? on breeding bunnies

[madhawk]

We are new to breeding rabbits.....we've bred English Bulldogs for years. We are looking at buying a buck for breeding that has the same sire as the doe we have. Would this be an acceptable breeding pair?

Thanks in advance for the advice/opinions!!

 

[SkyStorm]

It would be okay, I personally don't like to line breed or inbreed because there is the risk that the kits would come with down syndrome or have deformaties, or just plain won't be healthy. I think it would be okay for a while but after that litter don't breed those kits to anymore family members if you can. Good Luck!

 

[Bunnylady]

IME, the quality of the breeders is of greater importance than their relatedness, when it comes to producing quality offspring. Mediocrity bred together generally just reproduces itself, you need to breed strength to strength, (or at least strength to weakness, never weakness to weakness) to get good animals.

I don't believe line breeding produces poorly animals - if you started with (hypothetically) perfect animals, the offspring should still be perfect, even if you were breeding full siblings. If the breeders were lousy in type and of questionable health, you can't really expect to get beautiful, sound offspring, simply because the parents came from different sources. There does seem to be a built in preference for "different" genetic material in a lot of animals, so there is often a reduction in fertility if the line breeding goes too far.

And BTW, Down's syndrome is a human (not rabbit) genetic disorder , caused by a trisomy (extra copy of one chromosome); it has nothing to do with the relatedness (or lack thereof) of the parents (although the age of the mother's eggs seems to be a factor).

 

[chinbunny1]

Line bred rabbits don't get down syndrome. In fact you should less health related problems with linebred rabbits then you would outcrosses.

Ditto on everything else bunnylady has said, including on byc.

 

[a7736100]

I got a kit I really like. If I want another is it better to breed it with the parent or to rebreed the same parents?