What is wrong with breeders

I am a breeder of pure bred, show quality Dwarf Lops and it seems that a lot of people on this site don't like the idea of breeding rabbits and i don't see why. I have 7 breeding rabbits who are all very friendly and live happily. After one of my does has bred i give her a months break and then i see if she is ready. If people can breed everything else in the world i.e dogs, cats, horses. Then why not rabbits?

Would you like to come and spend a week in my rescue with me and then you would see why I am against breeding of ANY animals

Well you are certainly welcome on this forum, don't let anything anyone says put you off.

The main issue is that there are thousands of rabbits in rescue centers who don't have homes and people think that by breeding more rabbits it is just adding to the over population of rabbits in this country.

It's also not helped by the fact that quite a few breeders don't seem to do it responsibly with some of them keeping rabbits in awful conditions :?

ps what a helpful post snowy :roll:

The forum police got here early today :lol: A months break between litters doesn't seem a lot :?

I think the reason why rescues would dislike breeders would be fairly obvious, due to the fact we spend a lot of time clearing up after breeders who mis-sex babies sold, decide to pack up and want to dump all animals onto rescues and run for the hills leaving responsibilities behind etc etc.

Don't take it personally, but there are a lot of irresponsible breeders who flood our rescues.

i know that there are a lot of rescue centers out there with them in but i sell my rabbits to families who love them and if they want to bring it back then i am happy to receive it back. I love all of my rabbits so much and i do actually give them a longer break i just thought to say a month just to give you a guideline.

Please keep it friendly it's too early for an arguement

buffytariq said:

i know that there are a lot of rescue centers out there with them in but i sell my rabbits to families who love them and if they want to bring it back then i am happy to receive it back. I love all of my rabbits so much and i do actually give them a longer break i just thought to say a month just to give you a guideline.

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But how long will they love the rabbits for before getting fed up with them?Do you homecheck the people before you sell to them?

There's no saying that people who take rabbits from rescue centers won't get fed up with them.

I think breeding from a Rabbit every other month is irresponsible. Not only because of the detrimental effect on the Does health but also the number of Rabbits being born per year.

Do you sell the Rabbits you breed ? If so do you home-check the people who buy them? If not how can you know what sort of life the Rabbits you were responsible for bringing into the world will have ?
What about your Rabbits that are not show/breeding standard and you are unable to sell them as Pets. Do you cull them ?

Whilst I have met breeders who do care about the welfare of their Rabbits I still cant condone what they do. There are just too many unwanted Rabbits in the UK already Unless the breeder can take lifelong responsibility for every Rabbit bred I personally think it morally wrong to continue breeding them.

Please be good guys, I need to go out and don't want to have to text Tamsin to come on and keep an eye on you :lol:

I will be honest I have meet good and bad breeders, I don't believe in breeding at all, but I use to be indifferent to it and even had Kovu from a breeder, but I do think being in rescue opens your eyes a lot and think I was perhaps a little naive to breeding prior to then.


Lets give buffytariq a chance to enjoy the forum and read up on some of the bunny issues

I have only answered her question, I will leave the thread closing debate to the others

Imagine if you just had a baby then a month later your husband got you pregnant again, had another, then got pregnant again, how would that make you feel? its like they are being used as a breeding machine not an animal who should be loved. Also so many thousands and thousands of rabbits get abandoned/abused/neglected every day and you are just bringing more into the world for rescues to have to deal with, or for rabbits to be left in a tiny hutch in the garden .....alone, no warm bed, caring/loving human to care for them...
Maybe you should ask all the rescues how many rabbits they take in every week/month.. maybe that will help.

I hope you can read some threads on the forum that will help you understand.

By that maths you are breeding about 4 litters a year from each female? I know a lot of dog breeders who breed show quality puppies and believe me, if they were breeding half that many litters of puppies in a year, they would be a puppy farmer no matter if they BIS at Crufts or not. Same with cats. A top quality breeder will only have a litter because they intend to keep at least one as show/breeding stock to carry on their lines and usually have a waiting list of people wanting puppies/kittens. They are raised in the house as part of the family and they microchip their babies before they go to a new home so if they end up in rescue, they come back to them.

