I need advice from the elders... Waste months or get a buck ASAP?

[Naelin]

Hello!
I started breeding meat rabbits 6 months ago, we are on our 3rd successful processed litter.
Unfortunately, we lost our wonderful buck to pasteurella, and his potential replacement as well. We just finished the "summer break" for the does and we're left with one little buck that is 12 weeks old and is not managing to get the job done yet, and we have our eyes on a tricolor satin rex buck that is just 7 weeks old and should come home around February.

I don't think our 12w buck will be able to perform for quite a while, he tried a couple of times with a doe that wasn't lifting fast enough and then stopped trying.
Unless we get a more mature buck asap, we're looking at 3-4 months lost without any production. I don't have a car and I live int he city, so that restricts our possibilities for picking animals. I saw a buck online that is 5 months old and is somewhat close to what I was looking for in the other rex (magpie harlequin, but not broken nor recessive brown).

If you were in my position, what would you do?
-Lose the months, wait for the 12w old buck to mature enough to give some litters and get the 7w old rex
-Get the magpie 5 month old buck to breed asap, get rid of homegrown 12w old, get tricolor rex while we keep producing with the magpie.
-Something else entirely

I'd appreciate your insight a lot, thanks in advance!

 

[tambayo]

How many does do you have, how are they related? How is the 12wk buck related and what breeding system are you working from?
Fresh genetics have their use, so depending on room and breeding system i'd look into getting what bucks you can. Your does are in many ways more important, they are the ones that need to raise the kits, bucks just do the fun part.

 

[Naelin]

How many does do you have, how are they related? How is the 12wk buck related and what breeding system are you working from?
Fresh genetics have their use, so depending on room and breeding system i'd look into getting what bucks you can. Your does are in many ways more important, they are the ones that need to raise the kits, bucks just do the fun part.

My two does are 100% unrelated to each other. One californian and one Fauve de Bourgogne from different breeders. They live in separate hutches, the buck lived in a pen with the growouts. I bred every three months.

The young buck is the son of the Fauve de Bourgogne doe, I also have a little doe from his same litter. We don't have a bunch of room for adults (4 hutches total, one is connected to the pen), but we can manage to lose either the buck or the doe from that litter (we just want to get one litter or two from either one)

I only have my eyes on a rex because we decided we prefer to breed multiple colours as I'm also keeping the pelts. Medium-term the californian is probably going away but we're keeping her for the moment.

 

[tambayo]

So if you get the 2 bucks you'll have 2 bloodlines you can keep seperate for now. The one doe with daughter you can keep and breed with the same buck, breed some rex carriers (recessive gene so needs one from both parents) with the cali if you want to replace her anyway longer term.
I´d take out the 12wk buck when you have a replacement (5mnth or 7 wk no matter) so you have 3 does, 2 of them proven and unrelated bucks for each line.

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hello!
I started breeding meat rabbits 6 months ago, we are on our 3rd successful processed litter.
Unfortunately, we lost our wonderful buck to pasteurella, and his potential replacement as well. We just finished the "summer break" for the does and we're left with one little buck that is 12 weeks old and is not managing to get the job done yet, and we have our eyes on a tricolor satin rex buck that is just 7 weeks old and should come home around February.

I don't think our 12w buck will be able to perform for quite a while, he tried a couple of times with a doe that wasn't lifting fast enough and then stopped trying.
Unless we get a more mature buck asap, we're looking at 3-4 months lost without any production. I don't have a car and I live int he city, so that restricts our possibilities for picking animals. I saw a buck online that is 5 months old and is somewhat close to what I was looking for in the other rex (magpie harlequin, but not broken nor recessive brown).

If you were in my position, what would you do?
-Lose the months, wait for the 12w old buck to mature enough to give some litters and get the 7w old rex
-Get the magpie 5 month old buck to breed asap, get rid of homegrown 12w old, get tricolor rex while we keep producing with the magpie.
-Something else entirely

I'd appreciate your insight a lot, thanks in advance!

Your 12-week-old might figure things out pretty quickly; if it was me, I'd let him keep trying every few days, but I'd also begin to arrange to buy the 5-month-old magpie buck if he has good meat type. If you're breeding for meat, make some rabbits. I've found that it's best to keep does in production, too, since if they are left unoccupied for too long they can get fat and/or otherwise less interested in breeding.

If you've got two does, the magpie can possibly produce up to four litters while you wait for your first-pick tricolor to mature. If you're wanting an assortment of pelt colors, a magpie will bring not only harlequin but also chinchilla into your herd (and it's hard to say for sure that a rabbit doesn't carry chocolate or any other recessive allele, as those can hide for many generations). When the little tricolor matures, you can add the broken allele through him. Once the tri is mature and the magpie is proven, you may be able to sell the magpie since it sounds like there are not a lot of rabbits available in your area.

Because you started out with rabbits of different breeds, if it was me I wouldn't worry at all about inbreeding unless you see some problems in the kits (which will indicate that your stock is carrying some undesirable genetics that have little or nothing to do with inbreeding). I've been linebreeding for years; as long as you don't keep or breed rabbits with problems or that produce kits with problems, you should be fine for a long time. In fact, every time you bring new blood into your herd you also bring in the potential for new problems, which can be genetic, health or behavioral.

But what I would be cautious about is keeping any offspring from the buck that died of pasteurella. Strong immune systems are heritable, and as a rule I weed out offspring of animals that actually die from disease. Some of his offspring might be just fine, but it's something to think about. As @tambayo points out, your does are very important as they are the ones doing the raising of the bunnies, so if you have does with good mothering skills, I'd go out of my way to keep them. However, many breeders suggest that you pick the best buck you can find, since usually breeders use one buck with multiple does, which means his genetic material has a relatively larger affect on the future performance of your herd.

P.S. Your post heading seeking advice from "elders" made me smile. I started raising rabbits at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the last century... since we're now a full quarter of the way through the current century, I guess that makes me an elder.

 

[Naelin]

Your 12-week-old might figure things out pretty quickly; if it was me, I'd let him keep trying every few days, but I'd also begin to arrange to buy the 5-month-old magpie buck if he has good meat type. If you're breeding for meat, make some rabbits. I've found that it's best to keep does in production, too, since if they are left unoccupied for too long they can get fat and/or otherwise less interested in breeding.

If you've got two does, the magpie can possibly produce up to four litters while you wait for your first-pick tricolor to mature. If you're wanting an assortment of pelt colors, a magpie will bring not only harlequin but also chinchilla into your herd (and it's hard to say for sure that a rabbit doesn't carry chocolate or any other recessive allele, as those can hide for many generations). When the little tricolor matures, you can add the broken allele through him. Once the tri is mature and the magpie is proven, you may be able to sell the magpie since it sounds like there are not a lot of rabbits available in your area.

Because you started out with rabbits of different breeds, if it was me I wouldn't worry at all about inbreeding unless you see some problems in the kits (which will indicate that your stock is carrying some undesirable genetics that have little or nothing to do with inbreeding). I've been linebreeding for years; as long as you don't keep or breed rabbits with problems or that produce kits with problems, you should be fine for a long time. In fact, every time you bring new blood into your herd you also bring in the potential for new problems, which can be genetic, health or behavioral.

But what I would be cautious about is keeping any offspring from the buck that died of pasteurella. Strong immune systems are heritable, and as a rule I weed out offspring of animals that actually die from disease. Some of his offspring might be just fine, but it's something to think about. As @tambayo points out, your does are very important as they are the ones doing the raising of the bunnies, so if you have does with good mothering skills, I'd go out of my way to keep them. However, many breeders suggest that you pick the best buck you can find, since usually breeders use one buck with multiple does, which means his genetic material has a relatively larger affect on the future performance of your herd.

P.S. Your post heading seeking advice from "elders" made me smile. I started raising rabbits at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the last century... since we're now a full quarter of the way through the current century, I guess that makes me an elder.

Thanks a lot for your super detailed response, Alaska!
You put in writing a lot of what we were thinking about but couldn't decide. I got details that the magpie is a meat mutt, actually 12 months old and very much proven. It seems the owner had to sell her entire herd due to her baby's allergies.
We will definitely be keeping the magpie until the rex is proven as well and selling him afterwards. Hopefully we can pick up the magpie today.
My Cali is EsE and the Fauve is ee, so we have a lot to play with for the E locus

You make a very good point that I didn't consider about the buck with Pasteurella. He didn't actually die of it, he got it, got better and we tried giving him a chance but then he got it again plus a skin condition so we decided to cull him. Maybe he could have resisted it but it would have been a huge risk for our does. Two diseases in such a short time does raise an alarm about his offspring, though.

My does are great mothers, though the cali's offspring are all very skittish. It's a shame we lost the buck as he had an excellent temperament and was also great with the growouts.

40-something years of bunny husbandry definitely makes you an elder in my books

 

[Alaska Satin]

Thanks a lot for your super detailed response, Alaska!
You put in writing a lot of what we were thinking about but couldn't decide. I got details that the magpie is a meat mutt, actually 12 months old and very much proven. It seems the owner had to sell her entire herd due to her baby's allergies.
We will definitely be keeping the magpie until the rex is proven as well and selling him afterwards. Hopefully we can pick up the magpie today.
My Cali is EsE and the Fauve is ee, so we have a lot to play with for the E locus

You make a very good point that I didn't consider about the buck with Pasteurella. He didn't actually die of it, he got it, got better and we tried giving him a chance but then he got it again plus a skin condition so we decided to cull him. Maybe he could have resisted it but it would have been a huge risk for our does. Two diseases in such a short time does raise an alarm about his offspring, though.

My does are great mothers, though the cali's offspring are all very skittish. It's a shame we lost the buck as he had an excellent temperament and was also great with the growouts.

40-something years of bunny husbandry definitely makes you an elder in my books

That's very interesting to hear your Cal is E(S)E. I have been talking to quite a few older breeders of Californians and Silver Fox that specifically include steel in their lines; they say it seems to darken and deepen the points and the undercolor. I'm playing around with it in my self black Satins right now and there seems to be something to it.

I feel like I should mention that I don't actually have 40 years of rabbit-raising behind me. I raised Satins, Californians, French Lops and Harlequins in the 1970s-80s in Southern California; I took time off while I was traveling around working as a wildlife biologist and moving every 6 months or so; within a few years of settling in Alaska in 2000, I got rabbits again and have raised numerous breeds here. So it's more like 25-30 years total. But I won't argue about the fact that I am getting old.