What breed? Rex mix?

[CookieK93]

Hey everyone! I'm new to this group! We have Homestead rabbits (new Zealand) and flemish giants for pets, but we have this guy we are trying to figure out the breed of. I'm thinking Rex x new Zealand with some flemish from dad but wanted other opinions? The rabbit in question is black. I have seen rexes but they just don't quite match up, (the ears) but Blackjack's fur is super soft like a rex. Mom was supposed to be NZ and dad is New Zealand x Flemish (mom passed last year, we still have dad).
Thank you for your help in advance!

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hey everyone! I'm new to this group! We have Homestead rabbits (new Zealand) and flemish giants for pets, but we have this guy we are trying to figure out the breed of. I'm thinking Rex x new Zealand with some flemish from dad but wanted other opinions? The rabbit in question is black. I have seen rexes but they just don't quite match up, (the ears) but Blackjack's fur is super soft like a rex. Mom was supposed to be NZ and dad is New Zealand x Flemish (mom passed last year, we still have dad).
Thank you for your help in advance!

He looks like a sweetie! His color is actually called black otter, with that beautiful tan trim around his ears, nose, jaws and underside, and creamy belly color. Personally I think it's one of the prettiest varieties of all.

Typically he'd be called a mixed breed or a crossbreed. You know for sure that he isn't a purebred anything since you had his parents and know they weren't the same breed.

Rex fur comes from a recessive coat type mutation. Since it is recessive, it's possible that a rex-furred rabbit can be produced by two rabbits that don't have rex coats themselves. If both of his parents carried a hidden allele for rex (an allele is a particular form of a gene), some of their kits could end up with that rex coat. But it takes more than a rex coat for a rabbit to be a Rex, since there are other features (size, shape) that make up a specific breed. You can find that rex coat type in several other breeds, including Mini Rex (3 to 4-1/2 lbs with tiny ears of under 3-1/2 inches long), Mini Plush Lops and Velveteen Lops. Rex generally weigh 7-1/2 to 10/1/2lbs and have good long ears relative to their body size.

From the photos I can't really tell if his coat is rexed or not; in some shots it looks like it might be, in others it looks like a normal commercial coat. Rex fur is shorter - between 1/2" and 7/8" - than normal fur, and is not just soft but is plush like velvet. Since I'm not able to put my hands on the rabbit, you'd be the one to verify this. Sometimes rex crossbreeds have many longer guardhairs in their otherwise rexed fur, which isn't ideal but it does happen. That might be what I'm seeing in photo #3.

To be considered a Rex (or a New Zealand, or a Flemish Giant), most people would like to see that the rabbit has parents of the same breed for at least several generations. According to the ARBA (American Rabbit Breeders Association) that would be at least three generations, proven by a pedigree showing that information. For most folks' purposes, though, having a rabbit that looks like the breed standard, and produces bunnies that also look like the breed standard, is close enough.

A breed standard is a description of what the ideal rabbit of that breed looks like. In America and Canada, that description is given by the ARBA in a publication called the Standard of Perfection aka SOP. In fact if you're new to rabbit breeding, you might enjoy a memebrship in the ARBA. It's a national organization that aims to support rabbit breeders/owners/fanciers in all areas of rabbit ownership. That includes showing, meat breeding, fiber production, pet breeding and/or pet ownership. When you join you will get a nice book "Official Guide Book: Raising Better Rabbits & Cavies" plus a truly excellent and beautiful color bi-monthly magazine with articles on just about every topic you can think of relating to rabbits, from breeds to breeding to health issues to recipes. You can see details here: Join the ARBA

 

[CookieK93]

Thank you for all the info! I appreciate it. His coat feels like a rex, so he might have the recessive trait. His coat is super soft, velvety and feels different than the rest of our rabbits' fur. Since he is mostly new Zealand with a bit of flemish, and he was bred with another new Zealand, one of his babies with her feels the same as him. We won't be breeding him anymore, but this is nice info to have!

He looks like a sweetie! His color is actually called black otter, with that beautiful tan trim around his ears, nose, jaws and underside, and creamy belly color. Personally I think it's one of the prettiest varieties of all.

