How To Make A Rabbit

[RabbitMage]

Someone on another forum asked that I do a post like this, and I was thinking I'd post it here as well. This is just how I do things, but I thought someone might find it interesting or useful. This first post was originally posted October 29th.

I talked a bit about showing/breeding rabbits in my Ask thread, and if there's two things I love it's taking pictures of animals and hearing myself talk. So, this thread will detail the process of making rabbits and doing things with them. This first post is kind of dull and long. But it has pictures! And it'll get more interesting!

First off, meet Annie Jump Cannon.

Cannon is a seven month old black Tan doe. Don't let that shy, retiring look fool you. This is the best picture I could get between her spastic running/attempts to jump off the table.

Cannon has had a good show career, ending with a Best of Breed win this weekend up in San Francisco. So I felt the time had come to retire her and let her learn the joys (?) of motherhood.

In deciding who to breed her to, I gave her a good look over and compared my opinions with the old comment cards from judges I've shown her under. I decided what I wanted to improve on her would be the length of leg in the front, and the evenness of the tan color through her groin and tail.

I then looked over the prospective boyfriends in the rabbitry and decided I'd take her to either J6 or Bobby. Both are nice rabbits, fairly similar in type, with good length of limb and nice, even tan coloration. Neat, right? After I'd narrowed it down to two, I went to check pedigrees to see how well they meshed. I looked them over and remembered that Bobby was Cannon's grandsire.

On both her sire and dam's side.


So, J6 it was!

J6 is a chocolate Tan, and although he looks a little rough in the picture is a very nicely typed rabbit, and he was the first place chocolate Sr. (six months or older) buck at the 2009 ARBA National Convention.

Unfortunately, he's also either big into romance or really, really not into girls. When I introduced him to Cannon, he spent his time cuddling her and tenderly grooming her head and ears. Cute, but not what I was after.

So I bred her to Grandpa Bobby (King Brian the Wild on his pedigree).

Okay, let me explain a few things here. First, linebreeding/inbreeding is pretty common in rabbits. So it's not at all unusual that he's Cannon's grandsire twice over, nor is it unusual to breed her back to him. Grody by human standards? Yes. But useful in rabbits. This breeding should strengthen the good traits they share, and if there's any genetic faults in the bloodline, well...we'll probably know about them now.

Second, no. Bobby doesn't look as good as Cannon or even J6. But Bobby has several Best In Show wins and about 20 Best of Breed wins, and did pretty well at the ARBA National Convention. In 2004. He's turning six in January, so he is allowed to look a little frumpy. He still loves the ladies, and did his job in record time. Rabbit breeding happens really, really fast, FYI.

So, Cannon was bred twice on the 26th, with a follow-up breeding on the 27th. From here there's a lot of waiting. About 16 days after the first breeding, I'll palpate her. This involves squeezing around her stomach to see if I can feel any rabbit fetuses floating around in there. At 28 days after the first breeding, I'll give her a nestbox to give birth in. And if all goes as planned, between 28-31 days after the first breeding, she'll have a healthy litter of kits.

I'll happily answer questions in the meantime, and provide pics and updates when something interesting happens.

And also post occasional pics of my new show rabbit, Dian Fossey, just because she's cute.

 

[Bunnylady]

By my calculations, she should be right about day 16. Have you checked her yet?

 

[RabbitMage]

Why yes I did!

So what do you think? Is this rabbit pregnant?

And to tide everyone over, here's a baby pic.

 

[sandspoultry]

I love little kit pictures. They grow so fast!