Astrex coated meat mutt project

I have got to build the exercise area this weekend...... They look like they are having a blast!!

Help! Someone steam-rolled my rabbit! :lol:



That face, lol, "What the heck do you want?" She hasn't been happy with me since I got rid of her siblings and she's all alone in that large cage.

Also, thought this shot was cute.

SarniaTricia":1odezpov said:

I have got to build the exercise area this weekend...... They look like they are having a blast!!

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You should! They are so much fun to watch, lol. However the adults are much more boring, only my white buck still does fun jumps and I'm sure that's because he's just a big kid...

That last photo, though… Jeri looks ready to bolt if Thor so much as sneezes!
:lol:

oh man, yeah, all of my rabbits LOVE when it's their day to run around in the exercise yard. all of mine still do a few binkies and laps around the yard before settling down to mow the lawn for me. it's great.

jeri is SO pretty, she has such a lovely face <33

The rex gene and modifiers that go with it can do some odd things to coats. Crosses often come out denser and softer than they would otherwise. Then there's the weird astrex which can include baldness problems. It's not just doubled up regular rex though because 2 rex genes is what you need for a normal rex. It's recessive and 1 gene will not show except sometimes as the denser coat. Many other things contribute. Rabbits can go weird easy in color shade, coat type, and the overall shape when you start crossing breeds. Usually at first you just get the overall generic commercial body type in the average of what sizes you combined with medium ears and a plain coat. It's the farther you go combining things after that which starts leaving you with confusing results. Especially when you add some inbreeding since it will give you a better chance of bringing out the genes hiding in your herd. I used a little rex in my first meat mutts and it took about 3 other breed crosses and several generations before I saw astrex and weird bald kits. I never had the space to devote to doing much with them and ended up selling off my mutts to go back to purebred soon after.

Nymphadora":2c14c8vp said:

That last photo, though… Jeri looks ready to bolt if Thor so much as sneezes!
:lol:

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Lol, I think you're right! She was just hopping past and I suppose Thor moved his head a little to follow her path and she noticed, stopped and stared at him a bit before creeping closer to investigate when he failed to move again. They'll touch noses if she's outside in the tractor and he's in the backyard, "Hey giant rabbit!" So there may have been a bit of familiarity there as well, "I think I might know you...?"

shazza":2c14c8vp said:

oh man, yeah, all of my rabbits LOVE when it's their day to run around in the exercise yard. all of mine still do a few binkies and laps around the yard before settling down to mow the lawn for me. it's great.

jeri is SO pretty, she has such a lovely face <33

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Awe man! I've got some old maid rabbits then! How boring. ldgeezer:
Thanks Shazza! I do enjoy how her skull is forming with that nice brow bone, I often wonder if it looks so different simply because of how the fur lays on her head being denser and curly versus fluffy and whispy.

akane":2c14c8vp said:

The rex gene and modifiers that go with it can do some odd things to coats. Crosses often come out denser and softer than they would otherwise. Then there's the weird astrex which can include baldness problems. It's not just doubled up regular rex though because 2 rex genes is what you need for a normal rex. It's recessive and 1 gene will not show except sometimes as the denser coat. Many other things contribute. Rabbits can go weird easy in color shade, coat type, and the overall shape when you start crossing breeds. Usually at first you just get the overall generic commercial body type in the average of what sizes you combined with medium ears and a plain coat. It's the farther you go combining things after that which starts leaving you with confusing results. Especially when you add some inbreeding since it will give you a better chance of bringing out the genes hiding in your herd. I used a little rex in my first meat mutts and it took about 3 other breed crosses and several generations before I saw astrex and weird bald kits. I never had the space to devote to doing much with them and ended up selling off my mutts to go back to purebred soon after.

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How interesting! If it's recessive I thought it wouldn't pop up unless both parents carry it? I would go to strictly purebred if we hadn't had Jeri born and this curiosity of what she may produce. Since we're toying with switching to Rex the inclination initially was to "Get rid of them all!" and bring in a completely new batch, all standard Rex. But then I may never get this chance again to play around with the Astrex coat and she's such a sweetheart, I don't want to get rid of her, lol.

