Breeding rabbits for "prettiness".

This is a controversial rant. I was in my local pet store not so long ago and I overheard a conversation between an employee and a customer. The customer wanted to get a female to mate with his/her male (I believe it was a mix between a Mini Lop and a Lionhead and it was grey and very fluffy from his/her description.) because he/she thought the colour of the rabbits in store (They all looked like Lionheads but with English Spot markings. Thankfully there were only males in at the time!) would produce offspring that would be very pretty due to the colouring, fur types and markings of both rabbits.

My heart instantly sank at the thought of what the future will be for these potential baby rabbits! I wish everybody knew about breeding in general because a lot more factors play a part such as genetics for example. I'm not saying people should go ahead and breed at all! The point I am making is that if more people knew about how complicated and dangerous breeding is including cost etc then perhaps they will be more persuaded to adopt rather than endanger the lives of their rabbits for the sake of appearance.

Oh and I am not bashing professional breeders who's main purpose is to better rabbits as a whole and do not supply to stores! If this post isn't allowed, my apologies.

Glad som eone is in the rabbits corner.

I sort of hope she accidentilly buys a mis-sexed rabbit, and ends up with two of the same sex....

I'm not familiar with rabbit breeding, but have always imagined it can be a bit like cats - you might stick two black cats together and und up with 3 tortoises, a ginger and a snow white offspring?

Breeding from any Rabbits with unknown genetic history is a recipe for disaster and a potential lifetime of suffering for any Kits produced.

Inherited Dental disease being one of the main factors. In the specific case here, well both Lionheads and Lops are both more prone to Dental Disease anyway. Add to that the genetic history will be.....a mystery, well it isn't rocket science to see what could so easily go wrong.

Then of course I am sure the customer would neuter/vaccinate all the Kits and if rehoming them they would do Home Checks ........................

Aside from all the welfare issues they wouldn't be gaurenteed to get 'pretty' rabbits anyway. You'd need a good understanding of the coat colour gentics to even attempt predicting the colour of the rabbits.