- Home
- For Sale
- Rabbit Care
- Current Tricolor Project
- Current Orange Project
- Current Red Project
- Current Self/Otter Projec
- Current Tort Hollands
- Current Chocolate Project
- Current BEW Project
- Assessing Holland Lops
- Posing Holland Lops
- Recognized Colors
- Bunny Blog
- Retired Rabbits
- Show News
- BEW Project
- History of Red Project
- Color Projects
- Tricolor Project
- Holiday Photography
- DIY Rabbit Toys
- Purchasing Show Babies
- Breeding Holland Lops
- Parasites
- Understanding Reds
- Breeding Blue-Eyed Whites
- Breeding Tricolors
- -
- Breeding BEW for Show
Our Red Project Explained
Primary Buck Lumos
Lumos is our primary herd buck for the red project at this time. He has more than enough legs to grand, but because he is an F2 (meaning 1/4 Thrianta) he cannot be registered and therefore cannot officially be a Grand Champion despite his winnings.
The reason that it is so important to know that Lumos is an F2 is because ALL of his direct offspring will not be able to be registered. Any rabbit sold born from Lumos could be a great brood animal or can be shown, but cannot be registered AND if it earns enough legs to be a Grand Champion, it will be unable to officially be one. However all of these offspring of Lumos will be able to have babies who can be registered and granded.
If you purchase a rabbit sired by Lumos it is important that you are aware of this. Lumos is the last of my F2 generation and while he is an older guy, I have no plan to retire him just yet.
Secondary Buck Pikachu
Pikachu is our only other red project buck at this time. He is an F4, this means any of his offspring can be shown (if they are show quality) and registered.
Our Does
NONE of our does are anything less than F3 generation in our red project. This is important to know because any offspring of our current breeding girls (unless bred to Lumos) will be registerable.
Showability
Booted Reds
For some reason, the wideband gene can impact the expression of the broken gene. When I first saw a booted red, I questioned if it was vienna marked because that is what it reminded me of. It is not a normal blanket pattern of color with a butterfly. A true booted red will have only white below the elbow on front feet or ankle on back feet. Based on this new definition of booted found in the 2021-2025 ARBA SOP the rabbit pictured here should be showable, but rabbits with this type of coloring are still getting DQ'd from show. Therefore it is really hard for me to officially distinguish between a showable "booted" and a non-showable booted. I tend to err on the side of caution though and there may be times that I mark a rabbit for sale as not being showable when in fact it is.
The Wideband Gene
In the ARBA SOP, the color orange is listed as wideband, but oddly enough, an orange rabbit doesn't have the wideband gene, in essence it is an agouti tort. Cream, the dilute version of orange, and Frosty, the chinchilla version of orange, are also considered wideband in the SOP but are not truly carriers of the wideband gene.
The wideband gene is NOT dominant, so many people like to say it is recessive. I disagree that it is a recessive gene. Wideband is what is called a co-dominant gene. This means that if your rabbit has the gene it will show through to some extent. Mostly through belly color, but you can also tell by booting in the brokens sometimes. That being said, the gene does not FULLY express unless you have 2 copies of the wideband gene.
If 2 copies of the Wideband gene is ideal, then why do we breed to non-wideband rabbits? Type. Our goal is to make reds of quality, so we need to breed to our other show lines in order to improve on type. This means that at this time we have a lot of "reds" with only one copy of the wideband gene, which means their color is visibly red in most cases, but not optimally red (especially in relation to the cream belly color). If you question the genotype of one of our sale rabbits, ASK. I will give you an honest answer of single copy, 2 copies, or I don't know/could go either way.
Buying
I do my best to be clear about what I have available, regarding both color and type, but if we don't have what you are looking for, feel free to contact me. If I don't have it now, I can tell you about planned breedings I have that may yield what you are looking for and let you know when to check back. I don't want to sell someone something that isn't exactly what they are looking for.