I apologize for all the questions. I’m very new to this and want to be as knowledgeable as possible. When you say she has really bad form what does that mean exactly? What should I be looking for in my breeders? The main reason for us to raise rabbits is for meat but I also want to set myself up so that I might be able to sell a few in the future. I have no interest in showing.
For meat purposes I would say Litter size (how many she gives birth to) and rate of growth are important.
Wow! Thank you soooo much for taking the time to answer my questions and show me...I really appreciate it. This is incredibly helpful. I also have a trio of Rex that aren’t old enough to breed yet but I am going to use this information to help me determine what to do with them...they were given to meNo problem! Let me show you directly. New Zealands have a commercial body type.
As you can see from these diagrams they're supposed to be very large and round. This translates into muscle mass, which is the part on a rabbit you eat. As you can imagine it's much worse to have a skinny rabbit like a full arch type for eating as almost all the calories will go into bones and organs not muscle. Almost all meat rabbits have the commercial body type. A few have semi-arch or compact.
The rabbit you posted is posed a bit weirdly, but not so badly it would distort the entire body. So just taking an outline from an example of what a commercial rabbit "should" look like and superimposing it over the picture;
View attachment 2337864
We can see that it's got a REALLY low topline, especially in proportion to its head. Now this doesn't mean it's a bad meat rabbit on its own. A rabbit like this may have other good traits, like an ability to raise bigger litters, or faster growing kits that outweighs its muscle to bone proportions. But that's a bit of a gamble and you should either be getting a good price or trust the person you're working with to represent the rabbits mothering abilities accurately. At $40 if I didn't care about breed, showing or selling kits for anything but pets I'd think about getting this rabbit exclusively because it's a large, proven, doe at a reasonable price. I would not breed this doe with the intention to sell as anything but meat or pets. No fairs, no 4H no market pens, none of that.
(To put price in perspective, someone tried to sell me an equally ugly proven doe this month for $120 because it was a purebred rex in a rare color. I did NOT buy it. I *was* willing to buy a nearly equally ugly doe kit from that breeder for $45 but it fell through. All around the interaction was bad vibes and wondering why their rabbits were so sketchy. A southern ohio breeder that helped found the NZ breed sells unproven 10 week bucks for $300. Local craigslist breeders sell unproven 10 week bucks for $10. So there's a scale there with a lot of variation based on quality and gender and proven or not.)
Now lets take a random picture of a "show quality" NZW from the internet. I chose this one;
View attachment 2337879
And superimpose the same outline;
View attachment 2337882
You can see this rabbit has a LOT more muscle mass on it around the back and rear. Its head is proportionally smaller, and it fills out really well. This rabbit probably weighs more, and has more muscle to bone/organ ratio, which is good for eating. But that doesn't mean it's a good meat rabbit for breeding. This rabbit may have smaller litters that grow slower. In fact that's a common problem for show-quality rabbits especially in other breeds (less so in NZ because they're still the most popular meat pen rabbit). But you can very clearly see that this rabbit has very good muscling and a much better shape. That body size is all meat, and that's something you can quantify without having to take someones word for it. So a rabbit like this will be more expensive, but will also be better in shows, meat pens, and looks better to a buyer.
There's more to assessing rabbit quality than this, the doe above may have other positive traits that would show up better if I saw it posed properly or could inspect it in person. Maybe it's even got a temperament I like. But as it is, I hope this helps start you on the path to assessing rabbit quality through photographs.
Thanks againI am new to raising rabbits and had a question
Good grief, lol. Can I bring mine over for an assessment? I’m half kidding, due to covid.No problem! Let me show you directly. New Zealands have a commercial body type.
As you can see from these diagrams they're supposed to be very large and round. This translates into muscle mass, which is the part on a rabbit you eat. As you can imagine it's much worse to have a skinny rabbit like a full arch type for eating as almost all the calories will go into bones and organs not muscle. Almost all meat rabbits have the commercial body type. A few have semi-arch or compact.
The rabbit you posted is posed a bit weirdly, but not so badly it would distort the entire body. So just taking an outline from an example of what a commercial rabbit "should" look like and superimposing it over the picture;
View attachment 2337864
We can see that it's got a REALLY low topline, especially in proportion to its head. Now this doesn't mean it's a bad meat rabbit on its own. A rabbit like this may have other good traits, like an ability to raise bigger litters, or faster growing kits that outweighs its muscle to bone proportions. But that's a bit of a gamble and you should either be getting a good price or trust the person you're working with to represent the rabbits mothering abilities accurately. At $40 if I didn't care about breed, showing or selling kits for anything but pets I'd think about getting this rabbit exclusively because it's a large, proven, doe at a reasonable price. I would not breed this doe with the intention to sell as anything but meat or pets. No fairs, no 4H no market pens, none of that.
(To put price in perspective, someone tried to sell me an equally ugly proven doe this month for $120 because it was a purebred rex in a rare color. I did NOT buy it. I *was* willing to buy a nearly equally ugly doe kit from that breeder for $45 but it fell through. All around the interaction was bad vibes and wondering why their rabbits were so sketchy. A southern ohio breeder that helped found the NZ breed sells unproven 10 week bucks for $300. Local craigslist breeders sell unproven 10 week bucks for $10. So there's a scale there with a lot of variation based on quality and gender and proven or not.)
Now lets take a random picture of a "show quality" NZW from the internet. I chose this one;
View attachment 2337879
And superimpose the same outline;
View attachment 2337882
You can see this rabbit has a LOT more muscle mass on it around the back and rear. Its head is proportionally smaller, and it fills out really well. This rabbit probably weighs more, and has more muscle to bone/organ ratio, which is good for eating. But that doesn't mean it's a good meat rabbit for breeding. This rabbit may have smaller litters that grow slower. In fact that's a common problem for show-quality rabbits especially in other breeds (less so in NZ because they're still the most popular meat pen rabbit). But you can very clearly see that this rabbit has very good muscling and a much better shape. That body size is all meat, and that's something you can quantify without having to take someones word for it. So a rabbit like this will be more expensive, but will also be better in shows, meat pens, and looks better to a buyer.
There's more to assessing rabbit quality than this, the doe above may have other positive traits that would show up better if I saw it posed properly or could inspect it in person. Maybe it's even got a temperament I like. But as it is, I hope this helps start you on the path to assessing rabbit quality through photographs.
Yep, that looks like my Zelda and SpyroI've only raised commercial and compact body type rabbits, but I know a little about both of those.
I know Americans are the only semi-arch rabbit commonly used for meat. They're supposed to have a sort of mandolin shape where they have big buts and low shoulders. This means they put most of their weight in their back legs and their loin is thinner but longer than on a commercial breed.
Some pics from google;
I haven't spent nearly enough years on them to know at-a-glance what ideal looks like, but they do have an official breed standard you could buy from the ARBA.
The San Juan is NOT an ARBA recognized breed. They're a domestic European rabbit bred to look like the american cottontail. They don't have a breed standard beyond "looks like an american cottontail". They're used in dog training to train dogs to hunt cottontails, so the closer they look the better. Because there's some variation in appearance across types of cottontails by region, sticking to a specific form isn't all that important, but I would keep them small and pick only the most wild type coats you can.
I can’t wait to breed them!
. They are wonderful and sweet though. They’d clearly been handled. Going to breed them as well.
