Introduction
<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="041f0f21egerdp.jpg"> <div> <B><IMG SRC="042203c0.jpg" border=0 width="32" height="60" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Arial" ><B>Avalon Dwarf Lops</B></FONT><B> | </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Avalon Dwarf Lops"><B>home</B></A></div> <div> <B>Introduction</B> | <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ASeries ">`A`Series </A> | <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="B Series">`B` Series</A> | <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="C Series">`C` Series</A> | <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="D Series">`D` Series</A> | <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="E Series">`E` Series</A> | <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Order of Dominance">Order of Dominance</A> | <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Testmate">Testmate</A> | <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Minor Genes">Minor Genes</A> | <A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Colour Compatibility">Colour Compatibility</A> | <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EMail me">E-Mail me</A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="040f2f02egerdp.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Sully Jonquieres MN" >3 Week Old Chocolate Fox </FONT></div> <div> Dwarf Lop</div> <div> <IMG SRC="10cb3860.jpg" border=0 width="179" height="134" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any way or by any means without the permission in writing from the author. </div> <div> Yvon Abbott. Avalon Dwarf Lop Stud. Plymouth, Devon. UK.</div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="043f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>Introduction</I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><U>Genetics in Easier Language</U></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>By Yvon Abbott</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Most people breeding rabbits are already using genetics to some degree, they choose which buck and doe to put together to try to improve type in the offspring and correcting any obvious faults by using an animal which has a better quality head or shorter body etc. Doing this shows a vast improvement from generation to generation and you have been selecting inherited characteristics by eye. What happens then, when you cannot always see the required characteristics for a correctly coloured rabbit, and you keep producing youngsters with a beautiful type but in a colour that is unacceptable on the show table. If this has never happened to you then this article does not concern you, but if you get this problem cropping up, read on............</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B>The chances are that you brought home your initial stock with no knowledge of what hidden colour genes are lurking in its body. The colour of your rabbit is determined by five major genes which are named the A, B, C, D and E series. Now each individual rabbit can only inherit two genes from each of the five series, they get one from the mother and the other from the father making a total of ten genes which can greatly affect the coat colour of all your future generations of show stock.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Try to keep in mind that each individual rabbit has two genes from each of the five series but can only pass on one of each pair to their offspring, this is where your expected colour can go haywire! You need to know the reason why you can mate a black rabbit to a white one and never get any whites in the resulting litter, but you can mate the same white animal to a different black one and get some white in that litter.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The answer to that is that although both black rabbits look identical in coat colour, the second one was carrying a recessive white gene which paired up with the white genes of the white rabbit to produce whites in the litter. This illustrates why it is necessary to know the recessive genes each of your breeding stock carries to prevent wasting time and hutch space trying to produce a correctly coloured baby from two parents which have incompatible recessive genes.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>If a parent rabbit has no recessive genes in its body there is no possible way it can pass one on to its offspring- they do not appear from nowhere! To understand more about the action of recessive genes you will have to examine each of the five series separately.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> </div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>