Tina Sabol
Exploring the pasture
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What’s this breed
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Tina Sabol
Exploring the pasture
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promiseacres
Herd Master
chinchilla is the color. new zealands are self colored though I've heard they can have steel colors behind them. 
@Bunnylady is my go to for breed and color information.
@Bunnylady is my go to for breed and color information.
BunnyTree
Overrun with beasties
Maybe some sort of chinchilla? They look New Zealand...idk but those are my guesses 
Bunnylady
Herd Master
New Zealands don't come in chinchilla; the closest would be American Chinchilla.
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Tina Sabol
Exploring the pasture
There is also brown in the color not just black n white
Tale of Tails Rabbitry
Loving the herd life
The chinchilla coat can be a bit brassy when younger, which usually molts out. They can also get pee-stained.
Also, even if these were from New Zealand rabbits (which I would say maybe be true in part as they could likely be from cross breeding), "breed" depends on phenotype (how they look) not genetics. It is usually not based on "color" alone, but in the commercial class, most of the breeds have very similar standard of perfection.
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Ridgetop
Herd Master
Whoever told you these were New Zealands was mistaken. They may be crosses. New Zealands come in only 3 colors. That color is not one of them. There is NZ White - a pure white rabbit with pink eyes. NZ Black - not too common - rich completely black coat with dark eyes. NZ Red - also not too common - a rich dark chestnut red. The blacks and reds have some conformational flaws and are hard to find with a true New Zealand packed with meat body. Probably why they are not so common for meat pens. Any rabbit can make up a meat pen, as long as your fair doesn't specify a breed.
My concern would be their weight, and their body conformation. A meat rabbit should carry his meat across the loin, his hind quarters should be well rounded, and his shoulders in proportion. He should have a wedge shape looking at him from the side, with his rise starting right behind his head and carrying over the loin, hind quarters, without a flat spot above the tail. Looking down on him from the top he should have a wedge shape from the front widening into the butt. You should not be able to feel any bones.
That said, you need to know what weight your meat pens are required to be - usually 4-H pens specify 3.5 - 4.5 lbs. They cannot be older than 70 days old unless you have a roaster class. When in August is the Fair? We used o leave our meat pens on the doe until 24 hours before Fair. Then we would go over them carefully and pick those that were closest to the Standard of Perfection. Once we had the best specimens chosen we weighed them to get 3 that were (hopefuly) identical in weight for the pen.
Suggestion: When you tattoo, do not use 1, 2, 3, since half the barn meat pens will have those numbers!
Instead number them with the child's initials and the number. With a lot of identical rabbits you don't want yours mixed up with someone elses! (Happened at an ARBA show 
)
Also make sure you tattoo in the correct ear. One year the entire Grange meat pen entry was DQed because they had put the number in the wrong ear. DH had offered to come over and help them but been rudely rebuffed. The Youth Grange Leader was livid, and the uproar as she screamed at her husband who had tattooed all their rabbits became legend!
Feed at night with a high quality rabbit pellet. Also give 2 ounces of rolled oats daily per rabbit - oats put on hard flesh. If they are not putting on enough weight, you can mix a small amount of calf manna into their feed - no more than 1 ounce daily. Watch for loose stools since calf manna is a rich feed.
As long as your Fair doesn't demand purebred meat pens, and the bunnies have good conformity and weight you should be fine. If you want to breed your own meat pens, I recommend Californian rabbits for meat pens. They are slightly smaller but the bunnies make weight a little sooner than New Zealands. They are also calmer for kids to handle.
GOOD LUCK AT THE FAIR!
My concern would be their weight, and their body conformation. A meat rabbit should carry his meat across the loin, his hind quarters should be well rounded, and his shoulders in proportion. He should have a wedge shape looking at him from the side, with his rise starting right behind his head and carrying over the loin, hind quarters, without a flat spot above the tail. Looking down on him from the top he should have a wedge shape from the front widening into the butt. You should not be able to feel any bones.
That said, you need to know what weight your meat pens are required to be - usually 4-H pens specify 3.5 - 4.5 lbs. They cannot be older than 70 days old unless you have a roaster class. When in August is the Fair? We used o leave our meat pens on the doe until 24 hours before Fair. Then we would go over them carefully and pick those that were closest to the Standard of Perfection. Once we had the best specimens chosen we weighed them to get 3 that were (hopefuly) identical in weight for the pen.
Suggestion: When you tattoo, do not use 1, 2, 3, since half the barn meat pens will have those numbers!
Instead number them with the child's initials and the number. With a lot of identical rabbits you don't want yours mixed up with someone elses! (Happened at an ARBA show )Also make sure you tattoo in the correct ear. One year the entire Grange meat pen entry was DQed because they had put the number in the wrong ear. DH had offered to come over and help them but been rudely rebuffed. The Youth Grange Leader was livid, and the uproar as she screamed at her husband who had tattooed all their rabbits became legend!
Feed at night with a high quality rabbit pellet. Also give 2 ounces of rolled oats daily per rabbit - oats put on hard flesh. If they are not putting on enough weight, you can mix a small amount of calf manna into their feed - no more than 1 ounce daily. Watch for loose stools since calf manna is a rich feed.
As long as your Fair doesn't demand purebred meat pens, and the bunnies have good conformity and weight you should be fine. If you want to breed your own meat pens, I recommend Californian rabbits for meat pens. They are slightly smaller but the bunnies make weight a little sooner than New Zealands. They are also calmer for kids to handle.
GOOD LUCK AT THE FAIR!
Bunnylady
Herd Master
Ehhh, not quite right - NZ's also show in Blue and Broken, now.
Oh, wow, what a disaster.
Per the ARBA's rules, the only ear the breeder can put a tattoo in is the left ear. The right ear is reserved for a registrar's mark (assuming the rabbit meets the requirements for registration); any other mark in the right ear is an automatic DQ. How embarrassing that must have been!Getting a rabbit posed properly is incredibly important when it comes to evaluating type. I remember an article a judge wrote for Domestic Rabbit, in which he posted 3 pictures and asked the reader to place the rabbits in an imaginary class. It was a trick question - all three pictures were of the same rabbit, it had just been posed slightly differently in each picture. Getting the feet too far forward, or too far back, can make the rabbit look shorter, longer, chopped off, flat; you'd be surprised how much difference it can make!
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promiseacres
Herd Master
Once upon a time our county required meatpen bunnies to be tattoed in the right ear.... I assume it was to prevent them from going on to be bought and shown...
