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

[Debs55]

ok thanks so much! I think after reading this each rabbit will have their own cage

 

[Mahlzeit]

Where do you guys get those wire cages from?

 

[peeweesfarm]

you can get the stuff to build them at hardware store but you should get Storys guide to raising Rabbits by Bob Bennett I got it at feed store will give the supplies list an deminsion's for cages an Ideas on rabbit buildings. get the book its full of imfo. good luck

 

[Angelicisi]

We make our cages. You can buy them too at feed stores or pet stores but they're awfully expensive. We can get 2 cages from the cost of one if we make them. Wire can get pricey but post an ad on CL and ask for some. Some people have rolls around they let go at a good price or look for sales at home depot or Lowe's on rolls.

Where do you guys get those wire cages from? 

 

[Angelicisi]

Babies are growing. Mamas are getting ready for next kindle. Bucks are swaying low...lol may have to add a few does while our next ones grow out.

I like the new Zealands, would mixing a colored doe new Zealand with a white buck be a bad choice? Saw some of nice size and age but not whites.
Is it like some chickens, in that mixing colors results in mutts? For meat I'd think it doesn't matter and I'd still keep my white line of does pure because that's what my current customers want and I aim to please. But was just curious

 

[Beekissed]

When you mate a red NZ and a white NZ, you get a brown offspring that looks just like wild rabbits. Don't know what happens with other colors.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

So it depends entirely on what your NZWs carry and your colored does carry. Some colors of rabbits can carry the "e" gene for albino, which is recessive, but expresses the dominant "E" gene so it's like this;

EE Not albino
Ee Not albino
ee Albino

I have my Otter rex rabbit that when bred to a NZW produces albino kits that means she's a carrier of the little "e" gene. My buck for those breedings carries steel. So if I breed my NZW buck to a solid rabbit I get steel rabbits sometimes. Some white rabbits hide other patterns too, like broken.

As far as I'm aware, mixing NZ rabbit colors produces just that, a mixed color. A white bred to a red will produce a lighter red with a few white hairs scattered in... Plus whatever pattern your white carries. A red to a black will produce a dark, messy brown color. Not sure about black to white but I imagine it's similar to whiteXred.

Technically these are mutts now... But rabbit breeding is funny... Basically you can ruin your color lines that way by having a recessive gene like the "e" gene hiding in their code, making disqualifying white hairs pop up in otherwise solid colored rabbits... However, any rabbit that has three generations of parentage (parents, GP, GGP) all saying "this breed, this color, the right weight" and they're all the same color (for NZ and other rabbits that are picky genetically), breed and meet the adult weight for that breed.... They are a "pure" rabbit... Regardless of what was in the parentage from generations 4+.... Which for albinos is really easy to get them all back to the same color again!

I like keeping colored rabbits because if you're going to have a farm... Why not make it beautiful!? People know that they're cross breeds and buy them anyhow. The outcrossing I do always has a purpose (my mix breed is huge 13lbs, my rex produces giant litters, etc) so it's never willy-nilly and it always adds something positive to the genetics even if it creates a mutt. And having a GOOD rabbit means more to most people than having a "pure" rabbit. If you want some color, I suggest seeking out a really high quality doe, stick it into your herd and see what happens!

 

[Bunnylady]

So it depends entirely on what your NZWs carry and your colored does carry. Some colors of rabbits can carry the "e" gene for albino, which is recessive, but expresses the dominant "E" gene so it's like this;

EE Not albino
Ee Not albino
ee Albino

I have my Otter rex rabbit that when bred to a NZW produces albino kits that means she's a carrier of the little "e" gene. My buck for those breedings carries steel. So if I breed my NZW buck to a solid rabbit I get steel rabbits sometimes. Some white rabbits hide other patterns too, like broken.

As far as I'm aware, mixing NZ rabbit colors produces just that, a mixed color. A white bred to a red will produce a lighter red with a few white hairs scattered in... Plus whatever pattern your white carries. A red to a black will produce a dark, messy brown color. Not sure about black to white but I imagine it's similar to whiteXred.

