What skin trouble looks like under a Rex coat
Bald patches and visible thinning are the headline signs of a skin or fur problem in a Rex rabbit. The Rex coat is short, dense, and velvety with almost no longer guard hairs, so when fur is lost the skin shows straight through. Check over the hips, along the back, and between the shoulder blades for areas where the plush pile looks moth-eaten, patchy, or worn down to bare skin.
Flaking is easy to spot on a Rex for the same reason: white scales sitting on dark skin or dusting the surface of the coat stand out against the velvet. Add persistent scratching, scabs, crusty edges on the ears, or any patch where the skin looks red, thickened, or sore, and a Rex rabbit is showing you a skin problem that needs a cause found rather than a cosmetic shrug.
The Rex-specific sign: bare, sore hocks
Hair loss on the undersides of the back feet is the sign Rex owners should treat most seriously. Rex rabbits inherit thinner, sparser fur on their feet than standard-coated breeds, which leaves the skin of the hock with far less padding against floors and bedding. The progression runs from thinning fur, to a bald pink patch, to red, broken, or swollen skin that makes the rabbit shift weight and move reluctantly.
Catch it at the thinning stage and the fix is often about surfaces: deeper, softer bedding, mats over hard flooring, and keeping the litter area dry. Once the skin on a Rex rabbit's hock is open or the rabbit is limping, it becomes a vet matter, because feet bear the animal's full weight with every hop and heal slowly under that load.
Normal Rex traits that are not skin problems
Short, curly, or kinked whiskers are a breed feature of the Rex rabbit, not a fur defect, and some Rex rabbits naturally carry a slightly thinner patch where the coat changes direction over the hips. A soft seasonal moult that comes out evenly, with healthy skin underneath and new velvet growing straight back, is also normal.
The dividing line is the skin itself and the pattern. Even shedding with calm skin is moulting; uneven patches with flakes, crusts, redness, scratching, or sensitivity when touched are not. Judging a Rex rabbit's coat by what the skin underneath is doing keeps you from both panic and complacency.
Checking a Rex rabbit's skin, step by step
Run your palm slowly against the lie of the coat so the short fur lifts and the skin shows, working over the back, hips, belly, and inner legs. With a Rex rabbit this takes a minute and reveals far more than stroking the velvet flat. Feel as well as look: skin that feels rough, thickened, or hot in one patch differs from the smooth skin around it.
Turn the rabbit gently to inspect the back feet last, comparing left with right. One bald hock and one furred hock tells a story about favouring a leg or a rough patch of floor on one side of the enclosure. Note floor surfaces, bedding depth, and any recent change of hay or housing in the same check, because sore Rex feet are so often a surfaces problem wearing a skin disguise.
When a Rex rabbit's coat means a vet visit
Open sores on the feet, spreading bald patches, heavy flaking with scratching, or any skin change paired with reduced appetite or smaller droppings should take a Rex rabbit to a rabbit-aware vet without a trial of home creams. Products made for dogs and cats can be unsafe for rabbits, and the right response depends on whether the cause is parasitic, fungal, bacterial, or mechanical, which only an examination separates.
Bring your dated patch notes and hock photos to that visit, since a vet who can see how fast a Rex rabbit's patch spread, or how a hock changed across a fortnight, can choose a direction far faster. Keeping those records together in the KinsLe Pet Passport means your Rex rabbit's coat history travels with him to whichever clinic you attend.