| Black & Blue Harlequin If you look by the saddle on this Black Dutch, you'll notice a Blue strip. Oddball popped up in one of my litters a couple years ago. Her sire is Fiver a Black, with all Black in his background. Her dam is Tyke whose a Blue with both Blue and Black in her background. This was my second time breeding those two together. The day after Oddball was born I noticed that she had a blue strip by her saddle, and that the back of one of her ears was blue. We called another Dutch breeder (the original breeder of Fiver) to see if he had ever heard of this, which he hadn't. I took Oddball to a Dutch specialty show to see if anyone there had heard of it. Only one breeder, who has been breeding Dutch for a very long time had seen it before. His first question to me was if the rabbit had any of his breeding in her background, which she did. It turns out that many years ago he had a perfectly marked Black and Blue Harlequin pop up in one of his litters years ago. He said that this is a recognized variety over in Europe. That day in the show, a Black Dutch end up getting Disqualified for having Blue spots on it's belly. The next time I saw Fiver's original breeder, he said he had just had one like this pop up in one of his litters. He also said that he went down to a show in Oregon and some one else who had this problem was asking him about it. I haven't had anymore Black & Blue Harlequins pop up in my litters since, and haven't heard anyone else say they've had it happened since either. |
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| Double Dutch's Oddball 2 weeks old |
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| Background courtesy of Pam Nock Copyright © 2003 Double Dutch Rabbitry. All rights reserved. |