I assume that some lines take longer to reach Senior weight? If so, how long should I give them to mature?

When I had Great Danes, my bitch was from a slow maturing line, that peaked at about 4 yrs, while a lot of lines are ready for the show ring between 1 and 2 yrs. The slow maturing lines had longer lifespans than the fast maturing ones according to my breeder.

As most of you know, my main priority is raising for meat, but I want to maintain a show quality line.

My herd sire makes weight, but is on the small end of the standard. I have 4 bucks from one litter which at 7 1/2 months had not reached senior weight. Two are culls that I wanted prime pelts from, but the other two are nice looking bucks- one of which fathered Poppy's last litter of kits. He threw some very nicely marked broken kits, but I am considering selling him or sending to FC and keeping his younger brother.

All of my rabbits were fed pellets only at the time, but the herd is now getting hay and supplements, so that may make a difference with my current litters.

It can differ in certain lines. In fact, many present-day breeders in commercial breeds don't even bother with registrations and as such, will knowingly breed undersized rabbits because they display certain characteristics of type and/or fur, even though the rabbits will never see a show table past about 8 months of age.

I've personally never cared for the practice, but it is what it is.

I am wondering if that is the problem with the two black silver foxes that I traded for. They seem to be growing very slowly. I am concerned. There is nothing to but wait until 6mos I guess.

Elmo weight in at 7lb 9oz. He's just 7 mos old. The babies are 16 weeks old and are 5lbs, they will have no problem making SR weight. Feeding oats helps.

That has its place, I suppose, if you are trying to correct a certain aspect in a line- but to do so as a matter of practice just to win ribbons while ignoring the overall standard is dis-honest, and a disservice to the breed.

My first instinct was to cull all of these bucks, but I wanted to verify that they should reach Sr. weight by 6 months. It never even occurred to me that they were underweight when I bred the broken to Poppy- they hadn't been weighed in a while so I had no idea at the time. Lesson learned- I will not repeat the mistake again. Verify weight before breeding!

I would give them a bit longer than 6 months to reach senior weight. Most 'commercial' type breeds will take longer.(imo)... Now if they don't make it by a year to 18 months... then there could be an issue...

( RR's opinion... and i'm still surprised that Standard Rex are not 6 class rabbits ! )

RR,

I will weigh them again and see if there is any gain. What is a 6 class rabbit?

Not at all surprising that breeders in this day and time aren't familiar with the term.

A 6-class rabbit is a rabbit from a breed which is arranged into 6 different showroom classes at the variety stage (junior does, junior bucks, 6-8/intermediate does, 6-8/intermdeiate bucks, senior does, senior bucks). The term generally applies to commercial and larger breeds as there is almost always a discernable difference between a junior, a senior, and a rabbit that is 6-8 months old, and RR is right. The fact that Rex aren't categorized as a 6-class breed makes little to no sense.

__________ Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:04 am __________




Correct. I have a couple of white satin bucks right now which didn't make adult weight until the last couple of weeks, at the ripe old age of 10 months. Their littermate brother is still teetering just under minimum adult weight and probably won't make it until he's nearly a year old. I wouldn't have been able to show any of them within the standards as seniors for the past 2 months because of it.

Ah-hah! Thank you, SR. I saw the 6-8 class designation on the entry form. I will give them to 8 months old to make weight then- I believe they are 8 months by now.

Depending upon the breed, you may want to give them more time than 8 months. I'll tell you right now that Nikita (aka, Grand Master Sex Change) is one of the 10-month seniors I just mentioned in my last post. He's just now coming into his own as a show rabbit. If I had only given him 8 months, I would have never seen him develop to this point, and wouldn't have been as entertained as I have been by him. He is, after all, the rabbit which managed to pull 2 of his own teeth out just prior to leaving the Tulsa State Fair in October, then somehow managed to grow them back. I never knew a rabbit could do that until I saw it.

Sheesh- okay, 10 months!

How strange with the teeth- do rabbits have baby teeth and adult teeth? Or do they just keep growing? I know that as long as food can be swallowed, dogs and cats do just fine- but they are designed to shear off chunks of meat and swallow it without masticating it anyway. Pellets would digest easily too.

Apparently, it all depends upon where the teeth are broken at. If they're uprooted, they normally won't grow back. If they're broken off at the gumline (where Nikita's were broken) they can do so. In Nikita's case, he broke off 1 upper and 1 lower tooth trying to fight with a flemish giant in the cage next to him. I honestly had written off ever showing him again until about a week after my last show of 2011.

Then there was Y2J. Of the 5 rabbits in his litter, he was the one I never bothered even taking a picture of. There was just nothing about him which ever suggested he'd develop into a showroom rabbit, other than the fact that his flesh was rock solid from day one. At their first showroom, he finished dead last in a class of 8 juniors in each of 3 shows. Of the 5, he was also the first one to ever win either a BOB or BOS. Yeah, he turned out to be the best one in the litter for most of the fall, and I'm left wondering why I never took a picture of him when he was 12 weeks old. Comparing him now to back then would have been a real hoot!!

Elmo was so obviously smaller than the other senior bucks. The judge liked him a lot, but he did mention that he just made senior, was not in prime coat. he still looked very young. If these was a 6/8, it would have been a better choice for him.

Wow I am learning so much from this. I had no idea that 10 mos was when to expect senior weight .

Tell me about it... to think of all the nice bucks (and does!) I may have sent off to FC for not making weight. Disaster averted by the RT team!