It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Soon the buns will moult Take a look at that fluffy bum, I'm not brushing it for fun With lots of hair that puffs and clumps like snow It's beginning to look like Christmas Brushes in my hand But the prettiest one I'll see is the bunny that will be On my own home floor

My yard looks like it snowed after every time I brush Buttons. The amount of hair he is losing is ridiculous. Clumps of fur, streams of fur, clouds of fur… everywhere. Nova, well, she is funny. Her hair doesn’t brush out easily, but when you pat her, her hair comes out. I’ve resorted to having wet hands when I pat her, so it sticks to my hands.

Even though the glove-thing works, I haven’t had much luck with the weather to start teaching Nova about sitting on the table. It has been overcast, raining, thundering, misty and warm. Great weather for mould to grow on grass. Yay! Today as I am writing this, it is the darkness of about 6pm at night, and it’s only 9:30am. It is raining, thundering and the backyard is a huge puddle. I can’t put the animals outside today without diving gear and a snorkel.

Just a bit of AI fun – supposed to be Buttons, Nova, Tinkerbell and Bubbles. I didn’t try hard to give it the correct instructions.

Nova’s Hair

Nova, as previously discussed, is now wearing a red hat and scarf. Her black hair is turning red because she is moulting. Now, this article may get a little technical, so I’ll catch you up with the basics before I start with what I want to talk about.

Hair Colour Basics

When you have a in depth look at rabbit colors (and I have a huge article on it in the Health Library) you quickly work out that there are five main genes that they have isolated out that they think controls hair colour and appearance: A, B C, D and E.

Then there are five known accessory genes that accentuate or manipulate the other genes: Du, En, Si, V, W.

Each gene must be in pairs; one from the mother and one from the father. A gene can be dominant (shown by using a uppercase letter) or recessive (a lowercase letter). A gene pair can be made of a dominant and recessive (Aa), two dominant (AA), or two recessive genes (aa).

A or a controls the striping on each strand of hair, it is known as agouti. It is normal for rabbits to have different coloured bands on each strand. The A is the dominant gene, and the a is the recessive gene.

B controls the base colour, which generally is the main colour of the rabbit. There is B which is black, and b which is chocolate/brown.

C comes in various styles, which controls the chinchilla colouration. It also controls whether the rabbit has red eyes or not. We won’t be looking at that in this article, it’s too convoluted for the purpose of this article.

D is dense or how solid the colour is. d is how dilute the colour is.

Du is the Dutch colouration gene.

E^d is how extended the colour is on the strand of hair – or whether the while shaft is a single colour. E^d coats are a very deep, dark colour and won’t have white flecks through it.

E is normal extension, which forces black to display as true black. True blacks have white flecks throughout their coat.

There are other E variations that we won’t be needing in this article.

En is the spotting gene. So, Buttons has the EnEn to have is spots, while Nova will have enen which makes her a solid black colour.

There is also Enen, which is the English spot gene set.

The Si creates silvering. Sisi will display white hairs in the solid coloured coat, while sisi is the full silvering gene when the rabbit starts off black and after it’s first moult will turn silver.

The V gene is the Vienna gene, where it produces blue eyes.

W is the wide agouti banding gene, which means the band in the middle on each hair is wider than normal.

Buttons and Nova’s Hair

Ok, so, let’s start with Nova. Nova is a black rabbit. She has white flecks in her coat. She has a chocolate undertone to her hair. Her hair turns brown when she moults. All of these point to her having these genes:

• Aa – has banding on hair (slate grey undercoat, black tips)
• Bb (dominant black with recessive brown) – black coat, brown undertone
• C – we will skip
• DD – dense solid colour all over
• EE (normal extension) – solid black colour

While Buttons, he is a little more confusing:

• Aa – banding on some hair, not all hair
• BB – dominant solid black
• C – skip
• DD – dense solid colour all over
• E^dE^d – he has solid black colour without flecks.
• EnEn – spotting gene

Why is Buttons more confusing? Well, because if he does have the E^d gene, he is one of the rare black rabbits. It is unlikely to have an E^d colour on a rabbit.

But Buttons isn’t black… Yes he is. A spotted rabbit like Buttons is the colour of his spots, and the white areas are added to his coat. So he is a solid black rabbit with white paint tipped all over him.

This is to show Nova’s agouti colours. She has a grey undercoat, with black on the tips.

Here you can clearly see the different black colours. Novas black is like a dark chocolate, while Buttons is an inky black. Even though they are both black rabbits, it is clear to see the Buttons’ black is a different, more dense black.

Buttons’ hair doesn’t go brown when he moults. It stays black. If he had a recessive b gene, he would be chocolatey like Nova, so he must have two dominant B genes.

He may also have the rare E^d because most of his black hair doesn’t have banding. He has solid black hair everywhere.

I’d like to think that Buttons has the E^d gene, but I’m not 100% sure. But I’ll go with it anyway. It’s not going to make much difference to me if he has it or not. I’m sure someone out there will read this and think, no he can’t have the E^d gene, he has this and that instead. That is great! Contact me if you can help me figure it out. Some people are right into understanding rabbit colours and know it on a deeper level than me, I only know the basics. But if you want to help, then please do.