I have nothing against people breeding animals, but only if it is done in a responsible manner, prospective homes are properly vetted and the breeder will take back any stock they have bred at any age. It would be a shame to see many breeds go extinct if breeders didn't specialize in them, so I'm not by any means against breeding pedigree animals. But I don't believe that any female dog, cat or rabbit should have more than one litter a year.

buffytariq said:

I am a breeder of pure bred, show quality Dwarf Lops and it seems that a lot of people on this site don't like the idea of breeding rabbits and i don't see why. I have 7 breeding rabbits who are all very friendly and live happily. After one of my does has bred i give her a months break and then i see if she is ready. If people can breed everything else in the world i.e dogs, cats, horses. Then why not rabbits?

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Hi there,
I have bred and shown mini lops and lion lops, I also take in rescues and foster for rescue centres. I am not currently breeding as family ties mean i no longer have the time to show. I will not breed just for pet babies as it is in my opinion unnecessary.
You will find on this forum alot of people are anti breeding and will take a blanket view of all breeders. However there are alot of very helpful people and information on here. I think the problem lies where rescues only really see the very worst of breeders and breeding situations, and i wholeheartedly agree in this instance. However i do think views become very synical
and tarnished on all breeders. My rabbits are kept in good condition in large hutches and free range or runs in the garden they have fresh foods and are all snuggled and babied. What i am trying in a very long winded way is to say is if your buns are well taken care of and you are leaving a good amt of time between litters etc then do not take to heart ehat is said. You have joined a predominently anti-breeding website. But people on here are mostly extremly helpful and friendly xx xx

I have nothing against responsible breeders, in fact, my best friend is a breeder of nethies and lionheads, and an excellent one at that.

I personally think if a breeder is breeding to improve the breed (such as to eradicate sore hocks, eradicate teeth issues, etc) then it is a good and positive thing, for the rabbits concerned.

The issue that rescues have is that the rabbit population is so out of control that more litters just add to that problem, however, as I see it, it's actually not the responsible breeders that should be tackled, it's those where people have bred pets and given them away, cross bred different breeds for fun, breed rabbits to try and make money (in short, back yard breeders) and also those who have been unfortunate enough to have been struck by the gender fairy with a rabbit. I personally think if no rabbits were sold in pet shops or anywhere else, and were just sold by responsible breeders and adopted from rescues (maybe needing a license for it or something) then that would be far preferable than what is happening now.

I have learnt (from my friend) about bad 'responsible breeders', meaning those who show but keep their buns in filty disgusting conditions, or whatever, and obviously do not advocate that either.

I am assuming you have four montly cycles of breeding, raising and breaking for each doe, (so a month for pregnancy, eight weeks to raise the kits, one month break) and that's FAR better than most. In fact, it seems like some buns want to be mums, and that's all they want in the world, and are happiest when pregnant or raising kits. Some buns can be happy that way, same as others love to dig, or snuggle. Even after a spay they can still pine for that and want babies (I have an ex breeding doe who still seems to want babies despite being spayed for 6 months), to a certain extent.

So yes, in short, I'm definitely not against breeders, but I can be against breeding and breeding practices if not done responsibly.

buffytariq said:

If people can breed everything else in the world i.e dogs, cats, horses. Then why not rabbits?

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:wave: Firstly, the reason you will find people against rabbit breeding on this forum is because it's a rabbit forum and therefore that is the issue at hand. I'm sure many of us are also against the breeding of dogs, cats, horses etc, it just doesn't really come up as a topic here because this is a rabbit forum...

For me there are a number of distinct issues -

*Many breeders don't keep their breeding animals in accommodation which is up to the minimum acceptable standards for animal welfare

*Many breeders breed too often, which is not good for the animals (personally, like the others, I think a months break is not enough)

* Most breeders do not home check where the animals are going to or provide suitable advice to the new owner (e.g. neutering, bonding, size of accommodation, vaccinations if available in that particular country)

*Many breeders leave rescues to 'pick up the pieces' - either by mis-sexing rabbits so that they are unwittingly bred by the new owners, or by dumping ones not "suitable" for showing, or by dumping ones that they can't sell to pet shops, or too old for breeding etc etc...

*Some breeders view their animals as 'stock' who simply get disposed of once they are no longer any use for breeding, or get sick

* In the UK there are already 33,000 rabbits taken into rescues every year - and that does not count those who are just set loose, neglected to die in their hutches, or those who are put to sleep because there aren't enough homes to go round. So if each of your does has 3 litters a year, that's 21 litters a year. Say there's 6 bunnies in each litter - then that is 126 bunnies a year. Now say that half of those babies are female, and that half of the households you sell them to breeds from them - even "just once" so that they can experience babies. That makes 31 babies having 6 each, giving another 188 babies. And if the same thing happens to that generation, that's another 283 babies...so you see your 7 does can create about 1000 babies in a year just by a quarter of the homes you give them to, letting them have one litter each. That's 1000 homes where people could have adopted a rescue rabbit instead! Plus you may be confident that you rehome the direct babies to good homes, but could you guarantee the same for the potential 1000s over the years that could result?

