Genetics Illustrated

Rabbits come in all sorts of colours and patterns. While "that patchy brown one" is one way to describe a rabbit's colour, thanks to our understanding of genetics we can be much more precise. Every rabbit's coat is the result of a specific recipe of genes and various modifiers that work to further adjust the end result. Once you understand how to correctly identify your rabbit's colour recipe, you can begin to predict with a good rate of accuracy the possible colours of your rabbit's offspring. You can also apply this knowledge to a rabbit in reverse as every baby bunny born holds clues as to the genetic make up of it's parents. 

This series of posts is intended to help you understand the concepts behind rabbit colour genetics. With the help of this guide, you will be able to understand what that gibberish string of letters used to notate your rabbit's colour actually means. 

We will start with the simpler concepts and work our way towards the more complicated ones. Each lesson gradually introduces new terminology and builds upon what was introduced in previous lessons. It is best to read this series in a consecutive order. Once you are comfortable with all of the general concepts, you can use each lesson as it's own stand alone guide for future references. 

For a reference of genetic color notations as they apply specifically to the Angora colors, check out our post about Recognized English Angora Colors.


LESSON 1


LESSON 2


LESSON 3


LESSON 4


LESSON 6