Rabbit Gazette, July/August, 1988

      Silvers?....Silver Whats???

by Lee Ann Evans, Valparaiso, Indiana

It's about time someone wrote an article about Silvers. This breed has been around for around 3 hundred years and yet no one seems to know they exist. Only a handful of breeders raise them, and those that do usually don't have all three varieties. Some, as a matter of fact, have never seen all the colors.

Why all the mystery? I have no idea. Silvers are beautiful, docile, medium-sized rabbits. They come in three colors: Brown, which is similar to chestnut agouti with silver ticking throughout; Fawn, which is as the name implies, fawn with silvering; and the most popular and recognizable of the varieties...the Gray, which is merely a black rabbit with even silvering over the entire body, head, ears and tail.

It is often that I take my Silvers (I presently raise Grays) to a rabbit show and I have them out of the carrying case to give them a final once over before the judge sees them, when someone comes over to me and says, "What kind of rabbit is that?? I've never seen one of those!" I tell the inquiring person that it is a Silver and they invariable say, "A Silver...a silver what? Silver Marten, Silver Fox, what?" I try to be polite and end up going into my rabbits' life story to make these people understand. I raise Silvers. End of quote.

But it isn't anyone's fault that these beautiful rabbits are "hidden under a bushel" so to speak. A brown and a gray are shown in the color picture section of the AREA Standard of Perfection. There is a National Sliver Club. They did make a nice appearance at the National Con­vention. They even win Best in Show occasionally. One of my Silvers has done that twice. So, as you see, Silvers do get their share of publicity. The only

question that remains is why don't more people have them?

Part of the answer was given to me by the man I got my first trio of Silvers from, Fidelis "Clem" Steinhoff, of Union Grove, Wisconsin. He once told me that Silvers do not readily breed well except in the Spring. Therefore, maybe people are put off .by .thelack of success­ful litters. On the contrary to Clem's statement, however, is the fact that I just visited him recently, and he had a two-week old litter of six healthy Grays. Sometimes, one just never knows. Clem lives in the southern-most part of Wis­consin, but I must say, while I was there that winter wind was mighty chilly.

Another reason for the lack of con­centration of Silvers in this country may be due to the fact that 60 points of the 100 points allotted to the animal per the Standard are given to color, silvering and ticking. This should not be scary in the least bit, as most Silvers breed very true to type in that their silvering is even over their entire body. Of the Silvers I have seen, the above statement holds very true. Also, their body type seems to breed fairly true as well. I will venture to say that out of all the silvered breeds, Silvers are the closest to perfection. (Silver Fox breeders are now getting out their poison pens.)

The history of Silvers is a little vague. It has been said that the Gray was dis­covered in India prior to the year 1700. The breed then filtered down through Europe where, in England specifically, rumor has it the Brown was created. A while later, fawns were said to have been created from lighter colored browns or possibly even the French version of the Creme EX Argent. Unfor­tunately, there are few rabbit historians

who are available to trace ancestry bet­ter.

Silvers are very beautiful, as I have said before, and seem to adhere pretty close to their breed Standard. I have found that they also make wonderful gifts. (I gave my mother, Carol Sch-neegas, a pair for Christmas. She raises Holland Lops, so the Silvers seem like giants.) They only eat a cup of food at my house. Clem Steinhoff feeds his close to two cups at his house. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I feed Heinold Feeds and he feeds Purina. Either way, they seem to retain their flesh well, and they are just slightly hungry by feeding time so that they clean up their food immediately. Of course, they get adequate water supply, too. Feeding once a day as I do seems to add to the rabbit's vigor. Silvers reach their senior weight (4-7 Ibs.) easily and maintain a glossy finished coat year round.

(Historical references taken partly from "Offi­cial Guide to A Progressive Program for Raising Better Rabbits & Cavies" Published by the ARBA pp. 59 & 60)

74 Rabbit Gazette, July/August, 1988