Minor Genes
<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> <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Introduction">Introduction</A> | <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> | <B>Minor Genes</B> | <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" >Agouti- With Rich Chestnut</FONT></div> <div> <IMG SRC="0d8a6770.jpg" border=0 width="166" height="119" 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> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="043f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>Minor Genes</I></div> <div> One gene which commonly makes a difference to the colour is the `En` gene. This is responsible for the broken or butterfly pattern found in many breeds of rabbits. It is called `En` because of the spotting found in the English breed of rabbits.</div> <bR> <div> In the breed standard book different degrees of spotting are desired, if you look at a correctly patterned English rabbit it is a very different pattern to the one found on a correctly patterned Dwarf Lop, but the same gene is responsible for both breeds, just in different quantities!</div> <bR> <div> I find a lot of people learning genetics often get very confused that this gene does not belong to the `E` series already discussed earlier.</div> <bR> <div> To those who find it easier I suggest they call it the `P` series for Pattern. This means that a rabbit which displays the pattern has got the dominant gene `Pp` and the ones that do not display the pattern are recessive `pp`.</div> <bR> <div> The purists amongst you who wish to retain the correct term would call a pattered animal `Enen` and the non patterned animal `enen`. Because all non-patterned animals would be `enen` we do not normally bother to write the gene into the equation so a normal black rabbit would still be written as aaB-C-D-E- and a black butterfly would be written as aaB-C-D-E-Enen. ( Do not forget that the dashes represent genes that you cannot determine just by looking at the animal, you have to prove them with testmatings.)</div> <bR> <div> Now the strange thing about the En gene is the fact that if you breed two Dominant En genes into the same rabbit you would get the pure EnEn, in the show world the effect of having a double dominant EnEn would mean an unshowable animal in most breeds as these animals are 90% white and 10% coloured on average, some even display less colour and only have coloured eye circles and a completely white coat! The eye colour would match the colour found in the corresponding remaining coat colour, and would not be pink like the albino.</div> <bR> <div> Normally people breed an En patterned animal to a normal coloured animal not displaying the pattern and all the litter can be seen for what they are: all patterned offspring are `Enen` and all non-pattered offspring are `enen`. A non patterned animal did not inherit the patterned gene at all, it is a dominant gene which cannot be hidden by any colour except albino ( remember albino is an epistatic gene which hides all other genes )</div> <bR> <div> Many people have showed me a normal non-patterned animal and said it carries the butterfly pattern from one of its parents. I am afraid that with this gene what you see is what you get, and the only way those animals will ever produce a patterned baby is when it is mated to a patterned animal ( or albino perhaps!) Mind you, I know it might be a good idea to do that mating as it would increase your chances of getting better markings in the next generation.</div> <bR> <div> If you ever did breed two patterned animals together and got a superb type baby from that combination it would not be a good idea to reject it to the pet shop as this would be a pure `EnEn` animal, one which would make a valuable addition to your breeding stock as whenever you put it to a non-patterned animal you should get 100% patterned offspring as the parent only had the dominant En to pass on. This would mean that you have increased your chances of finding the best marked animal to show in the litter as normally when you breed a patterned to a non-patterned animal you would have on average 50% non-patterned babies in the litter as you have bred Enen x enen (Back to the dice if you did not understand this last paragraph!)</div> <bR> <div> Another group of genes that affect coat colour are polygenes (poly means many). A good example of how polygenes work is quite visible to the eye, the genotype for the black Tan breed of rabbit is identical to the genotype for the black otter! at-B-C-D-E-. The beautiful rich belly colour of the Tan rabbit was achieved by selective breeding of animals displaying the richest colours to each other and the gene responsible was the `rufus` (rufus means red) polygene. The easiest way to explain this is to compare it to orange squash! The more you dilute orange squash the paler it gets, if Tan breeders did not select the best coloured specimens displaying rich tanning to breed together the rufus polygenes would start to dilute and the colour get paler.</div> <bR> <div> Another breed of rabbit which displays rufus polygenes is the Belgian Hare which has the exact same genes as the normal Agouti A-B-C-D-E- except it has such a high concentration of rufus genes to give it that red look, it is actually a red agouti.</div> <bR> <div> If you want to see how rufus polygenes can improve your agouti coloured rabbits try breeding them to the richest orange rabbit you can find and see if the next generation agouti babies display richer chestnut banding that the agouti parent when they reach their adult coat. (Baby agoutis have a habit of changing colour at five months, if you have an agouti which had a lot of black ticking as a baby did you find it became too dark as an adult?)</div> <bR> <div> One of the wisest sayings I have ever heard is “First build your house and paint it later”. This is so true of genetics, the only way to success on the showing table is to use the best type animals possible in your colour matings to make sure you improve with every generation. You can see that it is possible to make any colour you want once you have the right ingredients, but what is the point of making different colours if your type is all wrong unless you just want to breed for the pet market. This is not the reason I have written this article, if I put a new colour out on the table it has to be of equal quality to my best stock or else it stays at home. If you want your work to be taken seriously do not take your new colours out before they are worthy examples of the standard book, it is far better to wait another generation to correct any faults than to show something which is seen as a pretty pet quality animal.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>