Astrex coated meat mutt project

So we had a litter recently that surprised us because as the coats started coming in, one baby was just not like the rest. I looked more in to it and people were saying it's "astrex." This cute little bun also has these fun crinkly whiskers that I've only seen in Rex rabbits.

Mother is 75% New Zealand, 25% Californian. Father is 50% New Zealand and 50% Texas A&M.

2 weeks old:


4 weeks old:


5 weeks old and starting to molt:


Only molted on sides then regrew fur, week 5-6:


7 weeks 3 days old:

I'm sorry I can't really contribute much, but I wanted to mention that your photography is great

opcorn:

Awe, thank you Nymphadora! (Staying off topic...) My other hobby besides rabbits is... taking way too many photographs of my dogs. This made me get a nicer camera for those fun action shots, as a result it helped my rabbit photography get better It's a simple point-and-shoot camera, the Sony RX100 III (I think they've since come out with the IV & V version) and I use iPhoto that came on my old mac for editing.

Yup, I've been shooting with a Canon Rebel T3 for the past few years... love it! I get a new lens every now and then to make things interesting, and I loved some of the results (after taking at least a thousand photos to figure out the new adjustments I'd have to make).

My favorite "models" were my fantail goldfish, Aragorn and Boromir. I got a few glamour shots of them I still carry around even though I no longer have those fish. Gosh they were cuties though!

Years ago I had some from mutts. I think they smoothed out as they got older. Don't remember what I did with them.

Nymphadora":2shk8jor said:

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Wow! These are some really incredible shots you got of them! Love this one, almost looks like a pet goldfish lost in the deep ocean, lol.
I thought about tiptoing out of point-and-shoot but then I'd have to worry about purchasing different lenses, and those certainly aren't cheap... I think if I was interested in making money off my pictures would take the plunge into DSLR. But just for taking picture of my own mutts? (Dog and bunny alike, lol) I'm happy with the sony rx.

a7736100":2shk8jor said:

Years ago I had some from mutts. I think they smoothed out as they got older. Don't remember what I did with them.

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I wasn't planning on keeping her originally, but since she's the one everyone wanted to handle since she was "different" she became quite the character and I just love her little personality. So we'll be keeping her and seeing what that weird coat does.

i have no idea how that could have popped up, but i absolutely love that bunny. you wouldn't happen to live in texas would you? you said one of the parents had a&m rabbits in its mix, but i know sometimes they travel out of state. i wouldn't be opposed to adding some curly bunnies to my herd if you decide to breed it ;D

i believe astrex is a double rex gene? i may be mistaken on that. it seems like it'd be pretty unlikely for rex to be in new zealands and californians, but random mutations do happen. how fun! it seems to have a fairly thin hair coat - do they moult and regrow hair in patches or is it just kind of thin? i know double-rex rats look different every other week almost because their fur falls out and grows back in a new place every time so they look kind of mangey. i always thought they were pretty cute though. i know a&m did hairless rabbits several years ago - i bet a thin-coated one would do really well in our hot humid summers.

shazza":2lq9nx7n said:

i have no idea how that could have popped up, but i absolutely love that bunny. you wouldn't happen to live in texas would you? you said one of the parents had a&m rabbits in its mix, but i know sometimes they travel out of state. i wouldn't be opposed to adding some curly bunnies to my herd if you decide to breed it ;D

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I am planning on breeding her for curiosities sake, but I am not located in Texas. Seems all the good rabbits are down in Texas though whenever I look for good stock to add, lol. Maybe I just need to move down there. :yes:

shazza":2lq9nx7n said:

it seems like it'd be pretty unlikely for rex to be in new zealands and californians, but random mutations do happen. how fun! it seems to have a fairly thin hair coat - do they moult and regrow hair in patches or is it just kind of thin?

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Someone mentioned that Texas A&M messed with using some Rex in their breeding program so that's my only guess as to how this weird gene popped up in this litter. It must have been through the dad is my conclusion. From the little I read in the astrex FB group it seems some astrex can molt out once, twice, a few times, or none at all in their lifetime. Some keep the curl, some lose it after the first molt and then regain it after the second molt, etc... etc.. very unpredictable I guess, lol. I'm just here for the ride I suppose :lol:

Some I saw molted completely except for the little ears! I have to admit, it was really cute in an ugly sort of way. Seeing these examples that is what I was expecting to happen with Jeri, but instead she just molted a bit on the sides/back of the neck/feet and then regrew fur within a week. The fur isn't normal that re-grew, still has a wave to it but not as fuzzy curly as before. Definitely thinner and sticks to her body, makes her look like the smallest one out of the remaining three even though Qwerty is a few oz smaller.

