It's not just recessive traits, Dgeigh, it's that we track five different genes in rabbits - Agouti/non-agouti, Black/brown, colour distribution, dilution, extension. I once had three black rabbits, one of whom was black, one white and one red. Disraeli expressed the black dominant gene. Lily was genetically black (which I knew because when I bred her to a brown buck, she produced black babies), but expressed the gene for albinism, so looked white. Jonquil was genetically black, but had the extension gene that said "all this eumelanin will be phaeomelanin" - translation, black colour will become yellow(red). So he looked red, although genetically he was black. It could take me five generations to be sure of some colours in a particular bunny, especially when some things didn't show up until the bunny was three or four years old (like "steel" - white tipping on black). Oh, yeah - I know a lot about colour in bunnies and sheep, and I know that if you breed two black rabbits, two white rabbits, or one black and one white, there's no telling what you'll get, at least the first time out. So I repeat - those texts lied, because they never showed all that recessive stuff.
But it was fun, and I liked the bunnies.
