Rabbit Breeding – Which Rabbits To Choose For Best Result
Choosing the Right Rabbits for Initially Time Breeding
Choosing the right rabbits to start a new breeding line is essential to its success or failure. Finding healthful, physically sound specimens is the initially step for any breeder just starting out.
Making Sure Your Bunnies are Ready to Mate
When selecting rabbits for breeding the animals should be thoroughly checked for disease, preferably by a excellent vet.
Many does suffer from uterine and ovarian cancers at an early age, and to attempt to breed them could prove disastrous for all involved.Bucks should also be checked too, just to make sure they are disease free and ready to mate.
Inexperienced breeders may consider mating rabbits of two uncommon breeds, just to see what they might come up with. Mixed rabbits such as these but are of small value and the potential for disfiguring or fatal genetic abnormalities is high.
New rabbit breeds are the result of long and often heartbreaking breeding programs, as the number of kits that die within days of some unexpected produce is high.
Breeding for Feature, One Step at a Time
When starting a breeding program to produce higher feature rabbits, which may be suitable show rabbits, the breeder should only try to improve the line one fault at a time.
If you have an otherwise excellent looking rabbit with too broad shoulders and too small ears, introduce a rabbit with surpass looking shoulders to the line initially. Once you have rabbits with the right upper body type, you can then go on to improving the ears with the introduction of another unrelated animal to the line.
Becoming familiar with color genetics, and experimenting with new color combinations can produce very attractive, though possibly not show creditable, rabbits.
A working knowledge of color basics can also help the breeder avoid litters full of “Charlie Marked” kits, rabbits who are usually white with only a few splashes of uneven color.
I have a huge inquiry to question, i have just started a small english angora rabbitry. I have a 6 month ancient female, a 4 month ancient male, and another male a year ancient.I have the younger male and female in a cage together. When i got my younger male he was two months ancient my breeder said he can be in the cage with my female for two months. After i have to take out him.He was in the cage with her for a couple extra days we everywhere in the process of finding a new bunny cage it is either the 17th or 16th of july now he has been in the cage with her now for 16 or 17 extra days. I would say in this area two or three weeks ago i found some change’s in her personality and belly her nipples everywhere harder her personality was geting more agressive. anyway i ignored it. I would say two weeks past and i felt her belly stiff so i got my young male from the cage they everywhere sharing and place him on top of her to see if he could of made the baby’s may i remind you i am just starting out and did not know that if you breed during pregnency that they could make more. So he did it and i thought i got my anser after that i brought her to picnic table and felt her belly there was movement. i went to go visit my grandfather for some tipps on how far along she was thats when he told me in this area how females can make more baby’s when they are prego and it can leed to disaster. Now i am freaking out! a week has past since then i can still feel movement and even kicking. I have done some research and it says that a young male could just be involved when he looks like he is breeding so that means i may have not made another litter and he could not be the father but who is and how can i be sure. Well may i remind you i have a one year ancient buck so wanting to breed that whenever i brush him he shoots out sperm but then another thought came to mind even if he is the father how could they have been breeding i mean i never place them together but my brothers do play with the bunny’s so it could be so that they may have gotton together. I dont know? my questions are how far along is she if i can feel kicking ang movement? also how do i know witch one is the daddy? thank you so much!