Scientific Facts
| Common Name: | Florida White Rabbit |
| Scientific Name: | Oryctolagus cuniculus |
| Life Span: | 5-8 years |
| Size : | Small/Mini |
| Weight : | 4 – 6 lbs (1.8 to 2.7 kg) |
| Body Shape: | Compact |
| Habitat: | Forest, wetlands, meadows, and grasslands. |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
Physical Description
The Florida White Rabbit is a comparatively small size rabbit that has a round, compact body and has a short neck. Its body type is some kind of commercial, and its body appearance is the most important for show judges. Its small head was round, and it was also said to be well-filled. Its thick ears are small that is standing upright.
The color of its eye is pink, for a small rabbit, this Florida White Rabbit has a well-muscled buttock, back, and shoulder. This rabbit species usually weighs about 4 to 6 pounds when its body is fully developed. The rear part of its body is a little bit wider than its shoulder. Many pet lovers adore Florida White Rabbits because of their cute and adorable features.
For one, the coat of these rabbits is soft and short, and it does not tend to shed that much. It is fine to have weekly grooming just using a bristled brush. The breed of Florida White Rabbit has only one color coat, which is white, and it does not have a notable story beyond its growth. If you see your rabbit often shedding more than its usual, this may be caused that it is shedding season. In that case, just extend your brushing up to twice or three times per week. The Florida White Rabbit also has 28 teeth, and with an impossible fact, these rabbit’s teeth will never stop to grow for their entire life. Male Florida White Rabbit’s name is Buck, and the female is called Doe; both male and female Florida White Rabbits are also known as Bunny. Baby bunny or kit (kitten) is the name of a young rabbit.
Good-to-know Facts About Florida White Rabbit
Here are some of the quick facts about the Florida White Rabbit:
- Best Suited for single people, apartments and condos, the elderly, young kids
- Can be as Indoor pet rabbit
- Temperament: Silent, companionable, passive, friendly
- Comparable Breeds: Polish and Dutch Rabbit
Colors
As its name indicates, the Florida White Rabbit has only one standard color, which is all white without any markings or patterns. It has a red albino eye that usually seen as pink. Many people love white rabbits and prefer Florida White rabbits because they look pure and soft to touch.
Behavior
The Florida White Rabbits are actually included in those most adaptable rabbit breeds. They tend to be outstanding meat rabbits. Even though these rabbits have only less bodyweight, they still have a distinctly fine bone that contributes them to a lofty dress out percentage.
Among the outstanding competitors of rabbit shows, these Florida White Rabbits are very often to win the Best Rabbits in Shows. The crucial basis of its competitiveness is that because of its only one color that the breeders are proficient in focusing on coat and type of rabbit only.
Florida White Rabbit is ideal to be as good pets because it has a higher temperament. Although they are not very popular as pets since they do not have such exciting colors. Due to its small body size, Florida White Rabbits are easy keepers pet. You can play with them, and their mere presence is truly relaxing. They are usually even-tempered, and their temperament and size make them very easy to handle. These rabbits are commonly friendly, which makes them great pets.
These rabbits also have a great sense of smell, vision as well as hearing. They see predators among all directions because of its two big eyes that on each side of its head that gives them almost a 360 degrees vision. They see everything, such as back or just in front of them; however, they have a slight blind spot located at the front of their nose.
Since in the wild, most of the rabbits are usually very social, the Florida White Rabbits as the pet should be better if you kept these rabbits in pairs. Companionship is very important to Florida White Rabbit for their happiness as well as for them to live longer. They have around 5 to 8 years life span, and when in captivity they can live up to 10 years.
The Florida White Rabbit has the ability to jump up to 36 inches (91.4 cm), and it can even jump higher. They also tend to run and can extend speeds for about 30 to 40 mph. Just make sure to interact with your pet as often as you can, especially with the young kits. Interacting with animals implies you, as the owner to take some time to bring them out of their cage, try to introduce them to young kids as well as to other animals.
And because these rabbits are commonly playful and sometimes peculiar, you may notice that they are a free-roaming bunny that will greet every guest that enters your door. They are also passive natures and sweet. They prefer to do their best when they are the only pet inside your house.
Their behavior may sometimes distinguish from rabbits to another rabbit, and few individuals may tend to more relaxed while others may seem to be curious. The Florida White Rabbit is a perfect pet choice for who have a small space to devote who raise rabbit indoors. Above all, they are ideal to be a family pet at your home.
