Recognizing REW Babies

We've all been there. Waiting on pins and needles for the babies to arrive and then waiting on more pins and needles to find out what color they are. There are several colors that can look the same at birth and require for us to wait until either enough coat grows in or until the eyes open in order to begin to identify it. 

Many colors start off as pink babies at birth. Anything that is white or non extension, so REW, BEW, Torts, Fawns, and Pearls to name a few. Once the hair starts growing in, you can at least tell if that pink baby is turning white or tan, but if you have a suspected litter of REWs and BEWs or possibly Ermines, your wait will continue. But it doesn't have to. There is a very simple and reliable way to identify REW babies soon after they are born. In fact the earlier, the better. 

When rabbit babies are born, their skin is still very thin. This includes the skin of the eyelids. Their eyelids are so thin in fact that we can to some degree see the color of their eyes! More specifically, we can see if their pupils are dark colored or if they are the translucent pupils which lack color and appear to us as red. 

Here are photos of two 1 day old babies. One is a Tort, the other is a REW.

Tort on top, REW on bottom

Gently stretching the skin 

Tort baby, dark eye

REW baby, pink eye

In the photos above you can clearly see the difference in eye colors. Babies with colored eyes will look almost as if some one punched them in the eye. There will be a distinct area of color visible through the thin skin. On the other hand, babies with red eyed will be missing this. Some times it helps to gently stretch the skin and move it around slightly to ensure you are in fact looking at color under the skin. It's not uncommon for babies to be bruised during the birthing process. By moving the skin we can ensure we're not looking at an actual bruise over the eye area. 

This works best on newborn babies. The older they get, the thicker their skin becomes making it harder to see this. Since the development of the babies is based on time from conception, not from actual birth, this can also be harder to see on newborn babies born after longer pregnancies, so keep that in mind.