well.. this is weird..

[bunny_freak]

my last litter.. I had (still have) 3 chestnuts, 2 oranges and 2 either opals or blue otters..

thing is..I´ve noticed something that has me completely baffled.. besides the fact I can´t decide if they are opals or otters.. right now they do seem to have some fawn tipping.. very small.. and need to be sure it is all the way to the tip or if the tip goes back to blue..

anyway.. what has me wondering is.. one of them has the blue-gray eyes.. and the other seems to have normal brown eyes.. isn´t it odd?

dad is a castor rex... mom is a chestnut angora/dwarf mix... you can check my other thread for pics of them all..

I´ve read opals AND otters have blue-gray eyes.. so how could this be???...

 

[HendricksHearth]

Opals should have typically a slate blue undercolor with a well-defined fawn intermediate band to go with blue-gray eyes. Sometimes the fawn looks white or be faded/uneven but there should still be color bands since it is from the agouti group. The blue otter shouldn't have bands in the coat at all, just a blue self body color that is uniform throughout. The tan pattern should be apparent in a fawn triangle at the nape of the neck and there can be fawn-tipped guard hairs on the chest/shoulders and the ticking can extend along the flanks/rump. Eye color for blue otters should be blue-gray here, too. I have seen eyes described in some cases of blue otters in particular as "blue-brown" where they are thought to be blue at first and then darken.

Edit: Here is a picture of one of my previous litter's opal babies at 2 weeks old:

Hope this helps,

Lauren

__________ Mon Sep 27, 2010 6:53 am __________

 

[bunny_freak]

hmm... no visible fawn bands at all.. just some random tipping here and there.. but one definitely has brown eyes.. the one with greyish eyes is lighter in color..

I´ll try get pics tomorrow when lighting is better...

even if they were opal or otter both "should" have greyish eyes... don´t they?.. this is so weird...

 

[DevonW]

Not necessarily weird, it does happen (all to often). In the standard for opal it's blue-grey eyes, because it is a dilute colour so the eyes should correspond with the body colour, but saying all opals have blue-grey eyes is like saying all Blonds have blue eyes. You do get exceptions to every rule.

 

[bunny_freak]

sad news... lost two kits.. and it seems a third it´s on it´s way too..

I fed and watered them in the morning.. by midday.. two were stiff.. water and food was still available.. it´s not hot were they are.. no animals nears... so it´s weird... perhaps a bug?.. or maybe they got sick?.. but they were fine a couple hours earlier.. that´s the weirdest..

the third.. is not interested in water or food.. I forced a bit of syrup to see if it perks up... seems so tired and already to give up.. the rest are fine.. jumping around.. eating.. drinking.. pooping.. all normal..

no other poops seem strange or diarreic... so fast.. and no other prior symptoms.. <br /><br />__________ Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:49 pm __________<br /><br />well.. so far so good.. bunny #3 seems to have perked up this morning... back to eating drinking and hopping.. I´ll keep a close watch anyway...

 

[MaggieJ]

How old are they at this point, Bunny_Freak?

 

[bunny_freak]

a lil over a month...

all day they have seemed so good... back to normal selves.. well.. they all were except one last night after the other two had died.. but now is back to normal... the rest have had no symptoms at all.. non had.. that´s what made it weird that they passed within hours and without showing any signs of illness whatsoever...

 

[MaggieJ]

It is possible it is weaning enteritis. Usually hits a bit later, but there are no absolutes. Do they have grass hay? If not, I'd get them some asap. It can really help.

 

[bunny_freak]

no, just pellets... but they´ve been eating for quite a while now... it hard to get hay over here.. mainly there´s only alfalfa hay or horse hay... either that or pellets.. not many choices over in my country...

shouldn´t there be any symptoms I should look for?

they have been fine so far.. as I said they all seem their regular selves... it was just the one that was like feeling down.. but other than that they are all great now

 

[akane]

Some alfalfa would be fine for growing kits and pregnant/nursing does. You just don't want to over feed alfalfa to adult animals (including large livestock) because it has a lot of extra nutrients in it such as too much calcium which can cause health issues or make chubby adults.

What is the "horse hay"? Any type of grass or early cut grain hay (before the grain heads form) would work. Horses really are designed to eat the same thing as rabbits some people just feed high energy hays because the show barns do it to grow the colts out faster and they've heard that's what horses should have. In reality it causes as many health problems for them as for rabbits and many horse feeds are designed to try to help counter balance legume hays. The vet I took my equine nutrition classes from talked about how he goes to these stables repeatedly for horses with various health problems and the owners stand there pointing out their pure alfalfa hay with such pride when that plus excessive feeding of grain is what is causing all their problems. Actually it was more of an ongoing 3 week rant... lol