Breeding for Chocolate in Nethies

[Silver Willow]

Hello all

I've been wanting to start breeding Havana/chocolate rabbits for a while now, and the first plan was to start with Havana Mini Rex as a second breed along with our Nethies. But after acquiring two mini Rex does and finding they aren't going to work for us, I'm still left with a Havana MR doe I haven't got around to selling yet.

So I just had a thought this morning... how hard would it be to introduce the Havana colour into our Nethies? How many generations approximately would it take before they were concidered purebred again?

At the moment I have a JR martenised Himalayan ND I'm keep despite his unshowable colour, and also have a Martenised Himi doe (his dam) and a blue otter (? ) doe. So I think the colours would work together. I guess it's just a matter of whether or not it's worth it?

 

[Dood]

I wouldn't

While technically it would only take 3 or 4 generations to make a pedigree, Mini Rex and Netherland Dwarfs (ND) are such drastically different bone structures it would likely take decades to get show quality chocolate coloured ND, plus there are already are chocolate ND available

And with those coloured ND your more likely to end up with chocolate otter

 

[Silver Willow]

Ok, thanks for that @Dood

I also asked because there is only actually one Chocolate ND breeder in the entire country, and they have only been working on them for the last few years. So my chances of getting one from them is looking very slim!

Isn't Chocolate Otter showable?

 

[SableSteel]

By ARBA standards, I'm sure about BRC
I wouldn't use mini rex. If anything, polish would work better. At least there wouldn't be rex carriers for the fur. It's going to take more than 4 rabbits to develop a good looking line by mixing breeds... I'd expect 15, at the bare minimum, and over the course of years (maybe 4-5 generations). If you can find the breeder and ask for chocolate carriers that they've used in the program, even that would be better than using unrelated colored dwarfs you have. Keeping it with self colors, like blacks, would be best, because then you don't have to worry about breeding for good otter color too