Can I breed a lop eared rabbit to a straight eared bunny?
by Rebecca
(Nevada)
I want to know if you could breed a lop eared rabbit to a straight eared rabbit. Would that cause birth defects? Would some of the babies have lop ears and others straight? Or would they all have lop/straight? Thanks, Rebecca
***** Karen Sez *****
A rabbit is a rabbit is a rabbit. Of course you could breed lop ears to straight ears, but why would you want to do such a thing???
You've got a lovely Dutch rabbit, and a spectacular English Lop. Why scramble the genetics??? Go get yourself another Dutch and another English Lop, and breed true. You will be SO much happier with the results.
Now I'm gonna have nightmares for days envisioning oversized Dutch-speckled rabbits with helicopter-ears, or undersized nondescript, non-recognizable animals with weird ears, lol. And the persons who purchase the offspring will come to me asking, "What breed is my rabbit?" And there will be no way to know, so I'll be stuck with saying, "Heinz 57."
Breeders of old have worked for DECADES to breed rabbits of particular sizes and colors, and for particular purposes. Learn what those purposes were, and then acquire purebred rabbits whose purposes match your own needs. What a waste to just scramble the genetics simply because you have the rabbits and wanna see what will happen.
What good is that? Whereas if you breed true, the offspring retain the qualities for which they were bred. You can pass the offspring to pet rabbit owners, or other breeders or 4-H kids who can learn the value of excellent breeding and showing of their animals, and who can also earn a bit of allowance money by selling very nice, even showable, rabbits to their 4-H buddies or friends.
Yikes, I think I was on a soapbox. Thanks for asking - you are certainly not the first to ask.