breed(s) selection help, please

[Gabe's mom]

We will be moving into our new house soon, and I'm hoping at some point after we get settled to try my hand at raising meat rabbits. I was hoping to raise a hybreed that would also have a nice pelt for projects. Originally I was thinking cali buck with 2 does each of the 3 colors new zealands. But since I have no experience with rabbits, I thought I'd ask the members here for their opinions. If I understand what I read in a post, rexs have the best pelts,BUT their fur type is a recessive gene, so crossing a Rex buck with the nz does wouldn't work, correct? Also I'm alittle confused about the fryer stage versus the junior prime stage. If a fryer is upto 12 weeks and a jp pelt is 3-4 months, wouldn't 12-13 weeks be the optimum time to harvest? What I'm hoping for is meat for my family (4peeps, 2 retrievers, 1 cat, and one ball python), and pelts nice enough to sew into lap blankets or bed throws. What I've research on those seems to show they can sell for (to me atleast) alot of money. There's a ski resort town close by and that would be my prime target market.
one last question. Since I'm completly clueless , what would be the best books you would recommend I read, before starting my little adventure? thanks for any and all input. Ray

[ladysown]

from what I understand from other people asking this question. Regardless of breed the best pelts are winter pelts, of rabbits 6+ months old.

Any rabbit pelt can work, but frankly the rex pelt is like WOW.

The least you want to work with is a junior prime coat (3-4 months) but what you want is the 6 month old coat. So you could.... do your bucks at 4 months (before they start tasting bucky) and do your does at 6 months....were they will still be fairly tender.

OR do them all at 6 months and give the bucks to your critters.

If I missed something I'm sure those more 'on-hand' experienced will chime in.

[SFM in KY]

I agree ... the Rex pelts are WOW ... even from the juniors. I did some craft type things with them years ago when I had them and for most projects, the junior pelts work fine. You might want to "juggle" the litters to some extent eventually, once you get a bit more experience and if you find that you need "better" pelts. If you had early fall litters and kept the does until midwinter, you'd probably get very close to prime fur. However, that said, my feeling is that prime fur is really required only if you are selling to furriers or if your pelts are being used for the more high end clothing/ decoration.

You are correct that the Rex fur is a recessive ... you need one gene from each parent to get it, so an F1 cross (i.e. Rex to NZ would not give you the Rex pelts). If your major reason for going with a hybred is to get faster early growth, I'm not sure you need to do that. I have purebred Rex myself and am happy with health, size of litters and rate of growth, although I'm happy enough to butcher at a slightly lighter weight because I'm only cooking for two ... not a large family.

There are ways you could get a Rex coated crossbred ... and then use that crossbred to go back to the purebred Rex. I had thought about that originally and in fact was interested in the Brazilian/Rex crosses bred by one of the posters here ... a second cross back to a Rex would give you (probably) 50% Rex coats. If you used one of these crossbred bucks back to purebred Rex does that would probably be as much of an outcross as you could get and still maintain the coat and should give you some hybred vigor with that cross.

But for non-commercial meat production as well as quality pelts, I don't think you can beat the Rex.

[Honorine]

Your not going to get the best coat quality using rex coated hybrids, if the fur is of importance then I'd get purebred rex with great coats. Also take into consideration that certain colors have better more consistant fur quality.

[Beaniemom]

Well, seeing as how I still have pelts in my freezer I haven;t tanned yet....

Just on personal observation, the Rex pelts are not "ready" at 12 weeks, 16 weeks *maybe*, 6 months is probably better. Problem is, if you keep 6 month old buns together, they may fight, and that will mar the pelt (or so I hear!)

Yep, if you cross them to try and get a larger, faster growing fryer, the first thing that will go is the Rex pelt. Now you could cross breed until you get it back, but that would take 3, maybe 4 generations.

You could also do one of the rare breeds too, Silver Fox have an amazing pelt, if I do say so myself! Cremes and Champagnes are pretty nice too, and unusual too. But you'd probably have to wait til 4-6 months to do theirs too.

