What breeds for meat AND pet?

[Notewood Acres]

Silver fox are popular where I live in the south eastern USA. Chinchilla and New Zealand too. Chinchilla have amazing pelts but the one I had became aggressive and bit people so I never got any more.

I like the standard rex. I did tawing (soap tanning) on 5 pelts so far. The fur feels good. I just need to smoke them to finish. I'm kind of a noob though. None of the rabbits have bitten me or the family. Their personalities are calm. I have sold a few as pets. Mostly to teenage girls. Here they love the extra soft plush fur. All the ones I sold as pets have been broken patterned like a paint horse. That may be a regional thing not sure as paint horses are super popular here and associated with a love of romantic Native American stuff. I am doing otter rexes now though. I hope they sell as well but haven't tried yet.

The ones I have full grown have been 9-8 lbs with the ladies being bigger than the males. I think people interbreed them with minis sometimes. Pet people seem to prefer a smaller bunny. Meat wise for me 12-16 weeks to get 5.5 lbs. 5 lbs live = 3.2 ish dressed like a store chicken for me. 1 rabbit feeds my family of 4. Meat is pretty good. Serious meat rabbit people here get better numbers out of their herd. I am just a casual backyard mom breeder. My kids love to play with them.

Question tho? Is harlequin rabbit a breed? I thought it was just a coat pattern like tortoise but more chequered-ish? I'm really curious as people sell them for slightly more $.

There aren't a lot of silver fox breeders here unfortunately! I think I may try Mini Satins, as I'd be selling as meat or pet rabbits but I'm too weak-stomached to butcher myself so likely wouldn't keep any meat myself. They have a lot of colors and there are a few breeders around here. and I can easily change my mind haha

 

[Mckatie]

I believe it's both. Pls, correct me if I'm wrong.

It is both. The issue with the harlequin patterned/coloured rex is. 1)when it comes to judging. 2)confusion over breed verses colour pattern. 3) what to call it. I heard some wanted to tag it as "Brindle" . I don't feel like that is always accurate though.

 

[Notewood Acres]

Update! So for now I've decided to go with Mini Rexes. They're popular around here so should be easy to sell, and I've found a few breeders around me. I'm working on an enclosure, and that should be done in no time. So my next questions are: when should I look at getting rabbits, and how many should I get? It's decently warm in Alberta where I live right now (it's been anywhere from 30-50 F the last week or two) so should I get them as soon as my enclosure is done (like mid Feb) or should I wait till March or later? And Alaska Satins mentioned getting one true dwarf buck and 2-3 false dwarf does. Could I possibly go the other way if there aren't a lot of false dwarf does? What are the pros and cons of that?

Thanks so much to everyone for all their help so far!

 

[Alaska Satin]

It is both. The issue with the harlequin patterned/coloured rex is. 1)when it comes to judging. 2)confusion over breed verses colour pattern. 3) what to call it. I heard some wanted to tag it as "Brindle" . I don't feel like that is always accurate though.

I like to use a capital H for the breed Harlequin, and a lower-case h for the harlequin pattern, to help clear up confusion.

The Harlequin breed standard gives very clear descriptions of the desired markings, including lots of drawings to supplement the photo since there hasn't really been a perfect Harlequin yet! They are making progress, though. Here's a really interesting article about the breed development:
http://americanharlequinrabbitclub.weebly.com/history---from-the-beginning.html
Brindle actually refers to a distinct pattern, different from harlequin, but which also results from the harlequin alelle e(j). There is a COD (Certificate of Development) out to add brindle to the Mini Rex breed standard. It specifically disqualifies animals for any identifiable harlequin markings (meaning a large and distinctly solid colored bar or band across the body, or distinct color alternation across the ears, face, chest, or legs). You can see the working standard here: https://arba.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BrindleMiniRex.pdf

 

[Alaska Satin]

Update! So for now I've decided to go with Mini Rexes. They're popular around here so should be easy to sell, and I've found a few breeders around me. I'm working on an enclosure, and that should be done in no time. So my next questions are: when should I look at getting rabbits, and how many should I get? It's decently warm in Alberta where I live right now (it's been anywhere from 30-50 F the last week or two) so should I get them as soon as my enclosure is done (like mid Feb) or should I wait till March or later? And Alaska Satins mentioned getting one true dwarf buck and 2-3 false dwarf does. Could I possibly go the other way if there aren't a lot of false dwarf does? What are the pros and cons of that?

