Silver Fox rabbits are a wonderful breed, very sweet and friendly, and generally not aggressive, which is important in such a large breed.
These lovely ladies are about a year old, and purebred, but not pedigreed. I also bought their mother, Suede, a two-year-old blue who is pedigreed, and they will all ultimately be bred to our blue pedigreed buck, nicknamed Bucky (for Buckminster Fuller), who is a year and a half old. I've had him from the age of nine weeks.
The breed originated here in the United States, in Canton, Ohio, and became popular around the 1920s, being recognized as a breed by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA) in 1925. They nearly became extinct after the second world war, however, and are still rare and considered threatened. This is the primary reason why I wanted to breed them, for the same reason that I save heirloom seeds - to preserve their genetics.
They are far too beautiful and valuable a breed to lose.
Although they were originally bred primarily for their meat and fur, my husband and I are in agreement that we will not slaughter ours, and one of the nicest things is that, even for the non-pedigreed purebreds, they are worth more alive than dead, even as pets.
This is not the case with most of the more common breeds.
In short, they are not cheap, so the chances are good that whomever buys them will also take good care of them, to protect their investment. In any case, I'll have a standing offer to take back any that the new owners can't keep, for whatever reason, if their situation changes.
I garden organically, too, so their manure is extremely valuable to me, as it is one of the few manures that can be used fresh on plants as a fertilizer, with no danger of burning their roots. That was my original reason for wanting rabbits, along with memories of my childhood bunny pal, Midnight. Take a wild guess what color he was. ;-)
Their fur is unique among rabbit breeds, as when it is stroked from tail to head, it stands up away from the body until you stroke it the other way. In this was it resembles the fur of the arctic silver fox; hence the breed name.
There have always been two colors; black, with brown eyes and silver-tipped fur; and blue, with grey eyes nearly matching their fur, which is grey with silver tips. The babies are born solid black or blue, and the fur begins to develop its silver tips at about four weeks, which takes about four months to complete the process.
Their fur averages between 1 1/2 to 2" long on the back.
There is also a chocolate variety, but it is a recent color addition, and was not part of the original breed. I am interested in their original heritage and genetics, and am breeding according to the original breed standard, and so I am not interested in breeding for the chocolate variety, though they are beautiful as well.
They are large rabbits, with bucks averaging around eleven pounds, and does about twelve pounds. They are also gentle and docile by nature, which makes them a dream to keep, and they are truly beautiful rabbits.
Ours are currently housed separately, as I don't want any babies born while it is still too cold for them to survive, but by spring I will have a much larger enclosure for them, with a large communal run.
It needs to be very stoutly built, as we have resident red foxes and bobcats, not to mention raccoons and opossums, as well as occasional coyotes and stray dogs. And of course our own dog, Lolo, who LOVES to chase our wild cottontails, so I'm pretty sure he's not trustworthy with our rabbits, or any of our smaller animals. Hopefully we can train him to be trustworthy, but as of now, I'm not willing to take the risk.
Having acreage, woods, and frontage on a largely wild river also means that there is the possibility of a visit by cougars or black bears, so we have to keep them in mind, even though a cougar can leap fifteen feet straight up from a standstill, and a really determined bear can rip apart pretty much anything we build.
All we can do is the best that we can do, and that starts with good fencing, also planned by spring. And no, it won't be fifteen feet tall, but I have some other ideas to dissuade predators, including livestock guardian dogs. Wish us luck.