[Gabe's mom]

Thanks all. The pelt is important only in so far as hopfully appealing to my target group. the cross/ rebreed to pure sounds good, as It'll give me pelts to practice with, without feeling like I've wasted a potential profits. My reasons for wanting to breed hybreeds are because of their reputed hardyness. I've read that working with purebreeds can be tricky. That they are prone to more health problems, breeding problems ect. I'm coming to this completly new and so, atleast for now, the hardier, the better.
Now for a color question. If I bought a black rex buck, to breed to 2 each of the 3 nz colors, will I get broken or tri color kits? Not that it would matter that much I suppose. I'm just more partial to solid colors, myself. Thanks again for your answers, Ray

[MariaAZ]

Originally Posted by SFM in KY

There are ways you could get a Rex coated crossbred ... and then use that crossbred to go back to the purebred Rex. I had thought about that originally and in fact was interested in the Brazilian/Rex crosses bred by one of the posters here ... a second cross back to a Rex would give you (probably) 50% Rex coats. If you used one of these crossbred bucks back to purebred Rex does that would probably be as much of an outcross as you could get and still maintain the coat and should give you some hybred vigor with that cross.

I had two Rex-furred Zil/Rex crosses and the coats are AWFUL. Not specifically from the 'Zil, rather the longer, different coat texture. True, you can breed a Rex to a non-Rex and in the following generation get Rex fur, but it will likely be Rex fur only because the undercoat and guard hairs are the same length. On both my boys their Rex fur was harsh and almost wirey, not the gorgeous smooth silkiness of a good Rex fur.

That being said, one can select from the cross bred lines for more correct Rex fur, but it will likely take a few generations to breed out the influence of the other coat type.

[Honorine]

What you get with an outcross rabbit or a hybrid is hybrid vigor in the first generation, fast growing healthy etc. That initial vigor does not extend to your second generation, although some here have spoken of crossing cals and NZ's and having good results with 2nd gen rabbits. Sometimes crossing in a rex can cause the resulting normal coated offspring to be cottony, not the best for pelts. In your place I wouldn't get a rex buck to cross to NZ does, I'd get a cal, and forget trying to get rex fur in a second gen, its probably going to be poor quality anyway, JMHO. Solid to solid will always give you solid babies, not brokens. Tri has to be carried by both rabbits, and shouldn't be in NZ's. REW also has to be carried by both parents, so can crop up out of nowhere. REW to black not carrying REW would be perhaps black, if NZW was a genetic black, or chestnut if it is a genetic chestnut or a red. Black to red, if the black is carrying non extension could be blacks, torts, reds, chestnuts. Black to Black- black, tort, blue if both carry dilute, depends on the hidden genes. See, clear as mudd!

[SquashNut]

To get a broken colored rabbit one of the rabbits would have to have the broken gene. So you have to get a broken colored Rex to cross with your NZ rabbits.
They are crossing broken Satins to NZ to get the broken NZ rabbits you are seeing on the market. In my opinion they are cross breds, but some are selling the NZ/Satins as a pure bred rabbit.
If it were me I would go pure bred to get more consitant pelts and use my culls, as in older does that don't produce.

[SFM in KY]

Originally Posted by Gabe's mom

My reasons for wanting to breed hybreeds are because of their reputed hardyness. I've read that working with purebreeds can be tricky. That they are prone to more health problems, breeding problems ect. I'm coming to this completly new and so, atleast for now, the hardier, the better.
Now for a color question. If I bought a black rex buck, to breed to 2 each of the 3 nz colors, will I get broken or tri color kits? Not that it would matter that much I suppose. I'm just more partial to solid colors, myself. Thanks again for your answers, Ray

Personally, I've not found crossbred rabbits to be specifically more hardy than purebreds. However, I've only had Rex myself (until very recently) and just 2 or 3 crossbreds over the years. However, I try to buy my rabbits from "local" breeders that are breeding for table use mostly, without heated barns for winter or cooled barns for summer, so I started with breeding stock that was acclimated. I kept my Rex in outside hutches in Montana year around with no winter losses from the cold, had no losses here last summer with the heat ... but I suspect I might have had with rabbits that were not already acclimated.

