| BEW, Blue Eyed White rabbits are very different from REW Ruby eye white rabbits.
When you breed a BEW to a non-BEW fuzzy lop you get what is called a Vienna Marked
rabbit.
Vienna marked rabbits are often marked with a white blaze
running down it's face and white across the shoulders, white socks on
their feet and may or may not have Blue eyes.
They are sometimes called
Dutch marked because the kits born with one Vienna gene will be born
with markings similar to the Dutch breed of rabbit. These
Vienna Marked kits
are un-showable in most (if not all) rabbit clubs. So breeding BEW
results in a large number of Culls or Pet bunnies.
Vienna marked rabbits are also nicknamed "Sports". The Nickname Sport can be
confusing since I'm told Sport means something else in one of the
spotted breeds of rabbit.
Ruskin Miniature lops in the UK breed BEW and they advise not to breed
Dilute to BEW just as I advise not to breed dilute to REW.
Quote "There are two
colour genes you MUST keep out of your BEW breeding program and these
are the brown or chocolate gene (carried or expressed) bb - and the
light chinchillation gene - cchl
Both of these
gene cause a glow to the eye when being expressed (visual in the rabbit
you are looking at) and both cause the eye in a BEW rabbit to turn
purple rather than blue"
http://www.miniaturelops.com/bewgenetics.htm
I would hazard to guess that the warning also includes lilac which is
the dilute of Chocolate and also has a ruby glow to the eye. The above
mentioned website goes into detail on BEW offspring percentages.
If you are planning on breeding BEW you need to treat them like they are
a separate breed from the rest of your fuzzy lops.
If you sell fuzzy lops with BEW in their pedigree (even 6 generations
back) you should warn the breeder you're selling to.
I would advise selling a rabbit with BEW anywhere in it's pedigree only to another BEW breeder or to a
pet home.
The BEW gene can cause kits for generations to be born with a white spot
on it's head or a white tipped nose which would make the kit un-showable.
It's really difficult to breed out. I have a friend that bred Jerseys. She bought a rabbit
that must have carried the BEW gene and she bred it into her
herd not knowing it carried BEW. She had to get rid of a lot of her nice
Jerseys just to be rid of the white tipped noses, white dot on the
forehead and white tipped paws
that kept popping up in the litters. It was just too hard to bred out of
her herd.
Having
seen first hand what a mess it can do to a herd, I avoid buying from a breeder who has
BEW. I know it sounds extreme, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Most people really like the white coats with the blue eyes.
If you do decide to breed BEW they are pretty rare and I believe there
is a great market for them as both show and pet animals. One of the
reasons I breed unusual colored rabbits instead of just torts is that
they are easy to find homes for.
Just be aware there are drawbacks and added responsibilities to breeding
the BEW.
If you do breed them, let me know, I do add rare color referrals on my Holland
lop and Fuzzy lop directories.
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