How did you start your breeding stock?

[ckcs]

Here is my dilemma. I originally want to expand from Lionheads to English Lops. I have decided instead of Elops that I will get into Velveteen Lops. I love the fur and the smaller size works for my set up better. I have accepted that I will have to travel several hundred miles to obtain stock. Sadly breeders closer to me never seem to breed. If I am going to travel I'd really like to start with more than a trio. I was thinking about 2 trios. My dilemma is most breeders do not seem to have multiple litters available at the same time and getting 6 rabbits from 1 or 2 litters doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Curious how others have started a new breed to their program. It might be possible for me to set something up with 2 breeders to get a variety of stock. Lionheads were so much easier, I started with a buck then added 3 does. All came from my town so driving wasn't an issue and waiting for a new litter from a breeder wasn't a problem.

 

[Dood]

I started with a trio of AmChins and kept back 4 daughters so I had 6 does producing within a year. I then brought in a new doe and buck but the results were not good so I am weeding them out and only have 2 does from that bloodline and 8 does and a buck from my original trio.

I haven't seen any problems with inbreeding and my original trio was already closely related (full and half siblings) so I would get a pair or trio and go from there rather than investing in 6 rabbits that may all die in quarantine.

If things go well you can always go back to the same breeder, with the same germs, and get a buck or doe if you want to diversify.

 

[luvabunny]

I decided that the best rabbits don't cost any more to feed than the worst rabbits, and started searching for the best breeders.
I was able to come up with 2 that had rabbits for sale, and transport to a show I could attend.

It took months of planning and waiting, but in the end, I was able to get the rabbits I wanted. Turns out, one of the breeders won both BOB and BOS at the national convention that year.

Yes, it was more expensive to get started, and transport isn't cheap either, but I have had no trouble selling my excess stock, and routinely receive 150.00 per untried, unproven, unshown and untested bunnies.

If I were going to get into vlops, I would contact the certificate holder. I have spoken with her numerous times, and she is very eager to get the breed distributed. Spring is coming, so lots of litters from most of the breeders shouldn't be too hard to secure.

I am already dealing, online, with a breeder who is doing a cross that I want a bunny out of. She doesn't even plan on breeding the rabbits until Feb, but she already knows that I would like a bunny from it. I'm willing to wait, because it's bloodlines I want. I expect I will pick it up at natl convention in Nov., probably along with a few others.

I'm not sure why you want the genetic diversity of so many different lines from so many breeders at this point. Vlops are such a new breed, and not even accepted yet, that the final standard isn't even there to breed towards. To me, at this point, its possible that every different breeder may be breeding towards different goals, which could cause all sorts of type, fur and ear issues if you went mixing them all up. IMO, it would be best to buy from the same breeder, maybe a trio from one litter and a trio from another litter, and work towards the same goal as they are.

 

[3mina]

With my Rex, I started with a trio from a local breeder. I was planning only for meat so I wasn't worried about much other than productivity. I've since started to show and I've got only two does from my meat herd left. They've been replaced by better stock. I got a breeding from 'the breeder to beat' at the last show so I'll be looking at most of those four kits very closely.

My Silver Fox trio consisted of a sibling pair and an unrelated doe. I'll be keeping a doe from each litter on the ground right now and I'm replacing one doe immediately. I don't keep biting animals

 

[akane]

Well we started out making mini rex x dutch petstore mutts and were talked in to breeding purebreds. We drove 3 hours in to Illinois to get a pair of chocolates, then drove 2 hours to southcentral Iowa for a broken blue and broken castor, then decided to add champagne d'argent and drove up to wisconsin where we got a trio of champagnes and a pair of blue MR. This took about a year to put together. Picked up a few random breeds and crosses here and there while breeding those 2 groups of purebreds and made some mutt genetic experiments destined for dog food. Found 1 not too bad of quality netherland dwarf doe at a family owned pet store and had someone traveling to a show about 5 hours south of here pick up 2 buck, 1 doe netherlands for us. Sold most everything to work with american sables that were mostly delivered to us when the guy was in the area. Decided last fall that the 30-40min drive to the stable we had them at was too much and dispersed everything but 2 pedigreed ND bucks and a couple mutt does I'm either selling or butchering now. Just picked up 2 ND does last week. I plan to find a chocolate doe at one of the nearby shows sometime this year and keep a buck offspring from the broken sable doe to make 3 bucks, 3 does for breeding.

 

[ckcs]

This is why I love to bounce my ideas off the group. It is very helpful. My main interest in a variety was for certain colors. I've seen some tri colors that I liked a lot. Chocolates and blues are always a favorite of mine.

 

[PSFAngoras]

I started with just one FA SA cross buck. I returned to the same breeder eventually when she rescued both an FA and an SA doe, and picked those both up. Unfortunately, she didn't know rabbit health issues as well as she did their coats, and both does were sick. In my early days, I used to take everything to the vet, so they both went on antibiotics (FA for a random respiratory infection, the SA for a urinary infection). The FA doe was found a new home (in the days before I culled) in case her mystery respiratory illness would randomly show up and kill her kits again (the home was informed of this and haven't had issues since) and the SA never had a litter after that that she didn't eat. She died last January.

The same breeder ended up selling out, and I bought all but two of the very last stock that she still had over the course if a few months. (Two FA REw does, one self blue chin buck). One of the REW does died, but i still have he daughter, and she is my best mother now.