Habitat
The Florida White Rabbit tends to be as domestic pets. Although these rabbits are generally smaller than some other breeds, they still need enough room for them to hop and play. Your pet rabbit will require a cage that is about 30 inches long by 24 inches wide by 18 inches high. You also need to select an appropriate cage for your Florida White Rabbit, avoid the cage that has a wired bottom because these might cause to injure your rabbit. Instead of wire bottom cage, try to go with a solid metal cage instead. The cage may protect your pet from the rain as well as predators.
Even some research shows rabbits that are commonly kept indoors are more prone to vitamin D deficiency, which might cause them to have dental problems or even weak bones. Try to take your rabbit outside with you, in a harness to expose them with a natural sunlight every day.
As much as possible, you should keep your Florida White Rabbit indoors; don’t let them stay outside. Usually, when you keep your rabbits outside, you may expose them to other elements such as predators, and they sometimes feel lonely. Commonly, those rabbits that are kept outside are more prone to forget that may usually be neglected. It may be caused by the rabbit to become fearful of humans who can become a problem for a pet rabbit.
It is also important to provide your rabbit with a litter box in its cage. You may also place a lot of litter boxes around your house for them to make use of when they are roaming around your house. When you observed your rabbit is urinating in that definite corner of its cage, then put the litter box over in that corner. Avoid using cedar shavings as well as pine as litter, because the fumes might cause your rabbit liver or respiratory problems. You may also need to change the litter box once every day.
Florida White Rabbit also needs somewhere to hide. By doing so, they’ll feel safer in hiding place. That’s why you have to place a wooden nest box or cardboard box inside your rabbit’s cage. Cardboard box is perfect for your rabbit for them to move around; they may also be used to chew on it or even hide inside it.
Eating Habits
Florida White Rabbits are considered herbivorous wherein their diet usually consists of vegetables, pellets, and hay. Hay is essential for both dental health and digestive health. Fresh pellets should also be made available daily.
These breed of rabbits are herbivores, so their diet will mostly contain hay, pellets, and vegetable. For your rabbit to gain bone mass while it is growing, they need a high protein diet. Florida White Rabbit is mostly known to be crepuscular, and they do most to feed every evening. Supply a lot of hay for your Florida White Rabbit; hay is necessarily good for the health and well-being of these rabbits. This may be the major source of rabbit’s nutrition, and also it helps to wear down its teeth as well.
Allocate an unlimited supply of hay every day to your Florida White Rabbit. Offer your pet a new fresh hay every day and check often if it’s needed more. It’s a good choice to have a Timothy hay for your pet; you may also try orchard and oat hay.
You may also feed plain pellets to your pet rabbit. Offer your Florida White Rabbit at least 1/8 to ¼ cup of pellets per day. Choose the pellet that has a high fiber, keep away mixes that contain food like corn, seeds, or even dried fruit. The plain pellets are loved by rabbits, and they also provide some good nutrition. This may consider just an extra item, not to be a staple. When you notice that your pet is having difficulty regarding gaining weight, or it may be larger than a normal average, then it may need more. You should also consult your veterinarian for some recommendations regarding your rabbit’s size and also to its other needs.
Florida White Rabbit also prefers to eat dark leafy greens, so make sure to put a few dark leafy greens in the cage of your pet every day. These are some ideal choice of leafy green for your Florida White Rabbit: kale, basil, mustard or collard greens, parsley, romaine lettuce, spring greens.
You can also treat your rabbit some kind of crunchy things. Rabbits usually like crunchy fruits, seeds as well as veggies. Apple, banana, and carrots slices are an example of some good treat items; you may include a hulled sunflower seed. Try to offer this every day to your pet.
Always give your rabbit certain food in moderation. There are some definite foods that make your pet sick if he consumes a lot of them too often. The foods that are given to your pet occasionally are the broccoli, cabbage, spinach, corn, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and corn.
Just make sure that all the fresh foods are washed meticulously, and that uneaten food should be removed to its cage every end of the day. Fed you pet an at least 75% of dark and leafy greens and a 25% of vegetables every day. Fruits and even the starchy vegetables should be restricted in its diet, make them as a treat to your pet.
When they eat food just mentioned above, they also need to drink. Rabbits need to have fresh and clean water. Put a sipper bottle to its cage; it is a perfect drinker for rabbits because it will not spill or get defile with a speck of dirt. Stock and change your rabbit’s water sipper every day.
Grooming
Just a quick brushing at least once a week will be good enough to take away any loose fur to Florida White Rabbit. They only need a little grooming, but when they are molting, they need more persistent grooming. It usually requires regular brushing to remove any dead hair to their bodies. Florida White Rabbit tends to be a very clean animal; they know how to groom themselves and also each other. Avoid to give your rabbit a bath, Florida White Rabbit doesn’t want to get wet, and being wet can even cause them to hypothermia for a rabbit.
