More Genetic Selection Stuff

Okay, continuing with heritability of traits, here is a chart that actually breaks down each individual component of an Angora coat to determine the heritability of each separate characteristic (I realize this is a little in-depth for even the most neurotic among us, LOL, but it's definitely interesting information:)). This chart is also taken from the 'Rabbit Production' book on pg. 334 (8th Edition):

Trait--- % Heritability

Wool Yield: 1st and 2nd harvest 0.20-0.23
1st thru 5th harvest 0.19-0.33
3rd or later harvest 0.23

Wool Characteristics:

Back bristle length 0.25
Back down length 0.16
Back lock structure 0.17
Compression 0.19
Haunch bristle length 0.25
Haunch down length 0.15
Homogeneity 0.18
Resilience 0.18
Tautness 0.09

Basically the point here and what the authors seem to be trying to say is that Wool is fairly changeable and subject to improvement by selection. On pg. 335 of the same book it says, "Since heritability is moderate, genetic progress for wool traits will largely be determined by how rigorously the breeder selects. This will in turn depend, in part, on the size of the herd. If the herd consists, for example, of only 2 bucks and 10 does, the breeder cannot practice intense selection because there will not be many offspring from which to select, despite the high degree of genetic influence for wool traits."

In other parts of this book and according to info. I have read from other sources, serious linebreeding cannot occur in herds that consist of fewer than 50 animals. While it is not necessary to have hundreds of rabbits (and not practical in our case with the maintenance needs of an Angora), a decent-sized gene pool is still important to create in order to preserve vigor and variation in your herd. Lots of breeders I know have smaller herds and simply buy stock in from other rabbitries every once in awhile, but I have a closed herd here so I have enlarged my herd to approx. 60 FAs in order to keep going without bringing in new stock.

Another interesting point according to many long term breeders is that it is far easier to improve and set Wool than it is to fix Type. I am finding that wool faults in many of my own rabbits fix themselves in 1-2 generations if I breed each doe to a mate that compliments their shortcomings, but Type is much more difficult to set, and it is a long, slow process of building and improving one section at a time. When I breed to work out a type problem, I find that I need to put alot more thought into what I am doing and who I am breeding in order to improve a certain trait because they do not fix themselves overnight:(.

More stuff next time and have a great week!:-)

Bunny Misc. Stuff

I have come to the conclusion today that it is beyond impossible to take a good picture of a rabbit before the age of 12 weeks:(:(. As I think about it now I realize that I have been trying to do this for years---I have been taking them out, distracting them, encouraging them to pose, cajoling, threatening, holding them down and then releasing them at the last possible second, and using all kinds of silly/useless methods to try to make them do what they obviously do not want to do, which is sit in one place for as long as it takes me to snap a semi-legible picture, LOL.

The littlest ones are the worst, of course. Their nosiness constantly overtakes them until they become so distracted by the table (top, sides, and bottom), the room, kids, walls, camera, etc, etc, that there is nothing to do but forget the whole thing and stick the little buggers back in their cages:). This is the kind of thing that they do:

This,

this,

this,

this,

and my very favorite, which is this:

So from now on I am just going to photograph those bunnies who are mature enough to handle a .236 second distraction on a grooming table, and leave the rest for a later date, LOL:).

I got lots of grooming done this weekend and have more to do again tomorrow, but here are a few of the finished buns who will be staying around here for future showing (with the exception of one or two).

The bunny below is an Ermine, who came out of the last litter of Evariste and Pierre. The color Ermine is not recognized in the FA standard, but it is basically a derivative of the Chin gene that can be used to produce other, showable colors. I am currently playing with the idea of using this rabbit to produce some Chins in the future because it is an absolutely stunning color, but I am not quite sure if I want to add one more project (or color) to those I already have.

This bunny below is another buck out of Eva's litter, a Sable. This bunny is actually for sale at the moment because I have another Sable buck that I am keeping. He is 11 1/2 weeks old and is a very large, solid baby with wonderful density and color. If you would like further details you can email me at amy@spangangoras.com. I will be delivering several rabbits to the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY in October and can easily take him along.

And below is an older baby who is currently in Junior Prime at approx. 4 months of age. This is 'Spang's Isadore' and she is a Sable Pearl out of Neva and Dijon.

Below also is a Chestnut buck who is nearly 4 months old (sorry about the horrendous green line running through the picture:( ) out of Devaki and Dijon. He was due to be sold a couple of weeks ago but then I noticed that the ring color in his coat was not developing as it should so I am keeping him here instead. He is a beautiful rabbit with fabulous type and wool, but Agoutis I have had in the past with faint rings in the baby coat did not often develop good definition in the adult coat, so I am keeping him here until the Sr. coat develops to see what happens. If he pans out and looks good then I may use him to produce more and better Chestnuts. If not, he will have to be culled.

