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| Rex color Varieties |
I have been wanting to raise rabbits for YEARS. Primarily I have always had my eye on the fiber rabbits but the work involved for the yield I wasn't sure would be practical. To get my feet wet I decided on meat rabbits. This idea has also been on my radar for YEARS more as a way to feed the HUGE number of dogs I had at the time. After researching back then I had an idea of what breeds I liked. Californians were high on my list but after I spent some time on a rabbit meat group I quickly realized that rabbit blankets and throws and hats and mittens are GORGEOUS!!! I had to up my game on the research and look into COLORS!!!
I'm terrible with genetics. There's this meme floating around online where they illustrate genetics very simply with gummy bears and even then I'm mostly just confused. I get how inheritance works in general but when we're talking about colors, self colors, dilutes, patterns and then how those are passed down and which is dominant and which is recessive and which one hides behind a white curtain to rear it's head later down the road I'm lost. It's all greek. Because of that I resigned myself with solid rabbits. I researched the dual purpose breeds and threw out the ones that tend to include a lot of color to them... The ones I can think of at the top of my head are Standard Rex, and Satins. Standard Rex having the most diverse colors out there.
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| Snowball the youngest Silver Fox doe |
I threw out the white breeds too, the Californians and the Florida White and I also threw out the huge rabbits, Flemish Giants and Checkered giants ONE because their meat to bone ratio is really not very good because they're just too big. Need more bone to carry such a huge frame. They also have a pretty large variety of colors. Basically that left me with rabbits that were mostly black, Black and blue and chocolate (including the dilutes of those colors) and then the cream colored rabbits. Ya know this picking of rabbit breeds when the pelt is of some importance is a lot like picking a wedding dress. DO NOT go to the bridal shop willing to look at every style on the planet because if you did that you're head would explode and it would take you YEARS to pick THE DRESS out.
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| Etta my blue Silver Fox doe |
I like blacks, greys and brown and the dilutes of those colors best. Creams are pretty but it's basically yellow which really limits a palate. Silver Fox and Champagne D'Argent were the two breeds I was most interested in getting. BOTH primarily black/grey rabbits. Silver Fox is heritage breed which was a perk for me. ALSO I could find a pretty good genetic variety of Silver Fox rabbits near me so I got a breeding trio, two does and one buck. This number should keep us eating a meal of meat three times a week or more possibly. This is for a family of four.
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| Totoro the resident Silver fox Buck |
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| Mr. GoodBar chocolate Satin Angora buck |
Once I got the three meat breeding bunnies and decided on how I would house them (that will be in a whole new blog coming up) I decided to go ahead and pick up a pair of fiber rabbits to at least have some fiber to learn spinning on and also to get my feet wet on that angle of the rabbit breeding. Fiber rabbits aren't QUITE as hard to choose from because there aren't as many out there. A local breeder whom I was planning on buying rabbits from sent me samples of fiber from each of the breeds she keeps and let me try out spinning on them and feel the staple length etc... She raises French Angora, English Angora and Satin Angora. I was pretty sold on the English Angora based on my reading as they say it's a good fiber for beginning spinners. Satin Angora is supposed to be for advanced spinners because of staple length and such. I spun each kind and fell IN LOVE with the Satin Angora fiber and how it spun up for me. I encourage anyone interested in getting rabbits to spin their fiber to try out the different kinds before you jump in and pick a breed.
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| NightHawk a black Satin Angora doe |
SUDDENLY I decided I wanted to probably show rabbits and found that in Canada they are really hurting for genetic diversity in the blue Silver Fox so I'm very serious about getting them established over there too. Showing, eating the rabbits and breeding/selling them is key to keeping the breeds alive. This means some of that breeding for the table won't actually happen since I'll also be putting what I produce up for sale and probably showing a few. SOOOO I started to keep my eye out for an additional doe who could cross to my buck and have a few nice litters of meat rabbits only to ensure my family was still eating what we were growing. Just yesterday I found a beautiful little Californian to add to the bunch. It's what we in the biz like to call, rabbit math, or farm math. It just keeps adding up!!! I'm pretty sure I'm done adding any more breeding rabbits to my place till their housing is finished. That blog will be coming up soon I hope!!!
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| Frankie, the newest edition at Little Foxtail a Californian doe |
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