Dutch Rabbit Varieties

One of the oldest known breeds of domestic rabbit, the Dutch rabbit is a compact breed that was first seen in Holland around 1850. Dutch rabbits are generally very sociable, gentle animals that make excellent pets for first-time rabbit owners and families with children. Their short, dense coats are always white, with at least one other color around the eyes and ears and on the back half of the body. Dutch rabbit varieties come in distinctive color shadings.

  1. Black Dutch

    • The first of six varieties recognized by the American Dutch Rabbit Club, the black Dutch, should have a glossy coat with a dense and uniform jet-black shading. This deep color should blend into a slate blue as it gets close to the skin. Any white hairs or rusty brown tones are considered a fault in this variety. A black Dutch rabbit's eyes must be dark brown.

    Blue Dutch

    • Like the black Dutch, the blue Dutch rabbit has a slate blue undercoat near its skin. However, the surface color is a shiny, medium to dark blue, and the rabbit's eyes should be blue-gray. The American Dutch Rabbit Club considers silver blue or lilac hairs a fault, and any white or smoky hairs are also unacceptable in a perfect specimen.

    Chocolate Dutch

    • Chocolate Dutch rabbits should be brown, but not just any shade of brown. Rather, a show rabbit should be a deep, chocolate brown, with a blue-gray under color near the skin. Like the black variety, the color should be glossy and uniform, and the eyes are ideally a dark brown. However, chocolate Dutch rabbits may also have a ruby tint to their eyes that is not permissible in the black variety.

    Gray Dutch

    • This variety of Dutch rabbit is not just white and gray. Instead, the colored portion of the body should be made up of several bands of color, with slate blue at the base of the hair shaft giving way to tan. This is followed by a thin stripe of charcoal-tinged brown, with a light tan at the tips. Black guard hairs should be scattered among the colored hairs of the body, and the ears may feature black lacing. Eyes should be dark brown.

    Steel Dutch

    • This variety is shaded similarly to the black Dutch, except that some of the glossy black hairs are uniformly tipped in white or off-white. The steel Dutch rabbit should still have a slate blue under color, and its eyes should be dark brown. Any hairs in the colored portion of the body that are completely white are considered faults, as is a yellowed or brassy look.

    Tortoise Dutch

    • The head and body color of this Dutch rabbit should be a brightly tinted orange with a bit of smoke-blue blending into the haunches and rump area, including the underside of the tail. The hairs closest to the skin should be a cream color, and the shading on the head should be darkest at the ears and around the whiskers. Eyes should be dark brown.

    Other Varieties

    • Dutch rabbits come in an array of other colors, including several shades of fawn and harlequin. There is also one variety that, while not currently recognized by the American Dutch Rabbit Club, has a certificate of development. This is the chinchilla Dutch, on which the colored part of the body is a pearly white ticked with black, giving it the appearance of a chinchilla. The under color of the proposed breed standard should be a dark slate blue, and the preferred eye color is brown.