My Pets: Velvet
Name: Velvet
Animal: Rabbit
Colour: Black
Breed: Black Rex
Size: Medium to large
Gender: Male
Birthday: 27th January 2007
Velvet is my third rabbit and can be quite a handful! He is my first rabbit that I bought from a pet shop, he was around 12 weeks old when I bought him.
Velvet lives in the ‘animal shed’ with seven guinea pigs, although he has a different hutch to the piggies! He is a very social rabbit who loves playing and jumping and is very lively.
During May/June of 2009 Velvet had some trouble with his blacklegs, which appeared to be paralyzed. At the vets he had several examinations and x-rays. The vet concluded that he could have been born with a slight malformation in his spine and/or lower legs, and the injury was perhaps caused by twisting round too far when he was cleaning himself.
It was doubtful as to whether he would survive this injury and we were told to prepare for the worst. Miraculously he has now made a full recovery much to everyone’s surprise and relief.
Velvet is very picky about food! Some brands of rabbit food he simply refuses to eat, but we have found one that he absolutely loves. This video of him is quite an old one that I found on my YouTube channel of him eating his lunch:
Surprisingly, even though he is male, Velvet has a dewlap, and when he was about six months old had a couple of false-pregnancies and started nest-building at one point! The vet, however said she had had male rabbits showing this kind of behavior before!
Due to Velvet being of the Rex breed he has lush, soft fur, which is how he got his name!
Here’s one of my favourite videos of Velvet:
Sorry about the quality of the video – I took it on mobile phone one day when I was out in the run with him.
April 7, 2010
В· 
Maddia (Admin) В· 
2 Comments
Tags: Animals, My Rabbits, Pets В· Posted in: My Pet Updates, My Rabbits
2 Responses
Do you find the black rex rabbit breed is more susceptible to cold conditions than other breeds?
Hi,
No, my black Rex rabbit doesn’t appear to be any more susceptible to cold conditions than other rabbit breeds are. Rex rabbits have a lot of short fur that is closely packed together which helps to keep the rabbit warm in cooler conditions. If anything I would say they are perhaps more susceptible to very hot conditions due to how thick their fur is and how much Rex rabbits tend to have (this is just my opinion). Of course, like most rabbits, Rex rabbits will moult, so hot weather shouldn’t be a problem. Also, in general black rabbits will get hotter than lighter-coloured rabbits due to dark-coloured coats absorbing a lot of heat.