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There’s no doubt about it, rabbits are some of the cutest animals around, what with their fluffy, silky hair that you probably can’t resist stroking.
But did you know they don’t start life that way? In fact, they’re born naked, and it takes a while before their bodies get covered with that irresistibly soft coat.
At birth, baby rabbits (called kits) look so different from adult buns, especially those with gloriously long hair. They’re so tiny, for one, only about a couple of inches long and weighing around 2 ounces, depending on the breed.
Appearance of Baby Rabbits
Fur or No Fur?
Rabbits develop quickly, so you’ll see changes in your baby buns from one day to the next. That said, it takes roughly 4 to 8 weeks before kits grow a full coat.
By day 3:
The kits start growing a soft, downy fuzz on their bodies.
By day 7:
Short hair has grown over most of the baby buns’ bodies.
By day 12:
The kits now have developed a full coat.
By day 13:
The baby coat turns into the intermediate coat, a mixture of downy and long guard hair.
Newborn kits with pink skins will likely grow up to be light-colored rabbits. Buns who’ll become brown or black rabbits in adulthood often have dark skin at birth.
It’s not just kits that shed their fur. Even adult rabbits do so. This happens during molting season, which occurs roughly every 3 months. In the process, the old coat gets replaced with a new one.
Here are some tips to help your bun through the molting process.
To gently remove the loose hair, wet your hands and rub them over your bun’s body.
Give your pet a wet hand rubdown:
Brush your rabbit:
You’ll need to brush your bun more frequently during the molting season.
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