I also cull heavily for health ... I feed the rabbits the local hay that I get for the horses, they get a handful of alfalfa and quite a lot of grass hay, plus a handful of green grass/weeds in the summer ... and I am not overly cautious about starting slow. If I have one that doesn't seem to be able to handle this without problems, it gets culled, as does any individual rabbit ... or line ... that seems to have any kind of a health problem ... a tendency to lose weight for no apparant reason, a doe that "misses" when bred more often than I consider normal, etc. I tend to raise my own breeding stock when I can and will keep offspring of the does that "never miss", always kindle the biggest litters and lose the fewest kits.

As for color, as SquashNut said, you have to have a broken color to get brokens ... that pattern cannot be carried recessively. What I've worked out with my rabbits, because I do intend to do things with the pelts, is to keep the color "groups" together ... which makes things easier if you are planning to do larger things like throws. For instance, I have the blacks and blues (which is the dilute of black) in one group ... with a broken black buck ... which gives me solid black, solid blue and brokens of both ... and those shades will always look well together.

[Gabe's mom]

And this is why I thought I'd ask for your imput. I'm working with very limited space, so that's why all my senerios involve the 6/1 ratio. Thanks everyone. There's a rabbit show in April, I'm hoping to go to. There really isn't any reason to rush into this, since there will be so much work involved with cleaning out and fixing up the new place, it's an estate sale, so we're buying alot of clutter. lol Then I have to fix up my current house for rent or sale.In all honesty, the April show might even be too soon, to starting my new adventure. But it'll be a nice break, and hopfully I can get some hands on experience with what the different breeds are like, in person.

[Beaniemom]

If you breed Black to Black NZ, you should get all blacks, unless they carry dilute that is...

Black to REW will get you lots of surprises, depending on what the REW is genetically, Red will get you lots of funky stuff too I think.

I have a Black Rex/NZ cross here, friend of mine gave it to me. Its a pretty decent sized buck, not as big as a NZ would be though. I had thought to use it to see if I could get some better HQ and shoulders on some of these, My friend is on the 2nd cross, I don;t think he said the Rex fur was back yet though.

I actually need to check it to be sure it is still a buck, LOL Its been living with a doe for two months, and I haven;t gotten anything yet...

What show are you going to in April?

[Gabe's mom]

The ARBA lists a show in Olean, ny. On 4/4. Not sure exactly where, but it also lists a contact number that I'll call as the date gets closer. Right now I'm leaning toward rexs black buck and black, blue and chocolate does. Course that could change tommorow, I have so much to learn first.

[Harmony Goats]

What is rex fur like? I have a doe that looks like an english spot but her fur is silky and soft not like my other rabbits. I had bred her to my mix buck and their babies had the same type of fur.
Silvia

[trinityoaks]

Originally Posted by Harmony Goats

What is rex fur like? I have a doe that looks like an english spot but her fur is silky and soft not like my other rabbits. I had bred her to my mix buck and their babies had the same type of fur.

Rex fur is unbelievably soft and very short compared with that of other rabbits.

[SFM in KY]

It feels like a very deep, plush velvet ... no guard hairs so it doesn't feel at all like a normal hair coated rabbit.

[miraclewelsh]

Originally Posted by Gabe's mom

what would be the best books you would recommend I read, before starting my little adventure? thanks for any and all input. Ray

Hi! I saw your question about books and wanted to mention a couple of titles for your consideration. I've been involved with rabbits for many years and have written two books on the subject:

The Field Guide to Rabbits ( http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Ra...0752895&sr=1-3 ) covers all 47 breeds that are recognized by the ARBA, and has an extensive color guide as well.

How to Raise Rabbits ( http://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Rabb...5016524&sr=1-4 ) is fully illustrated with color photographs and covers all of the basics of rabbit raising.

Just a couple of ideas-- best wishes with your rabbits!