2CrazyFools":sv2umjtd said:

shazza":sv2umjtd said:

oh man, yeah, all of my rabbits LOVE when it's their day to run around in the exercise yard. all of mine still do a few binkies and laps around the yard before settling down to mow the lawn for me. it's great.

jeri is SO pretty, she has such a lovely face <33

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Awe man! I've got some old maid rabbits then! How boring. ldgeezer:
Thanks Shazza! I do enjoy how her skull is forming with that nice brow bone, I often wonder if it looks so different simply because of how the fur lays on her head being denser and curly versus fluffy and whispy.

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i think it does look differently because of the shorter fur - regular coated rexes also have those dramatic browbones i've noticed. i can feel the brows on my meat mutts but it seems the fur smooths them out more. even though they have almost identical facial features as normal coat rabbits, the rexes just look more...supermodel to me i guess. it's about 90% of the reason why when we decided to get rabbits, my first pick was the rexes ;D



and then way on the other end of the spectrum, my husband's picks were of course, mini lops. big headed, squishy faced, potato bunnies in comparison to the sleek, smooth rexes. it's an interesting barn to say the least!

shazza":2mxk7urp said:

i think it does look differently because of the shorter fur - regular coated rexes also have those dramatic browbones i've noticed. i can feel the brows on my meat mutts but it seems the fur smooths them out more. even though they have almost identical facial features as normal coat rabbits, the rexes just look more...supermodel to me i guess. it's about 90% of the reason why when we decided to get rabbits, my first pick was the rexes ;D

and then way on the other end of the spectrum, my husband's picks were of course, mini lops. big headed, squishy faced, potato bunnies in comparison to the sleek, smooth rexes. it's an interesting barn to say the least!

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Potato bunnies :lol: I love it! I think Jeri's a little potato bunny, but that's because she's a little on the tubby side, I may need to stop free-feeding her...

I hear you on the rexes! I saw a Rex here recently that had REALLY pronounced brow bones... here's the link (Click me!) but I'm sure it's got to do somewhat with the fur texture. Shazza, you're the one that keeps/makes skulls right? Have you noticed a difference from Rex to Mutt after the fur and flesh is removed?

Jeri got a pinecone to play with today, and she tossed it on the floor, tossed it outside of her cage, and tossed it at me as you can see in this picture "Incoming!"


And a video because, well, it's too cute not to share. (I added music because it covers up my embarrassing baby talk...)
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfV3fUBkm5w[/youtube]

To get a regular rex both parents need rex. I forget what people were figuring out combined to make astrex.

2CrazyFools":1akypfh6 said:

I hear you on the rexes! I saw a Rex here recently that had REALLY pronounced brow bones... here's the link (Click me!) but I'm sure it's got to do somewhat with the fur texture. Shazza, you're the one that keeps/makes skulls right? Have you noticed a difference from Rex to Mutt after the fur and flesh is removed?

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WOW ...that rabbit has some wild brows haha.

and yeah, i'm the one that cleans skulls. the only rex i've cleaned so far was a mini rex and i didn't really notice much different about her skull vs a meat mutt and a mini lops' outside of she had a slightly more roman nose. i think it's a fur texture thing most of all! i was very surprised to see that mini lops have normal shaped skulls, considering their squishy faces. they have a lot of little holes in their skulls though - nothing dangerous or anything it's just a kinda of swiss cheese texture.



flemish giant cross on the left, mini lop on the right. not a great quality photo but you can see the texture of the bone. i found it fairly interesting lol.

The Astrex gene is a gene all by itself, you can't combine anything with Rex to get it.

Both Rex and Astrex are mutations that occurred in a meat breed, so it seems fairly safe to say that this mutation may still exist in some meat breeds. Now I don't hear of Rex popping up in meat breeds in the US (they were out of a french based breed). But I sure hear of the Asterex gene popping up in all kinds of breeds. It's totally independent of the actual Rex breed and gene, and can occur in everything from Lops, NZ, to hollands.

akane":1ugoco35 said:

To get a regular rex both parents need rex. I forget what people were figuring out combined to make astrex.

