SELECTING THE BUCK AND DOE

All breedings here begin at the kitchen table, where we take a look at the pedigrees and decide who will be bred to whom. It is a good idea to consider sticking with a program of linebreeding animals which all go back to the same outstanding ancestors. Staying within this family for the most part will give you better and more predictable results than "outcrossing" rabbits from several different lines.  An occasional outcross will insure keeping a certain degree of "hybrid vigor" in your herd, however, so should not be out of the question…you might consider bringing in a rabbit from another line which has a strength where your lines have a weakness.

*Selfs to:  selfs, shadeds, tans, and (sometimes) agouti and pointed 

*Shadeds to:  shadeds, selfs, and (sometimes) tans, 

*Pointeds to:  pointeds or selfs (preferably blacks and blues), 

*Tans to:  tans, selfs, or (smoke pearl or siamese sable) shadeds, 

*Agoutis to:  agoutis, selfs (rews, blacks) 

*And always BEW to BEW only! ("blue-eyed white")

Crossing agoutis to shadeds or pointeds may give you "martinized" (with ticking and white markings) shadeds and pointeds. BEW crossed to anything but BEW will give you babies with white splotches in various places ("Dutch" markings). Neither of these would be showable.

Of course these are not the only crosses you can make, and the top breeders sometimes make some wild crosses with an eye toward what they'll see in a couple generations down the road. But for us, with limited space, these are the crosses we usually stick with so we can depend on the results.

It is wise to take a good look at the animals' strengths and weaknesses. Try to match a breeding pair that will balance each other out to produce better offspring than themselves. For instance, take long ears to short ears, narrow heads to broad heads, long bodies to compact bodies, etc.

The Dwarfing Gene:

You need to be sure that at least one of the parents is a dwarf animal. (Under 3.5 pounds for Woolies) It is common to use non-dwarf brood does in a breeding program. They have less breeding problems and have larger litters. But if you breed a big old brood doe to a big old buck, all you'll get will be big old bunnies!

Breeding dwarfs to non-dwarfs will give you 50% dwarfs, and 50% non-dwarfs, statistically. Breeding dwarfs to dwarfs will give you 50% dwarfs, 25% non-dwarfs, and 25% lethal double-dwarfs ("peanuts").