Hi Hayley! I'm writing this as a lionhead breeder - I have two years of breeding and studying the breed behind me and I would like to share my perspective.
First of all, what are your goals in breeding? This is very important before you make a decision to breed this doe. If you are wanting to breed for show quality rabbits or to sell to other breeders ~ I would not breed this doe. She would only be good for someone who has a blue eyed white breeding program because of the vienna gene.
Please understand...I'm not saying she's cute. She is cute...I LOVE vienna marked rabbits and I have had a blue eyed white program going in the past.
But what I have found from my experience is that when you breed for pet quality rabbits - you may wind up not finding homes for all of them (and some of my bigger does have had 8-9 babies). Will you have the space for the babies? What will you do if they don't sell? Trust me - I have over 100 rabbits in my 'herd' largely because of breeding the older style of lionhead rabbits (which is what your rabbit is) and having pet quality rabbits. I know of two or three breeders in the Oregon/Washington area who are breeding top quality lionheads and they are doing well to sell to pet homes for really low prices (no - breeding isn't about the prices).
I think that I'm partly concerned for two specific reasons though.
a. First of all - your doe is single mane - and she has the older style look of the narrow head and larger ears. My experience has shown me that she probably won't produce the "lionhead" look that people are going for. The look is now more of a rounded head and shorter ears - let me share a few photos to show what I mean..
This is Rachel - she really doesn't have the head like I like - but you can see some of how her head is wider (in the nose area) and thus closer to what lionheads seem to be going to for show quality lionheads.
This is Isenstar - I had her flown in from your area...notice her "cat-like" ears for shape.
I need to update Angela's photo - but look at her mane here. It is not as full now but it is still nice:
With a single mane lionhead with the style of face that your doe has...I just don't think that she will breed what folks are looking for in a lionhead - particularly since there are some top notch breeders in your area (and I'll be glad to make some recommendations).
Also - if you breed your doe to a double-mane buck, each kit has a 50/50 chance of being single mane. Each kit should have at least some sort of a mane...but I have bred single mane rabbits and rarely really had some good double mane kits come out of it.
I'm going to show you a picture of Triad...his mane is still about this nice and he's like 2 years old now..
But I really would like to address my main concern here.
b. If I had it to do over again - I would never breed a bunny that I adopted as a pet. I did so with my first lionhead, GingerSpice. I felt like she was good enough quality to breed (even though she had a mismark). Her breeder I got her from even stated that she was probably good for breeding.
But as she was weaning her kits, I saw her immunity system decline - and from then on - she had problems off and on and finally died of what we believe was e cunniculi...which I imagine started because her immunity system became compromised.
Now when I go to breed (and I love all of my does - don't take me wrong) - I make sure that I know that I could lose that doe and I have to be willing to face that. I've been very fortunate - and there have been some does that I've fallen in love with that I bought for breeding - and I chose to never breed them but just keep them as pets.
Once again - I'm not saying that your doe isn't cute and I'm not saying that she is "bad".
Its just...I know of at least three or four breeders who are selling pedigreed rabbits up there (even as pets) and sometimes even giving them away if they're pet quality because it can be hard to find them homes...that I would hate to see you get into breeding and then have to take care of several other lionheads.
If I've offended you - I apologize now. But I figured that since you were checking out lionheads and were checking out the club website (the standard for lionheads is on that website)...you might want to hear what a lionhead breeder would have to say.
I will say that your doe is one of the nicest marked vienna marked rabbits I've ever seen. Here is one of my favorite vienna marked rabbits - and its why I thought maybe your rabbit was part dutch - because of the extent of the markings..
Peg
Hayley411 wrote:
Hi everyone I have a very happy update I contacted the North American liohead rabbit club and asked them if sherbert really is a single-mane vienna marked lionhead and not a mix. I just got am e-mail back that said that she indead was that very thing, i am very excited about this but wondering if I were to breed her to a double-mane buck would get double-mane kits? I hope so that would be fun!
~Hayley~