2CrazyFools":3sibj96w said:

Wow! These are some really incredible shots you got of them! Love this one, almost looks like a pet goldfish lost in the deep ocean, lol.

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I always thought Aragorn looked like he was dancing :lol:

Definitely keep us updated on Jeri, she's a strange little one in the cutest way! I'm curious to see what you get out of breeding her, too. :mrgreen:

2CrazyFools":2k96u9ef said:

shazza":2k96u9ef said:

i have no idea how that could have popped up, but i absolutely love that bunny. you wouldn't happen to live in texas would you? you said one of the parents had a&m rabbits in its mix, but i know sometimes they travel out of state. i wouldn't be opposed to adding some curly bunnies to my herd if you decide to breed it ;D

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I am planning on breeding her for curiosities sake, but I am not located in Texas. Seems all the good rabbits are down in Texas though whenever I look for good stock to add, lol. Maybe I just need to move down there. :yes:

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only if you like heat and humidity! the winters are nice (if incredibly rainy,) but summer is brutal. the rabbit showing scene seems to be hopping though....except in houston. so my suggestion is don't move to houston ;P

Jeri is getting such an odd little head about her! Maybe a normal rabbit skull it's just appearing strange because she's a weirdo with funky fur. :lol: Also, her fur is thickening back up, it was pretty thin right when it grew back in but it's getting bulkier fast. I was feeding her some apple, apologizing for trying to turn her into a bunorrito (more difficult than the videos online show...) and thought I might as well get some updated pics of this knuckle-head while I was at it.

2 months and 5 days old.

Aww, she's getting so big!
Definitely growing into her fur, though, it looks super soft now and much less wispy!

It's hard work being this cute... she has to keep up with her beauty sleep. Just an update on Jeri, the little ornery thing. She turned 10 weeks old yesterday so we did our weekly weighing and she's sitting at 3 lbs 7 oz, which is as big as her mother was at 13 weeks so while she is a little small in my opinion at least she's growing faster than her mother was at this age. I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can get some more astrex coated mutts out of her in 4 months. opcorn: Thoughts on breeding age for meat mutts? I go by the 6 month rule but have read that can stunt growth and it's better to wait until 8 months? Then I've also read that it's a myth and doesn't stop growth, just slows it down. Any further opinions or suggested reading on that?

Nymphadora":35o4dim1 said:

Definitely growing into her fur, though, it looks super soft now and much less wispy!

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It sure is! It's definitely not Rex fur, which is extremely soft, more like New Zealand to the touch but... fluffier. If that makes sense. I wouldn't say it's any softer than her siblings fur just bouncier.

breeding won't stop growth, but it can slow it in does. if you are planning on keeping her for a while i wouldn't really worry about it that much. i usually wait til 5 or 6 months if for no other reason than so far i've not had a doe interested in breeding til about that age. around 5 months old i start checking them for colour and if i start to notice them darkening and swelling i'll toss em in with a buck on my next breeding date and see what happens. sometimes they want to sometimes they don't. it's a good general idea to breed as early as possibly though so they don't develop any internal fat.

she is so pretty ;w; what buck do you plan on putting her with?

Thanks Shazza! That's pretty much been my thoughts on the subject but I thought I would get more opinions while I'm here anyway.

I don't really have a buck that I want to pair her with, we have Hodor (pictured) who is a blue American but he's such a lazy breeder I may eat him before she's due for breeding. -_- He's so slow to try with the girls, and if they give him any grief he just shuts down like, "It's okay, I enjoy cuddle time too..." Highly aggravating. He's pure and papered but we've yet to get ANYTHING out of him. In fact, we invested in 4 pure papered Americans last spring and haven't gotten anything out of them yet. :evil:

So I like to see what sort of blue astrex we may get from pairing them, if we still have him. I'd also like to breed her back to her NZ/A&M father and see what comes out of it, but my husband is 100% against any form of linebreeding, even if we're just going to eat them anyway. Honestly if we aren't able to get anything from these Americans I may scrap the whole "American" idea and go a different direction. Perhaps Rex, which would be neat to make some rex meat mutts with Jeri, and they come in quite a range of colors which would be enjoyable to witness. I'll be driving out to Biloxi Mississippi sometime over the summer so I may try and connect with some Rex breeders on the trip. Go to visit my husband while he's deployed there briefly and then come back with some buns. 2 birds one stone.... (2 buns one stone..?)