This little girl is a littermate to Isadore, the Pearl doe shown above. She is by far one of the best bunnies to come out of my summer breedings---large, well-balanced, with great type and color (and good wool too, LOL). Her name is Spang's Magdeline:

And this is a Fawn buck below---a littermate to the Chestnut buck. He is also a nice bunny with particularly good fawn color, though clearly he is not at his best in front of a yellow wall (LOLOL). This is Spang's Henryi:

There are many more up and coming babies (too young to photograph now) who are also promising and who will make nice additions to the herd. All in all I am very happy with the results of this year's breeding season. Nice litters were born and none of them (with the exception of the Ermine and one lop-eared bunny) were unshowable. There were no genetic DQs, and everyone was healthy.

Anyway, last but not least---here are 3 pics that I included of our trip last week to Mystic Seaport and Mystic Aquarium. The first is of some (crazy!!) people climbing up the mast of a 19th century whaling ship that was on display to furl the sails, and the last are of my boys clowning around behind a painted funny-board in the Seaport village, LOL.

More stuff again next time. Have a great week!:).

Genetic Selection--Part I

-Another repost from the old blog:)


Many experienced rabbit raisers say that the real skill of a breeder lies not in their ability to breed, but in their ability to cull. If we sit down and really think about this, breeding becomes much more of a challenge than it may first appear because there are so many questions to ask about why we are doing what we are doing, and so many things to consider with the variables involved.

Genetic characteristics fall into two general categories, Qualitative and Quantitative. Qualitative traits are those which require only one or a few pairs of genes to express themselves, and Quantitative characteristics are influenced by many pairs of genes. Examples of traits that fall into the Qualitative category include wool color or the presence of wool itself (vs. fur), and examples of Quantitative traits include fertility, growth rate, milk production, wool density, and disease resistance. In other words, the improvement of quantitative traits is difficult and takes longer simply because there are so many genes at work producing effects that accumulate slowly over a much longer period of time (this principle is known as additive gene action).

Here are some portions of a great Table located in the 'Rabbit Production' book on pg. 326 which describes the heritability percentages for certain Quantitative traits. Much of the info. on this chart relates to meat production characteristics, but much of it also applies to the behaviors and traits of practically any rabbit breed. Several characteristics are listed along with a % of heritability for each trait according to the studies that were conducted:

Trait Percent Heritability (range according to various studies)

Litter Size born alive 2.1--10.0
Nest-building ability 24.0
Milk Production 27.0--45.5
Enteritis and Pnemonia deaths 12.0
Body weight: 1 day 40.0
30 days 17.0
56 days 22.6
70 days 12.0--38.0
77 days 19.0
Gain: 28-70 days 17.0
30-70 days 44.0
30-77 days 23.0
Loin Width (56 days): 60.0

There is another, more detailed Angora chart included in this book that breaks down the heritability of certain wool characteristics which I will post later this week. To boil the whole thing down simply---there are certain traits which are very easy to breed into a line, and others which are much more stubborn to set and require more deliberation and effort on the part of a breeder. Things like Milk Production or Growth Rate (which according to this chart are highly heritable), are easier to improve than something like 'Litter Size born alive', which is very vague and would depend very heavily on environmental variables.

I will post alot more on this topic since it is interesting and has alot of bearing on the traits we select for and how much progress we can expect to make in our breeding programs. 'Rabbit Production' sums it up very well on pg. 330 when it says, "the higher the heritability and the more intense the selection, the more rapid the expected rate of progress". If we manipulate traits that respond most readily and then cull hard to get the desired results in our herds, we cannot help but end up with litters that consistently outperform their parents (which is the goal of any good breeder, LOL:)).

Guidelines for Color I.D.

Here are a couple of helpful guidelines to follow for identifying certain colors in the FA standard in the nestbox. Color ID gets much easier and less-terrifying over time, LOL, especially when you own the parents, grandparents and G. grandparents and have a good idea what to expect. Even when the bunnies come from brand new lines though, identifying them is not so difficult if you know what to look for. The colors below can develop into several different varieties depending on what is in the background of the baby and what it carries genetically, but narrowing the field is the first step toward eliminating confusion and helping to identify them as adults later on.

