black skin

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 Does anyone know anything about black skin on rabbits? We were just grooming our little girl and we saw this huge (1-1.5″) black sploch near a bald spot. There are a couple others around her skin I think. She got annoyed and doesn’t want me poking around anymore right now. We just had her treated short of 2 weeks ago for mites with Revolution. Next treatment in just over a week. Same area for the largest sploch, but the others are not. There is nothing of the sort on our other rabbit. It is also flakey. She freaked out when I pinched at it. 

 

Info online is extremely scarce. Nothing in Rabbit Health in the 21st Century. Called the vet (the somewhat less, but still pretty rabbit-savvy one) and he didn’t know. Could it just be new fur growing in? There are a couple spots where it is browner, but it just looks weird. She is an orange lop, though she has darker fur that is varied in color. I tried taking pictures, but the quality on my iPhone is really low and they don’t show it well at all. The pictures don’t really give any additional detail.

 

Thanks for any help. Sorry if this is written poorly. Very long day.

[RabbitPam]

I think I’ve seen it on bunnies with black fur, but it sounds odd on an orange furred bunny, especially if she is sensitive to it and it’s flakey.
I am surprised by the vet’s response to your call.
You could email your question to Dr. Dana Krempels to ask if it is normal in her experience. You can post your question in the Ask a Vet site:
http://www.allexperts.com/user.cgi?m=4&expID=35789&catID=703

[jerseygirl]

Could it just be new fur growing in?

It could be. If you run your fingers up against the longer fur you can sometimes see the tips and if it’s tinted. Another way to check is look at the spots where you were seeing bare skin. If they are black looking in 1-2 days then it probably is the new fur.  Well, hopefully that is all it is!

[BinkyBunny]

 This sounds like something we discussed many years ago.  I tried to find the post but haven’t been able to locate it yet.  It was something about the pigment and some bunnies so have darker pigment spots even if it doesn’t match their fur (IF I am remembering this right).   I know most of my bunnies I would have been able to notice such spots during combing without a problem, but my bunny Vivian has such soft, yet very thick fur, very dense, and I rarely see the skin when I am combing through it.  So it could be easy to miss a pigment spot that may have always been there. 

Also, a long the lines of what Jersey said, Vivian’s fur is a different colors at different lengths – the top part has dark brown/black tops, the rest is red/orange, and the fur closest to her skin is gray and then white.  So if her fur were to grow out from a bald spot, I’d assume it would start out dark — making the skin look black.  

I’ll keep looking for that old post — I’ll post it if I can find it!

[MimzMum]

I see this frequently with Mimzy & Fiver as they shed. It’s usually the velvet finally coming through the skin. Otherwise Mimzy’s skin is very pink when his fur first falls out.
Pip had an almost grey-blue tinge to her skin when I’d groom her during a shed. And she’s got golden fur with slightly black tips, but you have to look hard to see it.

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