I have a question.
The first time that my children had our 2 Mini Rex does bred, we bred broken to broken. They both had plenty of color. The resulting litter were charlies and a few solids. None of the brokens had enough color. So we researched and found that we should breed solid to broken and that the solid should have broken in its pedigree. We found a solid with almost half of his pedigree with broken and bred him to our broken doe. Out of 9 kits, 2 are solid and the rest are broken with too much color! So none of those brokens can be shown! (Not that we\'d keep all of them, but one would have been nice) We would like to have some brokens with the correct amount of color. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to achieve this? Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
On my mini rex pedigrees alot of them are broken tri to broken tri. They have continued to produce nicely patterned babies. Sometimes I will get a charlie but overall it is usually the nice patterned babies. Maybe it is in their genes? Now on my broken netherlands it took me awhile to get show quality brokens. I had to start with charlie marked ones because that was all I could find and they continued to produce themselves. I usually do brokens to solid in them and now after almost 5 years I am getting the nice patterned babies. They are showable also now,yeah! It took awhile but it sounds like you are doing all the right things. I feel it plays a huge part in the rabbits genes and what they come out of. I only keep ones that will help me to excell in my rabbit showing and not because I love the color. I rarely ever keep charlie marked ones. I think they continue to reproduce themselves but some people say otherwise. I have never had the luck with charlie marked bunnies. One other thing a solid out of a broken will not mean anything, because it has to have the broken gene in order to produce it. Just look at the two rabbits that are being bred and try it and then try with others and see what you get, then continue on with what worked best. Hope this helps and remember this is just my opinion.
Tony Artist,
http://www.artistrabbitry.com
As Tony said, it is in the genes...and also pure chance.
If you breed a Charlie to a solid, you will get all Brokens. Whether they are showable brokens depends on if the rabbit is carrying the gene for light or heavy pattern. That is a factor too that some people tend to overlook.
Now, according to the Punnet Square, if you breed a solid to a Broken, theoretically, you should get 50% Brokens and 50% solid, but it\'s really like throwing the dice or flipping a coin as to what sperm meets up with what egg, so you could get all Brokens or all solids, or any combination in between.
Again, according to theory, if you breed Broken to Broken you should get 25% Broken, 25% Charlies, and 50% solid, but it can really happen in any combination.
The tendency for heavy pattern, light pattern, spotted Vs. blanket is also an inherited trait. It doesn\'t matter at all with the solid rabbit - he or she does not carry the Broken gene and has no effect on the outcome of the markings of the young. Try to use Brokens who come from a line that has a greater number of nicely patterned animals, and your chances of reproducing that will be better. You still may come up with the oddball, but overall you\'ll have a majority of showable marked Brokens.
Charlcie Gill
Zodiac Rabbitry
Astoria, OR
http://www.zodiacsatins.com
I have read about the modifiers in brokens playing a big part in the amount and quality of spotting/markings a rabbit has. Here\'s an article about broken genetics that also includes a paragraph about the modifiers and how they play a part.
http://members.tripod.com/Rexrabbit/brokengene.html
The bummer is that while we can breed with known genotypes, we can\'t predict/determine what modifiers a rabbit will inherit or give to their offspring. I will breed a pair a couple of times and if they consistently don\'t give me what I want, I don\'t breed them anymore. Once I find a good broken pairing, I definitely breed them again and keep track of what each litter consists of. For example, I have a tricolor doe that has had 2 litters. The first breeding did not produce anything that I would want to keep, the second litter produced the same results with the same buck. That buck is no longer available so I will breed her to a buck I know can throw good kits. If I don\'t like the litter with him, she is done with me. If they have a nice litter, I will try again and see if they are a good pairing.
By the way, that tricolor buck that throws good kits is from Tony! He has awesome tricolors! Thanks again Tony for getting me started in tricolors!
Thanks for the input everyone. I didn\'t realize that their was also a gene for heavy markings vs. light markings and blanket vs. spotting. This gives me something to think about before we attempt to breed more bunnies.
I was told from someone or read it somewhere (though I don\'t remember exactly) to get around the problem of charlies that we should only breed solid to broken. Well, now from experience, that was not a good idea. I guess this breeding thing is all a learning experience as I go.
So what happens when you have an adult rabbit that you don\'t want to use any longer for breeding (because he/she is not producing desirable results) and it can\'t be shown? Do you keep it for the rest of its life or do you try to sell it as a pet? With us, cage space is always an issue.
I sell them either as pets or to a breeder that thinks this rabbit will do well in their program. I also have limited cage space (only 18 holes).
Ann-I just checked out the website you recommended and it was very informatitive. Thanks.
I agree with Ann on trying to sell the bunny first to someone that may be able to use it in their breeding program. Be up front and honest as to what you got in her litters. She or He may be what someone is really looking for to help compliment their lines. Shows are good places to take them to, to try and sell them by the way. Or try selling as a pet. Good luck and keep up the learning experience because it seems to me that I just keep learning with each new litter. And it has been over 10 years doing this. Tony
By the way Ann thanks for the compliment! It means alot to me. Tony