Fuzzy's new kits

[Roy and Vicky]

Our newest addition to our little growing farm has blessed us with her first litter. All seven of then, we didn't expect there would be so many with the first litter, but are very happy about it! Some will be meat rabbits, some of the does will be kept for breeding purposes. we are brand new to the bunny raising. I have yet to find out if they are purebred or not. I know they are Silverfox, but suspect in our area they are not purebred, so as we learn more and get more hutches and cages available to keep them with enough room to run and play we will expand and get purebreds for selling purposes, but for now we are happy with our little growing family.

 

[animalmom]

Congrats! You will find that rabbit math, like chicken math and goat math will rule. But, by the time you figure that out you will have trippled the size of your bunny barn and actively looking to make it even bigger... for the kits, you know.

 

[Bunnylady]

Welcome to the forum, and to the crazy world of rabbits!

Congrats on your first litter! I think you will find that watching them grow is almost mesmerizing, "good grief - you guys look bigger this morning than you did last night!" When they get out of the nest box, their antics will bring you back again and again, just to watch them.

I'm afraid I can just about guarantee you that your rabbits are not purebred Silver Fox. It looks like there are two white babies in the litter, and white is not a color that a Silver Fox should be carrying.

The defining feature of the Silver Fox is its coat. The hair is noticeably longer than the typical rabbit coat, and it "stands" (meaning that if you stroke it the wrong way, you have to stroke it the right way to get it to lie down again). A Silver Fox has lots of white hairs sprinkled through the coat. Lots of rabbits have a few stray white hairs (if there are enough of them, they are a DQ in most breeds) but there are a bunch in the Silver Fox. You don't usually see the white hairs in kits that are just starting to grow fuzz, but by the time they are a month or two old, there are lots of white hairs, though it may take several months before a rabbit is really silvered.

A good Silver Fox doe.

 

[Roy and Vicky]

Mom and Dad do look pretty much like the on you show Bunnylady, just not as much white. I need to call the local people we got them from and find out what is mixed in there. I didn't figure we should have been getting any pinkies in the mix only little grey critters. I counted again this morning and thought I saw 8 thankfully it was only head and tail of one lol just someone else lying across it. Now, to figure out all the other handy dandy things we need to know about raising rabbits. We do have two different shades of grey on the babies too, very dark grey and a lighter grey color skin. Got a long list of things to learn, how to sex them, homemade hutches to make, play yards to make. I so wanted to bring the hutch her and the babies are in in the house besides me on the tile lol i'm horrid when it comes to babies. They are not very tame, but momma is doing very well with letting me pet her now compared to before she was ready to have them, they were pretty wild, i'm hoping she stays this way now. She's very tolerate of letting me touch them, I have not picked them up yet other than the one that stumbled out of the nest twice and i put it back and she had no trouble with it and i have it fixed now so it can't stumble out again for a while.

 

[Poka_Doodle]

SO CUTE

 

[Roy and Vicky]

Here's a better picture of Fuzzy I got this morning

 

[Bunnylady]

In your picture of the litter, I can see at least two black babies, and at least two blues. At this time, I think black is the only showable color in Silver Fox (Blue used to be accepted, too, but there is a requirement that a certain number of a variety have to be shown at the annual Convention, and there weren't enough blues there for several years, so the color got dropped. There are people working on getting it added back, but I don't know how far they have gotten. Silver Fox is a rare breed; just getting enough good animals of one color can be a challenge, never mind two).

Particularly with rare breeds, it isn't unusual for a breeder to outcross to another breed (mostly to improve type). Sometimes other things can get picked up in an outcross, and they can persist in a line for a surprising amount of time. I once bought a junior Harlequin doe from a very well-known breeder. When this rabbit matured, she was almost a pound heavier than the breed standard allows. When I was talking to the breeder about her, she asked me if the doe had a certain rabbit on the pedigree. She did, as her grand-sire. The breeder told me that she had gotten him from a breeder that had done some outcrossing to New Zealands to improve type, and I said, "well, she does look a lot like a New Zealand with a fancy paint job."

It turned out the body type wasn't the only thing she had gotten from her "way back" New Zealand ancestor. I kept several of that doe's offspring, and used them in my breeding program. A few years down the road, I had a litter that had a couple babies in it that were Ruby-eyed Whites. When I checked the pedigrees, sure enough, this doe was on them both (as a grandparent on one, and a great-grandparent on the other, as I recall). There hadn't been any NZW's on her pedigree, so that's, what, at least 5 generations of passing the REW gene along unseen in a population, until just the right two rabbits got put together?

 

[Roy and Vicky]

The people we got them from said they were pure breed, so I have no clue since we're new to rabbits. We got them in mid May and were told they were sister and brother and 2-3 months old. she just had her first litter on Sunday and this is what we got. It's pretty impossible to get a great picture of their colors with a flash or light filtered through the trees. The grey skinned ones are definitely two different shades of grey. all their fur is starting to grow it's maybe about 1/4 inch long now.

 

[Roy and Vicky]

we ended up with three blacks, three whites and one blue. we're keeping at least the blue since she's appears to be a female then were were given a lop ear rabbit, not sure exactly what she is yet.

 

[63redtudor]

Whites do pop up in the silver foxes occasionally. Its not ARBA standard, but I understand that its been associated with the breed since the begining. When the kits get old enough, check the length of the fur (usually around 1 1/2" long) and see if it doesn't 'flyback.' Breeders either love them or hate them, depending on who you talk to. We have one, a doe & she's a great mother. Unfortunately one of the neet things about this breed is the ticking and an all white rabbit doesn't show it. Other colors are blue, chocolate and lilac.