-E-
It's non-agouti, brown/chocolate family, full color, non-dilute, extended color.


If the last part E- is replaced by non-extension genes, then we have the following:

Chocolate Tort is the non-extension of Chocolate. 
The color genes are: aabbC-D-ee
In translation: non-agouti, brown/chocolate family, full color, non-dilute, non-extension.

If you compare:
chocolate;        aabbC-D-E-
chocolate tort; aabbC-D-ee

The only difference is whether the chocolate color is being extended or not extended.  If extended, it's chocolate; if not extended, it's chocolate tort. 
Both are non-dilute, thus both have brown eyes.

Basic Color Genetics: Chocolate and Lilac

Lilac is the dilute of Chocolate, in the "brown/chocolate bb family". 

We have seen this photo on blog yesterday.  This is a pretty typical chocolate color for an English Angora.   Her name is Chu's Chocolate Kiss.  

Chocolate color genes are: aabbC-D-E-

In translation:  non-agouti, brown (chocolate) family, full color, dense color, extended color.   
Chocolate has brown eyes due to the D gene.  

This is also a Chocolate English Angora but looks darker, the color genes are the same as the above: aabbC-D-E-.       This photo was taken in 1988, his name is Chu's Chocoholic.     It's darker possibly due to lighting or due to grooming.   As we learned in previous posts that the blower was not a part of grooming tools until the end of 1989, Chocoholic was groomed by brushes and combs.  The wool was a lot shorter and possibly a bit lumpy.   This photo is posted to be a comparison to the next photo showing a Lilac English Angora.  

This is Chu's Mona Lisa, the only lilac English Angora that I have ever had. This photo was also taken in 1988.   The lilac color here looks almost as dark as the chocolate in the first photo.   Thus I posted a photo of a Chocoholic in 1988 to make a comparison.   
Lilac color genes are:  aabbC-ddE-
In translation: non-agouti, brown (chocolate) family, full color, dilute color, extended color.  
Lilac has gray eyes due to the dd gene.
Visually Chocolate is brownish on top and grayish underneath, the Lilac is more of a dovey pinkish gray.    If in doubt, the best way is to look at the eyes, Chocolate has brown eyes and Lilac has gray eyes.  


 

 

Basic Color Genetics: Black and Chocolate

We spent several days studying the non-agouti black gene family (aaB-).  Today we will start studying the non-agouti chocolate family by comparing the color genes of black and chocolate.   B is for black and b is for brown.  Brown in rabbits is called chocolate.   Chocolate is recessive to black.   

We have read about the black color genes in the previous posts:
aaB-C-D-E-
It is a non-agouti pattern in the black family, full colored, dense color and the color is extended to the entire body.     Today's topic is to look at the B location.   An upper case B stands for the dominant gene, the - after the B indicates it could have another B gene or a b gene.  If it has a b gene, that means the black rabbit carries chocolate even though one cannot see it.   

Chu's LaNelle is in both of these photos. 

This is a chocolate English Angora, it's color genes are:
aabbC-D-E-
The above color genes translate to the following: chocolate is a non-agouti pattern, it has two chocolate genes that are recessive to black gene B, it's a full colored rabbit, the color is dense and it is extended to the entire body.   
If you compare with the black color gene above, you'll see the difference is in the B location.  The black is B- while the chocolate is bb.   There may or may not be a b hidden under the black but we know for sure that a chocolate cannot carry black as b is recessive to B.   
 

Since chocolate is recessive to black, two chocolate cannot produce a black offspring but two black may produce a chocolate offspring if there are chocolate gene b hidden behind the B gene.   The color of the eyes is brown because of the D dense color gene.  In both photos is Chu's Chocolate Kiss at about 8-9 months old.  

 

Bumblebees love Green Onion Flowers

Green Onion has flowers?   Yes, these big round balls are the flowers of the green onion plants.

These green onion plants are about 4 feet in height.  

Believe it or not, these came from the roots of the regular green onions bought in the grocery stores.   After the green parts were consumed, I put the white parts with roots in the ground.  After a couple of years, after being irrigated with water, after being nurtured by rabbit poops, they grow into 4-foot tall plants.

