Let me start off with how crazy cold it has been here this week with wind chill factors around zero! So cold that my fingers hurt within minutes of being outside even though I had gloves on. That is not the kind of temperatures to which I ever want to expose my newborn kits just to get a good look at them.
I knew there were five and that they all were alive. I would put one cold hand into their warm nest blindly feeling around and counting them. For those who have not yet had the experience, baby rabbits do not lay still for this procedure. They constantly are flipping and squirming and are impossible to hold on to for long if you are trying to place more than two in your hand. Yes, that makes counting them very difficult, especially when there are more than four...and usually there are always more than four.
At first glance on their first day, I thought I had three blacks and two blues as they squirmed around but some how they looked different than a blue should look.
A couple of days later I tried to get a better look, but it was still so bitterly cold that I still did not get a really good look but I thought they were all black, except I did notice that two had white inside the ears and light bellies, not black like a solid black rabbit has. I have never had any before, but I thought these were Tan patterned. I read somewhere that a Black with Tan looks similar to the coat of a German Shepherd. However, I was not seeing the edgings of brown or any on the chest.
Now BMB-5 is six days old and the temperature is in the 50's so I removed them from the nest. Their fur has been growing out more each day, but it was too dark in the rabbitry area to see what I thought were variations in their colors. I decided to take them out into the sunlight and that is when I realized all five kits were different, some in subtle ways but definite identifiable differences.
I will be going crazy trying to figure out the genotypes for a little while. However, I am pretty certain that one in the middle of the three is an Agouti Chestnut, which when born does look black with a white belly until its fur grows out to see the gold tips of the banded hairs. The one on the right appears to be a solid black, or Self Black. The one on the left I am not sure about yet...and I write that as if I am sure of any of them?
I cannot wait to see what they will look like when they open their eyes!
I knew there were five and that they all were alive. I would put one cold hand into their warm nest blindly feeling around and counting them. For those who have not yet had the experience, baby rabbits do not lay still for this procedure. They constantly are flipping and squirming and are impossible to hold on to for long if you are trying to place more than two in your hand. Yes, that makes counting them very difficult, especially when there are more than four...and usually there are always more than four.
At first glance on their first day, I thought I had three blacks and two blues as they squirmed around but some how they looked different than a blue should look.
A couple of days later I tried to get a better look, but it was still so bitterly cold that I still did not get a really good look but I thought they were all black, except I did notice that two had white inside the ears and light bellies, not black like a solid black rabbit has. I have never had any before, but I thought these were Tan patterned. I read somewhere that a Black with Tan looks similar to the coat of a German Shepherd. However, I was not seeing the edgings of brown or any on the chest.
Now BMB-5 is six days old and the temperature is in the 50's so I removed them from the nest. Their fur has been growing out more each day, but it was too dark in the rabbitry area to see what I thought were variations in their colors. I decided to take them out into the sunlight and that is when I realized all five kits were different, some in subtle ways but definite identifiable differences.
I will be going crazy trying to figure out the genotypes for a little while. However, I am pretty certain that one in the middle of the three is an Agouti Chestnut, which when born does look black with a white belly until its fur grows out to see the gold tips of the banded hairs. The one on the right appears to be a solid black, or Self Black. The one on the left I am not sure about yet...and I write that as if I am sure of any of them?
Same trio in a different light, which makes the one I thought look solid black showing some golden color on the fur. It may have been just the camera making the shine on its fur causing that because the entire picture has a more yellow caste than the one above.
Then there are these two. The left looks like a Black Gold-Tipped Steel. The one on the right is the more perplexing. It is an Agouti, I think and its tips do not look gold but more silver, especially when we place the two Agouti patterned ones together, but that picture did not turn out so I will try to get another one in a day or two.
I cannot wait to see what they will look like when they open their eyes!