Breeding Goals

A friend asked the question recently about what constitutes a responsible breeder. In the culling post recently, I mentioned that I believe one important distinction is that responsible breeders have goals in mind. I didn't want to go too far off topic during that discussion to elaborate on it, so I am going to do that today instead.

 

I am including this stock picture because it is a good metaphor what happens when different people start working with a breed from what I have seen. Some may stay on the tracks heading due north. Although they may stop at different locations along the way, ultimately they will get to the same destination. These breeders (to me at least) represent those that have the standard of perfection in mind. Some, however, take a different path (or veer off course depending on your point of view) and they ultimately arrive in a different state, or on the other side of the country altogether.

With rabbits these differences can be readily seen when you compare rabbits from pet breeders, for example, to rabbits that arrive on the show tables. Since there aren't too many Harlequin breeders around at all these days, I am going to use Netherland Dwarf rabbits to describe some of the differences. I looked at the local Craigslist ads today just for this breed. What I found was that the people offering quantity on the cheap tended to have oversized ND's with big ears, long bodies, poor hindquarters, and were in colors that weren't recognized. The responsible breeders that I know with this breed aim for rabbits that are the opposite of this and that properly meet the standard and rabbits like the ones in the CL ads would have been culled out long ago. 

Netherland Dwarf for sale?

Anyway, here are some of my own goals (aka what I am breeding for):

Health- I want a rabbit with a strong immune systems that does not have, produce, or pass along congenital problems or disease. I also would like them to have good growth patterns/grow out, proper size, etc. You could probably put this in health or temperament categories, but I also want rabbits that are good mothers, ready breeders, and that keep themselves clean. 

Temperament- Ideally, I want rabbits that are friendly and tolerant, but I absolutely will not deal with aggression. I also want a rabbit that handles stress well due to their demeanor (high resilience).

Type- I could say simply that I want to breed better Harlequins, but there is more to it than that. Ultimately, I want to produce rabbits that are well proportioned and have the proper commercial type for the breed. They should have the right parts in the right places. Right now problems I am dealing with are pinched HQ, long shoulders, poor depth, etc. Although it is only worth 10 points, I feel this is extremely important to the multi-purpose/utility function of the breed.

Color and Markings- This is last on my list because it is my lowest priority at this time for this breeding program. Others mileage may vary and some people have been working with the breed forever, so of course they might have the order changed up at this point because they are able to and I am not there yet. Of course if I happen to produce excellent color and markings in a rabbit with the other prerequisites met then that is great, but right now I have to prioritize and know there is a lot of work ahead.

I guess that's a start. There are other goals that can be included like improved litter size, but right now I just feel fortunate to even have litters at all.

Thanks for reading!

Mini Lop News

I haven't been posting hardly at all about the Mini Lops because the plan has been to sell out. The kind of sad thing is that the only people to contact me lately are mostly wanting pets and I would like a couple of them at least (especially Hulk) to go to a show/breeding home.

Anyhow, since the does were just hanging out here in the meantime I went ahead and bred them last month. In my experience, it is better to keep a doe working than just hanging around collecting love handles. :) They are due today and are both in the nestbox today pulling fur. Update: Dove had 3 fat kits and it looks like Serenity has at least 4 so far, but she is kindling as I type this.

I bred Sundae at the same time, but it doesn't look like she took this time around. She has produced kits twice before for me, but her first litter had a couple giants DOA and her second litter was a few normal looking kits, but unfortunately they didn't survive the first week. Obviously she is fertile, but I just haven't had much luck otherwise. I am going to go ahead and place her up for sale to a pet home instead of continuing to mess with it since I had already planned to part with the breed to focus on Harlies. She is quite the character and should make a family looking for a new bunny very happy.

I think that's about it as far as Mini Lop news. I love the breed and will miss them quite a bit. Fortunately they are popular enough that if I want to get back into them later on then hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult. They are incredibly cute, are a great size, come in beautiful colors with such nice coats, and have personalities to match their sweet faces. :)

Litter Picture Update

Picture + update = Picdate? Upture? 

Anyhoo.. I get the message about the need for pictures, lol. Here you go:

 Eyes!

And now litter pictures. There are six in each box. This group is predominately NZ with a few Harlies mixed in:

And this group is predominately Harlies (though one of these is not like the others..):

 Check out the banding!

 

I know, I know.. stripes and plaid don't mix. The color is also washed out thanks to flash indoors. But not bad considering markings are about last on my to-do list with this breed right now. :)

We have eyes!

I just thought I'd share that the last of the babies from both litters opened their eyes over the past couple of days and are doing very well. We did lose that one black kit from Pearl's litter that I thought was fading, but still have 5 going strong. The Harlequin litter of 7 is doing great also. They are so cute at this age! When I walk in to check on them I see a pile of sweet faces peeking up at me now.

I know they are eating hay on their own in addition to Kari's milk and goat's milk (in the case of the NZ kits) and I am sure they will start nibbling on pellets in a little bit, too. I am so incredibly thankful that I did not lose Pearl's entire litter, but goodness I am attached to some of these little guys and gals now. It is going to be incredibly hard to select keepers for the project at this rate!

Thanks for all the kind words, advice, and support with these guys over the past week. It has been much appreciated! 

Tacoma and Bonus

So, this is Tacoma. She is quite the goofball as you can see, but also a very pretty and sweet chocolate Japanese doe. Here are a few more I snapped quick while I was working:

I know these aren't the greatest quality pictures in the world, but I just wanted to get something up with our two new additions thanks to April at OlivYew Farm.

