Rabbit Genetic Questions

[rdnewbre]

I have two rabbits that are each half American Chinchilla and half broken New Zealand. I bred them and ended up with mostly black babies and a couple broken. I also ended up with one REW. Can someone explain how this works? Because I thought that REW could only come from other REWs.

 

[NatJ]

REW (red eyed white) is caused by a recessive gene.
A rabbit can carry one copy of that gene and not show any effect. For a rabbit that carries one copy of the gene, some of its babies will inherit that gene.

If the baby inherits the REW gene from both parents, it will show the REW coloring.

In this case, both parents must be carrying the gene for REW. Breeding two carriers should give about a 1 in 4 rate of REW babies.

You probably will not see exactly a 1 in 4 rate when dealing with small numbers, but likely something close. For example, a litter of 8 might have 1 or 3 REW rather than the 2 that would exactly match the expected ratio.

If you breed two REW rabbits together, all bunnies will be REW.