Other heritable traits

[3mina]

Colour is tons of funs to play with as we all know but I'm starting to look past colour to the other heritable traits. Milk production, fecundity, size, health, and growth rate are the major ones I'm eying. I know these aren't as easily inherited as colour and are going to be a much longer term project than the colours. The size issue I tackled last year when I bought my broken chocolate buck who weighs in at about ten pounds now, he seems to be throwing nice sizes so far Case in point, I have two 10 week bucks, both 5 lb and with nice bodies.

One is a Cal from a doe I'm culling for small litters and the other is an opal from my castor 'super doe' who gave me the litter of 16. I hadn't pulled the opal out before today and I'd pulled the Cal out a couple of days ago.

At that time I really liked the Cal but as I looked the opal over and thought about who came from where the Cal has really faded in my eye. I was thinking very hard about keeping him but why would I keep a buck whose dam only lasted a season in my barn?

Now, an opal into the colours that make up most of my herd is going to give me a ton of unshowable colours I believe but I think I'm willing to risk it to get a better producing herd in the long run.

In fact, I'm kind of kicking myself for not keeping a very nice tort buck I got this spring. He was easily the nicest rabbit I produced this year.
I did keep his red sister though and she is definitely the nicest doe so far this year.

So I'd be happy if you guys could pick apart my plan here, along with adding suggestions for other traits to possibly add in.

 

[RustyPocket]

Even though I am mostly into breeding for colours, I guess the only more important this should be health and temperament (well, two most important things ). If you are breeding for meat, yes, litter sizes matter, but it would be at the end of my list, I'd rather have 3-4 good big rabbith then 10+ weaker ones. We have a purebreed Cali doe that is as vicious as a rabid chihuahua, but she has 8-9 kits every time and takes great care of them, even though she isn't looking her best, she doesn't fullify her breeds standards. The reason of saying this is that you feel bad about not leaving your tort bucks, we originally wanted to cull Cali, but now we're glad we didn't. We eventually kept two of her daughtersas breeding does, one of which let half of her litter die and the other one had first litter of two, and let's say that the only survivor of her second litter of 8 was one kit. Both of them from a marvelous mother. So, yes, breeding for the characteristics you are aiming for will take a lot of time and effort, but I believe it eventually pays off.

 

[3mina]

It's not that I feel badly for not keeping the tort, more of a 'what if I had?' feeling. I kept his red sister and I repeated the breeding. I kept a black doe from that litter so I still have the genes.

I need to learn to keep does, unfortunately all the rabbits that catch my eye are bucks so I'm going to have to separate THEN look

 

[RustyPocket]

I need to learn to keep does, unfortunately all the rabbits that catch my eye are bucks so I'm going to have to separate THEN look

Seems it happeneds to everyone. Whatever rabbit I start thinking about keeping in hope is either a buck or a doe, it turns out it's always the opposite sex.

 

[Dood]

When choosing breeders for fertility, mothering and growth traits you need to look at how the parents, aunts/uncles, siblings and cousins do in these areas.

Sometimes there are flukes who have the genetics but just aren't meeting the standards of their relatives and often environmental factors are responsible for this, so a poor producing doe from a bloodline of TERRIFFIC producers might have amazing sons and daughters. I had such a doe - she was a dud in the fertility department, I suspect due to excess internal fat, BUT I kept back a fast growing daughter who turned out to be my second best female and is now surpassing her aunt who is the "star" of my rabbitry. A second keep back from this girl is also doing very well.

Selecting for these other traits is what makes breeding animals more of an art than a science.

I would keep the buck with the relatives who have the traits you are looking for which sounds like the opal

 

[3mina]

That is what I did since the line the Cal buck was from wasn't nearly as productive, I also culled his dam and granddam the same day, I needed their cages.

Every time I take that opal boy out I like him more, I'm looking forward to seeing how he grows up. He doesn't have perfect conformation but it's workable and I've got some pretty good does without his faults.