Rex vs American Chinchilla - Any thoughts on which is better?

[BuffBrahmaBantam]

We bought rex rabbits this spring. We are wondering about getting another doe/buck pair and thinking of other breeds. Has anyone had rex and american chinchilla and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the two breeds? We want a good meat rabbit. We also like calm and docile animals, which is why american chinchillas caught our attention. We read they have good temperaments. How do the breeds compare in temperament, litter size, and weight gain from others' experience?

We'd be especially interested in hearing from people who don't rely exclusively on pellets. Our rabbits are on about 90% pasture diet right now with some grain and pellet supplementation/treat in the evening and doing well. They will transition to more pellets in winter.

 

[rockyhillrabbits]

I don't know about American Chinchillas, but I had Giant Chinchillas for a little while and LOVED how calm and sweet they were. I wasn't able to breed them because one of the "does" ended up being a buck lol. I raise standard Rex and seems the normal litter size for most of my does I've had have been about 6 kits. Most of my does were great moms. Temperament-wise, Rex seem to be pretty calm. I think it depends on how often they are handled. I have some that weren't handled much by previous owner but now they are much better about being picked up. One thing about Rex, they do grow slower. I have 11 week old grow outs that I bet don't even weigh 5 lbs yet, but they don't eat as much in the heat, or could be those genetics.

The best meat rabbit I ever had was when I bred a New Zealand buck to my Flemish Giant does. The babies were 5lbs by 9 weeks old, super sweet temperaments, easy to handle, lean meat, excellent meat-bone ratio.

 

[route66rabbits]

We raise Silverfox/Flemish cross, our buck Bugs is like 10+ lbs and he is the sweetest thing. NOW the does from this cross tend to be really protective with their kits. We usually process this kind about 4 months old and they are an average of 5lbs. We feed them #1 alfalfa and pellets. They are full of meat and almost no fat. The meat is really tender too.

We also just started raising Tamuk here in Arizona they supposed to be heat tolerance and I believe so since they got breed in June and we just have 2 litters The does are so docile that we were able to move the babies with no problem and pet the moms as well. They are not as big as we thought they could be. BUT now we can find out how fast they grow and compare the meat between breeds.