Marburg Feh
The Marburger Feh is a small breed of rabbits weighing around 2.75 kg, light blue in color with a brownish veil. The corresponding hereditary formula is:
ABcdg (German symbols) or abCdE (English symbols)
History of the Marburg Feh
The Marburger Feh was bred from 1912 by the breeder Sandemann in Marburg . Franke writes, but without substantiating his sources, that L. Peters, caretaker of the Ear Clinic in Marburg, found a fairy-colored animal in a litter of Havana rabbits and gave it to an 11-year-old boy from the neighborhood who soon lost interest and gave the animal to him his aunt, the already mentioned Mrs. Sandemann passed on, who was able to obtain more mis-colored animals by cross-breeding again.
The breed was recognized in Germany in 1916 . The name of the breed derives from the hometown of the breeder and from the (desired) similarity of the fur to that of the Siberian squirrel , which is sold as a feh in the fur trade . In the early days of rabbit breeding, there was often an endeavor to breed breeds whose fur could be used to imitate the fur of noble fur animals . Except for certain similarities in color, this was not successful, however, various rabbit breeds have the model in their name.
Joppich writes that miscoloured animals appeared earlier in litters of Havana rabbits , but were then mostly ignored. He attributes this to early crossbreeding of Blauen Wienern and Blauen van Beveren into the Dutch Havana rabbits. If one looks at the genetics of the coat colors , this seems plausible: the Havana rabbit has the genetic formula ABcDg or abCDE, while the Blue Viennese as well as the Blue van Beveren have the genetic formula ABCdg or aBCdE. It is quite conceivable that the recessive form of the dilution factor (d both German and English symbolism) has remained undetected in some Havana, and that if split parent animals were mated accidentally, the Havana rabbits had miscolored animals in litters.
Similar races
The Perlfeh is a small, blue-wild-colored rabbit breed. In contrast to the Marburg Feh, the Perlfeh has pearls on the tips of the hair, exactly like the Siberian squirrel model, which the Marburg Feh completely lacks. Perlfeh was developed in parallel to the Marburger Feh.
In the Netherlands , in addition to the Marburg Feh, the Gouwenaar breed is bred, which is a little lighter with the same genetic formula, the Dutch standard requires the Marburg Feh "dark gouwenaar".
In Great Britain the breed is known as Lilac and was bred there independently several times, for example in 1910 by H. Onslow in Cambridge and at the same time by Illingworth in Essex (as Essex Lavender). The geneticist RC Punnett in Cambridge bred Lilac (or Cambridge Blue) from Havanna and Blauen van Beveren, the offspring of this cross are initially solid black, the F 2 generation splits in a ratio of 9: 3: 3: 1 into black, blue, brown and mis-colored animals.
In France this breed is called the Feh de Marbourg.
The squirrel color is recognized as a color in other breeds.
literature
- W. Schlohlaut: The big book of the rabbit. 2nd Edition. DLG-Verlag, Frankfurt 1998, ISBN 3-7690-0554-6 .
- JC Sandford: The domestic rabbit. 5th edition. Blackwell Science, Oxford 1996, ISBN 0-632-03894-2 .
- F. Joppich: The rabbit. VEB Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1967.
- FK Dorn, G. March: Breed rabbit breeding. 5th edition. Neumann-Verlag, Leipzig / Radebeul 1981.
- A. Franke: Marburger Feh. In: rabbits. 4/1998, pp. 8/9, ISSN 0941-0848
- Standard van de Konijnenrassen, Cavy´s en small Knaagdieren. Nederlandse Konijnenfokkersbond, Venlo 1990.
