Czech Frosty

[HendricksHearth]

I saw pictures on another forum of this breed at the 2014 ARBA convention and I'd love to know more about them. A google search yielded mostly FB pages that I don't have access to. I understand from google that they are the national breed of the Czech Republic and are meaties. Anyone around here know anything else they'd care to share?

 

[Dood]

They were developed from the Czech Red and are basically a coloured version of Florida Whites as they only get to about 7 pounds (2.5 kg to 3.5 kg).

Actually they look a lot like my Mini Lop x AmChins but smaller :mrgreen:

For more pictures Google - Český černopesíkatý and Schwarzgrannen which is their Czech and German names

 

[Miss M]

I saw some recently, not as well as I would have liked... they were in travel cages in the back of an SUV, and it was at night.

They're pretty! Their fur is very fluffy, and doesn't seem to lie down. The light tipping does give a very nice frosty effect. They look like nice little bricks, like Florida Whites and other smaller meat breeds.

I'd have loved to see one outside of the car, but the lady needed to continue on home. (She was on her way home from convention, and had just bought the Frosties.)

 

[Olimpia]

Feel free to join the Czech Frosty Rabbit group on FB!

I'm thinking about getting into them potentially... As of now they can only be sold to members of the breed club, the fee to join is $5/year for a single person... The prices are flat, $400 for a trio, $500 for two pairs. You sign a contract with a few agreements when you get them, not to cross them with any other breed, to sell back a trio of babies from the person you got them from for $100, only allowed to sell to other members... Once you are in I've been told trios are readily available.

All the contract stuff is only until they are ARBA recognized, so they can have as much purity as possible, once the breed is sanctioned, breeders will be able to sell rabbits as they please with pricing and such.

I met Don Havlicek at the Royal fair in Toronto, they are super soft rabbits, and they are square in build.. Most rabbits are pretty thin at the shoulders, but these guys are just solid little blocks. Produce good size fryers, and the pelts are beautiful. The ears are tiny, over 4 inches long is a DQ for them, they are very cold hardy rabbits, not sure about warmer climates.

The FB group includes the proposed breed standard, Don originally imported 3 pairs of rabbits a few years back, which came from champions in their home country, and the standard is based off of those rabbits..

 

[Ramjet]

I found this image after a quick search:

They do look like little meat bricks ....

 

[Zass]

I wonder what their temperaments are like?

 

[Celice]

they are so pretty!!!

 

[HendricksHearth]

Thanks so much for the info! I didn't realize they were so expensive (I don't think I can convince the hubby I need to spend >$100 per rabbit right now), but I can keep researching and learning about them in the meantime now that I know their name from the country of origin and how it works to acquire them in the US. Loving the news that they are built like bricks. Thanks again!

 

[Olimpia]

Another thing that came up recently in the group is weights. The proposed standard says that seniors cannot weigh over 7.5lbs, a lot of members are having them hit 8lbs, and a lot of juniors also outweigh their proposed weight as well. Seems that the pellets here aren't available in the east, and they get a lot bigger here. So the standard may change, and they may be a lot closer to NZWs in production stats than thought before.

 

[fhjmom]

My daughter fell in love with them at Convention. She went back and talked to Don Havlicek several times, asking him so many questions. We went ahead and joined the club and are hoping to be able to purchase a trio in late spring.

Don described them as a two liter bottle with fur! LOL! I think they resemble a giant Netherland Dwarf. They have thicker bone (described as "medium bone" in the working standard) and the round heads like a Netherland, plus short thick ears. They only come in one variety, ermine, which is beautiful!! The frosted tips on white fur is gorgeous! Their posing is unique in that they are considered a cylindrical breed, but pose slightly elevated in the front. Fur is supposed to be rollback.

