First of all - let me start out by saying that I have OVER 100 rabbits. I'm not going to tell you how many over (I'd have to go count them)...but well over 100 rabbits. I'm going to share my reasons in just a bit.
But I want to say that I always try to tell folks to start small(smaller than I did) because you want breeding to remain fun and you want it to not cost you an arm and a leg. I go through about 10 bags of food (50 pounds each) every 2 weeks. Yeah - it gets expensive.
So how did I wind up with so many and why am I keeping them? (I'm hoping to find a way to cut back down to 50 in the next few months and I'll explain that here in a bit).
Well - first of all - 7 of those rabbits have maloclussion. This means they have bad teeth. Once it popped up - I no longer bred the parents and have petted them out. HOWEVER, I can't bring myself to trust anyone else to adopt those rabbits and tend to their teeth. The nearest vet who *might* consider it if I asked her- is 70 miles one way. Our local vets won't do it. We live in a farming area and an area where many families are low income. They can't afford a vet visit every 2 weeks to trim teeth. So I keep these rabbits. (Most breeders I know would have them put down over this.)
Then - several of the rabbits are from litters that just weren't show quality and they outgrew that "baby" stage before I could sell them locally. I'm thinking maybe 20 are like this - maybe less. Most are black (not an easy color to sell here). On top of that - they're bucks.Great for pets...but most breeders want the best quality in their bucks(I know I do).
No - I am not taking them to lionhead Nationals as I would not put them on a show table. They're not good enough.
I have about 30 does that I'd like to retire. Many haven't even had a litter as I backed off from breeding a lot of last summer and early fall. But the lionhead breed is evolving and their looks are changing(unlike holland lops for example which are pretty standardized). These does are the "older" look...and what they produce will not be good for breeders who are trying to update the look. (I posted on a thread once about the history of lionheads and showed how it had changed). So while these does might have been ok 2 years ago....now I need does with a shorter body and shorter ears.
So why not just rehome the does? Good question.
But how do I rehome them without worrying that someone is going to breed them to a Florida White or Californian or whatever. We do have irresponsible breeders in this area.
So when I have my "free to good home lionhead pet" days...I only offer my bucks (which I'm going to do with a bunch of my bucks but was waiting until after Easter). I have people come and they can look at the rabbits I put out on the porch in carriers and play with them. I interview them and YES - I have turned people down. I have a sign that I put out that says, "We reserve the right to refuse to give away a pet." Many of my customers are friends of someone who got a free lionhead and their friend winds up bringing them over (often also bringing the lionhead they got from me to show me) and their friend wants to buy a pet. In these cases, I always push bucks just in case someone is trying to pull one over on me and do some breeding on the side. (I have also talked to some people who breed or have bred in the past and allowed them to buy a female for limited breedings...but only after first feeling them out about how often they want to breed, etc).
Anyway - I digress - I'm sorry.
So in my case - I have several lionheads that are of the older style. I also have some that have the newer, shorter look to them. These are the ones I'm focusing on breeding with.
But I also have different colors I work with. For example, I am working with the following colors:
tort
sable point
siamese sable
REW
blue
limited black
Those colors are on the current certificates of development and are considered showable colors.
I also work with:
chocolate
black otter
chocolate otter
harlequin
brokens (mostly tort although I'm getting a broken siamese sable doe)
chinchilla & squirrel (the dilute of chinchilla).
frosted pearl
Now - I can really screw up not so much my colors - but the colors of another person if I breed two colors together that don't belong together. For example, I once had a chestnut give me a harlequin baby.I was like, "Where did that come from?" Well..the chestnut masked the harlequin gene until the doe was bred to someone else who was known for carrying it (I didn't realize at the time that he was known for throwing harlequins).
I find that I get the nicest sable points if I take a sable point buck to a sable point doe - so of course - that means I need a minimum of 2 sable points. There are other things where I just personally like to take the same color to each other because I think it looks better.
So for every color I work with - I like to have both a male and a female.
If you counted -I work with 13 colors...so that means 26 rabbits (although I don't have a buck in every color).
So do you see how it can add up?
Art & I were talking the other day about cutting back. I was saying that even if I could cut back to 80 - I'd be thrilled.
Now - I have several babies here right now that are going to Lionhead Nationals - so that will help. I've also sold some adults for Nationals too.
But I am unlike some other breeders in one thing. I have a hard time moving out my does. Breeders will often tell you, "Keep the best....sell the rest.." and they'll keep something out of a mama. I understand that....I tend to keep too much.
But I've seen does come here and they're scared. A doe's cage IS her territory. It is her home. Some of them aren't overly outgoing and they come to a new place - and I can see the fear in their eyes and the stress that they feel.
A good example here is Anissa. She was my first "homegrown" Best of Breed winner in 2005. I love her to pieces. She's a single mane chestnut though - a color I'm not working with - plus I'm trying to get out of single manes. I would absolutely love to rehome her -but she knows no place else She's almost 2 now and this is the only place she has known. She's cautious and timid around strangers although she will let me pet her.
I find myself thinking, "Its not fair to sell her to another breeder who will just sell her later on down the road..". If I could find her a pet home where I could trust the folks to not breed her- or not breed her more than a couple of times per year (although she LOVES being a mother)....then I would let her go.
So that is why I have so many rabbits.
And I love them all dearly - but there are days when I wish I could just get rid of about 2/3 of them and just have more time to play with them....
So that is why I say "start small".
I hope I've helped in some way.
Peg
Weetwoo_89 wrote:
Thanks, Peg. It is really fascinating. I think one day I might like to breed rabbits. That day won't until much farther into the future. Ithink it would be a very rewarding expirence.
One last thing before Easter meal. It seems like every breeder I have talked to has quite a large number of rabbits. or maybe it isn't that big, depending on what you consider big. I consider 20 rabbits a lot of rabbits. But you (Peg) have said to stay insmall breeding numbers.... I don't really know how to get out what I am trying to say... Like, why are there so many? To work on bigger lines? Different lines? Different breeds? I guess I just need to find a breeder that I can ask questions in person. Don't know if that would help them understand me. I am going to go look for a rabbit breede rfaq. Maybe I can at least understand what it is that I am wanting to ask.
Rae
