The Western Rocky Mountain Spot Or: To Build a Better Rabbit

You've thought about it, I know you have.

You're driving along a sleepy half suburban half country road, admiring the nice big full acre lots, the little pony pastures, the neighborhood gang of free-range chickens, when you spot it: The lesser rocky mountain spot. Or maybe where you live it's the Appalachian woolly tan. The desert dutch. The great northern lop eared marten (favorite food of the other great northern marten). We all know that a domestic rabbit, released into the wild (or semi-wild) will almost certainly suffer a cruel and painful fate, but we've also seen the places where somehow, against the odds, they didn't. And I know some of you, just like me, have wondered just how tough those rabbits are.

So, the obvious question is, could you find out? Given adequate space, time, and supply, do you suppose the very few rabbits who managed to thrive would vary enough from their weaker, deader counterparts to constitute a whole new breed? I'm personally of the mind that this is how breeds happen, that in a perfect world almost every breed represents the very best of one geographic locale. A rabbit that thrives in the wild must be better suited to your particular wild, and if that's the case I think you could end up with a lot of rabbits who thrive on the plants and weather unique to your area. I can think of about a zillion challenges and obstacles along the way, but none of them are total deal breakers. Understand, I'm not talkin' about grabbin' one stray buck in a cat trap and lettin' him have his way with your herd until something happens. I mean real, concerted, separate efforts at figuring out what makes these survivors survive.

What about you guys? Me, I don't think it could possibly be any worse than laying out poison or shooting them. I know a few folks who've suffered real property damage from incredibly persistent feral colonies, so I think it's important to get these critters back off the land, as interesting as they are. Think it's possible? Ever tried it? See any particularly horrifying problems with the concept? I'm all ears! As you can probably tell, I like the idea, but I'm not sold on it and I'm not tryin' it myself, so feel free to blast away with criticism!

Street cats in most parts of the world did this naturally, before modern breeding practices.

What was created was the foundation of most breeds, and some very hardy and beautiful critters.

It's a pretty harsh system. Usually it brings all the pain and suffering, fighting, starvation and disease that wild animals quietly suffer, into populated areas where humans can see it.

Modern people tend not to appreciate the up close and personal view of how truly brutal nature is.

Oh gosh, just to be totally clear, I am talking about trapping, caging, and systematically breeding them. Not just bein' like "welp, here's my acre, here's 20 rabbits, see you in the fall guys! Good luck!" You'd trap and select rabbits from areas where you know a long term feral colony is established, not try to establish such a colony on your own. Cuz yeah, the alternative, and what's already happening... yikes!

There was one breed I've seen that was created just like you are describing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enderby_Island_Rabbit

You'd trap and select rabbits from areas where you know a long term feral colony is established

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:shock: Ummm how do you think rabbits were domesticated in the first place?

Feral rabbits survive because rabbits breed like rabbits and predators weed out the slow, laidback and friendly ones leaving those that dart for cover at the slightest sign of danger or the ones who attack the predator to multiply.

Personally I don't want fearful rabbits that cower in the corner or panic and break their backs or does that abandon their kits because i peeked in to look at them too often or who slice them when they dive into a nestbox to hide or rabbits who try to murder me evertime i try and take them out but that's just me :mrgreen:

Dood":3ege75vk said:

You'd trap and select rabbits from areas where you know a long term feral colony is established

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:shock: Ummm how do you think rabbits were domesticated in the first place?

Feral rabbits survive because rabbits breed like rabbits and predators weed out the slow, laidback and friendly ones leaving those that dart for cover at the slightest sign of danger or the ones who attack the predator to multiply.

Personally I don't want fearful rabbits that cower in the corner or panic and break their backs or does that abandon their kits because i peeked in to look at them too often or who slice them when they dive into a nestbox to hide or rabbits who try to murder me evertime i try and take them out but that's just me :mrgreen:

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I'm with you on this Dood. Plenty of rabbit breeds already seem to need a bit of work towards full domestication.

Oh man, the Enderby rabbit is exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks for the link!

