If you have watched the movie "The Hunt for Red October," you know that one submarine was stealthily following another in its "baffles," a sonar blind area behind the pursued submarine. There was a time when Russian submarines would do a series of sharp turning maneuvers to check this blind spot and be ready to fire on a pursuing submarine. This was dubbed "Crazy Ivan." (By the way, the technology of today makes that unnecessary for submarines.)
I have rabbits in all-black lines with no recessives, at least none that have ever expressed or are known. Then I have Yanish, who inherited carrying white and dilute recessives from his father so that every offspring from him may carry them also, and I am heavy with rabbits related to him, although not all are. At this time in my breeding program, I am pursuing all-black lines as much as I can. I love two other varieties but they are not accepted and my rabbitry is too small to work on projects like that and stay competitive at rabbit shows at this time.
So a Crazy Ivan breeding—more commonly known as inline breeding but not as colorful of a term—is where I chose to turn back to breed a father carrying recessives to determine if his daughter or granddaughter has those recessives or a mother to a son or grandson. In one Crazy Ivan breeding, I determined that Jaleesa carries white and dilute like her father. That makes her an excellent doe to test breed for those recessives with my bucks.
There are several reasons I want to know about what recessives are in play with my rabbits. I like to provide information on what is a possibility with the rabbits I am selling to buyers and I like to keep more rabbits that contribute all-black lines than ones with recessives so that I have more blacks in the nest boxes, which means I have more blacks from which to choose for show potential.
I am not against other colors to the point of some enthusiasts, who will say things like the other unaccepted colors means that they cannot be purebred Silver Foxes, although that is absolutely true about chocolates because the color was not in the breed originally. However, it is rather disappointing for me to have an awesome white that cannot be shown at all or an awesome blue that cannot win a show, even though I really like their colors. A white will always throw white carriers and a blue always will throw dilute carriers making those colors more likely in their offspring, so it works in the opposite direction of my goals as a show breeder. However, when blues are accepted, I will most definitely be breeding for them.
"What about chocolates?" you may ask. Even though that is now an accepted variety, I personally am really not a fan of the color with silvering, so I am trying to avoid its possibility of being introduced into my rabbitry. That is the advantage of varieties, we all can have our preferences. One day in the future, I may just be a rabbit keeper/meat breeder and play with some of the "forbidden" colors or outcrosses for my own pleasure once again, but for now, I am devoting my rabbitry towards blacks only and all-blacks as much as I can and my occasional Crazy Ivan breedings will be advantageous to my goal.