The Silver champagne is a breed of domestic rabbit recognizable by its black and white hairs that give it a silvery metal sheen which appears around the age of three months.
This very old breed of rabbit that has its colour history in the demand for its pelt, sought after by tanners that demand developed into a rabbit breeding business around the City Of Troyes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century to supply the fur market.
Today, that market is more lucrative, and the breed was developed for their meat as well and breeding has developed with modern intensive farming methods. The breed numbers have levelled off in recent years and now there are currently around 3 000 rabbits in France, as well as good size flocks in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany, and although the race is the subject of a conservation program, it does not seem at risk in the short term.
Rabbit – Silver Champagne has long owed its growth as a breed to its fur.
The Silver Champagne has very ancient origins and the existence of rabbits with a silver coat is mentioned in the seventeenth century. This breed was often associated with the wealthy because of its silver colour and these original stock breeds appear to be the origin of the current Silver Champagne rabbit as it is known of today.
The selection of this rabbit was in fact probably led to the creation of the English name as it has interesting shades of coat colours that can take be tones from Silver and Champagne. The term or name given to the Rabbit as Silver Champagne is published for the first time in the recorded writings of a rural economy in the eighteenth century.
However the race came into its own and really flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century with farming developed in the Troyes region. The numerous tanneries located in this region allowed farmers to enhance the value of the meat as well as the skins, and the rabbit skins became a sort after commodity generating a lucrative market.
The breed was officially recognized in 1902 however as the market boomed it also caused an over supply of furs impacting negatively on the lucrative markets causing prices to fall and in 1870 this resulted in fewer farmers continuing to breed.
Farming declined sharply in the second half of the twentieth century undermined by intensive production methods that were widely developed as the Silver Champagne rabbit was unsuitable for this type of production and confinement caused various ailments as the rabbit is unable to lift its legs to provide adequate lift in relation to its weight especially inside a constrained cage.
This has lead to the development of genetic hybrids to combat these problems and so far there are around 3 000 breeding farms located in over 490 places offering hope for the second generation race.
The colour range of the silver champagne does not yet include a grey colour
The Silver Champagne has an arched well rounded body, with the head attached to the body with a concave neck that is almost imperceptible with medium length ears 13 to 14 cm in length that form a V.
Only the female has a dewlap, and their eyes are brown with rather short and robust legs and the silvery color characteristic of the rabbit is due to the presence of hairs with discoloured tips. This discoloration is not visible during the first months of their lives as the rabbits are usually born black and appears gradually from the 3rd month.
Hairs are usually 3 cm long and form a dense fur with good feel and the silver tipped hairs are generally distributed evenly throughout the body.
The Silver Champagne is a medium sized rabbit, which usually weighs between 4 and 5.5 kg at adult age.
Skills
The Silver Champagne was raised for it’s sought after fur with a silver color, the fur is hardly used at all today as the rabbit is valued for the quality of its meat and the carcass meat yield is 62% of high quality meat. Even against larger rabbits it performs well as it is a prolific breeder with an average of 8 pups a litter and are breeding mature form 6 to 8 months.
The breed is docile and makes a good companion and has undergone intensive development in the late nineteenth century as breeders tried unsuccessfully to create a uniform silver pelt devoid of spots. Today the skin is selected to be desirable to be tanned and the more in demand the pelt the higher the sale price.
Today the breed is subject to a conservation program led by INRA and the French Federation of Cuniculture under the proposed conservation of genetic resources RESGEN. Thus, embryos and semen of the Silver Champagne rabbit are preserved.
Distribution
The breed is originally from the Champagne district of France where it is still present today and it still has a significant presence around the city of Troyes, where the greatest demand for the rabbits originated however it is now widely distributed all over France and is widely bred in the Eastern European countries.
The race is also appreciated abroad, where Germany for example imported the silver champagne in the early part of the twentieth century which formed the stock of the race now known as the “great light silver” which is a stockier rabbit than its French counterpart a subject of current debate and international concern.
Switzerland also has developed its own herd of silver Champagne rabbits and like the Belgium they gave it the name “silver beige” but this breed remains close to the original French race.
The breed is also found in lesser numbers in England and the United States.
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