Silver or silver fox?

[naturestee]

Yay, the local shelter got a pic up on Petfinder of this guy! I saw him on Friday and he's beautiful. I'm not sure of the weight but he looked a little smaller than Oberon, so maybe 9 lbs or so? He's black with silver ticking. I saw several like him at the county fair but the tags on the cages only said Commercial Rabbit- Other Breed. What is he?

http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=7669338

Ignore the label of Rex breed, he has normal fur. They call a lot of buns rexes, I don't know why.

And no, I'm not adopting him. I'm just curious.

 

[pamnock]

He appears to be neither Silver nor Silver Fox. The ticking actually appears to be gold, which would indicate that he's steel in color (both Silver and Silver fox have silver ticking). He's most likely a mixed breed and has steel coloring. The Silver Fox is a large commercial breed with a long normal coat that stands at a 90 degree angle to the body. The Silver is a much smaller breed with a snappy fly back coat. I've owned both breeds and currently have a brown Silver. The steel pictured below is slightly lighter than the one you posted(steels are often very dark in color). It's a purebred American, however the color steel is not recognized in Americans.

 

[naturestee]

Cool! Thanks Pam!

So the identical 4H rabbits were probably commercial-sized mixedbreeds? Fur, size, and body shape all appeared the same.

 

[pamnock]

I'd have to actually see them in person to beable to tell for certain. Although the steel gene isn'taccepted in the commercial breeds for show, it is a common gene inbreeds such as New Zealand and Satins.

It's possible that the 4-H rabbits you saw were a breed such as Champangne d' Argents.



Pam