Thanks so much to everyone for all their help so far!

Yep, good Mini Rex are usually pretty easy to sell; if people see them or touch them, they almost sell themselves!

The temperature shouldn't be much of an issue as long as the rabbits are used to living outside. If they've been living indoors in a hot house, letting them stay outside during the day but bringing them in at night for a few days is usually enough to acclimate them. 30-50F isn't usually a problem for rabbits in general, but it will be a bit of a shock if they're used to 80F. Moving is stressful enough as it is.

You could get a false dwarf buck and true dwarf does; that way, you still won't get any peanuts. You will lose the advantage of larger body size and litter size if the does are true dwarfs, but mine were always very good mothers. They just had slightly smaller litters - 3-5 kits instead of 6.

You can really get any combinations of true and false dwarfs you want. The consideration is that if you breed true x true, you'll probably get some number of peanuts in the litter. If you breed false x false, you won't get any peanuts or true dwarfs...So you won't get the tiny bunnies that people prefer as pets, but on the plus side, they will all be bigger as meat bunnies.

I guess if I wasn't able to find all false dwarf does, I'd get a true dwarf buck and whatever does I could find, maybe a combination of true and false dwarf does. I really do like the bigger litters of the false dwarfs. Another advantage is that if one of your true dwarf does has a litter of one viable baby and all other peanuts, you'll have a foster litter to put the singleton in.

 

[Notewood Acres]

Yep, good Mini Rex are usually pretty easy to sell; if people see them or touch them, they almost sell themselves!

The temperature shouldn't be much of an issue as long as the rabbits are used to living outside. If they've been living indoors in a hot house, letting them stay outside during the day but bringing them in at night for a few days is usually enough to acclimate them. 30-50F isn't usually a problem for rabbits in general, but it will be a bit of a shock if they're used to 80F. Moving is stressful enough as it is.

You could get a false dwarf buck and true dwarf does; that way, you still won't get any peanuts. You will lose the advantage of larger body size and litter size if the does are true dwarfs, but mine were always very good mothers. They just had slightly smaller litters - 3-5 kits instead of 6.

You can really get any combinations of true and false dwarfs you want. The consideration is that if you breed true x true, you'll probably get some number of peanuts in the litter. If you breed false x false, you won't get any peanuts or true dwarfs...So you won't get the tiny bunnies that people prefer as pets, but on the plus side, they will all be bigger as meat bunnies.

I guess if I wasn't able to find all false dwarf does, I'd get a true dwarf buck and whatever does I could find, maybe a combination of true and false dwarf does. I really do like the bigger litters of the false dwarfs. Another advantage is that if one of your true dwarf does has a litter of one viable baby and all other peanuts, you'll have a foster litter to put the singleton in.

Haha yeah they seem to be quite nice in terms of fur!

Okay yeah that makes sense, I will for sure keep that in mind!

I figured that the false dwarf does would have bigger litters! And yes I'd prefer one gender to not be dwarf and the other dwarf. I'm going to try as hard as I can to see if I can get at least 2 false dwarf does and 1 dwarf buck! I've heard about the fostering, that's such a neat thing and will be super helpful!

How much do these cost on average? I've been googling but to not much avail.

Thank you again for all your help!!

 

[Mckatie]

I like to use a capital H for the breed Harlequin, and a lower-case h for the harlequin pattern, to help clear up confusion.

The Harlequin breed standard gives very clear descriptions of the desired markings, including lots of drawings to supplement the photo since there hasn't really been a perfect Harlequin yet! They are making progress, though. Here's a really interesting article about the breed development:
http://americanharlequinrabbitclub.weebly.com/history---from-the-beginning.html
Brindle actually refers to a distinct pattern, different from harlequin, but which also results from the harlequin alelle e(j). There is a COD (Certificate of Development) out to add brindle to the Mini Rex breed standard. It specifically disqualifies animals for any identifiable harlequin markings (meaning a large and distinctly solid colored bar or band across the body, or distinct color alternation across the ears, face, chest, or legs). You can see the working standard here: https://arba.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/BrindleMiniRex.pdf
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Thank you! I appreciate all of your information as I find the subject of genotype/phenotype fascinating. I, myself, do not breed any Harlequin, Brindle types. I know "Brindle" from the dog world where I used to show. Many of my rabbit colour choices are not "showable" except in the meat pen.