So, we have decided that we want to start breeding the beautiful blue eyed white rabbits. So far I have tried to find as many breeds with the vienna gene as possible and have only been able to find small breeds. I am hopefully looking for a medium to large breed with the gene. Please let me know if you can add any breeds to the list of ones that I know have BEW, and if you have any information on breeders that have that breed. Also, Is there a way to know if a breed does or does not carry the gene at all. Can you breed it into a breed at all?

The ones I know:
Lionhead
Holland Lop
Polish
Dwarf Netherlands
Mini Rex
English Angora
Beveren

You can breed it into a breed, but I don't recommend it. BEW is such a wonky color gene that it'll get passed on quickly, and other breeders may not appreciate getting Vienna-marked babies if they get stock descended from yours.

I highly recommend Beverens. A friend of mine had them for a short time, they're beautiful rabbits and could definitely use some more promoters.

You can breed the vienna gene into any breed of rabbit, you need to start with a buck and doe either in BEW or vienna marked rabbit or combination of both. Vienna marked to Vienna marked will give you a combination of normal color/vienna mark/BEW.

Yeah I was trying to do BEWs myself! I just made the decision 2 days ago to pet out him to a friend because he seems to have allergies. Wouldn't make a good foundation buck. He's going to get a look over by the vet and neutered after a vet check. Difficult color and hard to find in my area. Hopefully I will be able to find something at the Perry,Ga show....if not I hope to return to it someday Do your research on the colors compatible with BEW. I have several helpful sites that will help you avoid DQ's in future generations from certain colors. Need to pay attention to each rabbits background ( best if they are pedigreed to avoid generations of DQ's)

__________ Wed Feb 01, 2012 10:53 am __________

About line/inbreeding
http://www.bewtifulbunnies.com/breedingmethods.htm

About the BEW gene and colors you should breed to

http://www.bewtifulbunnies.com/theviennagene.htm

And another helpful site
http://www.firedoverabbitry.com/FDbreedBEW.html

Yea, I have done the research on breeding them and their color compatibilities. Any that had the gene I would mark it on the pedigree so that breeder's do not end up with them and I would probably make a sales contract for pet homes. I have been trying to find some in my area without much luck. After you breed it into a breed do you just breed to normal stock to ensure the characteristics of the other breed are bred out? How does this affect pedigrees and showing?

I would find breeds that were crossed to create that specific breed. Ex. Hollands are a mix of netherland dwarf x french lop. Because you don't want to go big ( french lop) you would improve with the netherland for correct weigh,size,and to be compact. You would keep the offspring the traits you desire and breed back to the original breed. It would take a long time ( 6 months for when a smaller breed should breed ). Eventually you would have them marked/carriers. You just want your rabbit to fit the breed you choose standard and record any outcrossing on your pedigrees.

__________ Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:27 pm __________

I would take the time to find so quality BEWs though or carriers. Go to shows and ask the opinions of judges on any stock you look at.

It will usually take you many many generations to get back to show quality after crossing breeds unless they are very similar in type and size so getting big rabbits from little rabbits would be very time consuming. You'd have to stay in the more medium size for anything that would sell besides pet any time soon. Most likely bew is already in many of the large breeds that have lots of colors but it's not talked about or taken to shows because it's not an approved color. You might want to try asking around a show if anyone knows of a larger breed (probably one with many colors like rex) that has BEW already and someone might be hoarding a little group of them just for fun. I know it's floating around New Zealands here but on very rare occasion. Not sure what they bred in to get it but I've seen one that I had to double take because amongst the standard white nz that are REW there was a BEW in a cage and I've heard of a few others but you have to go to someone's rabbitry to see them tucked away somewhere.

What does it normally take for the color to get approved? Aren't BEW Beverens already an approved color? I want to breed something that there would be a market for. I just absolutely love the coloration and know that they are very uncommon.

If it's in a breed there's no reason to breed it in to one. Even if you have to drive a day or more or set up a rabbit train (you get several people already going that way or willing to drive cheap to hop the rabbit across states) it will be cheaper and less time consuming in the long run than trying to make good purebreds out of crosses to get a color gene that already exists. Also much fewer people will buy your first generations worth of rabbits that don't have a single breed on the pedigree. Only the pet crowd, possibly for meat which crosses generally only go for $5-$10, or those showing at lower levels like the local fair only for 4-h who may not care about pedigrees. You'll need 3 generations of just one breed on the pedigree to get the show crowd and other breeders of that breed really interested. It will take breeding the offspring back to the BEW parent or each other to get BEW to even start the line with since it's recessive so that's a generation that isn't useful for pedigreed rabbits.

You should try Hulstlanders

They are rare in the netherlands though..

I had a pair of BEW NZ when I first decided to raise for meat, but when I decided to show, I sold them I have never heard anyone talk about or seen a BEW in Rexes, probably they are culled quickly among the show crowd because they tend to mess up colors. I will ask around though.

First I don't quite understand the question, are you trying to make a NEW breed? If you want a medium to large bew then you need to find Beverns. Bew is actually quite common and a dime a dozen in the pet industry. Although you will notice it mostly as vienna carriers. BEW is an accepted breed in many of the breeds including Mini Rex which right off the bat you could get anything in that breed, bew/carrier/marked.Also when breeding for BEW it doesn't MATTER what colour you use to improve , what matters is the breed type!!!! After all a full BEW is all white with blue eyes, it will trump any colour out there.REW does not interfer with the blue eyes whatsoever, UNLESS you breed two BEW"S that each carry the rew gene, then you would simply get a full albino instead of a bew albino, they are controlled by two separate genes.The rew will take out the last of the colour showing in the eye. There is a reason the general population of show breeders don't do BEW. That is because of associated seizures and other health issues associated with the V gene.

Sky: Are you sure those were actually NZW'S? The may have actually been Beverns! (or you could have shown them as such lol) If the gene exists in the NZW population it would actually never show due to the inability of the animal to express ANY colour whatsoever! the cc means ALL production of melanin to make colour is suppressed/absent including eye colour.( Within the general NZW population when bred to each other and not other colours or breeds, which would make them actually mutts then)

No I wasn't sure, which is another reason why I sold them. Since I had never seen BEW in NZW, but they looked like them, I thought there was a mistake, or some cross breeding, so I sold them to someone who just wanted meat rabbits. I got a black with them, so I first just thought the NZW was crossed with the black.

of course, this was before I started studying rabbit genetics.

Shawnee&Trevor
The American Chinchilla, and I beleive the Standard and Giant Chinchillas, can have blue and brown 'marbled' eyes- Solid brown eyes, and I believe solid blue eyes--(don;t have my SOP at hand.) I would thnk having the blue present in the genetics for marbling would indicate the presences of a straight BE genetic link. Me, I would lover to develop a blue- eyed, COLORED rabbit!!!

Shawna , I have had some BEW out of flemish and rex crosses. Mostly it seemed from an Agouti flemish buck to different does. It did not matter what color

__________ Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:37 am __________

:bunnyhop: Ok since Im relatively new to the "Gentic's Game" How in the world did I come up with BEW out of 2 Agouti parents LOL. Im guessing there was a BEW in the background? Some may say Duh to that but heck I'm learning
the whole rabbit raising and am enjoying the dickens out of it