Spaying or Neutering
If you have no plan to breed your Florida White Rabbit, then you need to spay or neuter them. Generally, rabbits breed quickly, so it may breed out of control when they are not neutered or spayed. It is also known that spaying as well as neutering your rabbit is a furthermore good way to protect its health.
Most rabbits that are not spayed and neutered may seize to have such hormonal behaviors like spraying as well as fighting. Those female rabbits that are not spayed are mostly to have a high risk of uterine cancer than to those females that are already spayed. You should separate male and female rabbits when they are not spayed and neutered.
Health Issues
These breed of Rabbits are tended to be hardy and healthy, and they don’t have a particular disease that may affect them. But when you distinguish some signs of ill-health, take them to your veterinarian. You may also check for some rabbit fleas, earwax buildup, ticks, mites and make sure to see their bottoms are not soiled as they might promote flystrike.
Protecting Your Rabbit’s Health
Florida White Rabbit is not likely to have such specific health problems. But like any other animals, they also need to have some preventive measures for them to ensure to be a happy and healthy pet. Usually, the rabbits that are commonly indoor for the most time of their lives sometimes caused to develop Vitamin D deficiency, which might cause a major problem. To secure your rabbit to prevent this kind of deficiency, you have two options either bring them outside for them to get some fresh air as well as sunshine, or you may take them to an indoor room that has a lot of windows so they can still roam under the sunshine.
Rabbits are some kind of active animals, so it requires them to get at least two hours of exercise daily. Considering that their cage is not big enough for them to hop too far and fast, it is good to take them out of their cage to let them run or hop around, just make sure to observe and watch them during at this time.
You may also need to check often your rabbit’s ears for any presence of accumulated earwax. Also, be sure to observe the inside of your rabbit’s mouth to check some overgrown teeth; this commonly happens when your pet does not have a right hay diet or also because it wears down its teeth, which is constantly growing through their entire life.
Your Florida White Rabbit loves to chew some things; for example, it may chew a cord if it encounters them. To hide or cover all your electrical cords to prevent them from chewing. This might be dangerous for your pet, and it may also destroy your electric goods. You may hide electric cords with durable spiral wrap, hard plastic tubing, or just make sure they’re out of reach. Rabbits might also chew on some wooden objects, including a wall trim, chairs, table legs as well as doors.
Florida White Rabbit’s teeth never stop growing for its entire life, so give your rabbit a lot of things that it may chew on. If you don’t give your pet something to chew on, this may cause its teeth to grow long. When it happens, you need to take it to a veterinarian to trim its teeth.
Florida White Rabbits also need to have an annual checkup to a veterinary. When your pet may seem to be sick, then you may also take them to a veterinary during this time. There are some signs of a problem when they are sick includes: runny eyes and nose, dark red urine, watery diarrhea, drooling and not excreting, not hopping, slowness, a lot of fur loss, and having a fever for about 105 degrees Fahrenheit and more
Breeding Traits
Florida White Rabbit has a fair-sized litter, and every female rabbit makes an adequate mother. Almost all of the rabbits have a good maternal intuitive, and few breeds maybe a slightly testy and defensive when they have a young baby kit. It may also become unusual moody throughout a mating season.
A young Florida White Rabbit opens its eyes for about 7 up to 14 days within a standard number of 10 days after its birth. When it finally opens its eyes, that’s the time they start to offer some food like alfa pellets as well as water. However, even the young kits begin to eat; this is not necessarily mean that they are quite prepared to be weaned from their mothers.
The mother rabbits are aware when its the perfect time to wean its young kits. Weaning is very significant for the baby rabbit’s health, immune system, growth as well as for the development of its digestive system, so it is important for the baby rabbit to be with its mother for at least 8 weeks to be exact. They generally need their milk for a minimum day of 8 weeks after its birth.
Florida White Rabbit Breed Origin
The Florida White Rabbit was first bred during the year of the 1960s by a rabbit breeder in Florida whose name is Judge Orville Miliken. He wanted to make a wide-ranging rabbit breed that is “all-purpose” which means the rabbit had to be notable, have a high-quality coat, enough meat as well as having a docile quality that may become a good pet which is suitable for every family, laboratory use and even fur.
Another motive for these breeds creation is that Judge Miliken noticed that laboratories in New Zealand are using a rabbit as their test subjects, and they need a smaller rabbit, so Mr. Miliken tries to meet whats their need by producing a new breed of rabbit. He created a breed by mating a Polish rabbit (Red-eyed-white), a New Zealand rabbit, and an Albino Dutch rabbit breed, producing a new breed called the Florida White Rabbit breed.
