There is a lot of misconceptions that line breeding is the same as inbreeding and that is incorrect. When breeding rabbits, you need to do a lot of line breeding in order to set the desired traits you want in your herd.
What is line breeding? Line breeding is the carefully selected process of breeding closely related animals in order to improve individual traits in your rabbits. All great lines start with only a few rabbits. A breeder will then breed the rabbits together and keep the best offspring; that offspring then gets bred back to the parents or grandparents and so on, always selecting the best matches and only keeping the best animals out of the crossing. Eventually rabbits become distantly related as the original animals are no longer viewed on the pedigree. Once a breeder selects a nice buck from their lines and rebreeds that buck to all their does, the line breeding then begins again. Line breeding is an excellent tool to use in breeding programs because it is all about consistency. If you wanting a breeding program that will have long-term success, line breeding is the way to go. Rabbits do carry recessive traits such as color, fur, type and condition, with these traits, they can carry both good and bad. Eventually you will have the good and bad traits surface in which case, you will cull the rabbits with the bad traits from your program, only keeping the rabbits with the ideal traits. Ideally, you will be able to produce consistent animals without any surprises in your litters. You will also learn how to correctly judge your animals at an early stage to decide which are keepers and which are not. When line breeding, be sure to keep going forward in your program and not backwards. Do not sacrifice one trait to get another as this will back fire. What I mean by this is if you already have an animal with a solid hindquarter but thin ears, don't keep an animal back that has a terrible hindquarter but decent ears, don't become barn blind. If you have another friend that is a breeder, it would be a good idea to ask them for their thoughts on animals as well. When to utilize an outcross. Outcrossing can be beneficial to help bring in a certain trait you are lacking in that your current program is failing to fix. When selecting an outcross, be sure to select an animal that has generations of the correct trait that you wish to correct on your own animals. When you first outcross, it is okay to be disappointed as their traits may clash with yours. I suggest taking the best F1 rabbit and breeding back to your line, you should be able to then see results in the F2 kits. What is inbreeding? Inbreeding is when you breed brother to sister. This also has it's benefits for locking in the desired traits that you want however you will need to cull heavily as this can also lock in the bad traits as well. If I do this sort of breeding myself, I will not breed the kits to another closely related animal as you do not want too much inbreeding going on in your program. I have had the most success with half brothers and half sisters pairing however again, you must realize that I would only ever mate two rabbits that are the best matches and crosses faults.
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AuthorBrittany is an Open A.R.B.A. exhibitor that raises and shows Pedigreed Holland Lops and Netherland Dwarfs. She started breeding rabbits in 2002 and American Cavies in 2005. Archives
June 2022
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