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| Harlequin Genetics, thus far | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 26 2014, 05:53 PM (2,353 Views) | |
| HRoberts | Jan 1 2015, 06:53 PM Post #31 |
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POWITH!!
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Oh and this litter was rather inbred, so I was expecting way more consistency - I thought I'd get a bunch of plain marked kits! http://hardwayharlequins.greyclick.com/rabbit.php?id=0097 http://hardwayharlequins.greyclick.com/rabbit.php?id=0089 Sire and dam's pedigrees are on their pages. Pedigree is also inbred to 4D's Absolute Investment on maternal side and to Blazenko's Tigger on paternal side (but that's pretty far back). These kits are from the same buck that was throwing the strange leg coloration (RAF Jackson) - you can see that trait is indeed passing on! Interesting |
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| sidd-says-gimme | Jan 2 2015, 09:24 AM Post #32 |
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sidd says stay gold
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Very nice! Really pretty color on their kits.
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| HendricksHearth | Jan 3 2015, 11:09 AM Post #33 |
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Social Bunny
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Interesting results and great looking kits! Honestly, I have had nothing to show for my breedings in the past when I was going for markings as my main keeper requirement. My goals for this year is to improve type and commercial qualities- and I'm pretty much ignoring markings as blasphemous as that sounds to some Harlie breeders. Honestly, I won't continue working with the breed if they can't even marginally compete with regards to feed to meat conversion, growth rate, and overall type. We have homesteading goals in addition to rabbits and it just wouldn't make sense. A lot of Harlies I see in my region (the SE) are very flat with long shoulders, slow growth, pinched HQ, etc. Thanks for keeping us updated! |
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Lauren @ Hendricks' Hearth http://www.hendrickshearth.weebly.com | |
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| twr | Jan 5 2015, 03:57 PM Post #34 |
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POWITH!!
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I've always assumed the harlequin pattern arises from the more-or-less random* colouring-in of a fairly fixed pattern of fairly narrow left-right half-stripes (perhaps 4 or 5 odd-shaped ones on the head and chest and another 10 or so regular stripes down the body). In this model, wider areas of colour arise at random when adjacent half-stripes happen to be the same colour, and alternation arises when left and right half-stripes happen to be opposite colours. This model has some support from studies in mice in which simply mixing together mouse embryos when they are each just a few cells created harlequin-like patterns in the resulting adult when the embryos were of different colours. * for "more-or-less random" read "sensitive to microscopic changes in external conditions". |
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| HRoberts | Jan 12 2015, 07:27 AM Post #35 |
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POWITH!!
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I am seeing that too, but scratching my head a bit at how the trends do show up. This buck has in each of his litters thrown 1-2 almost solid kits. He was born in a litter with the almost solid doe. To me it seems there must be something other than more-or-less-random assignment at work here. I will be breeding one of the plain kits from this litter (a buck with only a bit of black on the bottom of his tail) back to his dam after convention next fall. It will be interesting to see what that litter looks like - lots of plain-os? Still lots of markings? We'll have to wait and see! And Hendricks yes I totally agree that is why I crossed out as well - I wanted beautiful animals to show that I could be proud of the growth, maternal qualities AND markings. After culling a whole lot of rabbits I 100% say Type, Color, Fur, Clarity, then alternations! The fur quality on some of the Harlies I've bought and seen is also really poor, which muddles up the markings even more. I have actually gotten into arguments with other breeders about the Harlequin having a commercial body type, not a Mandolin. |
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| HendricksHearth | Jan 13 2015, 06:30 PM Post #36 |
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Social Bunny
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Interesting! I just recently bred a boldly marked buck to a boldly marked doe and both of the kits are lightly marked, though clean. I'm probably keeping both because their type, size, and rufus has already grabbed my attention. In another litter at the same time, I bred a VERY lightly marked doe to a buck with moderate markings and her 6 were much more boldly marked. One that was DIA was almost entirely black. I can actually believe that about mandolin body type, lol. I need to take a comparison picture of my foundation buck's type and what they look like 3 generations down the line. I still have a lot of work to do, but I feel like I am finally making a tiny eensy bit of progress. I wonder what kind of external conditions could have been altering the mice? Looking forward to seeing how the trends progress.
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Lauren @ Hendricks' Hearth http://www.hendrickshearth.weebly.com | |
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| HRoberts | Jan 14 2015, 08:45 AM Post #37 |
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POWITH!!
