Removing sore hocks from a line

[Naelin]

Hello!
I have recently started a colony of standard satin rexes with a trio. Standard rexes are very hard to find in my country, and I've got what I could get - There is no shopping around for the best breeding stock here.
Today, I noticed one of the does has the start of sore hocks on her front paws (she has some bald spots, almost like toebeans), despite being mostly on solid floor. Of course, I want to remove this trait from the line, but I will have to start with what I have. These rabbits have very, VERY narrow feet, which I read contributes to it, and this doe is related to the buck, so he probably carries the same traits.

Of course, I cannot wait for every single kit to reach adult size to see which one gets sore hocks. Even worse, these rabbits are quite small so I intended to work on size and form as well, which would exacerbate the issue if I'm not careful.
What characteristics would you seek in the kits to choose the next breeders? Wider feet, thicker fur? anything else?

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hello!
I have recently started a colony of standard satin rexes with a trio. Standard rexes are very hard to find in my country, and I've got what I could get - There is no shopping around for the best breeding stock here.
Today, I noticed one of the does has the start of sore hocks on her front paws (she has some bald spots, almost like toebeans), despite being mostly on solid floor. Of course, I want to remove this trait from the line, but I will have to start with what I have. These rabbits have very, VERY narrow feet, which I read contributes to it, and this doe is related to the buck, so he probably carries the same traits.

Of course, I cannot wait for every single kit to reach adult size to see which one gets sore hocks. Even worse, these rabbits are quite small so I intended to work on size and form as well, which would exacerbate the issue if I'm not careful.
What characteristics would you seek in the kits to choose the next breeders? Wider feet, thicker fur? anything else?

It sounds like you're operating in an environment similar to mine: not a lot of options for most breeds in Alaska, and prohibitively expensive to bring them in. I would (and have, actually) consider crossbreeding, to bring some new characteristics into the Rex line. Don't necessarily cross everything you have, but a judicious pairing with a rabbit with excellent feet and footpads might go a long way to improving things, for you, your rabbits, and for everyone down the line who wants to raise Rex.

I'd start with the doe that's having problems right now; I would cross her with a robust buck of another breed. If the Rex buck is a relative, he may or may not have the same tendency, but as you note, that pairing could result in increasing the problem, or even setting it in your herd. Pick the sturdiest buck you have (of any large breed). Perhaps the Fauve de Bourgogne buck? I have never seen that breed, but if he's big and has well-furred feet, he might be helpful. A Californian buck could work, too, and might be a boon in terms of size and type; at least in the US, Cals and Rex are supposed to be about the same size (roughly 8-10.5lbs, depending on sex). I'm sure you know that it's possible to get back to seeing rex fur in the F3 generation, but if it was me, I'd play the long game and really work to build up the size, type and health of the Rexes any way I could, even if it took several generations. My impression is that you're raising meat rabbits, anyway.

I'm having great results with my Champagnes, which when I got them, developed sore hocks 100% of the time. I've crossed them to my Satins and New Zealands, and not only has the sore hock issue disappeared (at least for now), but their type has improved as well. (I'm also helping develop the new St Hubert breed, since the colors of the kits that result from a NZRed x Champagne cross work that way.) Originally - in the 1990s - I used a Californian doe to improve my Satins; all it took was one Cal doe, and I'm still seeing the incredible muscle tone and width of loin - which is what I selected her for - in her Satin descendants.

But yes, in the purebred Rex kits, I'd select growouts with widest feet and densest fur. I'd also prioritize width in the hindquarters, since a pinched or narrow foot set can increase the tendency to develop sore hocks. (Narrow chest/pigeon breast can also affect the front feet the same way.) Flip the bunnies over, and once they're relaxed, look at how parallel and widely set the back feet are.

You're looking for this, or as close as you can get:

I'd consider this a bit narrow, but not pinched:

 

[Mckatie]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts ,knowledge and pics @Alaska Satin . I really seeing like the photos to help clarify.

 

[Naelin]

Thanks a lot @Alaska Satin !

