English Spot Genetics

Alrighty, folks! Here is a crash course on genetics to help you in your breeding. I’m going to try to keep this as simple as possible, so here goes nothing. Since I breed English Spot’s I’m going to focus the most on colors relevant to this breed, however, this can be used for other breeds and even other species of animals. 

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The En Gene

First, we are going to go over the pattern which really is the easy part. There is the Dominant (or Big) gene which covers up the Recessive (or Little) gene. The big gene is represented by an “En” and the little one is “en”. For those Genetics gurus out there reading this, this pattern exhibits a phenomenon called Incomplete Dominance, for the rest of us, this doesn’t matter. All it means is that the Big gene lets some of the characteristics of the Little gene get through. 

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I like to think about it like this: The En gene is colored and the en gene is white. So when you place them next to each other you get something like a spotted (or marked) English Spot  (En/en). Now, if I was to breed two rabbits that were marked, I wouldn’t only get spotted rabbits. Because each kit gets one gene from each of his parents, there is only a 50% chance he would be marked. The other kits could be charlies (very lightly marked rabbits) or Sports (solid colored rabbits). Charlies get two of the Little genes (en/en) and are mostly white. Sports are pretty much the same, except they have two of the Big genes (En/En) and are solid colored. Thus if you bred a Charlie or a Sport to a Marked rabbit, you would get 50% marked and 50% of either Charlie or Sport depending on which you bred. BUT (and I think this is the best part) if you breed a Charlie to a Sport, you would get all marked rabbits. The thing to remember when using not marked rabbits in your breeding program is this: Just because the rabbit is a Sport or a Charlie, they still have a pattern of spots that we can’t see, but they will pass it on to their kits

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Okay, I’m going to introduce a couple of made-up rabbits to use as examples at the beginning of each section. I’ll explain the series of letters following each name in just a moment.​

Just ignore most of the letters. We aren’t going to go into the A’s, the C’s, and the E’s at all in this article, since they don’t matter much for our purposes and are only confusing. We’re going to start with the B genes. 

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The B Genes

1. Midas and Fiona, black (aa BB CC DD EE)

2. Julius and Julia, chocolate carriers, still black (aa Bb CC DD EE)

3. Caesar and Cleo, chocolate (aa bb CC DD EE)

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This may surprise you, but deep down every rabbit is either Black or Chocolate. That’s it. You may ask, but what about all the crazy colored rabbits out there? Well, they are either black or chocolate with a bunch of color modifiers. The B gene stands for Black (Yay! Simplicity!) and of course, it has a little version, the b gene which stands for Chocolate. 

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We’re going to start with Midas and Fiona (aa BB CC DD EE) who both have the BB genes (why are there two? One from each parent!) and if we bred them, they would only have babies with BB genes. Which means Black parents, black babies. Nice and simple. 

Similarly, Caesar and Cleo (aa bb CC DD EE) have the bb genes, so they are chocolate colored. And if I bred them I would only get chocolate bunnies out of them. Still pretty simple. 

But, if I was to breed Midas and Cleo (a black to a chocolate) I would still only get black rabbits. Since the Big gene (B) covers up the little gene (b), we would still only see Black. Underneath, in the genetic code of the kits, they would have the chocolate gene and be able to pass it on to their children. 

So, say Julius and Julia (both Bb) are from that litter and I bred them. I would get Blacks (BB), Black chocolate carriers (Bb), and Chocolates (bb). 

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Alright, that’s a little confusing, so take some time to chill, go get a drink or something, and mull it over in your head. When you think you’ve got it, keep reading cause it only gets more complex from here. 

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The D Genes

1. Sunday and Friday, dilute carriers, still black (aa BB CC Dd EE)

2. Luke and Lila, dilute carrier, still chocolate (aa bb CC Dd EE

3. Simba and Nala, Lilac or chocolate dilute (aa bb CC dd EE)

4. Ralph and Mary, Blue or black dilute (aa BB CC dd EE)

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As I said before, we’re skipping the C genes. They are just complicated and they don’t affect us in the breeding of English Spots unless you are doing some weird color crossings. Anyway! The D genes control the intensity of color in a rabbit, the big D gene gives full, intense color and the little d gene dilutes it. So, a black with a double little d will be blue and chocolate will be lilac. This part is just a little trickier because we have to be concerned with more than one set of genes, the B genes and the D genes, to explain the color. 

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So our rabbits Sunday and Friday are black, but they carry the dilute gene from one of their parents. Since we know their genotype (the series of letters, their genetic code if you will), we know they do not carry chocolate. So when bred, they will have a litter of dilute carrying blacks and a few blues. 

Similarly, with our rabbits Luke and Lila who are chocolate dilute carriers, we would get a majority of dilute carrying chocolates and a few lilacs. 

The rest is pretty easy! Simba and Nala are Lilacs and will only have lilac babies when bred to other lilacs. Ralph and Mary will only have blue kits when bred to other blues. 

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Hopefully this made sense and helped you in your adventures! I wish you much luck and many nest boxes full of kits! If you have any questions (or I didn’t explain something as thoroughly as I should have) just send me a message! I love answering all your questions!