Firstly what I would like to do before going into all the genotype codes, what to put to what and what not to put to what I think it is important that you acquaint yourself with the fundamentals of genetics. The individual genes, the functions they perform and the associated genes they work well with and rabbits they can be found in. Once you have understood how the genes work you should be able to understand the sometimes complex world of genetics, and hopefully make it a lot simpler and less scary.

There are three pattern groups and ONLY three. These are Agouti Pattern, Tan Pattern and Self Pattern. From these three patterns all colours of rabbit are formed. Markings of rabbits, such as Dutch, Butterflies, Hotots and Silvers etc are just colours with marking genes and are NOT patterns in their own right. With this in mind, the below table will show you how all these genes work with each other and hopefully help you understand why you see what you see in the rabbit colours that you have.

Gene	Name	Description	Examples
A	Agouti Pattern - Banded Hair	A rabbit with this gene in its genotype has banding. Fawn or white at its eye circles, triangle at nape of neck, feet, legs, and inside of ears. The belly colour on this rabbit is white.	Agouti,Opal, Lynx, Cinnamon, Chinchilla, Squirrel and Wiltshire
at	Tan Pattern	This gene removes the banding of the agouti pattern but leaves the nape, inside ears, nose fork and eye circles, ticking and belly as above. The tan pattern colour points can appear in tan, fawn, or white.	Marten Smoke, Marten Sable, Fox, Otter & Tan. Also unstandardised colours such as Sooty Otters and Marten Seal Points etc
a	Self Pattern - Non Agouti or Tan	This gene removes the banding fully from the hair shaft producing a solid coloured rabbit.	Black, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac Also many other colours such as sooty, sealpoint etc. Explanation later though

It is always a good thing to remember that genes come in pairs. Most colours are created by a combination of FIVE pairs of genes. Each pair is created from one gene passed on from the father and one gene from the mother. There are instances, as in the REW, where only one pair of genes is needed, although the rest are hidden underneath.

From the above table you can see the three pattern groups in order from top to bottom. This is called the order of dominance. It is important to remember this when calculating genotypes. Any pattern can carry the patterns on the row below, but not those above. As you can see from the table, Agouti is at the top so can therefore carry the Tan pattern or the Self pattern. The Self rabbit being at the bottom can carry no other pattern at all (except REW's and BEW's, but we'll take a look at that later).

The Agouti and Tan patterns only need the first half of their pair to creat the pattern. It does not matter what the second gene is. The Self pattern is ALWAYS two recessive a's together. There is no space in the pair to carry another pattern gene.