Am Chins Vs. Mini Rex

Hi everyone!
Long time lurker, first time poster. Has anyone raised both American chinchillas and mini rex for meat? I'm currently raising the mini rex as they are smaller and easier for me to handle. But I love the chinchilla color and fur! Has anyone tried to pasture mini rex? I'm keeping them until they're 16 weeks for fur production, but I would still like good feed:meat ratio for the winter when I can't pasture them. Are American chins as rare as everyone says they are? And one of the best breeds for pasturing?
Thank you!

American chins are a good meat breed. Mini rex really aren't a meat breed. If you love the chinchilla color and fur, but want a small breed to handle easily, there's also standard chinchillas, which are about 5-7 lbs. Mini rex also come in chinchilla color. American chinchillas aren't as rare as they say imo, there's a lot of meat breeders that don't show or register them so the count appears lower than it actually is.

If you get a good producing line rather than the occasional litters of only around 4 mini rex are not bad meat rabbits at all. I bred them into my meat mutts for some of the benefits while still getting litters of 8-10 on a heavy breeding schedule. They have fine bone so you get a high meat to bone ratio in the weight of the carcass and they grow fast. They may not reach a final large size but they are practically fully grown at 2-3months on fairly minimal feed with all the same commercial body type as any of the small meat breeds. About like standard chins or dutch. Both were originally meat rabbits despite being 5-7lb max. It's just hard to find lines that still produce like a meat rabbit instead of being bred to get a small number of quality kits for showing or having had the commercial body type ignored when producing small rex coated pets.

I could not find amchins within 6hrs of me. I found 1 doe for sale that just wasn't worth an entire day of driving for a single rabbit of a breed. I ended up with standard chins and some amchin x cinnamons. They may be more common but it does no good if those breeders aren't advertising anywhere you can find them. Word of mouth only travels so far and there's a lot of distance between things in some parts of the country.

First, American Chinchillas can be rare depending on where you're located. Here in Washington they were booming for a couple years and now we are back to a small group of breeders again. I just finally got mine breeding again. They are a great meat breed, can be and usually are super friendly and great parents. I actually sometimes use them to foster my ill mannered Satin does kits in hopes of improving temperament through the nurture over nature idea.... I might be kidding myself though. Anyway. They can get big though. Most of my Am Chins push 9 to 10 pounds and are tanks. The kits are about 3-4 pounds at butcher. I point this out because you said your mini rex are easier to handle and I don't know if you meant easier to handle as adults, or when you're butchering. Am Chin have an amazing meat to bone ratio when fed on pellets. I've never pasture raised them simply to keep the parasites off and to know exactly how they are converting their feed to meat. I feed 18% to my brood does and their kits. I couldn't tell you how well they would do on grass only. It would depend on the protein content of your grass.

There are standard chinchillas which can be more rare depending on where you are. Here in Washington I've found three breeders.... maybe. I can only remember one off the top of my head right now. They are similar to American Chinchillas in a lot of ways. You will usually get 8 to 10 kits per litter and they have a decent meat to bone ratio to their size. They can be a little sassy but I've never had one get aggressive. I sold out of them simply because I love my Satins and if I was going to have a smaller rabbit like that, I wanted to reserve those space for the kids and the breeds they wanted to do (and my mini satins if/when I get them).

It all really depends on what you're looking for and how far you want to reach for them. I love my Am Chins and even though they don't grow as fast as New Zealands I love their fur and personalities and I probably won't ever give them up. We actually just picked up some REW Am Chins to breed into our commercial lines so that we can have the white fur for commercial purposes (of course those lines are separate from anything I'd sell to the public). If you don't mind the large senior size, it's worth it even just for meat purposes.

I have done both!!! Well, my Am Chins were a mix but the color and body type were right for the breed so I reckon they count. :lol:

The mini rex were show stock so small litters and not enough of them but with work the line would have improved so I would NEVER fault them on that, they are a cracking little breed and not all that little really. Hungry hungry hippo's though, they can eat some food, the greedy little beggers.

My Am Chin mixes were a better breeding line for what I wanted, which is meat and hides so I miss them really. NOT friendly but not flighty or aggressive either and good mothers.

Both fell by the wayside though when I started with proper Rex. Wonderful meat rabbits, good sized litters, and best of all, nice BIG livers! The organ meat is our favorite part of the rabbit and with four of us fighting to get near the frying pan as they cook, the bigger the better.

And cage space is always not enough for all the breeds one wants to raise, it just isn't. So I found the best breed for us which was Rex. The biggest problem I found with them though is they sold so darned fast I had to keep breeding all the time, just to have enough bucks to eat. The doe kits sold faster than I could produce them.

Did I say that was a problem? Nah, it was a bonus!