When we finally got a decent pair of Hollands we were aiming to breed for show and standard. I know many breeders breed year round but for us, we breed for Fall shows and for Spring shows. It seems like a logical thing to do being that the ads are overflowing with Hollands especially. When we decide on a breeding, it was a selected process to further our show program. I am often annoyed at the breeders who are merrily breeding away just for money. They breed for the sole purpose of selling the entire litter, with no intention of furthering their program. They boast of how much they love the breed but at the same time they exploit them. I feel you shouldn't breed them unless there is something you personally want out of that breeding. If you are breeding to accomodate a waiting list, completely wrong reason. I also find it offensive when I see websites where the breeder says they are keeping the first sable point doe they get, or keeping a buck out of a litter. For me these are red flags that the breeder is not in this for the quality of the breed. When we are expecting a litter we are in high hopes of a few of the babies to become show worthy. We don't care if it is a doe, or a buck and we surely are not holding out for a certain color. Number one, it should always be about type. If you end up with a sable point, but it is not typey then you should not want to keep it. Even if it is the first one you have ever produced. I also think it is important to exercise restraint. That is truly easier said than done. Baby bunnies are irresistible. And I must say, sable point babies melt my heart. I am dying for more. But we are almost at the end of spring breedings and probably won't redo a sable breeding until Fall. By then, that will mean we have only produced one sable baby in 2 years. I wish more breeders would just take their time and think it out. It's not a mad race to breed as many babies as possible. Use some common sense, set some goals and work at them. Work at them for your Rabbitry, not for a big show and tell every month. Respect the breed enough to not over breed.
A couple years ago we purchased 3 floppy eared rabbits for a photoshoot. I had homes lined up for them afterwards. Well it only took a day to realize how much we really enjoyed rabbits. We had some trials and sad times with them but that only made us realize that we were hooked and wanted to begin raising them. So we studied the breeds and we chose Holland Lop as our breed of choice.
When we finally got a decent pair of Hollands we were aiming to breed for show and standard. I know many breeders breed year round but for us, we breed for Fall shows and for Spring shows. It seems like a logical thing to do being that the ads are overflowing with Hollands especially. When we decide on a breeding, it was a selected process to further our show program. I am often annoyed at the breeders who are merrily breeding away just for money. They breed for the sole purpose of selling the entire litter, with no intention of furthering their program. They boast of how much they love the breed but at the same time they exploit them. I feel you shouldn't breed them unless there is something you personally want out of that breeding. If you are breeding to accomodate a waiting list, completely wrong reason. I also find it offensive when I see websites where the breeder says they are keeping the first sable point doe they get, or keeping a buck out of a litter. For me these are red flags that the breeder is not in this for the quality of the breed. When we are expecting a litter we are in high hopes of a few of the babies to become show worthy. We don't care if it is a doe, or a buck and we surely are not holding out for a certain color. Number one, it should always be about type. If you end up with a sable point, but it is not typey then you should not want to keep it. Even if it is the first one you have ever produced. I also think it is important to exercise restraint. That is truly easier said than done. Baby bunnies are irresistible. And I must say, sable point babies melt my heart. I am dying for more. But we are almost at the end of spring breedings and probably won't redo a sable breeding until Fall. By then, that will mean we have only produced one sable baby in 2 years. I wish more breeders would just take their time and think it out. It's not a mad race to breed as many babies as possible. Use some common sense, set some goals and work at them. Work at them for your Rabbitry, not for a big show and tell every month. Respect the breed enough to not over breed. Well the girls each have a doe they are growing out as a show hopeful for Fall. Kami ended up with only one in her litter so she was lucky that she is looking nice. We always hope she stays the same after the uglies but so far she is already an improvement on her mother in that her ears have lopped! Hooray for Improvement. Quinne picked her little sable baby the day it was born and has held out hope that she turns out nice enough to show. So far she is looking fabulous and is a very very clean sable. Kait had a litter of 5. She picked her baby in almost the first week and marked her as the one to watch. Well, she has a good eye because this little doe is looking incredible. I can already see the difference in our babies since using Little Buddah in our program. Hopefully this has us on the right path to bigger and better things. We received our final leg for Zilla, giving us our first home bred, Grand Champion! This is exciting news for us and did not come by easily. We did not purchase our champion, we grew her! And our sweet little champion is now a cute little mama to three healthy chubby little torts. I teased my daughter and said I think she gave birth to big toes. They are the most squat and compact little babies we have seen so far.
Our first round of babies from Little Buddah are looking quite nice. Of course they are only 4 weeks old so way too early to tell any true signs but so far the heads are nice, the ears are great, and the bone seems to be great in all of them! Will be very very difficult to decide who to keep and who to let go. Kinda hoping some will turn real ugly over the next few months. (Kidding of course). Hopefully the girls should have some beauties to show this Fall. Hoping to find a moment of free time for some cute photo shoots. For most of us breeders we know the importance of weeding out flaws in our herd. As we are still learning in our rabbitry we have used the shows and judges to help guide us in who to weed out just by ears, or hind quarters or shoulders. But from the time the rabbit is born we observe their bite. So far we have been so fortunate. With our first litter of sables I was really starting to worry. Firstly because this is Quinnes litter, and she is so in love with them and will possibly finally have a rabbit to show. I was really concerned the one little one was going to have bad teeth. It was with great relief yesterday that we saw they are actually lining up just perfect! Hooray. I was not only worried for the kit, but I was worried that I possibly had rabbits in our herd that would create poor teeth. For us, this is not an acceptable trait to breed into your stock at all. I have read numerous vet records of trimming and filing and extracting. Some people are content with that. Some people notice the stress it puts on the animal. Some people even syringe feed theirs. All of that is fine and dandy if that is the route you want to take. I know how much love goes into our babies. But when it comes to the breeding program in our rabbitry this will not be accepted. It is sometimes nobodys fault when you end up with a rabbit with bad teeth, but it becomes your fault if you breed that into your herd. So I am so thankful I have not had to encounter that as of yet but I know the day will come. At 4 weeks, Allan Ormond had explained, is a good time to check feet. He said that feet that are short and fat at 4 weeks are usually a good sign of ones to hang on to and long and skinny feet are most likely going to turn out to be pet quality. Well, we hit that mark next week so this will be very fun for the girls to follow up on and learn.
Well, it is true that after several litters we are not quite as obsessive. We don't photograph them every day now. We check that everyone is warm and move on. We have eyes open and have been able to determine the sex in most of our babies now. Out of 2 litters we only have 1 buck as far as I can tell, and he has the same cute adorable face as his sire, Little Buddah. I absolutely love that we are starting to know our lines enough that we can pick out who's eyes they have and such. Nixies litter is looking quite nice and she has remained mellow with them for much longer than normal for her. She must like daughters best. They are now 7 weeks old and will soon be drifting off into their uglies. I kind of doubt her little black doe is ever going to look ugly! She is one cute baby. Raybans is coping but does not really enjoy this new phase of her babies running all around the cage. She often looks at me all frantic. Sigh, I know the feeling Ray. Lucy however is one content mother. He torts are looking quite beautiful. Kait marked her favorite right from the get go and let me pick one to play with as well, which I named Fatboy. They'll be 3 weeks this weekend and they are getting so so cute! We are quite anxious to see how Little Buddah produces compared to our other bucks we have used in the past. So enough rambling, here are a few cute cute photos.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2016
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