Homestead mailing list

["Melody O." <melody AT crecon.com>]

At 09:37 PM 4/4/05 EDT, Melody wrote:
>
>> I have a question about breeding rabbits.  Is it ok to breed the sister
>> with the brother of the same litter?  What about father and daughter.  Boy
>> I haven't been a homesteader long enough because I am feeling like I am
>> fostering insest and molestation.  LOL!  Anyway, is it bad for the
>> offspring?  We are raising them for meat and fur.
>> 
>James wrote:
>Melody, we've been raising and eating rabbits for years.  Like you, we are 
>only in it for the food and fur, not for the 'no basis in reality' show
rabbit 
>schtick.
>
>In general you can breed a rabbit to its offspring and to its 
>grand-offspring.  But farther than that promotes weakness and
predisposistion to disease.  
>That is, if you bred a rabbit to its sire or dame and then bred THAT
rabbit to 
>the same rabbit (its grandsire) you are not going to encounter many
problems.  
>But if you breed the original rabbit to next generation of that line, that's 
>when you will see some problems surfacing.  You could safely breed a
rabbit to 
>its own great-grand-bunny so long as it wasn't the sire or dame of every 
>generation between.  Can't think of a simpler way to put that, sorry if it
is hard 
>to follow.  Breeding siblings has seemed to produce poor results the first 
>time and I'd avoid it.

I'll try and decipher the geneological lines. <grin> Thanks for that info,
it helps a lot.

>
>Now let me see who I can get riled up with this following:    Melody, if you 
>are raising animals strictly for utilitarian purposes,  take all advice you 
>get (even, if not especially, the above) with not just a grain of salt,
but a 
>small Siberian salt mine.  People get into a particular animal, or even a 
>particular breed of animal, and they work it to death and get lost in all
sorts of 
>inconsequential details.  Before I first raised rabbits (more than 30 years 
>ago), I read the book by the (then) rabbit expert Anna Kanabel.  If I had
taken 
>her adivce seriously without talking to a lot of people raising rabbits, I'd 
>have quit right there.  

I have that book!  That is where my uncertainty came from.  She is very
extreme.  I have gotten that same flavor from all rabbit books I have read.
 That is why I decided to ask here.

Every "expert" I have read claims that you cannot breed related animals,
which made me wonder how many bucks one *reallly* needs in their herd.

Thanks James, I really appreciate your advice.

Best wishes,
Melody
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher
a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts,
build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders,
cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure,
program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
--Lazarus Long