Technically these are mutts now... But rabbit breeding is funny... Basically you can ruin your color lines that way by having a recessive gene like the "e" gene hiding in their code, making disqualifying white hairs pop up in otherwise solid colored rabbits... However, any rabbit that has three generations of parentage (parents, GP, GGP) all saying "this breed, this color, the right weight" and they're all the same color (for NZ and other rabbits that are picky genetically), breed and meet the adult weight for that breed.... They are a "pure" rabbit... Regardless of what was in the parentage from generations 4+.... Which for albinos is really easy to get them all back to the same color again!

I like keeping colored rabbits because if you're going to have a farm... Why not make it beautiful!? People know that they're cross breeds and buy them anyhow. The outcrossing I do always has a purpose (my mix breed is huge 13lbs, my rex produces giant litters, etc) so it's never willy-nilly and it always adds something positive to the genetics even if it creates a mutt. And having a GOOD rabbit means more to most people than having a "pure" rabbit. If you want some color, I suggest seeking out a really high quality doe, stick it into your herd and see what happens!

CM, I know you are trying to be helpful, but these are rabbits, not dogs. A lot of what you say here is in error, but it's late, I'm tired, and I just can't sort it out now.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Bunny lady, are you saying that a rabbit that doesn't carry albino will produce albino kits? Because that info came from your own data provided in another thread. Or that albinos don't carry patterns that can be expressed when bred to other colors? I know for a fact that my pedigree info is correct... And the RedXwhite and RedXblack is what I have been told by breeders who have bred them together, hence the "as far as I'm aware". I'm not using dog info, I am using info from other rabbit breeders. I have no idea what the genetic code color for red and black are in rabbits, hence the disclaimer. I don't see what your issue is... Unless you have a problem with the fact that I didn't list the full list of the "e" genes for simplicities sake.

 

[Bunnylady]

So it depends entirely on what your NZWs carry and your colored does carry. Some colors of rabbits can carry the "e" gene for albino, which is recessive, but expresses the dominant "E" gene so it's like this;

EE Not albino
Ee Not albino
ee Albino

I have my Otter rex rabbit that when bred to a NZW produces albino kits that means she's a carrier of the little "e" gene. My buck for those breedings carries steel. So if I breed my NZW buck to a solid rabbit I get steel rabbits sometimes. Some white rabbits hide other patterns too, like broken.

As far as I'm aware, mixing NZ rabbit colors produces just that, a mixed color. A white bred to a red will produce a lighter red with a few white hairs scattered in... Plus whatever pattern your white carries. A red to a black will produce a dark, messy brown color. Not sure about black to white but I imagine it's similar to whiteXred.

Technically these are mutts now... But rabbit breeding is funny... Basically you can ruin your color lines that way by having a recessive gene like the "e" gene hiding in their code, making disqualifying white hairs pop up in otherwise solid colored rabbits... However, any rabbit that has three generations of parentage (parents, GP, GGP) all saying "this breed, this color, the right weight" and they're all the same color (for NZ and other rabbits that are picky genetically), breed and meet the adult weight for that breed.... They are a "pure" rabbit... Regardless of what was in the parentage from generations 4+.... Which for albinos is really easy to get them all back to the same color again!

I like keeping colored rabbits because if you're going to have a farm... Why not make it beautiful!? People know that they're cross breeds and buy them anyhow. The outcrossing I do always has a purpose (my mix breed is huge 13lbs, my rex produces giant litters, etc) so it's never willy-nilly and it always adds something positive to the genetics even if it creates a mutt. And having a GOOD rabbit means more to most people than having a "pure" rabbit. If you want some color, I suggest seeking out a really high quality doe, stick it into your herd and see what happens!

