As I explained a few weeks back (on my blog or the FA list---can't quite remember which:(), I have been coming up with alot of Fawns in my rabbitry lately. It didn't come about so much out of a love for the color Fawn, though it is a very nice color, but rather because I have been diligently stripping my herd of the Steel gene for the past several months, and Fawn is one of those colors that does not carry the gene.
Fawn is a beautiful variety if it is clear, clean, and smut-free, but it can get extremely muddy looking if the rabbit in question is black-factored (particularly), and it is difficult to get any of the colors in the Wideband category (Fawn, Red, Cream, etc.) 100% free of smut. Some breeders accomplish cleaner rabbits by breeding Chocolate factored animals into their Red/Fawn lines because while that practice does not get RID of the smut, it makes it lighter and more difficult to see. Others simply breed Red/Red, Fawn/Fawn over a long period of time, culling for clean color as they go.
My own Fawns so far have been black-based, unfortunately, so clean golden color has not been a regular feature here, LOL. If I should decide to stick with this variety after all the Steel has been stripped out I will definitely buckle down and do what I can to fix this, though for now I am settling for Steel-less rabbits with good type and wool first, and then I will tackle the color details later.
So anyhow, I took pictures today of one Fawn bunny who was born into a litter this winter who miraculously has almost NO smut so far. Of course, it is totally true that rabbits almost always get smuttier as they get older, so the fact that he doesn't have it now does not necessarily mean that he will not have it later (and therefore, I am trying not to get too excited, LOL). This particular bunny is nearly 8 weeks old, and is out of Nereida (Blue doe) and Cedric's litter (REW buck). Nereida seems to always throw wonderful color in her litters, and though this is Cedric's first breeding, he seems able to do the same thing (I hope). I took a number of photos of this little bunny's face, ears, and back so everyone could see the color, and next week I will take the Fawns out of Morwenna's litter (who are weaned and separated into individual cages), and post pictures of them so that the difference between each will be clear (Morwenna's Fawns are much darker and smuttier:).
Here are two pictures of the bunny's face:
Oops!! For some reason the pictures are only hooking onto the top of this post so rather than take the time to figure out what's the matter right now I will just leave them and explain each one from here, LOL.
The top two pictures are of the bunny's ears, the second is of the back of the bunny (you can see that nice, golden color), and the last pictures are head-on views of the bunny where you can see that the face is quite clear and clean at this point.
Well, we will see how it goes over the next several months and if I wind up holding this baby longer (if the type and wool are good), I will post periodic pictures of it's face, ears, etc, to see how the smut progresses:).
More stuff again next week when I will go back to posting 3 times a week again (by which time I hope to have this new blog and it's pictures completely figured out, LOL). Have a FABULOUS week and please remember that I will be deleting my old blog on Typepad shortly and my new, permanent address from now on will be http://spangangoras.blogspot.com/
1 comment:
He's beautiful.
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