Typically he'd be called a mixed breed or a crossbreed. You know for sure that he isn't a purebred anything since you had his parents and know they weren't the same breed.

Rex fur comes from a recessive coat type mutation. Since it is recessive, it's possible that a rex-furred rabbit can be produced by two rabbits that don't have rex coats themselves. If both of his parents carried a hidden allele for rex (an allele is a particular form of a gene), some of their kits could end up with that rex coat. But it takes more than a rex coat for a rabbit to be a Rex, since there are other features (size, shape) that make up a specific breed. You can find that rex coat type in several other breeds, including Mini Rex (3 to 4-1/2 lbs with tiny ears of under 3-1/2 inches long), Mini Plush Lops and Velveteen Lops. Rex generally weigh 7-1/2 to 10/1/2lbs and have good long ears relative to their body size.

From the photos I can't really tell if his coat is rexed or not; in some shots it looks like it might be, in others it looks like a normal commercial coat. Rex fur is shorter - between 1/2" and 7/8" - than normal fur, and is not just soft but is plush like velvet. Since I'm not able to put my hands on the rabbit, you'd be the one to verify this. Sometimes rex crossbreeds have many longer guardhairs in their otherwise rexed fur, which isn't ideal but it does happen. That might be what I'm seeing in photo #3.

To be considered a Rex (or a New Zealand, or a Flemish Giant), most people would like to see that the rabbit has parents of the same breed for at least several generations. According to the ARBA (American Rabbit Breeders Association) that would be at least three generations, proven by a pedigree showing that information. For most folks' purposes, though, having a rabbit that looks like the breed standard, and produces bunnies that also look like the breed standard, is close enough.

A breed standard is a description of what the ideal rabbit of that breed looks like. In America and Canada, that description is given by the ARBA in a publication called the Standard of Perfection aka SOP. In fact if you're new to rabbit breeding, you might enjoy a memebrship in the ARBA. It's a national organization that aims to support rabbit breeders/owners/fanciers in all areas of rabbit ownership. That includes showing, meat breeding, fiber production, pet breeding and/or pet ownership. When you join you will get a nice book "Official Guide Book: Raising Better Rabbits & Cavies" plus a truly excellent and beautiful color bi-monthly magazine with articles on just about every topic you can think of relating to rabbits, from breeds to breeding to health issues to recipes. You can see details here: Join the ARBA

 

[Alaska Satin]

Since he is mostly new Zealand with a bit of flemish, and he was bred with another new Zealand, one of his babies with her feels the same as him.

A rabbit can only be rex-coated if it has two copies of the allele for rex, so it must get one from each parent. So, if your black otter buck's offspring with the NZ doe is rex-coated, that means the doe also carries the recessive allele for rex (i.e. she has at least one rex-coated rabbit somewhere in her background). There should be no rex alleles in NZ or Flemish rabbits, so you can feel pretty certain that they are more of a mix than you might have initially thought.

Normally, a dominant allele is notated with a capital letter; in this case <R> indicates normal fur type, and <r> means rex fur type. Each rabbit has two copies, one from each parent. They can have two of the same, eg. <RR> or <rr>, which is known as homozygous; or they can have two different alleles, eg. <Rr>, which is known as heterozygous. (There are actually at least three different recessive alleles that can produce a rex coat, often notated r1, r2, and r3, but for this discussion it doesn't matter too much which one your rabbits carry.)

So the normal-coated buck and doe that produced your black otter with the rex coat would both have to be <Rr>. And your black otter buck is <rr>, while the doe you bred him to must be <Rr> if they produced a rex-coated kit.

You can build what's called a Punnett Square to predict what each breeding would produce, as below. The top line is one parent's genotype (in this case a heterozgous normal-coated rabbit carrying a recessive rex allele), while the far left column is the other parent's genotype (in this case a rex-coated rabbit homozygous for the rex allele). This would be analogous to breeding your rex-coated black otter buck (left column) with the NZ doe (top row):

The genotypes in the four boxes in the center and lower right are the possibilities for the offspring. The middle and bottom center are normal-coated carrying rex; the middle right and lower right are rex-coated. You can predict that over time, this pairing will produce half normal coated kits and half rex-coated kits, and you'll know that ALL the bunnies carry a copy of the allele for rex from this pairing.