Breeding of Rabbits 
Advances in breeding do not come as a rule as the result of isolated 
brilliant discoveries but by the slow steady progress of many workers, each 
contributing certain observations. The rabbit has been the subject of 
scientific study by Geneticists for twenty or more years. Coat color, one 
of the factors of prime importance in fur production, has been studied in 
some detail. Density and length of fur have also received some attention. 
Something is also known about size inheritance, a subject very closely con- 
nected with meat production, perhaps still the most important source of 
income from the rabbit. In addition much has been learned by steady and 
careful observation and experiment about the inheritance of similar char- 
acteristics in other animals such as the mouse, rat, guinea pig, and even 
such important domestic animals as the cow, pig, horse and chicken. Many 
things first learned about one animal have afterwards been found to apply 
in a more or less similar way to others, until today we have a wealth of 
material from which a pretty general understanding and satisfactory ex- 
planation of many of the phenomena of heredity can be deducted and often 
this can be made use of by breeders who are willing to make the effort to 
improve their stock in one way or another. In spite of this it seems a 
rather striking fact that the average breeder today. is still using compara- 
tively primitive methods and is contributing very little if anything, either 
in the way of records or observations to the knowledge of inheritance of 
the economic products of the rabbits. 
With the new movement to place the rabbit in the front ranks of the 
food and clothing producing animals more than hit or miss methods are 
becoming necessary. Breeders are beginning to realize this if the ques- 
tions they are asking are any criterion, and it is to be hoped that they will 
go still further, not perhaps to experiment themselves, but to cooperate in 
seeking research at government and state institutions which will aid them 
in their problems. While much is known about rabbit breeding today, it 
is still only a drop in a vast uncharted sea of what is yet unknown. The 
words of a one time very prominent rabbit breeder were very. much to the 
point when he said, “The indiscriminate mixing of blood lines without any 
knowledge of results is like trying to steer a ship without a rudder. Don’t 
pin faith on the mere assertion that like produces like, for unless one 
knows how Nature does this, she may shoot very wide of the mark. She 
has immutable laws by which she works and reproduces defects just as 
likely as points of merit. She dabbles intimately with the phenomena of 
heredity.” One can only add that it now seems up to the breeders to dabble 
also as much as is practicable with the phenomena of heredity. 
The questions which arise first and the most often seem to be those 
of the general methods of breeding. How is one to decide what is the best 
method to follow? Circumstances show that what is the best method for 
one breeder is not always the best for another, who perhaps has a different 
strain or breed of rabbit. Only the man who knows the animals concerned 
and the circumstances under which they are to be bred is competent to 
decide or advise what the best method or mating is. Logically this. can 
only be the breeder himself, but in order to decide intelligently and wisely 
he must have at his command some knowledge of the laws of heredity. 
Before attempting to take up any one of the methods of breeding it 
may be well to step back and size them up a little to see if we can get some 
conception of what they are and how they are to be used. In doing so 
let us make a few comparisons. 
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