I spent all last year looking for new stock. I ended up finding stock 5 hours away, and driving twice to pick up two separate does, but both turned crazy after their first litter weaned. One is in my freezer, the other is going to my friends that want to deal with her crazy if she'll throw any more VM kits. So I'm back to just my faithful REW doe and one, maybe two kits from the crazy does if their temperaments don't go down the drain.

So far, I have bred my rEw to her half brother (my FAxSA) and I'll be saving back every doe that is quality, I've never had any bad kits from this doe, though she's never been bred to this buck, but I could be keeping back nearly a whole litter if this works out! they'll be bred to the self chin buck and then I'll either breed those to a buck I've kept from the same doe or I'll be looking for a new buck.

Big plans for 2014!

 

[Dood]

My main interest in a variety was for certain colors

that is VERY easy to do if you start with the right colours

With lilac or lynx foundation you can get black, chocolate, blue and lilac in self and agouti colours after just 1 or 2 generations.

A tri is basically a broken harlequin which is in turn a broken fawn/red with one or two harlequin genes and a fawn is just an agouti black tort so any of these colours can contribute to a tri project.

 

[Peach]

I decided that the best rabbits don't cost any more to feed than the worst rabbits....

I'm not sure why you want the genetic diversity of so many different lines from so many breeders at this point. Vlops are such a new breed, and not even accepted yet, that the final standard isn't even there to breed towards. To me, at this point, its possible that every different breeder may be breeding towards different goals, which could cause all sorts of type, fur and ear issues if you went mixing them all up. IMO, it would be best to buy from the same breeder, maybe a trio from one litter and a trio from another litter, and work towards the same goal as they are.

:goodpost:

This is wonderful advice and I'm glad my mentor set me straight. I groan at the sight of my original stock, but glad they came and went rather quickly before I was put onto a proper path to take my herd. I had no idea about transporting, so naturally I went to a show and purchased the best stock I could find in my area that breeders would sell me. At the time, people were telling me Mini Lops were "out of style" so the quality in the surrounding area was ok, but nothing near the Mini Lops we put on the tables now. The pedigrees were all over the place and I couldn't get any consistency.

The best thing I did was stick with a bloodline and one person with the same bloodlines for the most part, just breeding them themselves. I tend to invest into herd bucks from what I'd consider "mother stock" (+250-$350 per rabbit) and then quality brood/show animals($200-$50)from the other breeder ("sister stock"? lol).Once you get all the rabbits you need to start though, you'll find yourself purchasing less and less. (at least it has been in my case)

Gain a good reputation, and you can ask decent prices for your stock and if you show your stuff can be consistent with you and others it will only help you more

Unfortunately, like mentioned above, the breed isn't accepted and unfortunately people are just breeding to their definition of the breed standard or people are just breeding them for the novelty/$$$ and slapping a pedigree on everything. I think the COD holder would be the best person to purchase from. I'm interested to see how the lionheads do now that it's accepted because I don't see consistency with the breed at all at this point. They seem different everywhere you go.

I do advise, careful with color projects until you really know type and how to get it consitant. This the tri and bew train is attractive, but should be met with caution. I wanted to do BEW Mini Lops so bad when I started them, and I stopped entertaining the idea after I quickly realized, it would be like painting the Mona Lisa without knowing anything about painting to being with.

 

[skysthelimit]

The Rex, Silver Fox and Jersey Woolies are all from the same breeder, and it's the reason why I have those three breeds. When her kids got out of 4H, I took the Jw and some SF or they would be meat.

I got the other half of the JWs from the lady that sold me the hollands.

What a wonderful thing, knowing what was already behind those lines. Fortunately the cross of JW lines had been very good to me. And that was two breeders I could trust, no reason to keep looking around.

For special colors, I found someone with longevity and a serious breed reputation.

The Angoras are a little bit trickier. There seems to be less FA breeders than Rex breeders, and I have had such poor success with does dying, even from different lines, that I prefer to mix and wait years down the road than to buy another Angora from this region. Poor stock is poor stock. <br /><br /> __________ Sun Jan 26, 2014 3:00 pm __________ <br /><br />

If I were going to get into vlops, I would contact the certificate holder. I have spoken with her numerous times, and she is very eager to get the breed distributed. Spring is coming, so lots of litters from most of the breeders shouldn't be too hard to secure.



I'm not sure why you want the genetic diversity of so many different lines from so many breeders at this point. Vlops are such a new breed, and not even accepted yet, that the final standard isn't even there to breed towards. To me, at this point, its possible that every different breeder may be breeding towards different goals, which could cause all sorts of type, fur and ear issues if you went mixing them all up. IMO, it would be best to buy from the same breeder, maybe a trio from one litter and a trio from another litter, and work towards the same goal as they are.

Genetic diversity is one of those things that people think they want, but really they don't. If you want consistent litters, you don't want genetic diversity.

Rex and fur breeds are a balancing act. It's hard enough to get consistent Rex fur in the original Rex breed. Rex is not a created breed, it's a genetic mutation, so there are still all kinds of normal furred recessive things floating around, then density and texture ride along with those recessives. Now crossed with another breed, and you are fighting the additive features of genetics. That what comes with genetic diversity.

Line breeding/inbreeding fixes traits, both good and bad, forces those recessives out in the open.

 

[TMTex]

I started out by buying pedigreed show stock and branching from there. Being able to see the farm and the rabbitry was nice. I got some good ideas from the breeder. My primary buck is a show winner. The does from that breeder were never shown (too young at the time), but they're from good stock.

I later bought one more show stock rabbit, but have bought/acquired meat class rabbits as of late. I'm proud of my originals, but the meat class are doing nicely too.