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Yeah, I figured as much about Rex. Do you recall why they dabbled with Rex in the Texas A&M stock? They aren't necessarily heat hardy or anything like that are they?

shazza":1ugoco35 said:

and yeah, i'm the one that cleans skulls. the only rex i've cleaned so far was a mini rex and i didn't really notice much different about her skull vs a meat mutt and a mini lops' outside of she had a slightly more roman nose. i think it's a fur texture thing most of all! i was very surprised to see that mini lops have normal shaped skulls, considering their squishy faces. they have a lot of little holes in their skulls though - nothing dangerous or anything it's just a kinda of swiss cheese texture.

flemish giant cross on the left, mini lop on the right. not a great quality photo but you can see the texture of the bone. i found it fairly interesting lol.

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Wow, that IS interesting! I'm guessing the Flemish Giant cross was younger than the mini lop? I was initially surprised at how comparable the sizes of the skulls from a giant to mini were. :lol: I'll have to do some skull cleaning of my own from the meat mutts to the Rexes when I get to that point... if I get to that point, lol. It'd be neat to compare.

skysthelimit":1ugoco35 said:

The Astrex gene is a gene all by itself, you can't combine anything with Rex to get it.

Both Rex and Astrex are mutations that occurred in a meat breed, so it seems fairly safe to say that this mutation may still exist in some meat breeds. Now I don't hear of Rex popping up in meat breeds in the US (they were out of a french based breed). But I sure hear of the Asterex gene popping up in all kinds of breeds. It's totally independent of the actual Rex breed and gene, and can occur in everything from Lops, NZ, to hollands.

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Yeah, I had read about that. Though it definitely seems a more common (as common as a rare gene can be, of course, lol) occurrence in the Rex rabbits than the other breeds, regardless of independence. Perhaps simply because Rex and Mini Rex are so common a breed? The greater the population the greater amount of mutations even if the ratio is still the same from one rabbit breed to the other.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. I'm trying to have patience with my current herd but I'm getting excited about the prospect of standard Rex.

2CrazyFools":3azt8xop said:

shazza":3azt8xop said:

and yeah, i'm the one that cleans skulls. the only rex i've cleaned so far was a mini rex and i didn't really notice much different about her skull vs a meat mutt and a mini lops' outside of she had a slightly more roman nose. i think it's a fur texture thing most of all! i was very surprised to see that mini lops have normal shaped skulls, considering their squishy faces. they have a lot of little holes in their skulls though - nothing dangerous or anything it's just a kinda of swiss cheese texture.

flemish giant cross on the left, mini lop on the right. not a great quality photo but you can see the texture of the bone. i found it fairly interesting lol.

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Wow, that IS interesting! I'm guessing the Flemish Giant cross was younger than the mini lop? I was initially surprised at how comparable the sizes of the skulls from a giant to mini were. :lol: I'll have to do some skull cleaning of my own from the meat mutts to the Rexes when I get to that point... if I get to that point, lol. It'd be neat to compare.

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ooh yeah i forgot to mention the mini lop was an adult doe and the flemish cross was an 8 to 10 week old kit a full grown giant's skull is like, twice the size of the mini. i don't have one but a friend does.

i may be getting a rex skull sooner than expected as my buck, who already has an improper coat texture and never darkened up like a proper castor, also has horrendous shy buck syndrome, sigh. i did get him to breed a doe today (after like ten minutes of him staring into space...) and i'll try with my other rex doe tomorrow, but i'm not holding my breath. the doe i bred him to today has castor in her pedigree and a great coat so maybe he'll produce a nice son to replace him but shrug. poor little jimmy.

2CrazyFools":37tmtay6 said:

Yeah, I had read about that. Though it definitely seems a more common (as common as a rare gene can be, of course, lol) occurrence in the Rex rabbits than the other breeds, regardless of independence. Perhaps simply because Rex and Mini Rex are so common a breed? The greater the population the greater amount of mutations even if the ratio is still the same from one rabbit breed to the other.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes. I'm trying to have patience with my current herd but I'm getting excited about the prospect of standard Rex.

