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Coolest Rabbit Breed Out Of These?

  • Holland Lop

    Votes: 108 21.3%
  • English Spot

    Votes: 14 2.8%
  • American Fuzzy Lop

    Votes: 11 2.2%
  • Mini Rex/Rex

    Votes: 107 21.1%
  • New Zealand

    Votes: 95 18.7%
  • Polish

    Votes: 13 2.6%
  • English Lop

    Votes: 33 6.5%
  • Mini Satins/Satins

    Votes: 14 2.8%
  • Lionhead

    Votes: 112 22.1%

  • Total voters
    507
Only mini Rex's
Has that always been the case?


As I said, it is remotely possible that a random mutation occurred, and your friend wound up with a freakishly rare event in which a previous form of a gene got recreated. It is far more likely that a normal coated rabbit was involved, and someone is misrepresenting the parentage. However they came to be, they technically are not any kind of Rex, Mini or otherwise, since they don't have Rex coats, so your friend is misrepresenting them now by referring to them as Rex. It's kind of like my horse Syd. Both of her parents are registered Miniature Horses, but Syd is 40 or so inches tall, and every Miniature Horse registry has a height limit of 38 inches or less. Pedigree alone does not make an animal a Miniature Horse, it must meet the height requirements too, so Syd is not a Miniature Horse. Those of us that have these oversized animals may call them "oversized minis" or "unregistered Shetlands" or whatever, but all they really are is small, refined ponies.

Another example might be a line of Harlequins that I had. When I bred two specific individuals together, I had REW babies show up in the nest box. I had bred these animals for a half-dozen generations, and I knew I hadn't done any outcrosses. These two rabbits had a common ancestor a few generations back; she had a grandparent that had come from the rabbitry of someone that did an outcross to a NZW to improve type. This REW gene had lurked, hidden, for several generations until I happened to cross two animals that both carried it together. I jokingly referred to the REW's as "paint-by-number" Harlequins, but technically, they weren't Harlies at all without the markings. The difference here, is that the normal coated gene is dominant, not recessive, so it can't lurk unseen.

Your friend may have some small rabbits, but unless they have the Rex coats, they aren't Mini Rex.
 
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Agree, bad papers. No rex coat means there's a cross in the genetics that the seller wasn't up front about Or didn't know about. Maybe they're flipping a pedigreed rabbit the didn't need in their breeding plans/maybe they got duped originally and don't know, happens a lot in chickens, only chickens don't have pedigrees people pay extra for.
That's not poor breeding, that's cross breeding. The person who wrote those papers lied to your friend when they told him that they were Rex. Period.
 
Yea I get what y'all saying. I texted my freind and I got the breed wrong, it's a mini Rex CROSS, srry she confused me. But hey I learned more about the rabbit genes. I think she said he was a mini Rex crossed with a Dutch.
 

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