Guest wickidweasel Posted July 2, 2006 Report Share Posted July 2, 2006 Went out for a couple of hours shooting this morning for some ferret feed and see a young white rabbit ive seen black ones before, it was the same size as the other two it was sitting with so could possibly be from the same litter has anyone seen one before Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest oldskool Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 i had a couple of white ones escape from theyre pen! i saw them in the fields after 2 or 3 days but there was no catching them. i was curious as to wat would happen with them and the wild ones but unfortunately i never saw any results. a friend of mine says the same thing happened to him and a month or so later he saw brown and white ones hopping about for a season but eventually they fizzled out again! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest caleb Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Went out for a couple of hours shooting this morning for some ferret feed and see a young white rabbit ive seen black ones before, it was the same size as the other two it was sitting with so could possibly be from the same litter has anyone seen one before Nature dislikes anything different, the whites will be snapped up by predators in no time, if any animal stands out from the rest of the 'herd' in any way, it becomes a target in no time! Years ago local rabbiters in my area released Belgian Hares, which are in fact rabbits despite their name! They're a very large rabbit and they bred, well, like rabbits, with the local stock, throwing larger sized offspring for several generations, but, eventually they reverted back to offspring of the usual size! I suppose at first the reason the offspring was larger was down to what the experts call, 'hybrid vigour'! The female rabbit usually stifle's any that are different from the rest of the litter, it's happened with pet rabbits I've bred over the years! Also in times of need the doe will abort and eat her young, that's happened a few times too when I used to breed rabbits! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
J Darcy 5,871 Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Many years ago my uncle used to work in a quarry and he released a few large rabbits. These bred and constantly would throw up black rabbits regularlly. Even 15 years after they had been released i used to shoot black ones. There was a white one too, but i never got a shot oportunity, all the local lads used to try for it and i know a lad that clipped it and it escaped into the bramble. This quarry was pretty much isoslated and i guess had its own little gene pool, so thats why the colours kept cropping up, and another interesting thing was that a high % of rabbits had white dots in the middle of their heads..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest caleb Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Many years ago my uncle used to work in a quarry and he released a few large rabbits. These bred and constantly would throw up black rabbits regularlly. Even 15 years after they had been released i used to shoot black ones. There was a white one too, but i never got a shot oportunity, all the local lads used to try for it and i know a lad that clipped it and it escaped into the bramble. This quarry was pretty much isoslated and i guess had its own little gene pool, so thats why the colours kept cropping up, and another interesting thing was that a high % of rabbits had white dots in the middle of their heads..... Interesting that, years back I had some ferrets from a lad in Stourport on Severn in Worcestershire, they all had little white star looking mark on their foreheads for generations! :wacko: Quote Link to post Share on other sites
chartpolski 20,537 Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 A white rabbit escaped into the nature reserve behind my house and there has been pure white and particoloured offspring for 2 seasons now. I chase them daily with my pup and believe me, they are every bit as fast and wary as their normal coloured siblings !!! I did put up a photo on smoochers a while ago, I'll take the camera out and see if I can get some more photos. Cheers. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jonesy 111 Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 i used to do a lot of lamping when i was a teenager a farmer who bred them belgian hares let a few escape but they were quickly caught by the all the dogs in our area so they never had a chance to breed with the wild ones they were not much sport i dont even think isaw one run Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest caleb Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 i used to do a lot of lamping when i was a teenager a farmer who bred them belgian hares let a few escape but they were quickly caught by the all the dogs in our area so they never had a chance to breed with the wild ones they were not much sport i dont even think isaw one run Obviously I was wrong then, I bow to your superior knowledge of rabbits and rabbiting, I shouldn't have tried to con an obvious expert! Back to the cupboard for me then! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rabbithunter 456 Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 I have seen a white rabbit before. Weather it was an escapee pet, i dont know? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
barraboy 28 Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 ive seen the odd white one before, sorry not the best of pics. looked just like a dutch but instead of black was wild rabbit brown... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
IanB 0 Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Was out today with the gun doing some rabbiting, mate got a nice sandy rabbit two with one shot :11: . Quote Link to post Share on other sites
COMPO 54 Posted July 5, 2006 Report Share Posted July 5, 2006 (edited) I have caught sandies like in Ian's pic , also blacks and blue rabbits but never white ones, when the first blue rabbit hit the net i thought it was a fecking cat :11: i have found the colours do crop up in certain areas(closed gene pool thing i reckon like has been mentioned) i have a few farms that adjoin each other that often throw up blue rabbits (i have put pics up on smoochers before) and when i lived up north i had a farm that had one particular wood that threw loads of black's, the wood was not very big and the whole floor was one big rabbit warren under brambles etc.. and everytime we ferreted it we left with at least one ethnic but never seen a pure white rabbit, did ferret one like in barraboy's pic and the butcher i sold it to accused me of raiding people's gardens and stealing pet rabbits Edited July 5, 2006 by COMPO Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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