Rex rabbit breed colour

Question
Hello Dr Roush,

I have an Orange Rex buck and would like to buy a suitable coloured doe for him.
I wanted to find out the best colour to mate to him.
Is it best to stick to orange,cinnamon,fawn etc or could i get away  with breeding him to a chocolate or choc otter? Because i dont want to get a black otherwise i might start getting lacing on the oranges..

Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou
Danella

Answer
Danella, Orange is a strange color to play with,regardless of breed as the genes get muddled/mixed a lot. I am not sure what your level of knowledge of color genetics may be. So, at the risk of insulting you and talking beneath your level of genetic knowledge, I will not talk about the geneotypes but rather about the phenotypes. The best Oranges are from chocolate lines. (I assume from your comments that yours may also be.)However, many Oranges are from black gene families. I assume you know that Orange Rex are not accepted as a variety by the ARBA. I therefore assume you just want to make more because you like the color.  Here is the easy way... Breed your buck to a Lilac rex doe. All the young may be Castor...but the idea is to raise the does to breeding age. That will take about 6 months after they are born, or 7 months after you breed your buck to the doe. Then, breed your buck back to his daughters. Your odds of getting Oranges out of those breedings will exceed 50%, statistically. Once you get the Oranges, they will usually breed true, although you may get some throwbacks to blue(if your orange is out of a black gene pool) or lilacs occasionally, and even some blue or lilac torts..they make nice pets but are not showable. However, since your Oranges aren't showable either, I imagine it is not an important element for you. As with any livestock breeding endeavor, you will be generating many offspring to get to the desired outcome. As an aside, the best way to really get beautiful Oranges is to also have some wideband genes and rufus factor modifiers in the gene pool. To accompliah this is a good deal more genetically complex, and probably that discussion is for when Oranges end up as  an accepted color and they need improvement. Best Regards, Steve