Rabbit colour

[ade73]

There are a number of rabbits in a field behind my house, for the last 2 years there has been one with a white band/collar around its neck, is this a natural thing or could it be a pet rabbit thats been released?

[Bunster]

Hi
Sounds like a domestic rabbit to me, possibly a Dutch? All too common I'm afraid, either an escapee or deliberately released.
I must say if it is, it has done very well to last 2 years! They would normally get predated pretty quick or the wild rabbits attack them.
Any chance of a picture to be sure?

[thunder]

Quite likely a pet, but as Bunster says, lucky to survive in the wild for so long. On the other hand maybe a pet was released a while ago, and survived just long enough to leave his or her genes floating around! You may see other odd colour variants from time to time in what are now wild rabbits

henrya

[Hobjob]

And you see wild colours in amongst the pets too!

[Dogghound]

yeh probably a recessive gene in the population, there are a number of pure black individuals in an area not far from where i live seem to be doing pretty well too

[Shadowjewel]

I have seen an example of a pet that had escaped or been released about three years ago. With the escapee that I saw, it had paired up with a wild one and had kits. The mother was splotchy black and white with floppy ears, and her babies were a mix of black, white, grey and had pointy ears. Since then their warren, which was quite small, has grown quite a bit and every now and then I see a rabbit there with unusual colour mixes, though not very distinct anymore.

[theanimallover]

I think some of them do ok in the wild. They must have a better life then some of the poor things I've seen in cages over the years.
A few years back we used to walk our dog up to an old barn and sit on the hay to rest. That's when we saw a ginger and white rabbit for the first time. The dog was put on the lead 'cause she likes bunny. Anyway he was gorgeous, he would come right up to us and thump his foot (probably telling us to get lost and all the other rabbits there was danger, but having no fear of us himself).
We started to go up there every weekend and we'd wait a while and he'd emerge normally after about 5 minutes...