Hybrid ?'s

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BIG AL

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Hey folks...newbie here...GREAT SITE!!!...I recently picked up a few California / NZW cross rabbits to have as foundation "meat rabbits" (personal use, not commercial)..I was told these would be better than purebreds because of growth rate and density of meat of one breed added to better personality of the other......I have heard that the hybrid vigor may fade...I assume that to mean the growth rate will slow in future generations?...My question is, Will the offspring remain Cali/ NZ crosses or will they revert back to one or the other or at least show stronger characterisitics of one or the other of the two breeds?
THANKS!
:beer2:
 
I have (had) the same... in appearance/build/coloring all the kits so far have been CA.

I am transitioning out of them truthfully, to purebred NZ blacks and reds, but have had four litters so far that have all been consistent... even out of an F1 hybrid doe that very much resembles a NZW
 
What you will see is that some start to resemble NewZealands, some start to revert to Californian types, and others will continue to look like the initial cross as the generations go on and the genes mix.

Simply: if you have a ZZ x CC (using Z=new zealand gene and C=californian gene) first generations will all be ZC. Next generation you have ZC x ZC...so you would get some with ZZ, some with CC, and some with ZC again....and so on. Now, with rabbits, it's not that simple..there are a long list of things there..but you probably get the idea.

What you should do if you want to keep your own rabbits and not add in from time to time, is keep the healthiest, fastest growing of the does as your breeders. 1 buck can service quite a number of does, so it's not as critical to select bucks every year.

The alternative is to bring in a replacement breeder every couple of generations. Refresh the genes. either a purebred or another first generation hybrid. Or you could keep a Californian buck and newzealand does and harvest the hybrids as your meat.

Just an observation here: if you're not supplying meat to a HUGE family/friend pool, you will probably find that you don't need the fast, largest growing animals. 1 fryer will give you 3# of meat or more (with the rabbits you currently have). If you let them grow a bit longer, you'll have 4 or 5# of meat. That's enough to feed 10 people or more for one meal. Plus you can make soup(very yummy soup) from the carcass. My little 2 person family doesn't finish a rabbit in 2 days...I end up freezing meat to pull out later to add to soup.

They really are inexpensive to raise...particularly if you can at least supplement with weeds/greens/veggies/hay.
 
THANKS!
Right now we have 3 hybrid does and 1 hybrid buck (from a seperate litter)...they are only 12 weeks old at this time, so it will be late next spring before I can breed them(9 months??)..I don't have scales but can tell you they are very "THICK" and healthy ...I think I'll just wait and see what results I get then and maybe adjust the plan later in the year....I am not feeding very many people with these so I too see no need in trying to have super rabbits but I do want the healthiest I can get...and a heavier body wouldn't hurt I guess :)
Right now I'm feeding pellets and as much hay as they want....not much green around right now but plan on some of that also in the spring/summer
Thanks again for the info!
AL
 
Al, check out the threads in "natural feeding". Maggie has excellent info on what you can harvest from the garden, fields, lawn...dandelions and plantain are my personal favorites, with mulberry as a close 3rd :) She also raises "mutts" for meat...just keeping the ones that produce the best, grow the fastest and healthiest when she needs to replace a breeder. She's an excellent source of information.

One thing I found out, from her and from watching my kits grow, was that when you do just pellets..since they are a completely balanced feed...the kits grow faster. BUT adding hay gives the animals something to do (grazing all day), and keeps the digestive track moving along nicely. It also fills the tummy, so it will slow down the growth a couple weeks or so. However, when you run the numbers the meat costs less per pound when you supplement with hay and greens.

Some of us do grains, mineral salt block, alfalfa hay, and greens instead of pellets. I do a mixture of both..depending on the rabbit and how lazy I am feeling ;)

anyway...I'm babbling again. Welcome to the forum!
 
Technically, a cross between two different rabbit breeds is not a hybrid. A hybrid is a cross between two different species usually resulting in sterile offspring (ie. Tiger X Lion, or Donkey X horse).

Although the crossing between two rabbit breeds can result in some kits with better growth rates and dress out assuming that the kits inherited the best from both parents it can also work the other way around. Kits can inherit the worst from both parents. Generally it is assumed that Cal X NZ is the best cross, but it depends more on the individual rabbits. If you don't have the greatest Cal and NZ out there, then you can't expect to get better then what you have. Or you could have the nicest Cal (who had the slowest growth rate out of it's litter) and you have a mediocre NZ (who had an excellent rate of growth). In that litter you have kits that are better then the NZ, but take forever to grow, kits that have an excellent growth rate but are only mediocre type wise, you can have kits that are excellent type wise and have a fast growth rate, and you can have kits that are mediocre and have a slow growth rate, this is the downside to out crosses, you can't be sure 100% of what you're going to get.

I'm not saying they won't be better then their parents, but in my experience when you cross two different breeds, you get a smorgasbord of kits in the litter. Where as my one breed that's highly line bred for optimum meat productivity I can pretty much guarantee what I'll get out of a cross.
 
hybrid, in genetic terms usually means- reult of crossing genetics. So it is common to call a cross breed a hybrid. The term is used quite liberally sometimes and quite specificly other times.
There are no New Zealand and cal genes, specificly but a new Zealand does have 2 cc genes which make it an albino. (cc) is 2 genes for albino. the (c^h) himi gene restricts color to the points, as in californian.
You could segregte out which ever color you wanted, either all white or cal colors depending on how you make your matings.
Heteropsis, or hybrid vigor, is most present in the F1 cross and diminishes in each succeeding generation. But to achieve heterosis, the parent stock must be no less than the expected result. Start with low quality genetics and there will be little to no resulting gain.Just making a crossbreed will not improve anything.
The rabbits you have should make some good meat, just keep selecting the best for retaining in your breeding herd.
Even crossing 2 seperate genetic lines of the same breed can result in hybrid vigor, or heterosis.
 
