Raising our New Zealand Meat Rabbits *Start to finish - Birth to processing* Possible Graphic pics*

[ChocolateMouse]

Well, Bunnylady. I certainly claim to NOT know much about rabbit genetics at all so I did not know these things. I thought sables looked ticked with banded hairs because in dogs the color called sable is a banded hair color and in fact many yellow/white/cream colored dogs are considered sable because they have a banded hair... yellow clear and then yellow again... Instead of self colored. Most people think it is a solid color.

I know the banding can from the NZW. I was hoping for broken genes but no dice! A girl can dream! I am curious what my other buck is hiding! I cant wait to find out!

 

[Bunnylady]

I need a translator.....wow!

Oops! Sorry about that.

Sometimes I get a little carried away . . . .

In a nutshell, rabbits are like anything else in that they only have two pigments that they may put into their coats, eumelanin (black/brown pigment) and pheomelanin (yellow/red pigment). There are a bunch of different genes that influence how much of each pigment is produced, and just where in the coat those colors appear. The different forms of the genes are called alleles. Some rabbit genes have several possible alleles, which can make things pretty complicated. For example, instead of simply Agouti or self, rabbits have 3 possibilities in the A series, Agouti, tan, and self. Agouti is the wild-type coloration with banded hairs and light-colored "trim" in certain areas; a self has no banding on the hairs nor the light markings. A tan-patterned rabbit has solid colored body hairs, like a self, but light colored areas like an Agouti.

The genes themselves make things complicated enough, but when it comes to names, you kind of have to know what it means to know what it means. To most people, the word "sable" means the color black, or possibly a usually dark brown member of the weasel family. In rabbits, "sable" refers to animals displaying a color pattern somewhat like that of a Siamese cat. Horses have a wide variety of shades of "chestnut," but none of them remotely resemble the color that is generally called "chestnut" in a lot of rabbit breeds. Sometimes, even the breed itself has to be taken into consideration - for example, Dutch rabbits have a full-colored Agouti that is pretty much analogous to Chestnut, but with them, it's called "grey."

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Rabbit coat colors are so strange... I kind of give up since different colors have all sorts of different names based on the breed. I took a close look at the way this rabbit's coat is. It is grey underneath the black, and many of the guard hairs have brown tips giving it the "sable" "steel" or "ticked" look. It does still have a lighter underside and the brown patch behind the head. XD What would you define this color as, if not sable? It looks like what we call sable, based on agouti (which can be either two tone hairs or three tone hairs in dogs), in dogs but if not so much in rabbits then what is it called in rabbits?

 

[Bunnylady]

Like I said, it looks like a steel. None of these images are mine, but these are examples of (gold-tipped) steel in a Holland Lop, and a New Zealand.





The rabbit below is an American Sable. There is no ticking or barring in the coat. It is a result of the shading allele (AKA, Light Chinchillation, cchl) combined with the self pattern:


Here's the same color (Siamese Sable) on a Netherland Dwarf:

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Well, those top colors are close but my rabbit is so dark compared to all of the steel colored rabbits I have seen. I guess I will tell people it is a gold-tipped steel from now on when describing the color? Not that it's super relevant for my meat mutts WHAT their particular genetic color is, but it's good to know.

 

[Angelicisi]

Her 8 kits have been weaned. They are eating and drinking and frolicking in the grow out box. Theses 8 are sold or are holdbacks for us. They are breeders and won't be processed for meat.

We will be sexing and seperating sexes tomorrow. I feel confident now in telling bucks from does, lol we shall see. I thought I knew and then was shown lol yay!

This does did awesome her 1st litter. She is large, had a kindling of 8 and 8 made it!

We have #1 (Ghost).
Pure white new zealand. 7 month old doe.
Had 8 kits on 12/12/13. Her 1st litter.
Bred to Pure white NZ Buck from another breeders stock.
No issues at this time. She's been an awesome mom from the get go. Hubby has a video of her cleaning up placentas from her birth ew I know lol...I'll spare y'all I suppose, tho its neat to see a huge bloody mess then an hour later all is fluffy and white again O.O

This litter is 1 week old as of yesterday. Eyes are still closed but it looks like they're peeking lol.

 

[Beekissed]

I think she's a keeper and that's an excellent litter size..and wonderful for a first litter! They all look like winners to me...pretty consistent in size.

You ought to have those folks inform you if they win any shows with them, no matter how small a show. It's good to keep records on such things...you could be supplying quite a few people with rabbits if your reputation gets out there. Good job!!!

