Holand Lop pedigree/registration research resources

[azurbanclucker]

Hey Gang,

I'm trying to find some resources online to flesh out some pedigree history on a couple of our lops we're considering letting the kids show. I've got mixed info including some ARBA registry and GC numbers, but I'm a completionist and want to have more than the minimum required for a showing pedigree.

Does anyone know of any online resources one can use to track down history for pedigrees?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Bunnylady]

I'm a little unclear on what you are looking for.

But just in case you didn't know, you do not need a pedigree to show. It's pretty much assumed that every animal on the show table has one, but nobody checks; I have had animals with incomplete pedigrees win grand champion legs but be ineligible to become grand champions because of the missing data on the pedigree.

Most people won't spend the money to register a rabbit that hasn't done anything on a show table. To register a rabbit, you need a complete (3 generation) pedigree - that means the ear number, weight, and color on the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. That's really all - names are nice, but for some breeders, the ear numbers are the names. Your rabbit needs to be at least 6 months old, and within the size range in the breed standard. When you apply for registration, the ARBA will check any registration or GC numbers on the pedigree against their records to make sure they are correct, but that's all. They keep track of the information themselves, but they don't disclose it.

If a rabbit isn't registered, the only person who might have any records on it would be the breeder, and they most likely gave you what they had.

 

[azurbanclucker]

@Bunnylady I have 3 gen pedigrees that are sufficient for showing, I'm just a data hoarder and I don't like the spotty info in them. As an example, I have one doe who has a mix of very complete and incomplete info on the dam's side and a very thorough pedigree on the sire's side and it drives me crazy. Like, from one breeder I'll get name/DOB/ear #/ Reg # /GC #/, number of legs won/ weight/ and color, and for others it's just name/ ear#/weight/color. I want all the infoz! I realize it's up to the individual breeder what info they provide, I was just hoping I could flesh out their family history if there were a resource available to trace it back. It's a bummer the ARBA doesn't share.

 

[Bunnylady]

I've never seen a pedigree that has DOB for anything other than the rabbit it is written for - none of the parents, etc. If all you have is name, ear#. weight and color, that's probably all there is. That rabbit never won anything, so nobody bothered to spend the money to register it. It may not have ever even seen the inside of a showroom. If there's something to brag about, people usually do it. Frankly, I've never understood people putting, like, 17 legs on a rabbit. 3 legs + registration = Grand Champion; there are no higher levels than that. If the rabbit is truly exceptional, taking it to nationals or some other really big deal show makes sense (and of course, bragging about such a big win!), but to me, putting that many legs on a rabbit in run-of-the-mill shows is just several other GC's that never got awarded because that rabbit was brought to the shows.

 

[azurbanclucker]

That's a fair assessment. I'm really more interested in the breeding history of the rabbits. I got really into genealogy and traced my own roots back a very long way, and so seeing pedigree trees got me all revved up to go do it for the rabbits.

 

[balloonflower]

I'm finding the info on pedigrees also differs by breed. My silver fox pedigrees actually do have most of the dob's on them, but not all the weights. Hardly any ear#s, but I don't know that I would tattoo meat rabbits either, and haven't necessarily been buying show lines. Does that mean they wouldn't be accepted for champions? Some of the them are just name and color.

The pedigrees I've been helping a 4H mentee with for her mini rex project don't have any dob's, but do have most of the weights. My daughters pet dwarf hotot's may be the most complete I've seen, also without the dob's, but the breeder did show lines so I guess that's not surprising.

 

[Bunnylady]

I'm not quite sure why anyone would include DOB - on a rabbit you are looking at buying, that can clue you in on when you can start breeding it or whether or not it is likely to still be fertile, but it really isn't useful to know on a rabbit you don't own. Weight, on the other hand, is important - each breed has a size it's supposed to be (some have both a minimum and maximum size). To some extent, that is inheritable; for example, if you have rabbits from a line that are consistently on the smallish size, sooner or later the offspring won't make the weight. In a situation like that, you'd want to do an outcross to a line that tends to run on the larger size; simply buying a rabbit from a different bloodline that is also small wouldn't move you away from the problem you started with.

Because ear#'s are chosen by the owners, there is always the possibility of more than one rabbit in a class with the same ear number. Still, those are actually on the rabbit. Though registration numbers are unique, they are also (often) only on paper, so the ear # is how the rabbit is identified in a class.

A rabbit doesn't have to be tattooed with its ear #, if it isn't going to be shown. I have often just assigned a number to a rabbit that I knew was unshowable, but since it wasn't ever going to be in a situation where the ear number was going to be read, I didn't put the rabbit through the stress of putting the number in its ear. I knew who that rabbit was, and since it wasn't going to leave my rabbitry, that was good enough for me.

But yes, an incomplete pedigree means that a rabbit can't be registered, and without registration, no matter how many legs a rabbit wins, it can't become a grand champion.

 

[balloonflower]

I can see where the dob isn't really applicable, especially in the g & gg levels of the pedigree. I know when I started, I did find it interesting, but as a learning thing for me just getting started in breeding. I hadn't paid much attention to the weights. I will have to keep a better eye on that for future purchases.

I'd never really thought of the fact that a bun could be numbered, but not tattooed. Makes sense--like I said, I have a meat breed so wasn't surprised at the lack of ear#s.