I agree with what Olimpia has said, except for one thing. When rabbits are available, they send an email out to all the current club members and the first to respond gets to purchase them. Since we joined at Convention, we have received two emails with available rabbits (the first had one trio available and the second had more than one, but I can't remember if it was two trios or more). Given that, I wouldn't say they are "readily available" quite yet. There have been several people posting on the Facebook group about new litters lately, though, so hopefully more will come available soon. I just mention that because I didn't want you to think you could join the club and just buy them right away; there may be a bit of a wait.

 

[3mina]

I may need to look very hard at these. This is a very attractive body type.
Time to start saving my tips, Convention will never be closer to me than Portland

 

[fhjmom]

I know this is an old thread but I thought I would post an update since we brought our Czech Frosty trio home from the Ohio Mini-Convention!! We are in love! These rabbit have the sweetest personalities, and my daughter already has one on the hopping course. She's a natural!! Not to mention how gorgeous they are! I love the color and their type! Here are a few pictures:

This is one of the junior does, named Snow White by my seven YO. She sits in her cage like this and just hangs out looking at you like, "Let's chat!"

[album]3296[/album]

This is my son and daughter after the Czech Frosties were shown at OSRBA. The lady in the orange shirt is Linda Peterson, the breeder of two of our rabbits. Don Havlicek is in the yellow shirt; he is the one that imported the first nine rabbits from Czech Republic (grandparents to our rabbits). Piper (?) was our judge in Ohio and she picked our senior buck and one of our junior does as BOB and BOSB (full disclosure: there were only two others on the table besides ours). The kids were excited!

[album]3295[/album]

This is our senior buck, Alexander, charming the judge when we took them to a local show here. This is his personality; he would rather interact than just sit on the table.

[album]3294[/album]

 

[Zass]

Nice looking rabbits!!

 

[Miss M]

Oh, they're just gorgeous, and the kids look so proud! :hooray:

I got to see a couple briefly, and Galadriel got to pet one, when we picked up our Rex rabbits from a lady coming back from Convention in November.

 

[Bubbles]

Feel free to join the Czech Frosty Rabbit group on FB!

I'm thinking about getting into them potentially... As of now they can only be sold to members of the breed club, the fee to join is $5/year for a single person... The prices are flat, $400 for a trio, $500 for two pairs. You sign a contract with a few agreements when you get them, not to cross them with any other breed, to sell back a trio of babies from the person you got them from for $100, only allowed to sell to other members... Once you are in I've been told trios are readily available.

All the contract stuff is only until they are ARBA recognized, so they can have as much purity as possible, once the breed is sanctioned, breeders will be able to sell rabbits as they please with pricing and such.

I met Don Havlicek at the Royal fair in Toronto, they are super soft rabbits, and they are square in build.. Most rabbits are pretty thin at the shoulders, but these guys are just solid little blocks. Produce good size fryers, and the pelts are beautiful. The ears are tiny, over 4 inches long is a DQ for them, they are very cold hardy rabbits, not sure about warmer climates.

The FB group includes the proposed breed standard, Don originally imported 3 pairs of rabbits a few years back, which came from champions in their home country, and the standard is based off of those rabbits..

Before anyone joins the Czech Frosty club, do your homework! Their membership by laws for owning any rabbits from them are extremely restrictive! They claim it is for the betterment of the breed, and to keep people from ruining the breed. First of all, I don't know ANYONE in their right minds who would pay $400 for 3 rabbits and go off and breed to anything! Nobody is THAT stupid. Then read on in the membership application. If you have unforeseen circumstances arise, and need to sell what frostys you have. Let me tell you.., that membership will not do a single thing to help you sell the rabbits, and turn nasty. They are a bunch of high handed, bullying snobs IMHO. Stop and think, you PAY 400 for a trio, (and god forbid anything happens, such as them coming to you sick with coccidiosis or one of them breaking it's back, and now your down to a pair) The trio costs you $400, (just over $133 each), and you MUST sell them back to the original breeder for $25!! Um.., lets see, you invest time, money feed and tears and then need to sell out to the original breeder for $25 well, that's only a LOSS of $108!!!!! PER RABBIT!!! That does not count the food, etc. you have put into them. Just because they are a rabbit club "dedicated" to the frostys, does NOT in any way guarantee the stock you buy from any of the members will be healthy. Granted, broken backs are an accident, but in my opinion, getting rabbits shipped to you with coccidiosis is NOT. Save your money for a while, there are people going to the Czech Republic and importing them outside of this club, and as I understand it, they aren't being this snobbish, nasty, and high handed. They rant about how long it took for lion heads to be approved because they didn't set rules such as this. If they REALLY wanted to protect the integrity of the breed, then they wouldn't sell these rabbits to anyone that couldn't take a test and correctly pick out frostys that meet the standard, instead of to anyone with $5 to join their club and money enough to buy a trio! They're all sweetness and light until it comes time when you might want to sell out. Like I said, do your homework. Wait for others that are importing from the SAME breeders, barns, and lines in the Czech Republic that the "original" 9 came from, and contact them. Hopefully they will be a less snotty bunch.

