I joined the ARBA – The American Rabbit Breeders Association! I also registered a Rabbitry name – The Twisted Wabbitry (Thank you Maria for the inspiration!).
By joining the ARBA I get to attend their shows where I can have my rabbits compared to the breed standard by qualified judges – they also have judges that only look at the quality of the fiber but you have to show in the breed category too from what I understand.
I also registered my rabbitry – The Twisted Wabbitry. That means when I fill out my pedigrees on my eventually baby Buns (if/when I sell) they’ll show as Twisted’s Domino or Twisted’s Wonka, etc, on the paperwork. This allows people to always be able to identify where my rabbit came from and contact me directly if they have an issue or question. Of course this means I’ve got to get a tattoo setup so I can tag my guys. Pedigreed rabbits have a number/letter combination tattooed in their left ear; that number also goes on their pedigree forms. I’ll have to decide also what I want that mark to be – it’s usually 5 digits I believe.
I think I need to transfer my registered rabbits into my name but I’m still looking into that one.
I’m also going to joining the National Angora Rabbit Breeders Club which is a specialty club under the ARBA dealing only with Angoras.
The Twisted Wabbitry is going to specialize in naturally colored French Angora Rabbits and fiber since the majority of my buns are non-white.
I’ve decided on my next breeding combinations – I had wanted to try to breed this month but it’s been absolutely frigid here and alot of sites I’ve read this week have said the Does aren’t as receptive this time of year and if they do manage to kindle then they may reabsorb the babies during gestation so I think I’m going to wait, but here’s what I want to do:
Abby is a registered Ruby-eyed White but her undercoat tends to felt right on her so I’m planning to breed her with Bucky who’s a Broken Black, meaning he’s white with black spots. I’m hoping this will improve the coats on the babies and we can get some nice brown-eyed white rabbits out of it. Bucky’s two surviving kits (Domino and Wonka) have absolutely beautiful coats that are soft, fluffy, and does not mat very badly at all even with very little grooming – just like their father.
I also want to breed Sundown and Little Joe. According to their pedigrees Joe is a Fawn color and Sundown is a lynx, I don’t know what the definition of those colors are but just looking at them I’d say Sundown is a fawn and Little Joe is the lynx but whatever. By crossing them I’m hoping to get an improvement on Sundown’s coat which I feel is very hair-like and limp while Little Joe’s is fluffy and soft. Color-wise I hope to get a full spread from orange to a wild rabbit brown.
Then we’ll try our last attempt with Gertie to Yoder. Both are blackish-gray, non-pedigree, from the Amish small-animal auction. I’m hoping that the issue we had with Gertie with her first litter was due to age – I’m thinking she may have been right on the cusp of breeding age when she had them and maybe that contributed to the issue? Physically she’s changed a lot since then so we’ll cross our fingers on this one. Again I’m hoping for a coat improvement. Yoder’s is very soft and fluffy but for some reason the ends of his fur want to felt together which causes that hank of fur to slowly twist and felt up until he gets these u-shaped mats which pinch him. He gotten the most grooming this year out of everyone but still has the worst matting. If Gertie abandons this litter then we’re going to retire her to a fiber only bun.
You can see pictures of everybody here.