mini rex questions

[JessicaR]

I know people here have some mr's so help me out please :lol:

What are they like personality wise, I know temperments very individually but are they on a whole a friendly breed?

Are their certain colors you dont want to breed togather because you might get something funky looking?

Anything else I should know about them?

The reason I ask is; my son has decided he wants mini rexes to show at next years fair. Well it just so happens I had decided to downsize most of my lionheads and a girl from 4-h that is looking to start breeding lionheads and has 2 mini rexes she wants to trade for a couple of does. She has a 4 month old blue buck and a 3 month old black otter doe. My son likes them and wants to trade, which I told him was fine as long as he helps take care of them. He would also like to add a castor mr doe in the future, but would that color be ok to breed with a blue? I am still trying to learn and teach my son at the same time about the colors so please bear with me

 

[cedarrun]

They are known for their personality. Any rabbit can have a bad temperament it is up to you or any other breeder to keep the ones with the best attitudes for your breeding program. Blue and Black Otter can be a decent pair. Castor however is best bred to another Castor. If you bred a Castor to a Blue you will likely get a litter of all Castors. This is fine but they will not necessarily be a good show quality because the blue probably does not carry the right modifiers to make a good Castor. Castor can be a difficult variety for an inexperienced youth because they are judged so heavily on ring color. As far as the breed goes though, I do not have many problems with temperament as long as they are handled often.

 

[DevonW]

A good place to start to find out what you can and shouldn't cross colour wise for Mini Rex is:
http://mr-colors.tripod.com/

For showing I have a guide that covers what to look for and what to avoid in Mini Rex
http://www.devonglen.com/mreval.htm

Personalities for Mini Rex are generally very nice however like any breed there are exceptions. I've been lucky to have some real characters so I"m never bored with mine

As for advice I would give because Mini Rex are so popular and there is a lot of competition for them concentrate on getting decent type and fur before you start worrying about colour. Colour can be fixed in a generation or two bad shoulders is something that can haunt you for years.

 

[akane]

My most laid back rabbit was a mini rex. My most insane rabbit was a mini rex. They have every personality in existence. You just have to find a good breeder with well handled animals that have been at least partially bred for temperament. The basic self colors are the easiest. You can cross blue, black, chocolate, and lilac all you want without creating anything bad. Crossing the colors actually tends to make them richer and people often breed various colors back to black occasionally to help improve the depth of color. The agoutis are a little more difficult since chocolate based agouti is not accepted and if you cross some of the agoutis to certain things it can mess with the band color. If you want to breed castors it's best to get 2 good castors and breed them instead of crossing colors. If you want to get in to shadeds minnowlake has a good article on himi and sable point breeding http://www.minnowlakerabbits.bravehost.com/ . If breeding brokens it's best to look for lines that have thrown mostly well marked brokens. Breeding broken to broken gives you some charlies which have too much white and sometimes health issues so you want some solids that have well marked brokens in their background instead of just all brokens.

 

[ladysown]

my mini rex run the gambit of... "my favourite doe" to... "watch that one". Their temperaments vary, though most of mine are the calm, I can handle anything you through at me and come back looking for a pet on the nose. The "watch that one" doe is simply higher strung and will react to anything different that is going on around her --- not mean or nasty or bad temperamently just VERY observant.

My boys are all total love bugs and easy to handle and work with AND>>>> do NOT spray!

 

[akane]

My mini rex bucks all spray horribly. After having one in the house for a few months despite urine guards the wall on both sides from 2' above the cage and 6" wider than it was yellow. I spent hours scrubbing it. They also coat the door of the cages outside all the way to the top. My cages and the wall behind them got a lot cleaner when I kicked the mini rex bucks in to individual floor cages and put the champagne and mutt bucks in the stacked cages.

 

[KandEKnopp]

We have mini rexes also, and absolutely love the breed. Even the Sr. Are small enough for my daughter to handle comfortably. We have a little of everything in color. Tort, blk otter, blue, REW, choc, chinchilla, castor.
Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

 

[JessicaR]

thanks for all the info!

I am not really concerned about color but since my son said he wanted those two but also wanted a castor I was just thinking that blue and castor wouldnt mix well. My son doesnt plan on being too competative with showing he mostly wants them for pets, and since he is into baseball way more than anything else I dont want to start something he isnt going to finish. More than likely my 7 year old daughter will be the one that gets into showing rabbits. She already shows dogs at UKC and loves it. So we will just stick with the blue and the otter for now and if he shows to me that he is willing to stick with it and be invovled then maybe we will get him "good" mini rexes in the future.

 

[Cattle Cait]

I liked my Mini Rex a lot, and I know most breeders start with Mini Rex as their first breed like I did. They are quite easy to raise, fairly good mothers and breed easily. Make sure to start with quality stock, Mini Rex are the Labrador of the rabbit world and so many have been bred for pet quality or just because and because of this there are waaaay too many poor examples of the breed in the population.

They do spray a lot I've noticed. They aren't the nicest rabbits I've raised but they are fairly sweet tempered.

As for color, because Mini Rex are recognized in *nearly* every color there are some that you should keep from breeding together and as a beginner should stay away from entirely. Agouti varieties (Castor, Chinchilla, etc) and tri-colors in particular are difficult to get right. I suggest starting with Black, Blue, Chocolate, or Lilac, but Lilacs are very rare so you may not find them. The nice thing about these four is that they can be interbred together and except for occasional white spots they are near impossible to screw up.

Look for small examples of the breed, weight is usually an issue in this breed, as well as well furred footpads because they are quite succeptable to sore hocks.

 

[DevonW]

I've had a lot of Mini Rex over 10 years and I've never had a problem with them spraying... When I had Holland Lops and Jersey Woolies holy crow they sprayed everything!