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Great story! Nanners is a particularly good-looking rabbit, I have to say, and obviously in great condition due to your care.

But I wonder about the vet you consulted and his/her shock about Nanner's survival. Rabbits are very cold-hardy and adaptable. We actually have a huge problem, from Seward to Anchorage to the Interior, with domestic rabbits gone feral. They thrive and reproduce like rabbits and ruin gardens... and that's with Alaska's long cold winters and many, many motivated predators.
Makes me think of how wolves were introduced into the ecosystem at Yosemite and all the vegetation started growing back and erosion improved, I think, too, b/c the wolves were eating the elk, the elk couldn't overconsume the vegetation b/c they had to stay on the move to avoid the wolves.

Then there's Bunny Island in Japan. Really sad. Bunnies just overproduce.

We don't know Nanners' history before he showed up, but I think he lived indoors his whole life b/c he got palpably depressed as it got colder and he got dirtier outside.
 

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Maybe their area is like ours where the "shock" wouldn't have anything to do with the temperatures. We're pretty much hawk/owl-central around here, and by the time the foxes and coyotes are added in, even outdoor cats tend to have a very short lifespan (and she did say that 2 of the 3 rabbits had been eaten). Just yesterday I had a momentary freak-out when I walked inside the 6' outer perimeter of my rabbit area because there were clumps of rabbit fur on the ground south of my maternity building. A moment later I realized it was Chestnut hair, and we currently have no agouti rabbits, so I knew they'd just killed a cottontail outside my south chain-link and the wind had blown the fur north.
That must have been quite a shock!
 
Once upon a decade or so ago when I was new to breeding mostly NZ red rabbits, I crossed one on a mutt doe I had, and she was brown like a wild rabbit, but she carried chinchilla which is a silver color. So out of a wild brown rabbit and a copper red rabbit I got a whole bunch of frosties (or ermines) like this. I saw them as pink naked little babies and expected them to grow up white with red eyes, but when their eyes opened they were dark.

Being new, somewhere on this forum, I asked "when do their eyes turn red?" and everyone chimed in to tell me they start out red! I was very confused lol.

His parents could have been brown, or white, or red, or silver, unfortunately rabbit colors are sometimes complicated. But I like to think the classic way to get this color is crossing red with silver (chinchilla). It also happens to be my two favorite colors of rabbit. :love:
Right before I joined this site, I came across an article on rabbit eye color at 7 Types of Rabbit Eye Colors and Their Rarity (With Pictures) | Pet Keen, so I ended up writing them and the vets there suggested that Nanners could be a Hulstlander rabbit, and the descriptions I read on the internet said that it is a hybrid breed, although different sites seem to vary on which breeds, but usually includes Vienna whites.
 
Right before I joined this site, I came across an article on rabbit eye color at 7 Types of Rabbit Eye Colors and Their Rarity (With Pictures) | Pet Keen, so I ended up writing them and the vets there suggested that Nanners could be a Hulstlander rabbit, and the descriptions I read on the internet said that it is a hybrid breed, although different sites seem to vary on which breeds, but usually includes Vienna whites.
I wouldn't necessarily rely on Pet Keen for reliable information. For instance, pink or red eyes are not rare (and the Californian pictured in the section on pink eyes has that lack of color due to the partial albinism of the himalayan genes blocking pigment in the eyes, not a dilution of normal brown, which generally results in blue or blue-gray eyes). And marbled eyes aren't really a "genetic disorder," unless you consider all the various mutations that create different colors and fur types to be "disorders."

Much better resources, in my opinion, are sites like
https://www.raising-rabbits.com/https://arba.net/recognized-breeds/and of course RabbitTalk.com :)

Those are sites where you'll find accurate information about rabbits especially applicable to the U.S and Canada, though RabbitTalk has good resources regarding European rabbits as well.

Importing rabbits from Europe and elsewhere is complicated and expensive. If someone brought Hulstlanders into the U.S, it's fairly unlikely that a rabbit that came that dearly got sold as a pet or was left to roam. As far as I've heard, Hulstlanders are accepted in the British Rabbit standard but are pretty uncommon even there. Maybe @MsTemeraire has more information about them. But Hulstlanders are a recognized breed, meaning they are no longer considered a hybrid (or more accurately, a crossbreed). Most breeds can be traced back to other breeds that were used to create them; for example, New Zealands may have been bred from Belgian Hares and Flemish Giants, among others.

Also, Hulstlanders are Vienna whites, and given the coloration on his nose, Nanners is more likely an ermine (non-extension chinchilla) rather that a Vienna-based blue eyed white. It seems more likely that Nanners is a crossbreed of some sort. Given his size - which appears to be somewhat more than 5-7 pounds - New Zealand White carrying red and American Chinchilla, both common enough, would be a good guess at some of his forebears.
 