COLOR AT BIRTH--5 DAYS

1) Pink/White--will be either REW, BEW, Pointed White, or Pearl
2) Solid Black--will be either Black, Seal, or Gold or Silver Tipped Steel
3) Solid Brown--will be either Chocolate, Sable, or Gold or Silver Tipped Chocolate Steel
4) Solid Blue--will be either Blue, Gold or Silver Tipped Blue Steel, Sable or Smoke Pearl

5) Solid Grey/Purplish--will be either Lilac or Gold or Silver Tipped Lilac Steel
6) Black with white belly--will be either Chestnut or Chinchilla
7) Brown with white belly--will be either Chocolate Agouti or Chocolate Chinchilla
8) Blue with white belly--will be either Opal or Blue Chinchilla (Squirrel)
9) Tan with white belly--will be either Lynx or Lilac Chinchilla
10) Tan with blue, black, chocolate, or lilac mask and demarcations along the sides--will be one of the Torts
11) Solid Tan--light or dark Red/Orange--will be one of the widebands (Cream, Fawn, or Red), OR possibly Sable because Sable does start off tan in some cases

12) White Splotches mixed in with any other color--will be Broken

I have not included unrecognized colors such as Self Chins, Sable Chins, Smoke Pearl Chins, Ermines, and Tan patterns, etc. in this description, only because they do not occur often and do not fit the accepted color standard for the breed. Unusual colors CAN occur, of course, but they are not that common and only confuse the issue for beginning breeders, so it is better to focus on the accepted ones first:)

.

More next time again as life settles down and there are way less bunnies hanging around this place, LOL. We are now down to only about 30 or 40 rascals, so soon I will be able to catch my breath and sit down again, at least until the whole thing starts over in the fall. :-D :-D

Picture Stuff

I am just posting a bunch of pictures I've taken of babies recently, though there are a whole bunch more coming up after that, LOL! The first shot here is of Giacomo right before his first clipping. At the moment he is growing in his first Sr. coat which looks very even and dense. He is a beautiful boy that I'm looking forward to showing:



And this is Arcadia, who has also been clipped and is rapidly growing in a new coat:

This is Evariste, who just weaned her second litter and is growing the rest of her coat. Time will tell if she will be ready to show this season or not, but either way she is a large doe with good type and really great adult texture.

This is Oberon, a buck out of Sadako and Dijon, who sired his first litters this summer with Morwenna and Juno and is also growing in his 1st Sr. coat:).

And here are a few of the 13-14 week old babies currently in the barn--a Sable Pearl (doe), a Chestnut (buck), and a Tort (doe).

This last bunny here is a really beautiful Black doe out of Evariste and Dijon. I took this pic of her earlier today before her first clipping at age 6 1/2 months. One thing I have noticed this year is that almost all of the babies born (that stayed in my rabbitry) seemed to hold their baby coats anywhere from 6 1/2-7 months, whereas the hold time previously was about 5-6. Even the cross rabbits (the F3 buns) all held for 6 months, which was very exciting to say the least:). Summer coats are generally slower growing and don't last quite as long as the winter coats so this is good news as long as the Prime period extends itself in addition to that and the quality of the coat stays intact. This girl here (along with the other buns her age in the barn) have only slightly begun to shed into the dropping pans, and the wool is still tight and grooms well.

More again next time---there are many more buns to clip tomorrow:-)

Lots and Lotsa Bunny Work

I always have the same exact mixed feelings at this time of year. On the one hand spring and summer are my favorite seasons because they give me the chance to add new prospects to the herd, and they are also great because I get to see how (or if:)) my line has improved on the whole from last year, reflecting the wisdom of culling decisions that were made the season before that. The bad part about it all, is that it is a heckuva lot of hard work:(.

My rabbits have always been my own project and something that I have always taken care of myself with the exception of help from my dh with culling and with the Big Time (1X/2X a year) Deep Cleaning Job that has to be done in the barn. The kids come out to help me sometimes, but as every breeder knows there are things that just cannot be passed off to other people everyday, and while the boys like bunnies and love to play with them, they have never been the crazed, pathological, rabbit fanatics that their mother so totally is, LOL:).

Anyway, during the year it is a simple question of grooming and dropping pans (for the most part), and it is not a big deal to maintain a herd of about 30-40. During breeding season, however, it becomes a whole other situation. Babies need to be supplied with more feed, hay, and oats. They have to be weaned in several stages into new cages that have to be cleaned and sterilized in between every batch, then separated still further into single cages as they grow older. There is sort of a 'musical cages' situation taking place at all times when 10-12 litters are growing out in the same barn at the same time, and a huge amount of time is spent juggling rabbits around and evaluating babies to see who goes out ASAP, who sticks around for further development, and who makes the cut off the bat (a very tiny and distinguished group). In the meantime, moms who are now baby-less must be dried up, cleaned up, groomed, and clipped if necessary, while other adults who have been growing coats must continue to be groomed and also harvested when it's time, after which there is a period of 3-4 few weeks where nothing much has to be done (at long last:-D).

