Now that Buttons and Cotton were feeling better, they ate and slept, and slept and ate. They sleep a lot when they are young because it takes a lot out of them to digest food. They started to grow more and their baby downy-hair started to be replaced by their thicker adult hair. Baby hair was soft and silky, it almost looked like they were permanently wet.
I liked their markings as they were, but I knew that it would change over time as their adult patterns settled in.
Cotton’s orangey-brown baby hair started to change to “agouti” colouring (both black and brown on one strand), giving her brown spots a mottled look.
A view between Cotton’s ears, you can see her baby orange hair on her head, and the darker brown it will turn on her ears.
Her agouti colouring coming through.
Each strand of her brown hair had multiple colours.
She was a blondy-brown colour.
They both also started getting more spots on their faces. Buttons’ back of the head started turning black.
Buttons ears were separated by a white stripe. I liked how his ears were clearly defined on his head.
A year later, and you can see how it has changed. His ears are now connected by a black area on the back of his head.
Moulting
Baby bunnies lose their baby guard hairs (the longer outer hairs) at about 3 months old, this is their first moult. You will see changes in the hair texture and length. Even the hair colour and the patterning may change. That is because their adult coat is coming through.
Moults start on the head and leave strange patterns on the bunny’s face around the nose and forehead. It then works its way over the whole body to the tail. For some reason the bunny is most likely to have an accumulation of moulting hair at their rump, it’s nearly like the old hair crawls towards the tail and drops off when it can’t go any further.
Grab a brush and help the hair to be removed. That way it won’t get stuck in your bunny’s gut when they groom themselves. Bunnies can’t pass hair-balls like cats, and it can cause blockages.
You can tell if the bunny has a hair-ball issue, their poops are strung together like a string of beads. Give your bunny lots of fibre, fresh grass, hay and water to help shift the hair. If it gets to bad, a visit to a rabbit savvy vet may be on the cards.