Does anyone have any "fun" meat rabbit projects going on?

[bighairbuns]

I really love raising meat rabbits. I've always been interested in genetics and breeding animals. Raising meat rabbits gives me the freedom to do some crazy things that wouldn't be ethical in animals not destined for the table. I love my angoras, and I get a lot of satisfaction from breeding for the correct body type, wool quality, and well pigmented standard colors, but I need a little more excitement in my rabbit life!

I've decided that I want some rexxed lops with interesting markings. I recently found a gorgeous over-sized (7lbs!) white-eared, possible vienna carrier, holland buck. I'll be crossing him into my standard rex and rex crosses this year and breeding the offspring together. Should be an interesting and fun project.

Anyone else here like to get a little crazy with the meat mutts? What are your "just for fun" goals with them?

 

[ladysown]

this girl
bred to this boy

producing this

I have two tricolours, I had more in the litter but culled some for a buyer.

The doe is an elop mystery mutt cross running at 9 lbs. The buck is pure 3 lbs holland lop. She LOVES him and thinks he's all that! it's funny watching them do their thing as he's so small compared to her.

I expect them to finish out around 6-7 lbs. My goal is to bring down the weight of my meat rabbits from 10 lbs to about 7 maybe 8.

The kits are growing out just as fast as my meat kits normally do, but slow down right at the 9-week mark.
The pics are last weeks, this week about half of them have lopped ears. I'll be retaining the broken chin.. which might be a magpie buck for breeding purposes. He's the biggest of the bunch. Calling him Gavrium after a character in a book I'm listening too.

so that's my fun project.

 

[KelleyBee]

Interesting. I’m still pretty new to rabbitry, but late last year I bread my REW mutt doe to my Silver Fox buck. The babies were beautiful. She had 2 agouti and 2 black that way. It was her first litter. The white mutt buck I have for her was not yet old enough for breeding. All babies from that litter made very good meals, too, but I was really sad to process the brown ones, they were adorable. Other than that, my main project for the moment is consistently producing Silver Foxes to breed standards. My original trio were not fully up to standards, so it’s a work in progress. I’m also just embarking upon exploring how to “unmutt” my white herd and get them back to pure REW and California. It should be interesting.

 

[RustySssunflower]

Interesting. I’m still pretty new to rabbitry, but late last year I bread my REW mutt doe to my Silver Fox buck. The babies were beautiful. She had 2 agouti and 2 black that way. It was her first litter. The white mutt buck I have for her was not yet old enough for breeding. All babies from that litter made very good meals, too, but I was really sad to process the brown ones, they were adorable. Other than that, my main project for the moment is consistently producing Silver Foxes to breed standards. My original trio were not fully up to standards, so it’s a work in progress. I’m also just embarking upon exploring how to “unmutt” my white herd and get them back to pure REW and California. It should be interesting.

Wait you bred a completely white doe with a silver and they produced Agoutis and Blacks? That’s rare?

 

[KelleyBee]

Wait you bred a completely white doe with a silver and they produced Agoutis and Blacks? That’s rare?

I don’t think it was a rare event. Let me see if I can find the discussion we had about it on this forum. I think it’s in the genetics thread.

 

[KelleyBee]

Wait you bred a completely white doe with a silver and they produced Agoutis and Blacks? That’s rare?

Here is the discussion I referenced in the post above. If you scroll down to the post made by @eco2pia you will begin to understand.
Thread 'Where to learn rabbit genetics'
Where to learn rabbit genetics

 

[bighairbuns]

View attachment 29475
this girl
bred to this boy
View attachment 29476
producing this
View attachment 29477View attachment 29478View attachment 29479View attachment 29480
I have two tricolours, I had more in the litter but culled some for a buyer.

The doe is an elop mystery mutt cross running at 9 lbs. The buck is pure 3 lbs holland lop. She LOVES him and thinks he's all that! it's funny watching them do their thing as he's so small compared to her.

I expect them to finish out around 6-7 lbs. My goal is to bring down the weight of my meat rabbits from 10 lbs to about 7 maybe 8.

The kits are growing out just as fast as my meat kits normally do, but slow down right at the 9-week mark.
The pics are last weeks, this week about half of them have lopped ears. I'll be retaining the broken chin.. which might be a magpie buck for breeding purposes. He's the biggest of the bunch. Calling him Gavrium after a character in a book I'm listening too.

so that's my fun project.

The broken chin is adorable!

 

[ladysown]

yes! He is!
I'll be keeping him!