Dood":34zdz5ys said:

Personally I don't want fearful rabbits that cower in the corner or panic and break their backs or does that abandon their kits because i peeked in to look at them too often or who slice them when they dive into a nestbox to hide or rabbits who try to murder me evertime i try and take them out but that's just me :mrgreen:

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I dunno man, some of the rabbits I'm talkin' about are mellow enough they look like lawn ornaments when you walk by, and I've had a few fully domesticated rabbits who fit your description. I am totally talking about reinventing the wheel though! The redomesticated domestic rabbit! All I'm sayin' is that if rabbits were originally domesticated in southwest Idaho instead of Europe I could cut my feed bill in half, and I already feed half forage. Do you think they'd revert back to total primal fear so quickly though? I wonder how much of that is experience and how much of it is genetics. Would the most fearful animals be selected for most strongly, or would the animals produced simply grow up the most fearful? Both, I guess!

I'm a firm believer that temperament is a good deal of both, nature and nurture.

As far as reverting back to primal fear....you have that silverfox doe right? Even poorly selected for domestic rabbits revert back pretty quick. Not saying they all would, but I's suspect the lawn ornaments would be first generation dropped off buns. Or else like feral cats, used to people enough to let you walk by...but watch what happens when it thinks your after it!

I agree. A certain amount of fear keeps them alive. Rabbits freeze as a natural instinct. Try reaching for it, it may let you get close, but not that close.

This is very interesting.

I have not seen a population of wild/domestic rabbits before. I hardly see any wild rabbits at all.

Then of course, I am smack dead in the middle of a large urban city.

yes and no. but let me explain the possible goals i see...

feed efficient. this is where i can see the old colony idea would be cool to try. the build a huge cage basically filled with haybales and you provide water and feed. as you trap and pull out ones to eat you put back the biggest to go on as future breeders. then once you expand or rebuild a new pen and go through the old one you keep the best of those. just like how rabbits were originally gone about being kept but combined with modern know-how.
of course for someone who wants to be pretty much totally hands off and has the time and space to collect lots and lots of forage and maybe supplement some feed this would be great to try. for others this is a "not gonna touch that idea with a ten foot pole" thing.
or use the "feral" buck over your does and do tractor style. the doe should pass on good type and build and meaty etc and the buck should pass on heartiness and food efficiency.
from this i could see how it could be bred some awesome line. i think its possible for the right kind of crazy person

Zass":2tah906p said:

I'm a firm believer that temperament is a good deal of both, nature and nurture.

As far as reverting back to primal fear....you have that silverfox doe right? Even poorly selected for domestic rabbits revert back pretty quick. Not saying they all would, but I's suspect the lawn ornaments would be first generation dropped off buns. Or else like feral cats, used to people enough to let you walk by...but watch what happens when it thinks your after it!

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The fear is really interesting to me, because that's one drawback I honestly hadn't considered at all. I was thinking about it in terms of re-domestication tonight, and how that process has worked with other animals. Take dogs, for instance. The main theory going now is that dogs are the result of wolves calm/bold enough to follow people more closely, and to benefit from that nearness by pillaging our primitive trash heaps. It reminded me of one of the property damage stories I've heard, a colony collapsed a very fancy back porch by using it as the "rock" they decided to burrow under. It was a good deal for the rabbits, they were tame enough to stay near a high-traffic area of the house, which meant total protection from predators too wary to approach. It protected them so well that the colony, and warren, grew large enough that when it collapsed the whole structure came down with it.

Obviously nobody thought to reach out and grab these rabbits, so I bet they would still bolt from direct human contact, but it makes me think that the feral rabbits do keep a shred of non-concern/utter stupidity about their proximity to people. You guys are right though, self destructive fear is already present in totally domestic rabbits, and it's the kind of thing that would totally shut down attempting to keep feral rabbits.

A colony though? Hmm! That's another thing I'd never considered! Could a colony produce a large enough number of offspring that you could select, hands off, for foraging ability and weather hardiness, and then re-filter for lack of fear? And it's true, that is the way this whole domestic rabbit thing started, right? I like this colony idea, because it's something I have absolutely no time, space, or interest in pursuing. That means I'm safe to daydream

The rabbits in the colony are a lot less skiddish than the ones I keep in cages..

There's an island off the coast of Japan that manufactured various forms
of gassing-agents during WWII and they tested them on "rabbits" kept at
the facility.

With the surrender, the plant was closed and the surviving rabbits were
released. Today, there's a very large population of free-roaming rabbits
that have created quite an attraction for tourists. What surprised me was
the varied colors that was still prevalent. They are quite used to being
around humans and oftentimes "beg" for different foods offered by the
tourists.