Unfortunately, my Fauve buck died a while ago due to a pasteurella breakout and I later discovered that he was a genetic mess (and probably caused the outbreak) - The last kit I kept from his descendants died of just about everything (I made a post about her I think).
My Fauve doe, however, is alive, well and the best of my rabbits, and her feet are wide and very dense. I am quite sure she has some Flemish Giant blood going on her, but her kits dress out very nicely anyway.

All that said, the only almost-adult buck we have at the moment is the rex doe's brother, who has more well-furred feet but has pinched hips and is very small (He's still not at his adult size, but his sister is 11 months old and she's 2.5kg/5.5lbs, while my cali is 4.2kg/9.2lbs. All "Standard" rexes here are this size).

I have two male kits from my Fauve girl crossed with a meat mutt of nice shape and size (and colour genes), and my Californian doe is due next week from this same buck, though she has small litters and they come out very skittish (And she is already on her third strike)
I will pick up whichever male has the best characteristics from those two litters, which will probably be from the Cali (Though it gives me pause to keep a breeder from a doe that pops out 3-5 live skittish babies per kindle, when Jupiter gives me 7-8 bundles of love) and start building from there.
The rex doe that currently has healthy feet is also the one with the best shape, so that's good.

I originally planned on keeping the rex line "pure" thinking I would ruin something if I cross them, but in reality they came with no pedigree and are quite far from the actual rex standard. Your recommendation about crossing them with a better rabbit made me rethink it and will probably be the best way to actually get them to said standard (And give some colours, as all rexes I've seen around are tricolors, including mine)

I will note here, regarding raising for meat, that I got the rexes with the intention of selling to make up for the expenses (that's why I went for a somewhat rare breed with pretty colours) and slowly build the breed up while my fauve girl keeps giving me the bulk of the meat. I will probably resort to use one of the two rex does to breed to the rex buck for selling while I go into the improvement project with the other until I get to F4 at least. Any opinions on this are welcome.

Attached are pictures of the trio, to illustrate what I'm working with (The tricolor tuxedo pattern is called Jaguar here and seems quite sought after)

 

[kusanar314]

So, with what you just said, I would breed the rex to your Fauve girl AND the rex does, get some half rex big rabbits from the fauve, then sell most of the pure rexes, keeping maybe the biggest / fastest growing buck with the widest feet and maybe the best doe (same standards) out of the pures. Then you can cross your rex buck back into the half rexes and get hopefully better "pure" rexes (in terms of the coat being correct anyway).

Then once you have crossed the mixes back into rex long enough to get the Fauve doe off the pedigrees then you will have "pure" and pedigreed rex from that line as well to be able to sell.

 

[Alaska Satin]

All that said, the only almost-adult buck we have at the moment is the rex doe's brother, who has more well-furred feet but has pinched hips and is very small (He's still not at his adult size, but his sister is 11 months old and she's 2.5kg/5.5lbs, while my cali is 4.2kg/9.2lbs. All "Standard" rexes here are this size).

Attached are pictures of the trio, to illustrate what I'm working with (The tricolor tuxedo pattern is called Jaguar here and seems quite sought after)

So, with what you just said, I would breed the rex to your Fauve girl AND the rex does, get some half rex big rabbits from the fauve, then sell most of the pure rexes,

Your Rexes are very pretty - I also like the tuxedo "jaguar," although it would not be considered show quality here - and they have beautiful color and separation of spots. But... I'd be very hesitant to use nothing but tris in a program designed to produce bunnies for sale. Tricolors are broken harlequins, and breeding brokens together can result in some serious health problems in the kits. Statistically about 25% of the kits will be "charlies," kits that have two copies of the broken gene and relatively little color.

Many breeders, myself included, only breed broken x solid, to prevent this possibility. Charlies are cute, but they commonly have a tendency to develop megacolon. That is a sad disease, frequently connected to having two copies of the broken allele <EnEn>, that can show up anywhere from a few months to several years of age. The point of avoiding breedings that will result in charlies is that not only do I not wish to breed unhealthy rabbits, but I especially do not want to sell someone an apparently healthy rabbit that can become very sick after a time. It is usually fairly easy to spot charlies, and should be especially so in a line of Rex that seem to run to the heavily-marked end of the spectrum. (Charlies are pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum, if you're hoping to produce more jaguars.)