The flower balls are actually cluster of hundreds of individual flowers.  

The ball almost looks like a bridal bouquet. 

There are bumblebees on these flowers day and night. 

The nectars must be extra tasty for the bumblebees.   





 

 

Buns' Loquat Time

The loquat tree next to the rabbit barn is bearing fruits.  The color is a bit lighter than orange, another week the taste will be perfect.

The next tree bears smaller size loquat but the color is bright orange, ready to eat.

Nice loquat fruits hanging on the tree.

Henrietta loves the loquat fruit.

Luca loves loquat!

Joanna is ready to start biting into the juicy fruit.

 

Ferrari likes it too.

Annisha just got a hair cut, a bit ugly but she does not care, having loquat treat is enjoyable.

Crystal Cream, A Remarkable Blue Tort Doe

Yesterday we discussed the color genetics of Blue and Blue Tort.   Here is a story of a special blue tort doe Chu's Crystal Cream.  A part of the story was told in Briony and Allen's Podcast #12. 

This is a photo of Chu's Crystal Cream when she was 5 months old.  I went to my first ARBA convention at Portland in 1987.  I brought 3 colored English Angora with me, a black senior buck, a tort senior doe and a blue tort junior doe.   Crystal Cream was that junior doe.   Each won first place in their classes, and the black buck advanced to win BOV colored and BOSB.  Crystal Cream advanced to win BOSV and that's her with her trophies, as you see, the "87" is a part of the trophy.

As I did not and still do not breed much, I took Crystal Cream back to the 1988 ARBA convention at Madison, Wisconsin.   She took 3rd place in a very competitive colored senior doe class.  The winner of the class was my blue doe Chu's Jessica Venus who advanced to win BOB.

Crystal Cream did not go to the 1989 convention.   

Also for your information, the blower was not a part of grooming tool until after the 1989 convention.(Northern California Angora Guild: What A Difference A Blower Can Make)  

In 1990, Crystal Cream was over 3 years old, already a grandma, great grandma or even higher.  With the aid of the blower, she looked really good.   Though I had younger English Angora bucks and does bred for the convention, I decided to take her along.   I had a custom-made carrier that had 12 compartments for flying, it wasn't a hard decision to put her in one of the compartments as an additional entry to fly to Tampa, Florida. 

Guess what? Crystal Cream won over all her younger relatives and other breeders' English Angora and was awarded BOB! She was 3-1/2 years old.

In the 1990 "young" crop slated for the convention, there was a buck named Chu's Cowboy.    Cowboy was born in November 1989, he took 2nd in the colored senior buck class at Tampa.   He returned to shows year after year, won BOSV at the 1993 convention at 4 years old and BOSB at the 1994 Angora National at 4-1/2 year old. He had won 54 legs during his show life, and sired many litters along the way; three of his daughters went on to win ARBA convention BOBs, one was the 1992 ARBA convention Best In Show Chu's Sweet Sixteen.   

Who says the English Angora has only one coat?    Who says the English Angora has a short show life?

Basic Color Genetics: Blue and Blue Tort

Blue tort is the non-extended color of blue. They are in the “black gene” family. 

We have seen this photo a few days ago when we discuss black and blue:
Northern California Angora Guild: Basic Color Genetics: Black and Blue (ncag.blogspot.com)
The color genes of the blue is
aaB-C-D-ddE-
Blue is the dilute of black.

It is in the "black gene family", it is full colored, the E extends the grayish blue color to the entire body.  The dd dilute gene makes the dark black into grayish blue.

What if the blue lacks the E to extend the grayish blue color to the entire body?  We have a blue tort: 
aaB-C-ddee
If you compare the blue and blue tort, the difference is the ee part.  Blue has E- while blue tort is ee.  

 

The non-extension recessive gene ee restrict the grayish blue color to the points.  For English Angora, the most visible blue points are on the face and the ears.   The rest of the body is light beige or light tan.

These two English Angora does are littermates, the blue is Chu’s Talia and the blue tort is Chu’s Tianna. Photos taken when they were seniors.