What color is she?

[Duckchick2011]

I'm a little confused on this rabbits color. I can't decide if she is a fawn, sooty fawn, tortoiseshell, or what?

These are the pics I have of her when she was younger. Her fawn has turned a little bit deeper and oranger with age but not much. What do you think?

 

[Alicia G]

What breed is she? I have never seen a rabbit that looked like that before..

 

[Duckchick2011]

She is a Flemish Giant.

 

[Bunnylady]

Flemish have a few colors that are specific to the breed. That looks like a Sandy.

Here's the description of a Sandy, per the ARBA Standard: The surface color shall be a reddish sandy, interspersed with contrasting dark ticking. The undercolor shall show a brassy reddish intermediate color with slate blue undercolor next to the skin. The ears shall be laced with black. The belly and underside of the tail shall be cream to white, except for crotch marks. Eyes-Brown.

 

[Duckchick2011]

Flemish have a few colors that are specific to the breed. That looks like a Sandy.

Here's the description of a Sandy, per the ARBA Standard: The surface color shall be a reddish sandy, interspersed with contrasting dark ticking. The undercolor shall show a brassy reddish intermediate color with slate blue undercolor next to the skin. The ears shall be laced with black. The belly and underside of the tail shall be cream to white, except for crotch marks. Eyes-Brown.

That sounds a lot like her, but what keeps confusing me is the grey patches on her haunches, cheeks, and tail. Her entire tail is grey not reddish sandy...maybe that is just the slate under color showing through? Am I being to detail oriented?

 

[Bunnylady]

Not every animal that is a certain color is a show-quality representative of that color.

Sandy is the Flemish Giant's unique spin on the Chestnut color. It is lighter, "blonder" than a Chestnut usually is, but it is otherwise very similar. In many breeds, the standard calls for the Chestnut to have color that is fairly even from the back down the sides to where it meets the light belly color. I have seen many, many "Chestnut" rabbits that have a lot of reddish pigment in the hair on their backs, but relatively little on their sides. If your rabbit has a grayish undercolor, she's most likely a Sandy. If the undercolor on her back is white, she might be an extremely sooty Fawn, though that is an awful lot of ticking.

Here are a couple pics of Sandy Flemish that I found on a Google search. The doe on the left is a mature animal who has done well at shows, the one on the right is a 3-month old buck.

 

[Duckchick2011]

Thank you Bunnylady,

I went and looked at her under color, she has reddish for her top color but her base color is slate grey so she is definitely a sandy.

I wouldn't bet on her winning any shows but it is nice that she is at least a standard Flemish color. The reason I was so curious about her color is because she is the mom of the fawn and tort kits I posted on the "What rabbits do you have" thread. Since she had a tort kit I was curious to figure out what her genotype was. I have the Genotype of the buck almost completely filled out except for I don't know if he carries for dilute or not.

Anyway, thank you so much. I have been calling this doe a sooty fawn for quite awhile now.

 

[Bunnylady]

The critical gene for both Tort and Fawn is the non-extension gene. The non-extension gene pushes the dark pigment off the hair shaft, exposing more of the lighter pigment underneath. It is thought that the reason that the Tort winds up with dark sides and "points" is because the self gene makes the dark pigment in those areas denser to begin with, so the action of the non-extension gene doesn't do as complete a job of removing it as it does in agouti-patterned animals.

 

[Duckchick2011]

Ohh, alright, I was having a little trouble understanding the extension gene, probably because I was thinking about it backwards

. I thought that the e extension was what caused the darker areas instead of it causing the lighter areas. So, since my doe is actually a chestnut that would mean that both my doe and my buck carry the e extension, but neither of them express it. Got it, Thank you so much for your time.