Orange: the Rex with the Champagne Sparkle

An exhibitor describes the attraction of the dazzler which first captivated her over thirty years ago.

It’s the breed which captivates you at first glance, draws you into a happy circle of the friendliest fanciers in Britain, takes you to far-distant places for those unique shin-digs known as club shows, keeps you guessing every time a new litter makes its first skittish steps from the nest and surrounds you with that golden glow that says ‘I’m special. I keep Orange rex’.

Orange Rex take on a different name during the summer agricultural season. To me they become the ‘Oooh’ and ‘Aah’ rabbits as they draw admiring gasps from the crowds who flock to the rabbit tent at the county shows and take their first look at our beautiful rex varieties.

Ugly duckling

Orange rex first came on the show scene in the 1930’s with great pioneering work done by the late G F Baker who helped to draw up the standard (much of which remains unaltered to this day) and who bred many stock show winners. George once wrote in a club year book that those first Orange were far from ideal - more like cripples with bandaged feet to protect their sore hocks, weeping eyes from inverted eyelashes, thin coats and very pronounced agouti colouring with blue rumps and bellies, etc.

With painstaking care and devotion he and a number of other rex fanciers proceeded to put beauty into this ugly duckling and within a few years they had achieved their ambition to put Orange Rex well and truly ‘on the map’.

Steady progress

Over the past forty years the breed has made steady progress. A few best in show and many best rex awards have been won, including a best rex award at the “Crufts” of the Rabbit Fancy the Bradford Championship Show.

First class start

One of the plusses in joining any breed’s national specialist club is that the Secretary will assist you to get first class foundation stock. It is essential to start with the best if you want to get maximum enjoyment from your hobby. The National Orange & Fawn Rex Rabbit Association has a good reputation for looking after its new members; many a novice has swept the board at stock shows and the first to congratulate him is the fancier who supplied the foundation stock. If you intend to purchase Orange, I would suggest that you watch the stock for sale columns in Fur & Feather or ask the Secretary for a list of the leading breeders. If the stock is not available immediately from a recommended stud, it will pay you to wait a few more weeks rather than rush into rubbish which will cost you plenty to feed and care for and give nothing but heartache in the months to come.

Most reputable fanciers sell stock on approval but they like the newcomer to come along and inspect their rabbitries, see the full range of the Orange being bred and find out at first hand some of the snags and surprises of breeding tan patterned rex. As a novice Orange fancier, I learned more from penside chats and visits to successful studs than from any book; if you have a genuine interest and desire to learn, fanciers will be pleased to give you a great deal of good advice.

Individuals

Orange Rex is an individual with its own faults, good features and characteristics. Skill in the breeding pen is an art which takes a few generations to master.

Some of the best Orange in the U.K. today have been bred from does to which the novice would not give a second glance, but the expert will tell you that what goes into his stud must come out and that is very often the litter sister rather than that big winner that will produce the ‘goods’. So be guided by his advice, look at all his stock critically and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

If ‘taking the plunge’ during the showing season, I would try to buy a young doe that is suitable for showing now and breeding later, so that you can have a flutter straight away at the shows. Here’s where you can see all the strains of Orange on the table at once. This is where you will learn to pick out the likely youngsters from the also-rans, where you can talk to fellow members and get advice from all-comers including the judge.

It may well be that fanciers will tell you that they have ‘just the buck’ for your doe later on, and you may be tempted to book an appointment with a best in show winner or his famous dad. Perhaps this could be just the step that will put you on the path to golden success: but why not for starters, be advised by the breeder from whom you obtained your foundation stock?

Picking out winners

The novice fancier should set out with one aim, and that is to start with the best. The question he or she must ask is this: “How will I know it is the best?”

If buying very young stock you will be taking a bit of a gamble, as I defy any Orange breeder to pick winners out of the nests and say ‘this is the one’.

It is fairly easy to pick ‘winners’ from the nest if going to a breeder who excels in good short-coated, plushy and brilliantly coloured youngsters. It is much harder to pick a good ‘un from the strains which produce the rabbits that are slower to mature and, although often as babes they are disappointing, they can turn out to be that adult stock show surprise. Ideally, the aim is to breed a good youngster which goes on to even better things as an adult. This is far harder than it seems.

Don’t look at young Orange while they are still in the fluffy nest coats. They are impossible to assess at this age, although you can pick out the likely ones by their already glowing colouring, bold heads and short ears. The back of the hocks is a good area to study for colour potential.

At eight weeks the first coat should be pushing its way through the paler fluff and by twelve weeks you should be able to give them your first critical going-over. The first thing to catch your eye should be the colour. Place the youngsters in a row, as on a judging table, and study them from all the angles, especially from the rear. Look for a bright orange rather than a dirty dull orange to redness.

