Lilacs usually have a reddish tint to the eye that the blues don't. Sometimes that's the only way I can tell short of a test mating She's gorgeous whatever the colour turns out to be!

 

Very, very, pretty. I'm no use with colours, however. The first two pics, she seemed to have a violet tinge but not in the third. To my eye and on my monitor, at least.

 

I'm going to venture to say she's a blue. The lilacs I've seen have all had a pinkish sheen to their coat color.

 

and i'll go with lilac. she looks a bit different than my blue buck. The first pic has a pinkish/purplish sheen to the coat.

but computer pictures are different than real life. Does she have that pinkish/purplish sheen in natural daylight?

 

Oh thanks you guys!

Moonkitten, her eyes seem brownish, I can't see a reddish hue in them, but brought her inside and took a close up: (Does it look like a lilacs'???)



MaggieJ, I seem to be having a hard time getting used to my camera.....
Her color is a rich textured lightish to medium silvery grey color. The problem is, as soon as the flash goes off on the camera, it lightens her up too much.
But this is pretty close:


MariaAZ, I sure wish you all lived closer!
No, I don't notice a pinkish sheen when I look at her, just a greyish / silvery color. But can a blue be so light? I had always thought blues were darker than her?

ladysown, No, I don't really see a pinkish sheen in the sunlight - but sometimes she seems to have a bluish purplish sort of hue to her fur. Is that characteristic of lilac?

One last pic:



I kind of wish I would have bought a blue AND a lilac when I first started out, and I think this would have been so much easier...

 

I'm going to say it's probably a blue if you can't see any red in the eyes. Colour really doesn't show up well on a computer monitor, but lilac have a definite red *cast* to their eyes. You have to look at the eye at an angle and it looks like a reddish film over the pupil. Sort of like the red eyes on REW, only with a brown iris.

Edited to delete the genetics question since sis is chocolate and mom carries black, you've obviously got the qualifications for both blue and lilac. :doh:

 

Well, the sister appears to be a chocolate, and the mom an otter?

If we know the buck and doe we might be able to give a concrete answer.

 

The parentage - the Mom is a black otter named Willow, Dad of this litter was a solid black, and was a full brother to Willow. She had 4 kits - a black otter, a chocolate, a black and this doe.

Willow's mother is a black otter named Madison. Madison's mother is a chocolate. Willow's father is a black otter too.

Willow's full sister, Zyan (also black otter), just had a small litter 3 weeks ago, and surprisingly, she produced a white kit. The father of this litter was a black otter.





I know the breeder I got these rabbits from was working on californians before she sold out, but I was really puzzled when all these different colors started showing up, because until just recently, the only color that seemed to crop up was black otter and seal.

 

She looks more like a blue to me, from the pics. Blues can vary in intensity, toot, so maybe she is a lighter blue.

 

That white kit in Zyan's litter is not a white, it is a californian. I think the doe you were asking about is a blue, lilacs are a different tone.

 

She looks like a blue to me. I have several blues and they all look like that.

 

I agree about photos not really doing the difference between blue & lilac justice. I looked for a photo of a lilac rex as comparison, and several of the photos I found looked more like blue. That pinkish sheen just doesn't seem to show up. However, this photo from webshots.com gives a hint of that slightly different "something-something" of the lilac coat as well as the pink hue to the eye (click on the thumbnail to go to the full-sized photo):

 

Here's a photo of a Lilac from a litter I had last spring... I think she was about 10 weeks old in this photo.

Hope this helps!

 

I think she's a blue, its so tough with Rex fur to tell, but I have Lilacs the breed and she doesn't have the pinky browny lighter tone to her that lilacs have. She seems much too dark to me.

 

Looks blue to me. I have some of each in my barn and when I got my first lilac...I just knew that's what I had. It was just different. If you remember that lilac is the dilute of chocolate, you can really see that chocolate in the lilac.

