I\'ve read on a few web sites that you should only breed certain colors together. For example: Chestnut Agouti should only be bread with black, blue, opal agouti, black otter, or blue otter. Why is this? Is it because you would produce too many non showable colors? Or because you wouldn\'t be 100% sure what the resulting colors were? or???
Chrissy
It depends of course, on your goal, but it is true that some colors are compatible and some colors are not. I am assuming that the examples you gave were from a Website dealing with a breed (Holland Lop perhaps?) where coat color carries much less weight in regards to the show quality of the rabbit than say a Mini Rex.
The main reason you should watch the color mixing is that some colors, when crossed, result in poor color in the offspring and that can take generations to breed out.
In Mini Rex, for example, the color Castor (counterpart to the Chestnut Agouti in many other breeds), should NEVER be bred to Opal. This causes the surface color to be too dark and also causes gray coloration along the flanks and lower hindquarters.
The best Castors are produced from Castor to Castor matings.
Now some varieties are VERY compatible; Black and Blue, for example. If this is done too frequently, however, you can get light or blue eyes on your Blacks which is a DQ.
Lilac and Chocolate are very compatible. Chins are best with Chin to Chin, but can be bred to Black or White (if the White is out of Black or Chin ancestors). Himis are compatible with Blacks or Blues and Brokens are best bred to a solid colored rabbit in the same variety.
Actually, I think color genetics is fun and facinating.
Charlcie Gill
Zodiac Rabbitry
Astoria, OR
http://www.zodiacsatins.com