rabbit fur: summer vs. winter

[LittlePuffyTail]

Stormy (my mini-rex) and Bindi (mini-lop) don’t noticeabley get thinner/thicker hair in the summer or winter. They keep pretty much the same fur thickness and molt and regrow a few times a year.

This is my first winter with Olivia and I notice her fur is getting much thicker and longer. When I adopted her in the spring she had fur sort of like this and then did a super shed about May and got a nice, shiny, very short coat which lasted all summer and she hardly shed a single hair all summer.

Do different breeds differ as to whether their fur gets thicker in the winter or stays the same? She’s a mixed breed and I have no idea what breeds that might include.

I didn’t think most house rabbits changed their coats. Do anyone else’s? What about rabbits who live outside year round?

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Posted By LittlePuffyTail on 10/14/2008 11:14 AM

“she hardly shed a single hair all summer”

 

 

^^ I don’t know the answer but man that makes me jealous!! Rupert stopped shedding finally only to start blowing his coat again! His butt is getting insanely soft (like puppy/kitten fur) but I am sick of eating fur all day!!

 

People generally think animals grow coats by the weather, but actually daylight has a lot to do with it, so it’s very possible indoor rabbits could grow winter coats! Mine don’t seem to though.

[Princess*Smudge]

Smudge is an American Fuzzy Lop and apparently part angora so her hair DRASTICALLY changes with the seasons or just with her regular molting. She started blowing her coat in September and now it’s usually done until the spring for what I call the “big shed” she sheds 24/7 a little bit lol. She is much fluffy-er and has more hair it seems in the winter, it makes her look sooo much bigger than she actually. In the spring she is still hairy but it is not as dense and she has less of the “wool” part of her hair and more soft light hairs, she looks smaller too. I don’t know if this is just her breed and less to do with the seasons but it’s what I find each year. She also changes color often, she goes from mostly white and grey with some brown to almost entirely grey and then grey with brown patches all over it’s like she can’t make up her mind on what to wear

[LittlePuffyTail]

Stormy and Bindi are always shedding a little bit. I brush them almost every night to get the little bits off.

Olivia changes colour too. She’s more brown/grey in the thicker coat and almost all grey in the summer.

[Alicia Conklin]

I don’t know about Drue, but Tucker’s never changed.   Drue though is shedding like mad right now though..which btw reminds me..how the heck do you get a bunny to sit still to be brushed???

Tucker only ever sheds a few hairs so it’s like swipe-swipe-done.  But Drue..wow…A LOT!

[MooBunnay]

My bunnies get pretty thick coats in the winter – probably because we are cheap at our house and only run the heat and AC the minimum amount necessary

I can’t really get my bunnies to stay very still to be brushed, I usually get in their cage with them so that they don’t have a lot of space to run around, and then I try to sit on my feet and “trap” them in a kind of small space between me and the side of the cage. Then I will brush them, and usually do a lot of “plucking” of the loose furs as well. If one of my buns is in the middle of a serious molt, I will take them out of the cage, hold them, and sit on a towel and have my husband keep them sitting in the same place while I give them a good brushing – its usually a two person job!

[Cassi&Charlie]

Yep, I have to hold my bunnies down with a well placed leg against the cage otherwise they shoot off and spend the rest of the day glaring at us from a distance.

[BunnyMuffin]

I just take the bunnies into the bathroom. Noelle’s afraid of slippery floors, so she just sits on the bathmat and hangs out cuz she has no where to go. Wally explores a little bit more, but he’s not such a big fan of the slippy floor either, so he eventually stays still. Works good enough for me!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Umn *blushes* Dave’s actually been brushing Rupert lately and Rupert likes Dave better then me so he holds really still for him!!

[MimzMum]

Mimzy’s fur just did a short shed a few weeks ago. Pip is still shedding off and on and Fiver just started dropping hair a few weeks ago and is still in the process of going completley naked. 0_o His nails are too long (getting them trimmed at the vet’s on Thursday) and he’s taken a huge chunk of fur off the bridge of his nose by scratching. He’s a lot less trusting of me for some unknown reason lately and won’t even let me lightly touch him, so grooming has been nigh impossible. >.<

He has the shortest, thinnest hair of all the buns and he is the one shedding the most. As a Mini-rex, I would think he’d want to keep what little he’s got. :-/

Go figure. *sigh*
I notice more a change in the buns’ appetite as snow begins to fall here, more than the hair, which seems to always be in a state of flux.

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