 

She looks like all my blues also, I have a couple of lilac's and they all have that pinkish tint to the tips of their coats. The picture miraclewelsh is a good pic of a lilac. But whatever she turns out to be she is beautiful.

 

Bless you all for helping!!! I sure appreciate it !!

Thanks to the pics you guys posted, I think I see the difference that you all mean - a lilac has a distinict pinkish sort of hue at the furtips, and that's one of the most distinguishing characteristics, right?

In any case, she has the most lovely fur of any of my rabbits. It's the most luxurious and dense coat I've ever ran my fingers through, just like that first Rex I picked up many years ago.

Willowynd, Thanks for the correction on the coloring, - this is the very first californian rex we've had, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's a buck...... (I always seem to get 90% "girls" in every litter, and very few bucks)

Thanks again everyone,
Kyah

 

Quick and seemingly irrelevant question, Kyah. Do you add apple cider vinegar to the rabbits' water on a regular basis?

 

No, I'm not giving them any right now, MaggieJ, but you sure have my attention though, Lol. Why for you ask?

 

I used to use ACV regularly in the rabbits' water and the litters my does had then did indeed have more than 50% females. I ran out, procrastinated and fell out of the habit... and the proportion of males in the litters increased. I don't have statistics and my memory may be at fault, but when I later ran across a theory that suggested that ACV in the water resulted in a more acid environment in the female's reproductive tract that favoured "female" sperm, I began to wonder if there was something in it. But there are other factors (a different buck, different feed etc.) that muddy the waters.

When you mentioned the high percentage of female kits... it brought the idea back to my mind. So I thought I'd ask. Likely just an old wive's tale... but sometimes those have some validity.

 

I used to use ACV regularly in the rabbits' water and the litters my does had then did indeed have more than 50% females. I ran out, procrastinated and fell out of the habit... and the proportion of males in the litters increased. I don't have statistics and my memory may be at fault, but when I later ran across a theory that suggested that ACV in the water resulted in a more acid environment in the female's reproductive tract that favoured "female" sperm, I began to wonder if there was something in it. But there are other factors (a different buck, different feed etc.) that muddy the waters.

When you mentioned the high percentage of female kits... it brought the idea back to my mind. So I thought I'd ask. Likely just an old wive's tale... but sometimes those have some validity.

I don't mean to highjack this color thread but what Maggie said really got my attention. I have just started adding ACV to my goat's water and my rabbits water. I thought adding the vinegar might help my blue buck through his ear-mite episode. I put a little of it in everybody's water tonight and now that I have read this I know I will continue doing it. More does in our litters would be great, more does from my goat would be awesome! LOL
It would be interesting if several of us could continue putting the ACV in the water bottles and see how our male/female ratios work out. I understand it is also good in the water to help with algae build-up, not to mention the overall health benefits. Either way it is a win-win situation.
At least with rabbits we get results from our "experiments" relatively fast!

Jeanette
Hondo, TX

Always Learning!

 

Oh my Gosh! Maggie, thanks so much for posting this!

My Mom uses apple cider vinegar, and she swears by it. I just didn't realize it could be used for this purpose. Amazing!

We had watched a documentary a few weeks ago about this very subject - the number of boys being born had dropped dramatically..... was it the Nature of Things, maybe? I think they said it was from all the chemicals in the environment. Anyone else see that?

But I mean, if there's a chance that adding ACV to the water will balance out the sex of the kits, WOW! I'm so going to try this! How much do you give to them? Do you give it to the bucks too, or just the does?

 

Whoa!

I didn't say this is a fact. I said I had read a theory somewhere and wondered about it because of what seemed to have happened in my rabbitry. And in any case, if you are already getting mainly females, I don't see how the vinegar, which if anything favours females, is going to help you balance the sexes.

I used about 1 - 2 tablespoons per 4 litres of water - just a good "glug." I was, of course, adding it for the trace elements and as a general tonic. They all got it.