CIRCUS LIONS RABBITRY

Got my first BEW breeding done the other night - b's precious blue-eyed blizzard x Circus's Without a Net (tort).  My tort, Annie, has great type and is a Pridelands x Setzke's daughter, with nice small ears.  The BEW buck's ears aren't bad but she is definitely typier than he is.  Hopefully, he was old enough to get the job done.  Lionhead bucks are willing but not fertile (for me anyway) until 5.5 - 5.75 months old.  He's right on the line so I've got my fingers crossed.

Well, I've gone back to work full-time after a long stint on unemployment so I've had a lot less time for my bunnies and my blog.  The herd is doing well, though, and my litters have improved a lot.  It's getting harder to pick who stays and who goes and that's been nice.  I have so many bucks that I'm watching/growing out; don't necessarily want or need that many but 1) I'd like to replace my 2 main herd bucks (a black and a blue) with sons better than them and 2) both my bucks throw way too many sons, especially the blue!  HIS father did that, too, producing 80% male offspring no matter what doe he was bred to.  My broken buck doesn't have that trait, thank god.  And I also have a large litter of 8 from my friend's buck right now that has 6 does in it.  C'mon, does! 

Saw my first Max Factor kits in my friend's Netherland litter a few weeks ago.  There were 3 kits - a normal and 2 that had open eyes at birth.  One of those also had deformed back legs.  That one was culled.  The other kit's eyes closed up somehow and it looks fine now at a few weeks old.  The Max Factor gene is like the peanut gene - a kit getting one copy of it is supposed to be nice and typey but a double dose causes big issues.  Unlike peanuts, many Max Factors babies will live but they will be blind and crippled.  I have to admit, the two surviving Nethies look really good; tiny, tiny ears and round heads.  Some lionheads may have the Max Factor gene in there, too, since Netherlands were crossed in to improve size and type.

I now have a beautiful little BEW buck from my breeding buddy, Shay Beck, of b's precious bunnies.  He's very nice, especially for a BEW (blue-eyed white)! and I can't wait to see what he produces this summer. 

Although a lot of the bigger breeders are getting away from breeding blues, I plan to stay with them and work on type and manes.  I love the color and wish the other breeders weren't giving up on them.

I enjoy selling pet bunnies for Easter; it's fun being the one who helped bring that pet into a family's life and the enjoyment they'll have from owning it.  I also love getting pics of the growing up rabbits from the new owners.  Hope everyone takes good care of their new babies and keeps them healthy and happy.

I've seen a few kits born that were so bruised up they look like they went 10 rounds with Muhammand Ali.  I think this happens for several reasons. 

Poor presentation - that means the kit isn't in a good position to come easily through the birth canal and it's getting squashed against the mother's pelvic bone by labor contractions, instead of eased through the pelvic opening.  I think bruised muzzles happen when the bunny gets stuck nose first against the cervix and can't get out. 

I've noticed a trend among lionhead breeders to be trying for traits that aren't actually called for in the standard.  I'd say the biggest one going right now is to breed for the teeniest, tiniest ears possible.  Now the standard calls for ears to be less than 3.5" long and to balance with the head.  But it seems that any rabbit with 3" ears is looked down on with scorn by a lot of folks.  What the heck?!  Smaller ears do tend to look a bit nicer but we don't need to breed for them to be Netherland dwarf size, do we?  The teeny ears thing seems to go along with the trend to like lionheads to be really small and "cute".  Again, the standard calls for a lionhead to be 3.5 lbs. as the ideal weight, and not going over 3.75 lbs.  That means that all other things being equal, the 3.5 lbs. rabbit should beat the 2.5 lbs. one.  We're not trying for a rabbit that looks like a Netherland with a fur collar.  Are we?  I found myself being caught up in this a bit and thinking of culling out a promising looking doe because her ears were a bit larger.  Then I saw photos of the rabbits that were used for presentation at the ARBA convention and they had bigger ears.  And they passed presentation.  That helped me to re-affirm my goal of breeding for what's there on  paper and keep that doe! 

I have heard of this phenomemon with show dogs, too.  A certain look becomes trendy and everyone jumps on the trendy train.  It takes the strength of your convictions to stick to what's written in the standard and not be swayed by what everyone thinks is cute.

There's a very interesting thread going on on Showbunny on yahoo! groups about what breeders sell to other breeders.  What got it all started was someone posting that they are careful about what they sell to someone else because they wouldn't want to be beaten at a show by the other person, especially because they sold their competition rabbits that were too good.

To the rabbit community's credit, many people commented that they don't sell anything as show quality that they wouldn't show themselves.  And many folks also said they'd be thrilled if a rabbit they sold beat them at a show.  It ends up being a credit to the breeder, anyway, and is great advertising in the long run.  A breeder will get a reputation for selling good quality rabbits, which will lead to more sales.  Or not.

I have only sold a couple of rabbits as show quality so far in my short time as a breeder and those rabbits had gotten best of variety when I showed them myself.  I've also given away two different rabbits to youth breeders - one was a rabbit I'd been planning to keep for myself to show....the youth that got this bunny had some very poor quality stock from other sources and I wanted her to have something decent to work with to help her get a good start.  The other rabbit was a nice quality buck that I'd kept several offspring from and had used him as much as I could here.  I hoped the youth would be able to get some nice stock from him, too, to help her with her herd.

I have no problem with selling the best I have to someone else and hope that they have great success with it.  I can always make more!  And the breed improves and everyone wins in the long run.

Had some  juniors out playing together while cleaning cages and noticed a pair circling and circling and trying to mount each other.  So I picked one of them up just to double check sex and it was a BUCK.  lol  He's only 10 weeks old so no harm done but I did have him sexed as a doe.  He has his own cage now.  I'm glad he's a buck because I need a blue buck ...that's only the 2nd time I've done that since I've had my lions (for almost 2 years).

Congratulations to Theresa Mueller and Cheryl Rafoth on their successful presentation attempt on November 10, 2010 in all 3 colors of ruby-eyed white, black and black tort!  What an accomplishment!   Lionhead breeders were so thrilled to hear that two of the colors had passed and then, a short while later, to hear there'd been a mis-count of the judges' votes and the third color had passed as well.  This is so encouraging to all lion breeders, to keep up their efforts to get our beautiful little breed accepted as a recognized breed with ARBA.  Thank you, Theresa and Cheryl, for all your hard work!

Saw a tiny sneak preview on Facebook of the rabbits Theresa Muller and Cheryl Rafoth have brought to presentation.  All I can say is, "WOW"! There was a black tort and a black pic up and they looked absolutely wonderful!  Can't wait for Wednesday and I really wish them the best of luck!