 

[Dood]

Unless you signed a contract they cannot *make* you do anything and if you did sign a contract then you had full disclosure of their policies and too bad so sad

Sorry you had a bad experience but thems the breaks in rabbit rearing

And since ARBA judges on phenotype - ANYONE can recreate this breed with mutts as long as they match the Czech Frosty SOP :cheesysmile:

I've actually got a bloodline of small American chinchillas that could easily be bred to look like Czech Frosty in a couple generations and if they are selling for $133 each I just might do that :mrgreen:

 

[Miss M]

Before anyone joins the Czech Frosty club, do your homework!

Wow, you would think that if their interest is preservation of the small population we have here on this side of the pond, and improvement and promotion of a breed, that they would be way more helpful.

 

[fhjmom]

We haven't had any issues with the health of our rabbits (yet), but the isolated incidents I have heard of, Don has been quick to offer help in getting replacement animals, at least that I have seen publicly. Like I said, I have had no personal experience with it. I know not everyone is happy with the restrictive nature of the contract, however, it is exactly the reason I felt comfortable getting into the breed in the first place. Because the prices are set, there is more incentive for breeders to work together to try and better the breed, rather than try and undercut each other or play a game to drive the prices up. Our goal is not even to sell any stock for quite some time as we want to first focus on building a quality herd. There have been issues where people were more worried about their own short term financial gain and that hurt the advancement of the breed in question.

BTW, even if rabbits are purchased elsewhere, if someone wishes to join the CF Club, membership is dependent upon agreeing to abide by the contract.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Pepperoni]

If they REALLY wanted to protect the integrity of the breed, then they wouldn't sell these rabbits to anyone that couldn't take a test and correctly pick out frostys that meet the standard, instead of to anyone with $5 to join their club and money enough to buy a trio!

That is a really good point. Anyone can take a couple of rabbits and toss them together, but if they aren't keeping back the best (and only the best) then it doesn't matter if they're in the club or not.

If you can only sell to other members, then what are you supposed to do with culls? Is that rule only for pedigreed brood/show rabbits? Can you sell as pets? Can you sell to a meat or petfood buyer?

Personally, I think if these people don't trust the breeders to maintain their own herds the way they please then maybe they shouldn't be selling in the first place. It sounds to me that they're trying to get other people to do the hard and expensive work of caring for/housing/feeding/breeding, and then they can swoop in and be guaranteed nice cheap rabbits? If you're required to sell a trio back to the person you got them from, are they in turn required to actually buy the trio? If you produce some really nice rabbits they get to buy them for less than a quarter of the price they charged you? But if they don't want them then they pay you nothing and then what? How many other people are you "allowed" to try to sell to?

The whole thing sounds fishy to me. They're really interesting looking rabbits, but there's no way I'd get involved in all of that contract nonsense and politics.

 

[Dood]

I tried to join their Facebook group and was declined :cheesysmile:

I wonder if they read my post about recreating the breed from mutts :hmm:

Anyone want to share the SOP ?

opcorn: