Inbreeding and Line Breeding

[MrJacobTiffin]

I have been doing a lot of research. I heard Inbreeding and Line breeding is a normal thing in rabbits. Is this true?

 

[Nymphadora]

Breeding a doe to her sire or a buck to his dam seems to be widely accepted in rabbits, yes. This would be called line breeding. Inbreeding would be brother to sister, and while I've heard people mention it (rarely) I don't think it's nearly as widespread. I'm basing this off of numerous discussions that I've read on the subject, so hopefully a more experienced rabbit keeper will chime in as well.
opcorn:

 

[MrJacobTiffin]

Can you still have a pedigree doing that.

 

[Nymphadora]

Absolutely. Pedigrees in rabbits are very different than say, pedigrees for dogs or horses. Rabbits don't get "registered" like dogs do, and all you need for a pedigree is an accurate family tree for that rabbit, basically. I think it's 3 generations? Basically as long as you keep recording which rabbits came from which pairings, after a few rounds of breeding you'll have a pedigree. Just keep meticulous records.

That said, just because a rabbit has a pedigree does not mean it is purebred or even representative of a certain breed. For that, you need to make sure you start with quality stock and keep breeding in order to achieve and improve your lines within breed guidelines. If you were to record all your breedings for several generations but your original rabbits were mixes of some sort and the rabbits you have don't match any one breed's standards completely... they're still mutts. Which can be great if you're raising them for meat, just understand that "pedigree" does not mean "show quality". Look at the individual rabbits for that.

 

[akane]

Inbreeding means you did it wrong. Linebreeding means you made better rabbits. :lol: Even sibling breedings are done sometimes. Small animals overall handle related crosses quite well. It is often suggested new people start with a closely related trio like father and daughters or granddaughters because they will have similar genes and give you a more predictable result. When you cross completely unrelated lines in you can get some weird looking stuff from 2 great looking rabbits. The genes just don't line the parts up right. I saw it when I crossed my chocolate mini rex line to my blue mini rex line. Often this can be weeded back out and your 2nd or 3rd generation will look a lot better as you pick the ones that combine well. This is one reason breeders don't like to mess with an established line or to start beginners with unrelated rabbits. You are likely to get less show quality or other goals from unrelated rabbits due to the unpredictable results. Think of it as less extreme than crossing dog breeds. You get some like the mother, some like the father, some unique nice looking ones, and some that are "what the hell is that?" as they have oddly mixed parts from either breed. Until you know what they should look like and find what breeds well in your rabbits you don't want to be figuring out the "what the hell?" results or even the mostly like one parent except that odd shoulder/hindquarter/head/whatever...

Now you most certainly can go the other way with a good line if you do not remove the low quality rabbits from your lines. Without learning to recognize what you want and get help from other breeders or the show table you can end up crossing rabbits that have the same problem genes and your whole line now has crappy shoulders or whatever. Long shoulders or body were what I ended up dealing with the most around here. You can also get stuck where all your rabbits have the same problem and progress of breeding the best ones you've got together is going to be slow so you do want to bring in something that can improve the problem. However, people still often return to the same breeder for rabbits from the same bloodline that are an improvement or a breeder with some of the same bloodline in theirs who has already successfully made good crosses of the lines to reduce those surprises again. This applies to illnesses as well. Generally rabbit breeders are very aggressive about removing ill rabbits from their herd and often only to be killed so weak genes that cause a susceptible immune system to an illness are not spread in any part of the rabbit hobby. Ignoring illnesses or even worse treating them with antibiotics, with a few exceptions such as vent disease or a wound, will lead to a steadily weakening line of rabbits that eventually are at risk of dying to and spreading illnesses around.

 

[Zass]

So far, I have see repeat names on at least 3 or 4 purebred pedigrees for rabbits I've purchased.