12/20/2025
This is a great explanation for the rabbit nerds out there!🤓 (me!🙋🏻♀️)
Some of our BEW/vm Holland Lop foundation stock came from Maria at Blue Sapphire Lops and we are so appreciative 😊
So there was a post in the American Rabbit Breeders group asking why VM's weren't showable. If there was one person that would want VM to be showable it's me lol. Over the years I've produced some really beautifully typed ones. Alright so let's get to it, the main reason why Vienna marks are not showable in any breed (Btw I have been breeding BEW Hollands for the last 17 years) A VM pattern is not predictable, I don't think I have ever seen any of my rabbits have the exact same VM pattern. Similar, yes, but never exactly the same. Some have white faces, white noses, blazes, shoulder patterns, one white foot to all four feet. Maybe even just a toe or a tiny mark on the lip. Then you have the eyes, some have blue eyes, one blue eye one normal color eye, marbles eyes and so on. So with the standard, there's no real way to "describe' the rabbit effectively. Then when you add other non showable colors into the mix like harlequin (yes they are working on calling it brindle in some breeds due to the breed harlequin) but it gets harder to depict color. In Hollands we show by pattern, Solid and broken. And a broken has to have color in the nose bed ( a butterfly) and has to have a certain amount of color over the whole body. The only way to show a VM would be to make a AOV (any other variety) class which I guess would include any color variations 🤷🏻♀️ but that would honestly make shows even longer and to be honest, most VM do not have the quality that other showable varieties have to compete. BEW is recognized as a showable variety in some breeds. I can show you hundreds of examples but here's some.