But beware the ones with a brilliant top colour which, when the fur is parted, reveals practically all white underneath. The orange colour should go down the hairshaft as far as possible, with a glowing white base.

Now blow into the fur starting from the nape of the neck and working towards the rump. You will find that on the haunches and rump the white undercolour will give way to a pearl grey or agouti-blue base, and there’s where your first puzzle begins. Is this - as in certain strains - a fault to be overlooked as it is a sign of good colour as an adult and will almost certainly disappear in the next moult? Or is it a fault that will stay with the rabbit - and as such will cost your exhibit valuable points on the judging table as well as intensifying the fault in the breeding pen later? Only the breeder who has produced generation after generation from this particular line will be able to advise you.

Other colour points to look for are: glowing heads, especially on the cheeks and ears (ears must match the saddle colour), bold unbroken white ‘spectacles’ around the eyes, and sound front feet without any trace of white barring or frosting. Look also for clumps of white hairs in the orange - a bad fault, and such stock should not be put in the breeding pen. Finally, the belly should be sparkling white - not just on top but right down to the base.

Equal importance

Having placed the youngsters in 1-2-3 order as far as colour is concerned, now pay attention to the coat. Remember there are equal points for colour and coat, so both have to be right. Don’t confuse length of coat as being ‘dense’; a good Orange should excel in that genuine half inch rex coat which many self rex lack, and the specialist judge will always give a good Orange a fair crack of the whip.

So search carefully for that ‘flyer’ - the babe with the coat as short as plush, half an inch long and no more, with exquisite velvety texture and plenty of resistance in the coat. It is hard to explain on paper I know - but if you can run your hand to and fro over a square of velvet curtain and then try to match it for feel in your Orange - you have the rabbit!

Check for thinness and curl of the nape of the neck. Sometimes there is a distinct curl, in others it is a slight depression almost as if the delicate fur has been ‘crushed’ which, when parted, will show a distinct waviness. If there is a certain amount of curl, it may also be apparent on the chest and belly, flanks and rump. I always discarded rabbits with the slightest suggestion of curl as they had a tendency to weak hocks.

It is wise for the beginner to concentrate on the Orange with plenty of resistance in the coat. I like to see a few guard hairs on the rumps of youngsters although, of course, this like the blue under colour is a fault in show-quality stock. However, a few guard hairs usually signifies a heavier coat later on, and a likely prospect worth keeping. So don’t discard the ones with bums like porcupines - not yet awhile.

Type

Check your show stock for that final consideration - type. Coat and colour each has a standard of forty points; type carries twenty points. I wish it was more. That first glance at the rabbit on the judging table always has a lasting impression, and you want the biggest, boldest-headed rabbits you can get, with wide back feet, neat cobby bodies, gently sloping hindquarters and solid chest and front feet. You want a rabbit that will sit up on all four feet on the judging table, not slump over it like a cast-off doormat.

Of the three considerations - coat, colour and type - I think type is the easiest to look for in the nest. The thrill of seeing those little bull-like heads emerge with ‘Thumper’ feet, was one of the main delights of my life as an Orange breeder. This ‘chunky’ type is not a fluke of nature. It is bred in by sound bucks bred from sound bucks.

Never buy in or breed a young buck for stud purposes, just to serve one or two does. To start with, you are feeding and housing a buck to use two or three times a year. Work out the feeding costs alone and it would be cheaper to pay a stud fee to the best you can afford.

There is always the possibility that the buck will become sterile. The theory ‘breed like rabbits’ still applies and if a stud buck is not used regularly in the breeding season he will not produce his best talents. The novice can waste much time and money before coming to this conclusion.

Finally, and most important, you want to mate your doe to the very best buck in the country, not a second-rate imitation. If you buy your foundation doe from a good breeder he will only be too delighted to have her back for a mating to a suitable buck. Let him make the choice, for he will know what good points you will want to stamp into your stock.

Socialising is fun in the Orange world!

Penside judging before the show is one of my favourite occupations and it is sound education to compare notes afterwards and find out how successful you were. If you can pick out the right ones in the pens, you will be able to sort out the winners in your hutches. Orange judges are always pleased to talk to the members, especially the newcomers, but remember to wait until after all the classes are judged before putting your questions to him.

Stewarding is a very pleasant occupation and you can learn much by listening to the judge’s comments as he proceeds through the schedule. Maybe you will be asked to book steward one day and this is another very rewarding experience.

Above all, don’t be shy to make yourself known to the members and the Secretary. The Orange Club has a reputation for its friendliness and humour (which has a touch of the champagne about it too!).

Enjoy this most magical of breeds.