I want to get a young one from a breeder because I want one that grew up being well socialized and used to people. Though I'm sure rescues can be wonderful, I don't know if I'd be up to it if they had behavioral issues like my last one.
I have horrible experience w/ breeder. My current rabbit is from a breeder, because 99.99% of the breeders like to overbreed, my bunny has bone cancer at the age of 2.
The breeder that I bought from, they only use 2 sets of fresh DNA in a 20 yr. span. They breed from 5 rabbits to over 100+ rabbits, and that 100+ rabbits all comes from those 5 rabbits. And in that 20 yr., they only get 2 outside rabbits to breed with the family tree of the original 5.
The biggest problem w/ breeder is that they wants pure breed, as you know, the narrower the DNA, the much higher chance the rabbit is to all sorts of disease. Anyhoo, the guy that I bought it from, Bill Mair, who's also a breeder, got the above "bottom of the barrel" set of rabbits from that breeder, and introduce a 3rd set of DNA, but it's too late, the genes is weak due to overbreeding and not enough diversification on DNA.
Go the Rabbit care and read my thread on my bunny Goofball's bone cancer thread. I can see a rabbit have bone cancer at a senior age, but bone cancer in rabbits are rare to begin w/, not to mention a 2 yr. old. I paid $4K on vet bills on Gooball.
Rescue rabbits has healthy genes. The worst gene pool rabbit is always from breeders. They overbreed rabbits for zoo meat, for shows, but never for the concern of the health well being of a rabbit.
Read this thread on "rabbit breeder", you'll understand:
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=93932
Before I joined this forum, I don't know much about rescue rabbit, if I joined this forum sooner, I would have get a rescue rabbit.
By the way, if you get a specific breed of rabbit, then the above scenario get much worse. Flemish Giant, the breed of rabbit that I have, there is really only a small no. of breeders in North America who breed them, so say you buy a Flemish Gaint from some breeders in NY, they could have borrow a Flemish Giant from my breeder w/ the poor DNA to breed their pure breed Flemish, and you can guess what you'll be getting.