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I have not been playing close enough attention to say for sure, but I do believe there is a pattern in banding vs. barring markings, suggesting genetic control beyond random assignment. And you do have trends in alternations though I have not found an animal that trends for all good - you will have something like really strong leg/chest splits in front, strong rear to front leg alternations, or strong ear to ear, face split, etc. This is all superstition at this point as I have not actually documented the litters - too many other fish to fry - but at some point in the future I will start doing better documentation of marking alternations to see if there is significance there. I would also be interested in learning how early embryo development and the dam's methionine intake might affect markings, but that's a research project that I just don't have the time or space for right now. |
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| twr | Feb 25 2015, 01:51 PM Post #38 |
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POWITH!!
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I hope you don't mind me revisiting this topic from early in the thread, but I noticed something I think is relevant and interesting. I was playing with the classical linkage groups, comparing them to the chromosome locations of known genes and trying to use them to predict the approximate locations of unknown genes. When I came to wideband I noticed that the KITL gene was very close to my predicted location. I don't think it is likely that KITL is responsible for wideband itself, but this does suggest that there is a known white-spotting gene that shows a close linkage to wideband (KITL is known to cause white-spotting in mice, and is part of the same signalling pathway as KIT, which is known to cause En spotting in rabbits). Given that white spotting affects the expression of ej (tricolour patterns differ from normal harlequin), it seems entirely plausible to me that deliberate selection to fix wideband could accidentally fix a KITL allele that causes either lighter or darker patterns. On the other hand, trying to stretch this idea to cover both lighter and darker patterns seems like it might be a step too far. Obviously this is all just speculation, but I thought you might like to know anyway. |
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| wildrabbits | Feb 28 2015, 06:31 AM Post #39 |
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Hopelessly Addicted to the Fuzz
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It is truly awesome that you are reporting all these findings for harlequin coloring. I have often wondered how ejej would look when present with the silvering, satin, or the Thuringer ac genes...Does anyone else have any knowledge on these mixes? Also I would love to know much more about bands vs bars..Could these be different genes altogether or do banded rabbits throw bar colored rabbits too? If these are in fact different genes then is one dominant to the other or perhaps on a different loci? Please forgive me for the ignorant questions but I have not been able to find solid research in regards to these questions =) |
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| reh | Feb 28 2015, 09:45 AM Post #40 |
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Get the Duct Tape, Stat!
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Are you from France or where have you got this ac thing from? In my opinion ac dont exists, tortoise is simply the result of a together with the temperature sensible working e. In all investigated tortoise rabbits the usual mutations of a and e was found. You can look for combinations with eJ here: http://www.rabbitcolors.info/int/en/groups/eJ.html What exactly dou you mean with bands/bars? Edited by reh, Feb 28 2015, 09:46 AM.
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www.rabbitcolors.info - Images and Gene Codes www.satinangora.de | |
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| wildrabbits | Feb 28 2015, 06:32 PM Post #41 |
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Hopelessly Addicted to the Fuzz
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Sorry I mistyped that, it is a ct gene from the Thuringer. I will show you what I found on it.. http://www.revmedvet.com/artdes-us.php?id=79 |
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| wildrabbits | Feb 28 2015, 06:41 PM Post #42 |
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Hopelessly Addicted to the Fuzz
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Thank you for sharing this info, quite a great site. By bars vs bands I mean how does the difference come about? Do rabbits with bars only produce bar colored offspring??? If you look up the proper markings for bars and bands they are quite a bit different which suggests to me that there is more than one type of ejej gene... |
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| reh | Mar 1 2015, 02:26 PM Post #43 |
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Get the Duct Tape, Stat!
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Thats exact this strange paper i thought of (the only one with this idea). Its better you look at pubmed for papers of Luca Fontanesi. I dont know about bands and bars, only about stripes versus brindled and this is very probably caused by melanoblast migration influencing white spotting genes/modifiers, not by ej itself. |
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www.rabbitcolors.info - Images and Gene Codes www.satinangora.de | |
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| wildrabbits | Mar 1 2015, 05:50 PM Post #44 |
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Hopelessly Addicted to the Fuzz
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My understanding of harlequins is they can come with bars and bands..which makes it seem like a whole other gene set similar to what you are saying...it almost seems like it could be for example Ej is bands and ej is bars..or perhaps one of these 2 certain ej genes appear on a whole different locus site..similar to Enen..all just untested theories I have..Thank you for sharing this pubmed info with me. I will check it out and see what all it has thus far |
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| NeuBunny | Mar 2 2015, 10:10 AM Post #45 |
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Genetics Geek!
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I don't think bands versus bars are separate alleles - from what I can see banded rabbits do throw bars and vice versa. More likely secondary modifier gene(s). |
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