The sorting process

We are awash with babies right now. The scourge of a breeder is what to do with the extra babies. To make progress in our herd, we have to keep breeding. Our goal is to produce babies better than their parents.

We linebreed, which means we often get some very nice babies in a litter and some that need to be culled out of the breeding program now.

We do our first sort at about five weeks. We cull babies who are much bigger than their litter mates, those with obvious disqualifications, and those who already lack the head/ear shape or body that we want. They don't grow out of things like low headset or low shoulders. We also examine their feet. We want a short, wide foot and often compare a litter's feet.

We once kept a doe only based on her feet. She had lovely wide feet although her body seemed long and narrow. But at about 4 1/2 months, her body went schloomp! And we had a wide, short doe who granded early and has stayed home to produce several show-quality babies.

Another sort happens around 8-9 weeks of age. We continue to look for nice smooth hindquarters, good width at the shoulder, nicely balanced crown.

Then we ignore them. Well, not literally. We handle them a lot, putting them on a carpeted table and try to simulate how a judge would work with them. But we try not to look at head or body at this point.

They go through the familiar uglies until they're about 4-4 1/2 months old. That's when we do the next sort session. It's amazing how they change over the six weeks. (OK, it's hard not to notice bodies and heads when we're handling them in this time frame. But we try not to select who to keep.)

With our bucks, we find that another sort happens at 9-12 months, when we see if the promise of the baby has reappeared yet.

We believe that a sound culling program will strengthen our herd and we're trying to learn and grow in that area. So we're growing out several juniors now, knowing they have at least two more cuts to pass before we incorporate them into our breeding program.

State fair

Timothy had a good run at our State fair this year, picking up a BOB with his solid junior buck, Geo. What he thinks is cool is that this is not the solid junior buck he won BIS with a few weeks ago.

The two bucks are similar in age, color and size, but different in type. So Timothy now goes to shows with something that might appeal to different judges' eye.

Some judges are what we call "head" judges: they look for a nice head/ears/crown combo and pay much less attention to the body. Others seem to prefer smooth, balanced bodies and will forgive weaknesses in the ears and/or crown.

What we think are the best judges, of course, are those who look at the entire Holland and find the one who scores the most points according to the ARBA standards.

But it doesn't hurt to go to shows with more than one style of animal, just in case the one who's done well in the past doesn't excel in what a particular judge is looking forward. When we can, we try that approach to our selection of who to take to the show.

Linebreeding I

One of the basics of linebreeding, which we try to do a lot with our Hollands, is to breed a doe back to her father or a buck back to his mother. Although technically this is inbreeding, it's a valuable tool in our linebreeding program.

Right now I have a litter as a result of breeding a young buck back to his mother. The mother is a grand champion but the son has a tight crown although a nice short cobby body. We were curious to see if he'd pass that tight crown on to his offspring - and to see what other traits we'd find in the litter.

A mother/son combination will usually uncover both good and bad traits. It's not unusual to see a bunny with a truckload of bad traits. Although these make nice pets, they also help us to see what may be hidden in the genetics of the parents.

A baby with a low headset or narrow crown or rough hindquarters show us that those traits are hiding in the parents' genes. We then know to be careful in choosing who to breed the parents to next time.

We will continue to monitor this litter to see what traits develop, which will give us fresh information on the genetics of the parents. To limit it further, we will consider breeding a doe from this litter back to her father. We want to see common ancestors in the pedigree rather than 16 different ancestors.

Linebreeding is about narrowing the gene pool to isolate and strength those traits we want to see in our Hollands.

Comics and chores

I found out about a new tax in our state while loading rabbit trays. Timothy keeps up with his favorite comic that way, although it does slow down chores a little.

We use trays under all our rabbit cages and so have to empty and wash them at least once a week. We've discovered that using newspapers to line the bottom of the trays has reduced our bedding costs a bunch. We use shredded newspaper on top of the newspaper sheets.

But that step where the washed trays come to the newspaper station slows us up. As we unfold the old newspapers, we find articles we forgot to read. And so, if Timothy is replacing trays under cages, he comes back to the newspaper/bedding station to find me deeply engrossed in an article. When it's his turn, he reads the funnies.

I've yet to find much exciting in this tray-cleaning chore but catching up on the news at the same time helps make it a little more interesting.

Ups and downs

Last week,Timothy got a taste of the highs and lows of rabbit showing. It's an amazing hobby, isn't it?

I already reported about the Best in Show win but he went on to win a reserve Grand Champion at our county fair with a junior buck (and not the same buck as the BIS buck). He held back his four best animals from the county fair because we were going to an ARBA-sanctioned show the next day.

We didn't figure the show animals would like a long, full day at the county fair and then get toted home for another road trip and another long, full day at the next show.

But his ARBA show in Henderson turned out to be a bit of a dud. There were two youth exhibitors and, although he got several firsts, didn't get a leg. In fact, the Best of Breed bunny didn't earn a leg.

Showing rabbits means subjective judging and you-never-know disappointments like lack of youth exhibitors. That keeps us guessing when we go to shows - but probably keeps the zing in the hobby, too.

You just never know what's going to happen when you load the rabbits in the car and head out. It could be the rush of a BIS or the dull thud of last place. But it's always a surprise.

Denim had 5...no, 6....no, 7 babies yesterday. She's a grand champion broken black with a smooth body and we bred her to Kay Miller's Jason, who has a great head and nice bone. (He's a grand champion, too.) If we can get a bunch of babies from this cross, and if they're as nice as we're hoping....

Well, a lot of "if's" but that's the nature of breeding rabbits. The hope of the new match, the plans for the future matings.

We'd love to get a black out of this mating to use in our otter program. Of course, we'd love to get a batch of Best of Breed bunnies, too!

This is a nice linebreeding, with enough outcrossing to hopefully strength Denim's head while shortening her body. We'll see if the idea worked.

We're excited

We were at the Elbert County Show on Sunday where Timothy showed a junior buck, Pyro, for the first time. Pyro picked up two legs including a Best of Breed and a Best in Show.

The funny thing is that we have two junior bucks about the same age and similar in conformation. We've debated for two months which one is better but the judges were unanimous Sunday.