I raised show animals, including rabbits, for many years. There were always “culls” to eat, but they weren’t the main purpose. I also raised “show pigeons” for many years, Giant Homers and French Mondains, and had several National champions. The only way to do this, was to buy the best starting stock I could, and keep my purchases (from other champion breeders) in the same line. The quality of show animals mainly depends on two things; conformation, and condition.
The conditioning is something the breeder has control of. It concerns such things as the sheen, the animal being “solid” etc. A great animal, if it is skinny or fat, will not get anywhere. However, an animal in good show condition often has a bit too much fat for an ideal breeder. If the fur, hair or feathers are dull or dirty, or scraggly the animal will likewise not do well at a show. With each animal, there are ways to influence these things, including “timing” the show.
The “conformation” part of the equation is primarily due to genetics. Every breed should be a certain ideal shape, size, etc. These things are determined by a combination of many genes, and the genes producing that “perfect shape” in Seattle, may not be the same combination giving the perfect shape in Orlando. Thus if one buys breeding stock from different successful show breeders in the Southeast, one has a good chance of raising some quality stock. On the other hand, a great buck from Seattle bred with a great doe from Florida may give mostly kits that are completely unfit for show. (This is becoming less and less predominant as champion breeders can show nationally easier.)
It is almost necessary if competing on a high level to purchase stock from breeders in an area that are already somewhat inbred. The chance of hitting on that perfect combination of genes from two totally unrelated animals is immensely slim. A new show breeder, selects stock from successful breeders in the area, whose stock is already related, often “line breeds” that stock, and if he becomes successful, all the people in the area want his stock to breed, because he is winning. New breeders continue this on and on, and one can see that even if they buy from different breeders they are already getting stock that is quite related. They are also selecting offspring by confirmation, not fertility, or vitality. This has been going on for years in many breeds, with only occasional out-crosses.
When I raised the show pigeons, I was also raising a type of pigeon called a “performing roller”. These are selected not on conformation, but vitality and athletic ability. So crossing into groups of birds from other parts of the country was done quite often. The health of these birds, their fertility, their parenting ability, and their vitality were astoundingly greater than their “show champion” cousins. I am using pigeons as an example because, I had the pigeons producing show champions and the performing pigeons at the same time, and the difference in the health, fertility, etc were constantly apparent. Most people raising champion show rabbits, do not (intentionally) raise meat rabbits at the same time because there are enough culls to fill the freezer. Yet, many people raising meat rabbits, end up buying from a show breeder who, of course, has great looking rabbits, that may not be show material, because of a mismatched toenail, or not the right ear length. The trouble is the are probably quite line bred. Many people, considering that may get a few more of the same breed from another breeder a couple of towns away. The trouble is, is that that breeders rabbits are probably related to the first breeders rabbits for the reasons I gave above (this “purchasing from champion breeders” chain has been going on for 100 years in some locals)
I know this has been a bit of rambling, but I needed to establish my premise for raising meat rabbits more successfully. What if, instead of trying to get similar genes together, I tried to get a widely varied set of genes as possible. I could see that the more animals were inbred the less health, fertility, and vigor they had, so may be the opposite should be considered. It was my idea that many of the common “frailties” of rabbits might be caused a shallow gene pool. To test this, I needed to breed from the most diverse gene pool I could. Brazilian rabbits we being talked about in the Rabbit forums at that time, which seemed to be one of the most diverse (from American rabbits) groups available, since I had no rational way to import rabbits. After searching for 6 months or so, I also found a source of San Juan rabbits. San Juan’s are usually raised by beagle breeders and have been substantially interbred with domestic rabbits in the US,. I managed to find some that had (mostly) been kept a pure genetic group since they came off the island. After this, I was mostly left to trying to incorporate diverse varieties of domestic rabbits, attempting to get them from different areas of the country as much as possible. This group contained the following: NZW, French Lop, Flemish Giant, and Californian. Some of these were not “pure bred” but had been crossed with another breed. I was, for instance, able to find a Brazilian, several generations removed from my Brazilian, that had some Harlequin mixed in (All known Brazilians in the US are very related)
The idea was to create the largest possible gene pool I could and maintain it. With each cross that I made with these, attempting to obtain a rabbit 1/6 of each breed. I select offspring out of each cross based on 1) ideal meat ‘blockyness” and size 2) health and vigor) and 3) maternal ability and litter size. When “ties” between kits existed, I selected for disposition and disparate color/pattern relations. (heh, I also sometimes selected for big blocky heads after all other things, which is not a good criterion for a meat rabbit, because it is a waste of feed, but I simply like them) One might wonder what having different colors and patterns have to do with anything. Chromosomes are linked together on genes, and genes do not often break and recombine towards the ends. Keeping different colors, patterns, and modifiers may help insure wider variability. One could tell for sure, if there was a good map of the domestic rabbit genome.
I am now into my 6th generation of crosses. I am not sure how many kits I have raised in the last 4 years or so since this started, but it must be approaching 1000.
I have had (disregarding colony trial) only two kit deaths other than a few that chilled out of the nest box or were born on the wire. No signs of coccidiosis, no problem feeding kits clover in the nest box within 5 or 6 days of birth. (don’t try this with show rabbits) No problem feeding rabbits (I feed pellets) large quantities of greens all at once (again, don’t try this with close bred rabbits) Many of the rabbits won’t overeat and get fat, even if they are given too much food (this seems to be a characteristic from the Brazilians) No problem with mucoid enteritis, this may be more a result of weaning methods and feeding hay, so I can’t directly correlate it with the gene diversity.
My conclusion here, is that if one is raising meat rabbits, they might consider obtaining the most widely diversified stock they can. I have proven conclusively (to myself) that these rabbits are healthier, more fertile, more disease resistant, and have greater vitality, than any of the rabbits I have raised in the past 45 years. Rabbits of the same breed form different areas, especially high quality show rabbits may not only be cousins, they might be siblings. It is easy to forget, that two rabbits born to the same pair, 3 years and 8 kindlings apart, are still brothers and sisters genetically. When you buy that show NZW from the guy in Cincinnati, and mate it to another from that guy in Chicago, remember they may both have bought their stock from champion raiser in Peoria, (who likely did the same thing with rabbits from whoever the big breeder was 10 years before in Nashville, etc, etc, etc.)