How close is to close?

[starshotbandit]

Have a pair of californians. On there pedigrees I see ALOT of the same names, there dams are litter mates and they have the same sire. is this to close ? Do i need to get another pair? I want my kids and i to show and sell breeding stock along with producing meat. On the meat aspect i am only worried about weight gain and not having mongaloids. can anyone give me a run down on genetics for dummies, please? :thinking:

 

[ZRabbits]

Mongaloids do not happen in the Animal World. Sorry still laughing on that one but understand where you are coming from. With close lines, the only thing you will see is bad traits will be prominent. If you have good stock, you can breed close lines.

Karen

 

[3mina]

Check out the thread breeding to the strong points in your herd, you'll find this has been thrashed out pretty well there and there will be a list of similar threads in the bottom left hand corner of that page

 

[Miss M]

Here's the thread: breeding-to-the-strong-points-within-your-herd-t9911.html

Pretty much, as long as you are not getting bad traits showing up in offspring, you can breed them, keep the best, breed them, keep the best, etc.

Traits to look for to help you decide who to keep (partial list):
Fast growth
Reasonable food consumption
Health
Hardiness to your climate
Good temperament
Well-furred feet
Hind feet that are parallel to each other -- | | rather than \ /
Cleanliness
Straight teeth

In older rabbits (again, partial):
Willingness to breed
Milk production
Litter size
Litter growth
Lack of problems with litters

If you cull hard for good genes, you will weed out any bad ones.

You can have a doe and a buck that do wonderfully when bred to other rabbits. You breed them to each other, and you consistently get problem litters or dead litters. You have uncovered a genetic fault.