However, the first rabbit pictured (darling!), given what you say about all the rexes around being tricolors, would make me wonder. Its dam is apparently a broken; do you know whether its sire was, too? If so, I'd watch that rabbit closely for gut/elimination issues, things like irregularly-sized poops, intermittent appetite loss, etc. If it is a charlie, and you breed it, all of its kits will be brokens; this will be true whether you breed it with a solid or another broken. That's the nice thing about a healthy charlie - you only need the one to produce all broken-colored kits (if that's what you want).

Sometimes identifying charlies can be a bit confusing; a genetic charlie can be fairly well-marked, while you can mistake a normal broken for a charlie, because some brokens are just lightly marked without being genetic charlies. The young Satin buck pictured below looks like, but was NOT a genetic charlie; he was faulted on the show table for being one (at the time, the ARBA Satin breed standard did not have a DQ for the charlie pattern). He became a Grand Champion, he sired many other Grand Champions, and lived a healthy life till at least the age of eight (not sure just how much longer he lived, since I eventually sold him).


I think that this is yet another reason to do some crossbreeding with your Rex (especially if you can't find a solid colored Rex - one of either sex would do). If you breed your tri Rex buck with your Fauve doe, you should get some harlequin and/or tri babies out of that, which, although they probably won't have rex coats, should be attractive to buyers that like those patterns (and will all carry the allele for rex).

If it was me and I did breed the tris together, I'd be prepared to cull any kit with less than 10-20% color on its body, especially any kit with a reduced or no spine marking. I would grow them to butcher weight for my own use (although, if they have early megacolon issues, they won't grow well anyway), but I would not let them go beyond that, and I certainly wouldn't plan on being able to sell them.

So, either way you go, you may not have too many marketable bunnies in the first round of breeding. You'll probably either get all normal coats (in the crossbred kits) or some rex-coated charlies (in the purebreds). To be sure, in the tri x tri litter(s) you'll most likely get some solid or broken Rex that you can ethically sell, and you could keep the best solid kit(s) for breeding. But if you breed the crossbreeds with each other, or back to the Rex, you should start seeing rex coats coming out in roughly 50% of the kits in the F3 generation.

 

[Naelin]

I'd be very hesitant to use nothing but tris in a program designed to produce bunnies for sale.

There is almost nothing but tris here I tried to get my hands on a broken chestnut but couldn't, and I've never found solid ones for sale.

I believe the lighter girl is a false Charlie. Of course I'm not 100% sure as she had no litters yet but her face and dorsal marks seem more on that side. I will have to wait and see. Her dam is actually a broken black self, the other rabbit in the picture is a sister. I could never confirm who her sire is, but the breeder has a satin tricolor Charlie that I am pretty sure sired them all (this little one is supposedly unrelated to the others... but the mom is not satin and she is... there seem to be a lot of bad inbreeding going on here)
I will follow your advice to cull any Charlie's heavily, one way or the other.
For the "pure line" I will try to replace one of the three immediately with the best of the solid kits to avoid any charlies. Of course, "Immediately" still means 6 months from now...

I have been doing some bunny charting and I have a lot to think about (and sort out the logistics of, I don't have a lot of housing space).
Though the Fauve has the best feet, litters and temperament, the Cali (which I was planning to sell) will probably be the best here as she has commercial shape (the fauve doesn't, she's long like a flemish giant) and carries ch and E genes which would get me some extra colours that rexes here don't have. She's due this week with a litter that will also have either chd or chl.
Most important of all... I checked all of them... the Cali has the least pinched hips of all 5, which is not to say that her feet are perfectly aligned either

I'm willing to play the long game and use both the cali and the fauve to get the best traits of both before replacing the current rex buck with a better one. I will have to do a ton of heavy culling, clearly, but seeing what the other breeders have to offer, anything that eventually gets me to a properly shaped, coloured and furred rex gets me light years ahead of the current market. Add a pedigree on top of that and, I kid you not, I would be the only person offering that in the market, rex or otherwise.