2CrazyFools":2a8qmry3 said:

I'd also like to breed her back to her NZ/A&M father and see what comes out of it, but my husband is 100% against any form of linebreeding, even if we're just going to eat them anyway.

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You know, DH was like that when I first started talking to him about rabbits... 'ew, you want a daughter to mate with her own dad, what's wrong with you?!'. :x
Hahaha then I started telling him how we could control our gene pools that way and breed for whatever color he likes best, or we could line breed towards bunnies that grow better on fodder, etc.. His mood was decidedly better after that, but of course we still don't have rabbits to actually start breeding yet. I may have also told him that we can name some of our bunnies after Game of Thrones characters or anime characters and play around with our favorite 'ships'. :mrgreen:

but he doesn't have to necessarily know they were line bred.. just wait for the lovely litter outcome and go "eh look, nobody got two heads or eight legs, go figure" Hahahha. Ok really though people get all worked up over it but don't understand how line breeding works. Just my 2 cents.
I am working with line breeding for Silver Fox traits right now. Just keep my eye out for problems and see where it goes.

I love the look of Americans. Years ago I got a pair (blue doe, white buck) and could not get a single kit from the doe! Got a few cross litters out of the buck but they were all Looooooooooooong lanky things and I never got interested enough to go for line breeding to see what I'd get. Purebred and pedigreed. Ended up selling the pair with a notice that I hadn't gotten a litter from the doe. the buck was young and willing to breed though.

oh boy, i was interested in getting some american whites to produce white pelts to sell. i'll probably still do it when i get more space - i think rabbits that come in one colour, especially white ones, are pretty boring so i wanted a breed that was interesting in some way if i was gonna get white rabbits ;P we'll see if the texas bunnies breed better.

breeding back to the dad may produce more astrex if he's the one that carries it. i would absolutely breed him to her and just not tell your husband lol ;P

Ahhh! She's like a fluffy plush stuffed animal! :in_love:

Nymphadora":3vey047r said:

2CrazyFools":3vey047r said:

I'd also like to breed her back to her NZ/A&M father and see what comes out of it, but my husband is 100% against any form of linebreeding, even if we're just going to eat them anyway.

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I may have also told him that we can name some of our bunnies after Game of Thrones characters or anime characters and play around with our favorite 'ships'. :mrgreen:

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We have two rabbits named after GOT! Funny thing though, neither one of us have watched it further than the first few episodes... :lol: So we have Hodor and Cersei, Hodor is a big lug and Cersei is a queen bee.... the names fit them well. (Both pictured in previous post.)

ohiogoatgirl":3vey047r said:

but he doesn't have to necessarily know they were line bred.. just wait for the lovely litter outcome and go "eh look, nobody got two heads or eight legs, go figure"

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Hahaha! I cracked up at this, I won't be breeding them without his consent which I'm manipulative enough to get. It'll just take some time and luckily I have 3-4 months to work on him about it. :mrgreen:

Interesting you were never able to get any kits from your Americans either! Did you ever try table breeding or force breeding them? I've heard of this method but I've yet to try it... obviously since they've been freeloading for almost a year now, lol. I'd just prefer they get to on their own.

shazza":3vey047r said:

breeding back to the dad may produce more astrex if he's the one that carries it. i would absolutely breed him to her and just not tell your husband lol ;P

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See, I thought about this but the only issue is when the kits were born it'd be incredibly obvious who the dad was... Jeri's father is white, Jeri's mother is white, Jeri is white. Paring Jeri and her dad would most likely produce more white (Jeri's grandfather was a black NZ, which came out in 3 of Jeri's siblings). However if I paired her with the American we'd likely have some blues in there... so if the whole litter is white I think my husband would raise a very suspicious eye brow at me, and then if there were a few astrex coated kits too? Busted. I'm just going to work on him about it for the new few months, eventually get my way, and then share the fun weirdo kits with y'all. :up:

Speaking of sharing.. here's some more fun pictures from BunnyPE.



Lol! I don't even know...



Santa should use flying rabbits to pull his sleigh, I'm sure they eat less and are easier to care for than reindeer...

Oh my! They sure look like they're having fun! :in_love:

Crazy, thank you for sharing your little fuzzballs and fantastic photography skills with us