Well, my first problem is with the term "albino." Yes, that is technically what an animal with no pigment in its coat or eyes is, but rabbit people don't call them that. I don't know why the term is even included in the glossary of the ARBA standard, since as near as I can tell, it's the only place in the book where it occurs! There are a lot of breeds that include white rabbits with pink eyes among their showable varieties, but they don't even use the word "albino" in the description. They are called "White," or frequently, Ruby-eyed White (REW).

In rabbits, the gene responsible for the REW is the most recessive allele in the "C" series. There are 5 (some say 6) alleles in that series, with REW being designated as c. It may seem like quibbling over semantics to insist that REW be referred to as "c" and not "e," but there is an E series too, and that's where colors like Steel, Red, Orange, Tort, and Harlequin happen. To assign any other letter to one that has an established designation could confuse people who are trying to learn from this discussion.

Quote: White occurs on the C series, Red occurs on the E series, they don't interact like that. The only way you will get red offspring from a white rabbit is if the white rabbit has at least one non-extension gene (e). Likewise, the only way you can get white offspring from a red rabbit is if the red rabbit carries a REW gene (c).

The lighter shade of red that is sometimes seen (usually called Orange) has nothing to do with the presence or absence of the REW gene. The cause of the rich, dark red color of the true Red is some little helper genes called the Rufus modifiers. There are apparently several of them, and they come in two forms, + and - (or if you like, "yes" and "no."). Rufus modifiers that are the + form code for more of the yellow/red pigment to be produced, those that are - don't. An animal that has all of its rufus modifiers of the - form will be yellowish or orangish is the areas where the black pigment doesn't cover the lighter pigment (the light band on a Chestnut's body hairs, for example). Change all those rufus modifiers to the + form, and the animal has a lot more red/yellow pigment in its coat; the Chestnut is now a Castor.

(The Red New Zealand also employs the Wide Band gene to get the red color on the belly, but that really doesn't affect how red the rest of the rabbit is).

The bit about the scattered white hairs is probably the most often repeated fallacy in rabbit coat color genetics. The REW gene does not cause scattered white hairs. Over the years, I have had many, many colored Netherland Dwarfs and Holland Lops that had hardly a white hair on their bodies, that when bred to the right rabbit, had REW offspring. Conversely, I have had quite a few Jersey Woolies that had scads of white hairs, that couldn't produce a REW if their lives depended on it, because they didn't have the REW gene. How can that be? The stray white hairs are caused by some other factor (genes); the REW gene doesn't cause it, it masks it (how can you spot stray white hairs on a white rabbit?!!) When you breed generation after generation of white rabbits, you may have genes for stray white hairs or white claws or whatever running around in your gene pool, but you can't see them, so they make no difference to you. When you are breeding colored rabbits, you tend to weed those genes out, because they are a problem on the show table. If you took two colored rabbits with essentially no white hairs and produced a REW from them (because they had the REW gene, obviously), you could breed that REW to a colored rabbit, and get no more stray white hairs on the offspring than if you had used the REW's colored sibling instead. A white rabbit that comes from a long line of white rabbits may have the genes that cause those white hairs or white claws or whatever; you only see them when you breed to something that has color enough to make them show up.

Red doesn't look like it, but it is an Agouti patterned color. It's possible that the Black New Zealand is an Agouti as well (two copies of the Steel gene produces a black animal that looks just like a black self, even if it has Agouti or Tan at the A locus). The NZW can have Agouti, Steel, non-extension, any of that going on, but the pair of REW genes on the C series overrides the expression of all the rest of the genes by shutting down the production of pigment entirely. Cross these together, and you can get Chestnuts and Steels. I understand some people are working on getting Blue recognized in the NZ, so depending on the source of your breeding stock, you might get Blues, Opals, and Blue Steels too. These animals aren't "mutts," they are still New Zealands, they are just unshowable colors. Look at it this way: if I breed a Lilac Holland Lop buck to a Sable Point Holland Lop doe, I'm not producing mutts, I'm producing Holland Lops. There are some color possibilities that aren't recognized and will get DQ'd on a show table (Pearl Point, for example), but the babies are all still pedigreed Hollands.