I wouldn't necessarily rely on Pet Keen for reliable information. For instance, pink or red eyes are not rare (and the Californian pictured in the section on pink eyes has that lack of color due to the partial albinism of the himalayan genes blocking pigment in the eyes, not a dilution of normal brown, which generally results in blue or blue-gray eyes). And marbled eyes aren't really a "genetic disorder," unless you consider all the various mutations that create different colors and fur types to be "disorders."

Much better resources, in my opinion, are sites like
https://www.raising-rabbits.com/https://arba.net/recognized-breeds/and of course RabbitTalk.com :)

Those are sites where you'll find accurate information about rabbits especially applicable to the U.S and Canada, though RabbitTalk has good resources regarding European rabbits as well.

Importing rabbits from Europe and elsewhere is complicated and expensive. If someone brought Hulstlanders into the U.S, it's fairly unlikely that a rabbit that came that dearly got sold as a pet or was left to roam. As far as I've heard, Hulstlanders are accepted in the British Rabbit standard but are pretty uncommon even there. Maybe @MsTemeraire has more information about them. But Hulstlanders are a recognized breed, meaning they are no longer considered a hybrid (or more accurately, a crossbreed). Most breeds can be traced back to other breeds that were used to create them; for example, New Zealands may have been bred from Belgian Hares and Flemish Giants, among others.

Also, Hulstlanders are Vienna whites, and given the coloration on his nose, Nanners is more likely an ermine (non-extension chinchilla) rather that a Vienna-based blue eyed white. It seems more likely that Nanners is a crossbreed of some sort. Given his size - which appears to be somewhat more than 5-7 pounds - New Zealand White carrying red and American Chinchilla, both common enough, would be a good guess at some of his forebears.
He is a big rabbit: 10-13 lbs
 
I wouldn't necessarily rely on Pet Keen for reliable information. For instance, pink or red eyes are not rare (and the Californian pictured in the section on pink eyes has that lack of color due to the partial albinism of the himalayan genes blocking pigment in the eyes, not a dilution of normal brown, which generally results in blue or blue-gray eyes). And marbled eyes aren't really a "genetic disorder," unless you consider all the various mutations that create different colors and fur types to be "disorders."
I think I regret reading that article-
They got so many things wrong
 
Right before I joined this site, I came across an article on rabbit eye color at 7 Types of Rabbit Eye Colors and Their Rarity (With Pictures) | Pet Keen, so I ended up writing them and the vets there suggested that Nanners could be a Hulstlander rabbit, and the descriptions I read on the internet said that it is a hybrid breed, although different sites seem to vary on which breeds, but usually includes Vienna whites.
We have Hulstlanders here in the UK, they are a breed from the Netherlands, and have the Netherland Dwarf (the version they have there, which is called 'Pool' = Polish, but not related to the American Polish breed) in their ancestry. They are a blue-eyed white breed. I don't think there are any in the USA. They're a fairly small breed, about 5 pounds in weight.
 
We have Hulstlanders here in the UK, they are a breed from the Netherlands, and have the Netherland Dwarf (the version they have there, which is called 'Pool' = Polish, but not related to the American Polish breed) in their ancestry. They are a blue-eyed white breed. I don't think there are any in the USA. They're a fairly small breed, about 5 pounds in weight.
I'm not on Facebook, but I found this link. I assumed it was some kind of Hulstlander breed contest. My rabbit looks exactly like these rabbits, only twice their size. lol

 
I'm not on Facebook, but I found this link. I assumed it was some kind of Hulstlander breed contest. My rabbit looks exactly like these rabbits, only twice their size. lol
That's a rabbit show here in the UK, and the RVRC is the club for the rare breeds like Hulstlanders. There would have been a RVRC show alongside the main one. Hulstlanders have blue eyes, and I am fairly sure yours has brown eyes and dark tips to the fur around the face and ears.
 
Just a question. Do you happen to know of anyone breeding hulstlander in Canada? I am looking for a house bunny. Rare breeds are my thing and I am dutch. TIA!
 
Just a question. Do you happen to know of anyone breeding hulstlander in Canada? I am looking for a house bunny. Rare breeds are my thing and I am dutch. TIA!
They're not a breed recognised by ARBA, and I'm not aware of any in the US or Canada, so your chances of finding one would be slim to none. I think you'd have to import one from the Netherlands. There's only a couple of breeders of them in the UK and they're not recognised in all European countries.
 
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