Every breeder who manages a herd of any breed (particularly wool rabbits) knows very well what I mean by all this, and knows just how crazy it can get during the busy times:(. This year I did something I have almost never done in the past, which was to basically replace my entire show herd in a single season, LOL. Last fall I had a sudden epiphany while checking over rabbits---sort of like an 'aha' moment that kind of hits you all at once out of the clear blue---and suddenly I knew exactly what direction I wanted to move in with my herd. Alot of time in most barns is spent treading water and moving in opposite directions in a breeding program (which has happened here too:)), but suddenly I knew exactly what I needed to do and exactly how I needed to go about it. I removed any rabbit from the herd who was being held for any kind of 'sentimental' purpose but who did not directly contribute to the quality of the line, and I retained only those animals who displayed solid consistency in more than one area: type, wool quality, vigor, color, pre-potency, and breeding/mothering ability. Those were the rabbits who were then used to do all the breedings for the spring and summer of 2008.

Though this drastic move cut the legs out from under me for an entire show year (LOL!!), I am pretty sure now that it was worth it. The babies coming up (and older juniors/young seniors) have more consistency quality than litters of the past. While I may have been lucky to get 1-2 nice babies out of a litter before, I am now seeing 3, 4 or even 5 possible keepers in a single litter, which means that the gene pool is becoming more uniform. Color and wool quality have improved and best of all, the type has risen dramatically, which is where an angora herd needs help the most:). The NZ crosses that came in helped wonderfully in this area, and though they are still separate from the herd and not yet registerable (or sellable), they are wonderful, solid animals with better compatibility to the FA breed than I would ever have expected. The culling talents of the previous breeder in this case (Elaine Harvey) came through with some animals who threw their good qualities almost immediately, building yet another excellent case for linebreeding:).

Anyhow, so what I am meaning to say after this long-winded post is that I am busy as a bee right now raising all these rabbits and moving into the next stage of this herd's development. Things should calm down radically in the next few weeks and there will be time again to get back to the leisurely schedule of grooming and (hopefully, this year) showing. I will post pictures of some of the new buns over the coming weeks (once I pick up a camera:)), and the fall should be interesting and alot of fun.

Have a fabulous weekend!:-)

Bottle Cleaning

I was just going through the rabbitry switching out and cleaning water bottles today, and thought I'd write a little bit about that since it is a job everyone has to do from time to time, especially in the heat of summer with lots of litters and full cages to deal with. Even if you don't use water bottles and have a watering system instead, it is still necessary to flush it out from time to time to eliminate mold and other undesirable bacteria that build up in a wet environment continually.

My favorite bottles in the absolute whole world are Lixits:-). Not only do they have a really simple hanging wire that eliminates complex brackets, but the bottles themselves are wide mouthed and tilted on a 45 degree angle into the cage, making them easy to clean and position for perfect access.

One easy, no-scrub way to clean a water bottle is to put a few drops of bleach into it, fill it halfway up with water, put the cap on, and then leave it sitting on the counter on it's side until the mold and dirt 'melt' off. You will need to clean the outside of the bottle by hand after that, or simply pop the whole thing in the dishwasher to sterilize.

If you have a limited amount of bottles and need to wash them by hand fast in order to return them to the cage right away, just grab a sponge with a little dish liquid on it, wipe down and rinse the outside of it, and then take a bottle brush (the kind with a brush at either end---large and small sized), and scrub the inside thoroughly.

Sometimes the brush is not enough to get around the mouth of the bottle and the little nooks and crannies around it, so at that point I take a sponge on a stick (or just a really soft sponge that I can squeeze part-way into the bottle), and scrub it out again (with lots of rinsing). I then wash the cap by hand because it is tough to get that totally clean in the dishwasher, and I use the small end of the bottle brush to push in and out of the zip tube a few times, because lots of slime and grimy stuff can hide out in hard-to-reach places like that:(. After this (if there is time), I put all bottles in the dishwasher on the top rack, and all caps in the utensil basket to get everything sterilized and ready to use.

There is nothing wrong with skipping bottles completely in favor of water dishes, and lots of people prefer those year round because they are easier to clean and much less complicated to use. With wool breeds, however, I find that dishes tend to be unsanitary and a downright disaster for long coats, especially when someone somewhere decides to stand in the dish in order to cool off and cakes the wool on their chest and dewlap into a solid, unremovable matt:(.

Anyhow, so this is a little bit about how I keep water bottles clean, though people everywhere may have alternative methods. I have maxed out my supply of feed dishes and water bottles completely with all the babies that are growing around here, so I am now doing cleaning and maintenance 24/7, and can't wait til the weaning is finally done so I can get things down to a manageable level again, LOL:).

Have a wonderful week!