This one is Creme (short for Ice Cream Bunny). She's a mature doe who has already had a litter or two and was named before we got her. She looks a little bit brown in this photo but she's really gray or "Blue" as they're called in the world of rabbits. She should be having a litter in about a week. Silver Fox Rabbits are domestic rabbits, bred right here in the USA around the time of World War II. They were bred for both meat and fur and they have wonderful dispositions. They nearly went extinct since both meat and fur went out of fashion. They're making a comeback now as people take an interest in being more self-sufficient and more in control of what they're eating. Rabbits produce a lot of meat very efficiently. These "large" rabbits command a pretty good price too so we hope to sell some of them to other people who want to also raise rabbits. Thus, we feed ourselves and help save a wonderful breed at the same time.
This little girl is almost 4 months old and is developing good "Silvering" on her Black coat. She'll be a breeder (as will all 8 of our herd), at least until we determine which ones are good mothers and carry traits we want to continue. Seven of the 8 rabbits I got are unrelated so we have a lot of genetic diversity.
Right now, Black is the only color recognized by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA). Blue used to be a recognized color but they became so rare the ARBA dropped them. The Blues are now 2/3 of the way to being recognized again. Even though 7 out of my 8 rabbits are Black, several of them carry the genes for Blue as well as for Chocolate which (I believe) is a color that has never been recognized. The brown ones are sure pretty though.
Larry built (in his not-so-spare time) a very nice cage set-up. We have 12 cages (4 for overflow when we have lots of babies growing up) in all. There are two racks with 6 cages each, two across and three high. Under each cage is a slanted "floor" that moves waste into a rain gutter and into buckets. It's fairly easy to maintain. Each cage is large for their needs but we don't mind. We originally planned on getting a different larger breed (Giant Chinchilla) but then I found the Silver Fox and was sold. By then, we already had the cages on order. Adult weight is about 10 to 12 pounds. My 3 month old bunnies weigh 5.5 to 6 pounds and are still growing quickly.
When I got my 8 bunnies, Laura got 3 of her own. She is trying extra hard to raise hers a little more naturally. Ben made a bunny "tractor" - a home that sits on the ground where then bunny can eat grass and weeds and dig a little too (much to Laura's concern). They've had a wild bunny come visit quite often and has gotten to the point where he hangs around while they're feeding or working on the yard. This morning he actually jumped into an empty hutch that had a door hanging open. Silly bunny.