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Perhaps. I would probably say Rex as a breed aren't as common as any of the other breeds, so it would be a small ratio from a less popular breed.
Mini Rex are much more abundant. But as they are a created dwarf breed, they contain a different gene pool than Rex. But of all the hundreds of kits I've had, and the hundreds of Rex breeders I know, not one has ever had an Astrex kit born. The only ones I've ever heard of or encountered is the one Mini Rex breeder here on RT, in Canada. I've heard of it in v lop, but that's because they are using Mini Rex genes. It's rarer than rare, and people who think they have it just because they get a wavy kit, they don't get the bald phase that truly signifies a real Astrex, so I remain a skeptic.

Jeri was being super sweet today asking for some face rubs. :in_love:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ojVsDxYd4E&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

shazza":3s2sjg6h said:

ooh yeah i forgot to mention the mini lop was an adult doe and the flemish cross was an 8 to 10 week old kit a full grown giant's skull is like, twice the size of the mini. i don't have one but a friend does.

i may be getting a rex skull sooner than expected...

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That makes sense with the skulls, at first I looked at the picture to see if one was digitally enlarged just for the comparison but nope... so I had to assume age differences, lol. I guess it's all that skin that makes their faces look squishy. Looking forward to seeing that skull if you end up removing Jimmy from the herd, you'll have to share somewhere on the forum!

skysthelimit":3s2sjg6h said:

Perhaps. I would probably say Rex as a breed aren't as common as any of the other breeds, so it would be a small ratio from a less popular breed.
Mini Rex are much more abundant. But as they are a created dwarf breed, they contain a different gene pool than Rex. But of all the hundreds of kits I've had, and the hundreds of Rex breeders I know, not one has ever had an Astrex kit born. The only ones I've ever heard of or encountered is the one Mini Rex breeder here on RT, in Canada. I've heard of it in v lop, but that's because they are using Mini Rex genes. It's rarer than rare, and people who think they have it just because they get a wavy kit, they don't get the bald phase that truly signifies a real Astrex, so I remain a skeptic.

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I've read that the balding gene very often accompanies the astrex gene but not always as they are separate genes, sometimes the astrex coated bun will bald out once, twice, (more?) or even none at all. But again, I only started really researching into this since Jeri was born about 3 months ago and being a rarer gene there isn't as much information out there on the web. Some people saying it's super rare, others saying that's poppycock and it's not rare at all.

Jenny Buckingham at [url=http://members.iinet.net.au/~jabuck/WARCI/rex_breeds.htm:3s2sjg6h said:

WARC Inc.[/url]":3s2sjg6h]The Astrex Rex is an extremely rare rabbit, thought to be extinct, but appears to have turned up in a few places around the world including Western Australia.

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...and...

Marna Kazmaier at [url=http://rabbitagility.com/:3s2sjg6h said:

Rabbit Agility[/url]":3s2sjg6h]I get such a kick out of some folks, on the Internet, trying to convince everyone that the Astrex Rabbit is a rare thing. I lived in a small town in N WI and found three sources there that I bought from. Now I live in a smaller town in NW SD and have seen Astrex Rabbits in Feed Stores for sale more then once for $20 each. I host a Yahoo list for Curly Coated Rabbits and people have seen the curlies in many, many towns across the USA, they are being bred with straight and lop ears in Canada, they are being bred in Australia, Great Britain and other parts of the world. I believe that some people would like for them to be as rare as a unicorn, but in reality, if you keep looking, you WILL find them. And honestly, it will not take that long. People are selling them in several, many, areas....and for affordable prices without strings attached (spaying, neutering, contracts, ect).

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So... not sure on that front, lol. I need to create a yahoo account so I can join that yahoo group specifically for Astrex and get my reading glasses on. You never know what good tidbits you'll find in a closed group.

Rex and mini rex are common around here (especially the mini), and the newish breeder I'm thinking of getting some standard Rex from did have a litter of astrex ...but they were minis like you mentioned. :lol: Apparently she bred a Harli mini rex buck to a Holland/mini rex cross doe to also use for working on tricolors in mini rex (the Holland cross doe was a red) gave her a litter of 8 astrex Harli babies! I even saw the pictures, they were all super cute. :blush: She did have one that never grew back fur on his head from kit to butcher and just always had these "angry eyebrows" which was downright hilarious.