Hope that makes sense

i have no problems with responsable breeding to be honest ive met both good and bad breeders, bad breeders being those who sell their babies to petshops, over breed their does and lock them up in 2ft hutches with little exercise. my bun Lilli-Mai is an ex breeding doe and she suffers with bad behaviour problems and often has what i call panic attacks when locked in a hutch

before i joined here il be honest my dream was to breed and show Polish rabbits but after reading sad stories seeing awful pictures of rabbits who have been neglected and its a case of if i bred that could be a bun i brought into the world... what a life eh

my mum used to breed and show Birman cats it took 10 years before she found a heart defect in her line which sadly affected all the male cats.

but those who do rescue i can see why they are against breeding 100% imagine being faced with all those neglected rabbits every day

personally i wouldnt breed a doe anymore then twice a year but thats just my opinion.

Pringle said:

Imagine if you just had a baby then a month later your husband got you pregnant again, had another, then got pregnant again, how would that make you feel? its like they are being used as a breeding machine not an animal who should be loved. Also so many thousands and thousands of rabbits get abandoned/abused/neglected every day and you are just bringing more into the world for rescues to have to deal with, or for rabbits to be left in a tiny hutch in the garden .....alone, no warm bed, caring/loving human to care for them...
Maybe you should ask all the rescues how many rabbits they take in every week/month.. maybe that will help.

I hope you can read some threads on the forum that will help you understand.

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Rabbits are breeding machines. Wild rabbits have millions of babies :?
Whilst I don't think breeding lots of rabbits is a good idea, I don't think the welfare of the doe is going to be adversly affected as breeding is a very natural thing for them to do.

timb0h said:

Rabbits are breeding machines. Wild rabbits have millions of babies :?
Whilst I don't think breeding lots of rabbits is a good idea, I don't think the welfare of the doe is going to be adversly affected as breeding is a very natural thing for them to do.

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and what do you think a wild rabbits life expectancey is??:roll:

hello i am not anti breeding if done responsibly(yet would never willingly choose a breeders rabbit as i think rescue rabbits need homes more) and by that i mean that health issues in a breed are eradicated..that family lines and generations are looked into properly to ensure that genetic problems are not passed on that personally i think breeding a doe 2 maybe 3 x a year is a maximum to give her the chance to recover well enough is a must and that accomodation is at minimum a 6x3x3ft hutch attatched to a 6x6ft run per rabbit or pair of rabbits. i think being sociable animals they prefer to have company of other rabbits and where they can live in pairs most comfortably i think it should be done the issue is this that if you pair up bunnys who are not neutered they will likely fight or breed, if they are enuetered they can live for many happy years. after age 3 i htink a rabbi should go inot breeding retierment...by this i mean it should be speyed(to prevent uterine cancer developing) and should be partnered up with a neutered male (or female) adn live a pet life existance. i do not see why people need to buy from a breeder when there are many many rabbits of all ages in rescues(including babies) who need a second chance. i think that many breeders(not responsible ones) use forced breeding methods( ie the female is held while the male mounts her..this is not natrual and is akin to rape(sorry to anyone who i have offended) i think also that many breeders get rid of excess stock via culling or free to good home (which could lead to a non educated rubbish life for a pet in some instances) i think if breeding responsibly that each animal regardless of rabbit or other should be given a chance to be happy and live to 8-14 as many domestic rabbits do.... i think that helath checcks should be regular that all vaccinations should be a must and reetirement at a suitable age to allow a rabbit a happy onward life. i also think little litrature is given to most new homes(again not all breeders as i have met some very responsible ones in the past who do.) and again not all breeders but many are in it for money not lvoe of the animal and do not do homechecks as they feel people know about rabbits when in fact this is often not the case many peopel think a 3ft hutch is ideal with a small run and that they are good childrens pets who enjooy being picked up that any 2 rabbits will get along and that they only live 3-4years. in fact quite the opposite is true and the only way to get that message across is good education of those rescuing..purchesseing and adopting rabbits and those breeding. if the breeder is responble then i have little issues... but if they are not... well it only goes to tarnish good breeeders names .(unfortunatly many breeders dont care enough about the animals and thier welfare)