 

[Alaska Satin]

There is almost nothing but tris here I tried to get my hands on a broken chestnut but couldn't, and I've never found solid ones for sale.

Yeah, the broken chestnut would have added color, but you'd still have had the charlie problem.

I believe the lighter girl is a false Charlie. Of course I'm not 100% sure as she had no litters yet but her face and dorsal marks seem more on that side. I will have to wait and see. Her dam is actually a broken black self, the other rabbit in the picture is a sister. I could never confirm who her sire is, but the breeder has a satin tricolor Charlie that I am pretty sure sired them all (this little one is supposedly unrelated to the others... but the mom is not satin and she is... there seem to be a lot of bad inbreeding going on here)

If her dam was broken black and her sire was tri, she could easily be a charlie, but you're right, you'll know when you breed her. The good news is that at the very least she carries a self <a>, which can mix things up down the road, as far as getting different colors and patterns.

If all the Rex around are tricolor and broken self, the tris may all be homozygous for self <aa> and homozygous for harlequin <e(j)e(j)>. But it there's a broken castor out there too, chances are good you'll find that some or all of your tris are agouti-based <A_>, in which case they may also carry non-extension <e>.

Satin alleles will mess with your rex coats. Since both coat types come from recessive alleles (but on different loci), it will be difficult to know which carries satin (or rex) after the F2 generation. A satinized rex can be beautiful, but it will not look or feel like a standard Rex, so be prepared for one of those to pop out unexpectedly.

I have been doing some bunny charting and I have a lot to think about (and sort out the logistics of, I don't have a lot of housing space).
Though the Fauve has the best feet, litters and temperament, the Cali (which I was planning to sell) will probably be the best here as she has commercial shape (the fauve doesn't, she's long like a flemish giant) and carries ch and E genes which would get me some extra colours that rexes here don't have. She's due this week with a litter that will also have either chd or chl.
Most important of all... I checked all of them... the Cali has the least pinched hips of all 5, which is not to say that her feet are perfectly aligned either

I'm willing to play the long game and use both the cali and the fauve to get the best traits of both before replacing the current rex buck with a better one. I will have to do a ton of heavy culling, clearly, but seeing what the other breeders have to offer, anything that eventually gets me to a properly shaped, coloured and furred rex gets me light years ahead of the current market. Add a pedigree on top of that and, I kid you not, I would be the only person offering that in the market, rex or otherwise.

Sounds like a good plan!

 

[Naelin]

Satin alleles will mess with your rex coats. Since both coat types come from recessive alleles (but on different loci), it will be difficult to know which carries satin (or rex) after the F2 generation. A satinized rex can be beautiful, but it will not look or feel like a standard Rex, so be prepared for one of those to pop out unexpectedly.

Huh, could you explain more about this?

All three of those rabbits look like what I've read/seen satin looking like - the colour looks different depending on the direction of the light, they shimmer and if you pet the fur "the wrong way" it will look much darker/with more depth of colour.
They (well, specifically the male) were sold to me as satin/satinized rexes, but those are the first rexes I touch so I have no idea what they are supposed to feel like. I can say without the shadow of a doubt that the fur is rex in the sense it's all the same lenght, there are no shirt guard hairs and it's very dense.

 

[kusanar314]

Huh, could you explain more about this?

All three of those rabbits look like what I've read/seen satin looking like - the colour looks different depending on the direction of the light, they shimmer and if you pet the fur "the wrong way" it will look much darker/with more depth of colour.
They (well, specifically the male) were sold to me as satin/satinized rexes, but those are the first rexes I touch so I have no idea what they are supposed to feel like. I can say without the shadow of a doubt that the fur is rex in the sense it's all the same lenght, there are no shirt guard hairs and it's very dense.

If you google "Reza rabbit" you'll find rabbits that have both rex and satin. That's the name for rabbits having both recessives showing at once.

If they were sold to you as satinized rexes and you say they shimmer, they probably are actually satin but that means they aren't true rex (because they wouldn't have the satin recessives)