They will make great meat rabbits....If you have a chance to pick up a buck from a completely different line, or a different breed (any meat breed will do) then you can save some of the does from the litter and keep the hybrid vigor up in succeeding generations.

Btw, you really should not wait 9 months to breed them, 6 to 7 actually works out better. In the wild they would be breeding at 3 1/2 months. I would breed them at the end of march. You may have heat problems, too, in Alabama if you wait till June or July. Rabbits do fine with the cold, unless it is very cold, and it never gets that cold where you live. But hot summer weather is a problem. If you wait till June, they will be having their kits in July, and from July to September, it is too hot to breed them efficiently here in Missouri. Also, if they fail to breed in the heat of summer, they may be close to a year old before you get them bred, and that poses real problems also.
 
This is an article I read a while ago from Science Daily about Hybrid Vigor (mainly in flowers)

In a study published in the online open access journal PLoS Biology, the researchers found a type of genetic "noise" caused by a surprising degree of variation in gene activity even for highly similar traits in closely related species. They found that when species hybridise, some of the variation in gene activity may be cancelled out, leading to greater vigour.

Enrico Coen and colleagues analysed the trait that causes flower asymmetry in two closely related species of snapdragon. They measured the activity of two relevant genes and its effect on the trait. The "noise" or variation they identified only has a very minor effect on a species for any single gene, but the collective effect for many genes could be substantial, reducing overall species performance. They suggest that natural selection may be unable to eliminate the noise they identified. Hybridisation, however, might partly eliminate the noise.

"This is the first study that analyses the consequences of variations in gene expression on conserved traits in closely related species," said Professor Coen, from the John Innes Centre.

The results show that hybrids might be expected to exhibit increased performance in basic traits such as growth. However, they also show that in the longer term, other traits such as those involved in sexual reproduction might be expected to perform less well, accounting for reduced fertility of hybrids.

"Gene expression levels are free to drift around during evolution within particular bounds," said Professor Coen. "But the cumulative effects of variation explain the conflicting phenomena of hybrid superiority and inferiority."

This explanation of hybrid vigour covers natural species as well as domesticated varieties. The findings avoid some of the pitfalls of previous explanations.

"Breeders already know there is no magic hybrid vigour gene, otherwise they would have used it by now," said Professor Coen. "What our study shows is how and why hybridisation can have such a strong impact on performance," said Professor Coen.

This was supported by a Marie Curie grant for early stage training and the BBSRC-John Innes Centre PhD Rotation Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
 
we humans tend to put selective pressure on those traits which benefit us and our goals. natural selection would be entirely different, more inclined to survival of the fittest which would effect size, color shape,growthn patterns etcetera in ways much different than we might be inclined..Gene spray can be a good thing but really could screw up the breeding plan ! Living organisms carry at least 4 times more genetic programming potential than they use at any given time.
I just had to take a call and totally lost my train of thought on where I was going with this!!! jeesh.
 
Lets add to this.. Californians were developed FROM NZW's and I think Chinchilla as a meat/fur breed. The Cali markings are also dominant to rew, one step up actually. So if a Cali has two chin genes(one on each small"c") then all the kits will be cali marked but that doesn't mean they have inherited only from the Cali side....
 
The parents these came from were VERY LARGE NZW bucks and HEAVY, BROAD CALI does....like I said they are very solid / thick little critters now.....
I was worried about the heat issue, as we get pretty warm real quick after mid june so it's nice to hear I can get them started earlier than 9 months...
thanks again
 
I breed at 8 pounds which is normally 4-41/2 months old, some may take to 5 months now and then. The does will continue to grow and gain weight; the advantage are they are inn production and making you a buck sooner; they dont get too fat to breed, they breed readily.

it is my assumption that order of dominance isfull color(C) then dark chin(C^chd) then light chin(C^chl) then chin(ch) then albino(c). I will look that up. I think if you put a chin to a himi youll get chins. I know how it workd with blacks, I use black NZ buck on Cal does and get all blacks, obviously.I used black MR on my himi MR to keep the points dark and as outcrosses.

We dont really have to deal with a lot of heat up here but the humidity combined with heat can be tuff on them. I give them a break in the hottest time, buyer demmand is much less to.
 
I tried to breed my NZ doe at 6 months, and she had an accidental exposure at five, but she just now bred at seven. A friend has a rabbit I gave him, completely unrelated, and he is just now getting her bred, at eight months. Is this genetic? I see some people breeding their rabbits so early, but mine won't accept the buck this soon.
 
You are better off breeding them a little later.
I do not breed any rabbits until they reach Senior Weight.
Breeding too early will/may stunt their growth
and they may never grow to Senior Weight.
Patience is a virtue, and it has it's own rewards.
Ottersatin. :eek:ldtimer:
 
UI breed at 41/2 months or 8 pounds. No problem. They will continue to grow to normal mature weights. gestation is not a hardship on them, lactation can be if they arent properly fed. All my does are over the minimum standard weights and most have litters on the wire befor they are 6 months. Just about all the breeders around breed at those ages/weights. The only reason to not breed early might be because you are needing some does for a show.
 

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