The problem with having breedings on rotation with only one kindling suite—still wanting two, so very much—and the cold weather is that it only takes one miss to lose the momentum I have been trying to achieve since we started this breeding season. To be honest, I have not have that momentum yet, but I thought I would have it by the end of February and I keep striving for it.
The plan is to breed the next in line when the last kindle opens its eyes. Therefore, I should have bred Golden Girl when the kits of BMB-5 opened their eyes, but I held off because of Whoops and her possible new owner. I wanted to be sure that the breeding took and I did not want to move Whoops and her kindle twice, once from out of the kindling suite and again to their new home. Had I gone on with the plan, Golden Girl would have been bred with Comet and be at least a week into her pregnancy, hopefully. However, knowing now that Whoops did not take, I want to rebreed Whoops, which was the contingency that made me hold off.
I contacted the new owner with the disappointing news last night. He is probably a bit relieved in a way because he works in the medical field, which is getting socked with two strains of the flu, one that mutates fast and has proven to be a high risk for children, elderly, and anyone with a compromised immune system. So, he probably has not had as much time or energy to prepare his rabbit cages these last few weeks.
I would have understood if he decided against getting Whoops, but he wrote that he wanted would get his rabbits from us. I know that his wife was hoping for whites so their children would not get attached, but I have only one REW doe and one REW buck of breeding age now. So, to breed Whoops to produce only NZW kits, I will have to breed her with NZW-B. That would be fine, but they also were hoping for unrelated offspring to develop a doe or two. Now that is not really an option, unless they choose my junior REW hybrid that will not be breeding age for at lest two to three more months.
I am one who prefers to breed unrelated rabbits as much as possible, but do you remember my story about Whoops? Her first pregnancy was by her brothers, because we had missexed her and left her in a grow out pen to five months old. All her kits from that surprise breeding were fine and healthy.
Inline breeding does not cause deformities in rabbits, but it can accentuate both good and bad traits that they both carry, which is why breeders working towards developing the best rabbits do some inline breeding. Of course, there such a thing as too much inline breeding, but rabbit genetics are amazingly diverse. A daughter can be bred with a father, a son can be bred with a mother, half-siblings can be bred, and some (not me on purpose) have even bred a brother with a sister, which is the one that I try to avoid the most. In the wild, rabbits are a prey animal, low and necessary on the food chain, so they were not meant to die out easily from lack of genetic diversity.
Fortunately, NZWs are also amazingly hardy health-wise because they have been bred and culled heavily for commercial use for a hundred years—I cannot even think how many rabbit generations that would be. With NZWs, breeders could focus more on health, size, body type, and fur quality without consideration to the colors of the fur, because there only was white, which will cover a wide variety of genetics not seen.
Fortunately, NZWs are also amazingly hardy health-wise because they have been bred and culled heavily for commercial use for a hundred years—I cannot even think how many rabbit generations that would be. With NZWs, breeders could focus more on health, size, body type, and fur quality without consideration to the colors of the fur, because there only was white, which will cover a wide variety of genetics not seen.
My Silver Foxes are on the other side of the popularity scale. SF is a rare breed that just moved up from critical to threatened on the endangered list in the last two years. Because of their rarity four years ago, I could only get half-siblings, Romeo and Misty Blue, and I was reluctant at first, but I bred them together without any problems for two years.
Convincing the family starting up their rabbitry may not be quite so simple.
Convincing the family starting up their rabbitry may not be quite so simple.