Holy smoking Toledo, there are blue rabbits! This is certainly something that I don’t ever recall seeing on any of my favorite cartoons as a child, so how can this even be possibly? I mean, blue? They’re supposed to be grey, white or brown. This is freaking me out. So what happened here? Did this breed of rabbit just decide to go to some trendy hipster hair parlor for the over 50’s who want to try and retain their youth b y splashing some outlandish colors into their hair to hide the greys, or did they have a little bit of hanky panky with some devilish smurfs? I think not, and it wasn’t even genetically engineered or the result of a horrible laboratory accident. So just how are these rabbits blue, and more importantly, how the heck can I get my hands on some?
OK, so these unique blue rabbits were kind of genetically engineered, but not in a laboratory. In a similar way in which different dog breeds are created by mixing and matching until the desired results are attained, these wascally wabbits underwent a similar process. They are bred from a species of German rabbit, and are renowned for having the deepest blue of all rabbit breeds. They were developed in the early 1900’s.
These rabbits, although bred from German rabbits, are only found in America. They are even known as the American Blue. Initially called German Blues, a certain conflict took place at the beginning of the 20th century, and to appear more patriotic, the German was dropped in favor for the American. So this leaves just one more unanswered question. What are they bred for?
I’d seriously love one for a pet, but they might be a little difficult to come across for this use. Lewis Salisbury breeds these rabbits in Pasadena, California, for the purpose of meat and fur. I can certainly understand the use of its fur, because it is regarded as having the darkest and deepest blue of all rabbits. At its best it can be a uniform rich, dark slate blue, without any traces of white or grey. However, for meat purposes there have been further advances in genetics that have created rabbits that are quite large for meat production purposes.
For the doubters, this is directly from our source:
The color at its best is “uniform rich, dark slate-blue, free from white hairs, sandy or rust color”.
And no, there’s been no photoshopping.
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