And here are a few of Bonus:

 

I think he was a little freaked out by the camera and he is molting as you can see, but he is a very friendly Japanese buck that seems to love attention. He also likes to throw and push around timothy hay cubes and cardboard tubes, though oddly enough he seems to ignore his resting board, lol. 

I am really excited to have them both here. I'll take some better posed pictures when they are settled in and the weather is nice. 

In other news, we lost one of the NZ kits this morning and it looks like a second might be fading as well. The remaining 5 seem to be hanging on though, so that's good. I know a bunch of the websites say that KMR formula mixes work the best, but I have yet to really see it help any kits no matter which way I make it. I've tried straight KMR with a past litter and lost the baby. This time I've tried KMR + heavy cream and KMR + goat's milk + heavy cream and KMR + goat's milk. Now, I am trying straight goat's milk now at the suggestion of Barbi's article at Barbi Brown's Bunnies and Whitney at Imagination Acres. I can't get fresh locally right now unfortunately, so I am using store bought. Fingers crossed for success! If we can just make it another week or so we should be getting to where they can start to really supplement their own nutrition while they nibble on real food.

Warm Weather and Litter Update

 This is officially the weirdest winter I've had in Georgia. Yesterday it was almost 70 degrees with humidity at 73%. With how warm and humid out it is, it feels a lot like a Spring day in late May. Except.. it's the second week of January.

It's confusing everything around here from the rabbits to the trees. I noticed a couple of the Lops are molting. My Japanese flowering cherry trees have buds on them and the poor, confused daffodils are popping up.

In other news, the NZ litter and the Harlie litter are all still with us, but I am having a lot of trouble with the rotation system and bottle feeding. I think Pearl ran dry around a day before she passed, so the NZ kits lost almost two full days of milk that the Harlies had. This means that the Harlie kits are bigger and stronger than the NZ kits for the most part.

To account for this, I am trying to put the smallest in one nestbox and the largest in the other to try to minimize the competition, but a few NZ kits are still lagging significantly. I still think it is important to try to up Kari's milk production, but (and it sounds cruel) the Harlequin litter has to take priority. New Zealands are one of the top two most popular commercial breeds in the world, while this is probably the only Harlequin litter in my state at this time.

Aside from the rotation, I am also supplementing with the KMR mix to the NZ kits that need it. I haven't found a way yet to convince the kits to nurse a dropper, small bottle, or syringe, so it goes painstaking drop-by-drop to keep them from aspirating. I've noticed they tend to fall asleep before they get even half of what they need so far, so I would not say it is necessarily successful. Hopefully we can get a schedule and some rhythm going to these feedings and they will do better though.

I had planned to do a comparison between the two breeds week by week with weights and growth that I had mentioned before in the blog, but obviously this had to come to an end before it really even started due to the unfortunate circumstances. Here is a comparison picture I took before Pearl became ill (and you can see the Harlies were keeping up with the NZ just fine initially):

And a mugshot:

 

That's all I have to update for now. Next up hopefully I will be able to post a couple of pics of Tacoma and Bonus, who appear to be settling in just fine. They have wonderful personalities!

Yesterday

Yesterday was one of those days that felt like an emotional roller coaster as far as the rabbitry was concerned. I started the day super excited because I knew I was scheduled to meet with my friend April over at OlivYew Farm for two new Harlequins.

The sad news is that I walked out for the morning rounds of feeding and saw Pearl. To make a long story short, about four days ago she started acting a little bit off. Since then we had ups and downs and I thought she was going to recover twice. Then yesterday morning I went out and she had taken a nosedive overnight until it was apparent that she was not going to survive the day. I tried to make her comfortable, but even that failed and I had to make the difficult decision to euthanize her. Afterward I knew it was the best decision for her as she had multiple failures in her body systems as it turned out (heart, lungs, GI tract, etc.). I have no idea why this happened and was very upset about the whole situation. To make things worse, her kits were not old enough to be weaned. :(

I don't have a lot of options for them, but I am trying to partially foster them onto my other doe Kari (but she already has a litter of 7 big kits) along with bottle-feeding to supplement. I know the survivability of kits that are bottle-fed is very low, but I am hoping with a rotating system that with the other mamma I can somehow get them through until they can eat on their own.

But this post is not just about the sad events of yesterday. It is also about the very happy events that did so much to lift my spirits when things were looking grim. I still met with April and it was great to see her again! It's funny how sometimes just visiting with someone briefly that shares your interest that you haven't seen in a while can make things seem better. It was also great to meet our two new additions, Tacoma and Bonus! I was so excited to see how beautiful they are and wanted to take this moment to thank April again for them. :)

The dynamic duo were originally produced by Hoppe's Harlequins and I am very impressed with the type in her stock. I also really appreciate that she breeds for ideals that I also support, like health before markings, for example. In a marked breed it can sometimes be difficult to find a program like that. I am sad that April isn't able to work with Harlies anymore because I know she felt the same way, but I am still really glad she is going to be working with Dutch because they are also a marked breed and they are adorable and practical as well. Sometimes I really wish I had given the couple of Dutch I had a longer try because I think they are a great breed. :)

Anyhow, can I say again how great the new Harlequins are? Tacoma is a chocolate Japanese doe and Bonus is a lilac Japanese buck. I will be posting a few quick snapshots of them when I can get them uploaded here in the next day or two. I will also post an update with the babies once I can get a better idea of how this bottle-feeding rotation is going to work out.