Help Evaluate My Mini Lop Buck

[Susie570]

Since I'm getting 'serious' about buying one or two ML does for a small ML breeding operation (hey, we all know it's good to have two pregnant does together, right??) I need some help seriously evaluating my boy.

I didn't really try to 'pose' him for these pictures, and I think he would be too stretched out in the side view picture for a show pose, but maybe folks can still get a good idea of his build? I'm hoping to get some feedback on his positive and negative attributes so I know what to look for in a couple of nice does to breed with him.

Ok, here we go.







I'm including another picture of his butt since the one side picture makes him look flat. I couldn't seem to get his head and round butt in the same picture



__________ Sat Mar 21, 2015 2:40 pm __________

Here is one doe I'm considering... she's 6 months old, pedigreed. She has some interesting colors in her background.




__________ Sat Mar 21, 2015 2:44 pm __________

Colors in this doe's background: "her father is a chinchilla. He has Broken Chinchilla, sable chinchilla, REW, Steel, Broken Chestnut Agouti, Chestnut agouti, and a broken black steel gold tipped on his side. Her mom is a Sable chinchilla with REW, Steel, Black gold tipped, Chestnut agouti, Blue steel tipped, Broken Chestnut, black steel tipped, broken steel broken sable steel."

I also asked about what lines she comes from and this was the reply: mother side: Valadez, Smokey, Kersting, German, Babers, Vt's, Jones, Schmidt's, Harmon. Father side :Mandy-sweet, Valadez, Delamars, ERZs, Smokey, Kersting, wolfsong, German, Babers. <br /><br /> __________ Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:14 am __________ <br /><br /> Anyone??

 

[LopLover]

There is honestly very little I like about that buck... I would consider getting a different one. Not a big fan of the doe either but IMO she is 100 better than the buck.

 

[Dood]

If you're looking for a show perspective....

I'm hoping to get some feedback on his positive

he has good bone density and his crown isn't too bad, a bit narrow but the placement is okay

and negative attributes

his body is narrow - MLops should look like a half basketball and be round and have a nice semi-circle arch in their loin and your buck lacks both. His ears look thin and his fur lacks length, density and looks more fly-back than roll-back.

From a pet perspective the head is the most important trait as people will forgive problems in the body and coat if their lop eared rabbit has a round squished face and well lopped ears. They also tend to prefer smaller sizes and have a hard time understanding that MLops are NOT dwarfs or teacup or a miniature version of Hollands :groooan: and can weight up to 6.5 pounds

If you want to sell MLops for show I would not use your buck as a herd sire but if you want to sell for pets I would try crossing him to a small MLop doe or even a false dwarf Holland doe that has a near perfect head and crown.

Just my 2 cents :shrug:

 

[Susie570]

There is honestly very little I like about that buck... I would consider getting a different one. Not a big fan of the doe either but IMO she is 100 better than the buck.

Ok, thank you for your honesty.
I wish you could be more specific about his faults though :/ <br /><br /> __________ Sun Mar 22, 2015 11:46 am __________ <br /><br />

If you're looking for a show perspective....

I'm hoping to get some feedback on his positive

he has good bone density and his crown isn't too bad, a bit narrow but the placement is okay

and negative attributes

his body is narrow - MLops should look like a half basketball and be round and have a nice semi-circle arch in their loin and your buck lacks both. His ears look thin and his fur lacks length, density and looks more fly-back than roll-back.

From a pet perspective the head is the most important trait as people will forgive problems in the body and coat if their lop eared rabbit has a round squished face and well lopped ears. They also tend to prefer smaller sizes and have a hard time understanding that MLops are NOT dwarfs or teacup or a miniature version of Hollands :groooan: and can weight up to 6.5 pounds

If you want to sell MLops for show I would not use your buck as a herd sire but if you want to sell for pets I would try crossing him to a small MLop doe or even a false dwarf Holland doe that has a near perfect head and crown.

Just my 2 cents :shrug:

That's what I was looking for, thank you for the specifics

I don't have the time to travel to shows and am not interested in trying to show, but it's certainly good to know what people are looking for. I have been hoping to use him both to produce pet MLs and to offer the occasional nice rabbit that would be of interest to local (relatively local, there are no truly local) breeders who are currently swamped with lines that are too closely related.

Since he has so many faults, I guess the only hope of getting the occasional nice rabbit would be to cross him with very nice does, but of course I would want to do that anyway. I suppose SPECIFICALLY, I would want to seek out does that are particularly round with especially nice heads.

However, it sounds like if I want to have any seriousness in producing a breeder quality ML, I should get an additional buck to use for breeding as well as a couple of quality does. I'm not sure this is a direction I would be able to go since I want to keep things as small as possible. On the other hand, it WOULD be just ONE more rabbit... I could look into getting Scarlett neutered and simply keeping him as the lovable pet he is.