The Modified Steel Gene explained

details on why this gene can cause such problems for French Lop breeders and how easy it is to eradicate it

and then scroll down for a steel free breeders list

any breeders who would like to add this information to their own websites please feel free to do so - however please credit Hamptons as the author

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Steel is just another pattern on a rabbit - and there's no denying its a very striking one.

Sadly most of the UK self french lop lines, black, blue, chocolate and lilac, have been unwittingly bred with modified steel rabbits, in recent years french lop breeders have become aware of this and it is starting to cause some concern for breeders in the french lop world.  Let me explain how this has happened .................

On the left is a photo a black steel buck and his pattern looks like a black self rabbit with light coloured ticking on the tips of the hairs and a slightly orangey triangle to the back of the neck - you can clearly see the coloured tips to his coat made by his ticking in this picture and next to him a photo of a chocolate steel - again with the steeling clearly visible

a blue steel looks like a blue self rabbit with similar ticking as does lilac steel

the steel gene also has a lurking nasty, many steels have something called a modifier gene, this gene hides all the ticking and leaves you with a rabbit which looks exactly like a self - see below - no ticking at all

genetically the four animals pictured on this page are all steels but the lower pictures are expressing the modifier gene which has taken out all the ticking

For many years this modifier gene has sneakily worked its way into hundreds of black and blue self lines - it looks like a self, it shows like a self and is judged on the show table as a self - about 80% of all self french lop breeders who breed selfs are really breeding modified steels to modified steel -they just dont know it  :(   and now with the recent importation of modified steel chocolates from Holland the same problem is manifesting itself in our very new chocolate self  or lilac self lines.

This may not seem to be a great problem for self breeders as many modified steels are far larger than their steel free counterparts and do very well at shows, but it can not be denied that they are just not self - its rather like showing an agouti or visual steel in an self class - most agouti or steel would wipe the floor with a true self as they have such incredible size now having been worked on for so many years, surely knowlingly showing a modified steel as a self is just fooling oneself and not an accomplishment for self french lops at all?

It was not until breeders started mixing otters with what they thought were selfs that the extent of the problem became apparent as litters were produced that genetically could not be possible - an otter mated to a true self could never give you a steel or an agouti - but weirdly they did.........something was very wrong.

During the last couple of years a few more breeders have learnt about colour and pattern genetics which has taken much of the guesswork out of their matings, they have also become aware of this modifier gene and when they have test mated for it they have found to their horror that their self lines are not self at all but are modified steels.

When Hampton Stud in Worcestershire first started working on the black otters and blue otters in 2002, three 'selfs'  were bought in from three different well known studs to use to increase the size in otters, all three when test mated to otters gave visual steels, proving them to be modified steels and not selfs at all. 

Phil Batey at Ruskins Miniature Lops talked through what was needed to do to override this problem - Phil has a very good page about the steel gene on his website and some more information regarding the problems of the modified steel gene - see  here  to open a new page to Phils site and read his opinions.

The steel gene is dominant to (stronger than) agouti, otter and true self, meaning it can carry all of the patterns. Agouti, otter and true self are recessive (weaker than) steel and therefore can not carry it.

Any visual agouti group rabbit  (A gene) - agouti, opal, orange, fawn, cinnamon, lynx, chinchilla, squirrel, can never carry a steel gene whether visual or modified and neither can anything from the otter group (at gene) - black otter, blue otter, sooty otter, beige otter, chocolate otter, lilac otter because, as mentioned before,  the agouti group pattern and the otter pattern are recessive to or weaker than the steel pattern. 

Recessive patterns can never genetically carry Dominant patterns.

 So any self produced from a combination of agouti group or otter group must be 100% steel free - Hoorah!

  Interesting enough sooty fawn and beige/isabella, iron grey can also be used to get steel free self into a line, all the non extension shades of self are on the ee locus (the same locus as steel) so can never be steeled.

Its as easy as that to eradicate it  !  Use agouti group animals to test mate your self line they are like the Daz Ultra of the rabbit world and clean out steel by visualing it in litters. Use sooty fawn or beige to get in a steel free self gene.

 Then start to create a self line using these agouti group or otter group animals as self carriers.  Then any selfs produced from this pairing can be guaranteed steel free and you can be sure that your self line is an honest true self line and as clean as a whistle.

Please click here to see some of the UKs steel free breeders and if you are a steel free breeder who would like to be added then please let me know.