 

[Angelicisi]

One lady that's waiting on a buck from this litter said to go show the parents then breed them lol I said theyre meat rabbits. She said oh? So your eating "good" rabbits?! I told her well, not yet because they keep selling as breeders and pets but that's the plan!
Lol doh. She bought 2 more, while it was nice she wasn't too nice once finding out we eat them :/ is this common in rabbits? We figured pure white ones would be easier for people to see as meat...not so much lol nom nom Nom.

I think she's a keeper and that's an excellent litter size..and wonderful for a first litter!  They all look like winners to me...pretty consistent in size.     You ought to have those folks inform you if they win any shows with them, no matter how small a show.  It's good to keep records on such things...you could be supplying quite a few people with rabbits if your reputation gets out there.  Good job!!! 

 

[Bunnylady]

Years ago, I ran an ad in the local paper about some young rabbits I had for sale. I was used to getting a variety of responses, but one message on my answering machine sticks in my mind after all these years. No name, no number, just a woman's voice dripping venom, "Do you realize people feed those things to SNAKES??!"

Then there was a friend of mine who bred commercial rabbits, who sold some young stock to the owner of a small zoo. The understanding was that they would be used to produce rabbits to be fed to some large snakes in the zoo. When the rabbit breeder learned that her rabbits had instead been fed to the snakes, she was livid. She was perfectly fine with people eating her rabbits, but not snakes.

I sell a lot of rabbits as pets, and over the years, I've learned to use the term "commercial breeds" rather than "meat rabbits" because some people really take exception to the idea of eating rabbits. To them, rabbits are "friends, not food"

But as far as showing before breeding, know that doing well in a show room is not at all the same thing as being a good, productive commercial animal. Lots of commercial breeders never take an animal to a show, and lots of show rabbits really don't make it as producers. It's not quite as bad as what some say about Quarter Horses - animals that win in conformation classes aren't good for anything else - but there are certain details where not conforming to the standard actually makes a commercial rabbit better at the job of making meat.

 

[Beekissed]

One lady that's waiting on a buck from this litter said to go show the parents then breed them lol I said theyre meat rabbits. She said oh? So your eating "good" rabbits?! I told her well, not yet because they keep selling as breeders and pets but that's the plan!
Lol doh. She bought 2 more, while it was nice she wasn't too nice once finding out we eat them

is this common in rabbits? We figured pure white ones would be easier for people to see as meat...not so much lol nom nom Nom.

Yes...the world is getting more and more strange about their food...which they will eat like no tomorrow if they don't know the source or if they willfully ignore the source...and will squeal like a mating buck if you mention you eat the animals you are raising. They find it barbaric to eat your own animals, even though they are eating animals that live in horrible conditions and consume their self righteous attitude in every bite.

There simply is no reasoning with that kind of thinking. They are truly blind to all reason and they are willingly, willfully blind which is way worse than mere ignorance.

Years ago, I ran an ad in the local paper about some young rabbits I had for sale. I was used to getting a variety of responses, but one message on my answering machine sticks in my mind after all these years. No name, no number, just a woman's voice dripping venom, "Do you realize people feed those things to SNAKES??!"

Then there was a friend of mine who bred commercial rabbits, who sold some young stock to the owner of a small zoo. The understanding was that they would be used to produce rabbits to be fed to some large snakes in the zoo. When the rabbit breeder learned that her rabbits had instead been fed to the snakes, she was livid. She was perfectly fine with people eating her rabbits, but not snakes.

I sell a lot of rabbits as pets, and over the years, I've learned to use the term "commercial breeds" rather than "meat rabbits" because some people really take exception to the idea of eating rabbits. To them, rabbits are "friends, not food"

But as far as showing before breeding, know that doing well in a show room is not at all the same thing as being a good, productive commercial animal. Lots of commercial breeders never take an animal to a show, and lots of show rabbits really don't make it as producers. It's not quite as bad as what some say about Quarter Horses - animals that win in conformation classes aren't good for anything else - but there are certain details where not conforming to the standard actually makes a commercial rabbit better at the job of making meat.

I agree! We only had 4-H rabbits and what they are judged on is pretty consistent with what makes a good meaty producer, but just rabbit shows for breeds isn't necessarily representative of what I consider good meat rabbits.

Around here, if your rabbit's offspring consistently win at the county fair, you have a market for your kits each and every spring for all the youngsters in the area and even those who will travel from other areas to get that winning pen....kids make a good deal of money for a grand champion pen at the local county fairs, depending on the bidding that year.

We sold to those kind of folks and also to one older man who would consistently buy all our young white rabbits only~for some reason he only wanted the white ones~because he had a heart condition and needed the lean meat supply. With these different markets and our own consumption we rarely had rabbits we couldn't get rid of.