__________ Thu Mar 02, 2017 11:18 am __________

I went ahead and joined the Astrex yahoo group. I hate yahoo groups... gosh it's such a bare bones format and not the easiest to navigate through -_-

Anyhew, Nichole Duman is / was on there (she no longer does Astrex from what I heard, this is her website on Astrex if anyone is interested) and she even stated in a post that they haven't had a kit go bald in her Astrex litters for a while, and she definitely has astrex (mini) rex, no denying that, lol.

EDIT: Adding more information for future reference. Apparently some Astrex coats go through a straighter “eclipse” coat stage after the first molt and then molt into a curly coat at between 8 mths and 18 months. I'm guessing that's where Jeri is right now? Because her coat isn't exactly curly like it was before molt at 4 weeks, but it's still very different and very dense/wavy. This is so cool, it's like a time capsule, what will she look like in 8-18 months???? Will she molt out to heavier curls? Or will she molt out to normal New Zealand fur? :hmm:

__________ Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:25 pm __________

Jeri update, she hit 5 lbs on the nose yesterday! Getting so big In other news her hormones are starting to mature these last few weeks, she's scent rubbing on EVERYTHING, from the wooden enclosures and grass blades to rubbing on ME and a tasty tomato I tried to feed her. She's 100% white, but her face is turning brown from rubbing on things! :roll: Goofy girl.

2CrazyFools":1ejbfxqi said:

J She did have one that never grew back fur on his head from kit to butcher and just always had these "angry eyebrows" which was downright hilarious.

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That is hilarious.

Rarity is a regional thing. At shows, and in listings, there are less than 10 Rex breeders here. 3 of those people I sold them Rex, and the other ones sold me Rex But I'm also in an area where rabbit breeders are small in number. The gene pool is closer.

I imagine too, that if it's in someones gene pool, and they share regionally, then they create an area that isn't as rare.

I do wonder why someone is using Hollands to create Tri MR. There are loads of Tri Mini Rex available, at lease in my region there are. Some time ago, when I fancied breeding Tri, I had a broken harliquined Castor from a local Tri breeder. I didn't care for the Minis the way I like the Rex, so I sold them all before I really got started with that experiment.

Jeri got some fun toys yesterday to go with her pinecone and hay-filled toilet paper roll!

She hates them.

2CrazyFools":fn335pwp said:

Jeri got some fun toys yesterday to go with her pinecone and hay-filled toilet paper roll!

She hates them.

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Awww, maybe she'll warm up them when she sees how fun they are to fling around? Or stuff some hay/treats into the ball-looking one on the floor in the picture?

For what it's worth, as a kid I used to get way more enjoyment from climbing in trees and playing in the dirt than playing with the nice toys that I got on my birthdays... :roll:

mine have baby chains in their cages, a jingle cat toy, and a bigger whiffle baseball, but i only ever see a couple play with any of them. you know what they love most?

empty soda boxes.

they LOVE empty soda boxes. stuff them with a bit of hay and some treats and they go bananas. even empty they have a good time just chewing on it and throwing it around the cage :T they're like cats, they'd rather play with the boxes than the toys that came in them!

i work at a bar so i have a near-constant supply of beer and soda boxes from our stockroom, in a addition to the sodas we drink at home lol. at least they're cheap to entertain!

Nymphadora":2zaseetp said:

For what it's worth, as a kid I used to get way more enjoyment from climbing in trees and playing in the dirt than playing with the nice toys that I got on my birthdays... :roll:

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Yeah, that's definitely her favorite! She's always wanting to be lifted to the ground so she can spaz out. There was a small branch/stick that fell off the tree the other day that she was tossing around. It was bigger than she was, lol, I wish I had my camera at that point.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsKAXeDPgFE[/youtube]

shazza":2zaseetp said:

mine have baby chains in their cages, a jingle cat toy, and a bigger whiffle baseball, but i only ever see a couple play with any of them. you know what they love most?

empty soda boxes.

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Hahaha! That's so funny, I used to have a small box in Jeri's cage for her to lay in / toss around but when we went through quarantine for everyone the cardboard all got tossed. I'll have to look and see if I have another small box laying around for her enjoyment.

I'm out of sparkling water anyhow, I should give her one of those empty boxes and see how she likes it! Great suggestion Shazza ^_^