Ear genetics

[AnaA]

Hey everyone.

Not sure if I'm posting this on the right forum, but I couldn't seem to find any that fitted what I was searching for.

Well, me and a genetics student are trying to figure out some things about rabbit ear genetics. If any of you could help with some information I'd be grateful.

So here's the thing: I know you're not supposed to breed a lop eared bunny with a bunny with upright ears, but it happens sometimes. If any of you has had any experience with something like this, would you please tell me:

- How were the ears of the new rabbits? Huge and upright? Lop? Normal sized?
- If there were different kinds of ears, how many of them had each kind of ears? And were they male or female?
- Which was the lop eared rabbit? The male or the female?

I hope some of you can answer this, it would be huge for us. (sorry about the rusty English, I hope I didn't write anything really dumb)

 

[Tamsin]

It's quite common to get lop cross non lop rabbits. As far as I know there is no particular reason they shouldn't be bred. Obviously you wouldn't breed them if you were trying to maintain a specific breed though.

The offspring vary. Some will be lops, some not and some half way in between ie their ears will stick out sideways, lop sometimes and not others or have one ear lop and the other not. Lop isn't an either or gene. Whether a rabbits ears appear to lop depends on ear size/weight, head shape and muscles etc. There's also different lop breeds, anything crossed with an English lop (they can have 12" long ears) is likely to be a lop just because of the ear size.

Lop rabbit's won't necessarily appear to be lops as babies, particularly cross breeds, their ears can lop quite late as they grow in size.

Temperature can also effect the degree of lop, more blood is diverted to the ears to cool when a rabbit is hot and the extra weight can make the ears more droopy.

 

[Bunny Buddy]

Two of my rabbits are crosses of a lop and an uppy eared parent. (Rudy quite possibly as well but I don't know his history).

Tink has 4 siblings that I know of from two different litters. I *think* her father was the lop and mother uppy eared. Of her 3 sisters and 1 brother
One sister and her brother are up-eared (kind of!) the others are lops. She also has many half-siblings who are also nieces and nephews (inbred between father and her sisters ), all of these are lops.

As Tamsin states above though some of them were quite a few months old before they lopped, at least six months for two of her siblings.

Esme is from a litter of 4, 3 does 1 buck, one parent of each ear type. A previous litter were all lops and to the best of my knowledge all her littermates are also. She didn't lop until about 15 weeks. Pure lops I've had in the past were fully lopped when I got them at 8 weeks.

When my bunnies hear a noise I notice the crossbred ones often their ears will stand straight upright - all three off them can do it. Artie is a lop and his ears never stand up, same with lops I've had previously.

From my experience I can't see why it is bad to cross uppy eared with lops more so than any other combination of crosses.

 

[bunlover]

my cross lop starskey i had many eyars back had lopped ears in most pictures but in some you will see one up and one down and in others both up so somepeople thought we had 3 bunnys! lol it was only one with funny ears when they have one up one down it is often called a helicopter lop, many buns are crossed due to lack of understanding of genetics etc, and in fact i think somemo f them actually turn out healthier the problems genetically with lops are usually to do with the head shape causing dental issues, rather than with their ears although my actual lop i dont think he is a cross(but could be he never lifts his ears up) sometimes gets them wet or caught on things(his ears) when he runs around the garden.

 

[AnaA]

Thanks for your help!

This rabbit ear thing really is amazing, it would be enough to write a whole book on the subject :lol:

 

[Sky-O]

At the rescue I volunteer at we had a little of four lionhead crossed with a mini/dwarf lop bunnies. There were four babies.

Ear wise there was one with upright ears and one with full lopped ears and the others both had 'aeroplane' ears (where they stick out sideways due to the crown being too tight to lop but too slack to keep the ears upright).

I currently have Rosie who has her left ear down and her right ear up, but she can do many things with both ears and seems to have full control of lopping or not. She, I would guess, is a lop X (probably with a rex, judging by her body shape), but I don't know for sure. Her sister did have similar ears though, although they were more upright unless she got super interested, then they sort of came over her eyes.

I also had Tilly. I never knew exactly what Tilly's ears did because she came to me with head tilt. Her ears were heavy and she didn't have marvellous control over them and they tilted her head more with the weight of them. On the rare occassions her head was straight, she did have one ear that seemed to lop in some way. Her ears were too big to be your average uppy ears rabbit so I would presume she too was a cross, but again, I don't know for sure.

On a side note, your English is brilliant, so don't worry about that at all