In order for him to produce a new breed, he appropriately named the new breed after his home state in Florida. It was agreed by the American Rabbit Breeders Association or ARBA in the year 1967. After 10 years, the Florida White Rabbit won its first-ever award “Best in Show” at an American Rabbit Breeders Association convention. While the breed had obtained an acceptance, it was now afar from the commercial gem.
Within the years of 1967 up to 1999, the breed is going through the hands of a number of skilled rabbit breeders. Each has a contribution to its refinement. The size of bones of the Florida White Rabbit was heavier in its earlier days, but because of the many attempts of these great breeders, they produce a smaller and finer bone rabbit that fixes in the type of the breed.
They are now thinking of it as an excellent pet as well as a show animal. If you tend to have a Florida White Rabbit, then you will require to have the right kind of foods, housing, exercise time, and lastly a veterinary care to keep them a healthy and happy pet. This is also been a perfect type and condition, and it is usually winning more than its fair share of its shows, even locally or nationally. Florida White Rabbits have won the title of Best in Show a lot of times in ARBA national conventions.
Florida White Rabbit Breeders Association (FWRBA)
The Florida White Rabbit Breeders Association was engaged by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA) during the year 1972. This organization is for some devoted to serve every member as well as to promote this magnificent breed. Florida White Rabbit is sustained to grow its popularity because of a few dedicated breeders that are enlarged for a strived of excellence in this breed. And because this breed is versatile, they are elevated in a different climate for some variety purposes.
The Florida White Rabbit Breeders Association also offers different services to any member. When you are a member of their club, you may receive a guidebook and a journal that may update you on any club news. They also provide sweepstakes and treat awards to motivate to a competition.
Availability: Where to Get One?
The price of having a Florida White Rabbit may usually depend upon the standard of the rabbit, where you buy it, the kind of housing you choose, the health care they need and, a lot more. You can easily find the Florida White Rabbit from a considered rabbit breeder, in rescue centers, and also in a rabbitry that near you. Animal pets are not be shipped, so you may require to go and pick by yourself the pet rabbit that you want.
You can obtain an updated list of local Florida rabbit breeders from the Florida White Rabbit Breeders Association or FWRBA. Search for the USA Rabbit Breeders Directory. This is a functional site to find breeders, a club as well as the information about the breed that you want. You may also try to search through the internet to find its availability; there are also some classified ads that you may use to look for a Florida White Rabbit. Its usual price will range from $25 up to $100 and up, depends on its quality.
How to Care
Florida White Rabbit may also attempt to chew on any loose wallpaper, sheetrock, and a carpet. So you also need to stop them from chewing your walls and furniture, try to watch your pet when it is out of its cage, and stop it when he is about to chew something that is off to its limits. When you catch your rabbit chewing on some things that are off to its limit, do not punish them. Give them something else for them to chew on instead like alfalfa cubes, cardboard boxes, apple branches, or untreated pine boards.
Florida White Rabbits are commonly obedient, tender, good-natured, and a calm breed of rabbits. They also tend to be a very hardy and healthy breed. Their temperament is commonly easygoing and friendly, which leads them to become ideal as pets.
They are also said to be a good choice for some novice rabbit breeders. Florida White Rabbit is able to provide 6 up to 8 kits per litter. They also have an exceptionally fine bone, contributing them to a majestic dress out of percentage. They tend to be an outstanding meat rabbit breeds because of their good meat up to bone proportion. This breed also has a standard lifespan, which is about 5 to 8 years; they live longer more than 8 years if they have properly cared.
FAQs
Does a Florida White Rabbit make a good pet?
Yes, they make good pets because Florida White Rabbits are calm and docile breed. They are a rabbit that tends to be easy going with their good temperament that makes them trouble-free to handle. They are commonly friendly and make good pets for families with kids, elderlies, novice breeders as well as singles.
Is a Florida White Rabbit a good pet for a child?
All the children should be observed throughout when they have a pet rabbit; you should teach the children properly on how to handle these pets. Rabbits can usually bite nor scratch.
What is the ideal climate for Florida White Rabbit?
All kinds of climates, but you should not let your pet rabbit outside without the right shelter and housing for them to be safe to their predator.
Is the Florida White Rabbit recognized by the ARBA?
Yes, the American Rabbit Breeders Association is recognized as the Florida White Rabbit, and it is one of its top show rabbits.
Is there a Rabbit Associations nor Club to Florida White Rabbit?
Yes, it is Florida White Rabbit Breeders Association or FWRBA. It is devoted to assist its membership and encourage this gorgeous kind of breed.
