Inbreeding rabbits?

[Birdsarelife]

Hello byc! My friend is getting a male and female rabbit, is it ok to breed their babies? Like brother/sister? Will it cause mutations? Thank you

 

[NatJ]

Hello byc! My friend is getting a male and female rabbit, is it ok to breed their babies? Like brother/sister? Will it cause mutations? Thank you

Short answer: it is not likely to be a problem, but there are no guarantees.

Long answer:

Inbreeding like that will not CAUSE mutations.

But if there are any recessive genes carried by both the male and the female rabbit, the traits caused by those genes will show up in some of the babies. Breeding to an unrelated rabbit is less likely to cause this, because the unrelated rabbit probably does not have the same recessive genes.

Not all recessive genes are a problem. For example, the white coloring of a New Zealand White is caused by a recessive gene, but does not cause problems for the rabbit.

But there can be recessive genes that do cause health problems, and those are the ones that would cause trouble when you inbreed.

I do not know enough about rabbit genes and healthy problems to predict exactly what might happen.

Why do you want to breed the rabbits? What do you intend to do with the bunnies? If you are raising rabbits for meat, I would say to just try it, and if any babies have problems you can eat them and decide not to repeat that mating. If you want to sell pet rabbits, I would probably not breed a brother/sister pair. There is some chance of problems, but I would be more concerned about what the buyers think. No matter whether the bunnies would be healthy or not, the idea that their parents were siblings is going to upset some people. That could have a big effect on your ability to sell the bunnies.

 

[Birdsarelife]

Why do you want to breed the rabbits?

For selling purposes

What do you intend to do with the bunnies?

Sell them to friends and family.

If you are raising rabbits for meat, I would say to just try it, and if any babies have problems you can eat them and decide not to repeat that mating. If you want to sell pet rabbits, I would probably not breed a brother/sister pair. There is some chance of problems, but I would be more concerned about what the buyers think. No matter whether the bunnies would be healthy or not, the idea that their parents were siblings is going to upset some people. That could have a big effect on your ability to sell the bunnies.

Thank you for the info. Weird question, but what if it is father/daughter, mother/son, or cousins? I am only thinking of doing this because I don’t want to have to buy separate rabbits for breeding.

 

[NatJ]

For selling purposes

Sell them to friends and family.

It will probably come down to whether your potential buyers care about the matter. So if you know who you would sell the rabbits to, ask those people.

Thank you for the info. Weird question, but what if it is father/daughter, mother/son, or cousins? I am only thinking of doing this because I don’t want to have to buy separate rabbits for breeding.

Different relationships lead to minor changes in how likely you are to see problems, but I do not think the risk of physical problems is high enough that you really need to avoid the inbreeding. That changes if you actually find problems in the bunnies. If that happens, then you should not repeat that breeding, but you should probably not breed those specific rabbits to any others either (to avoid spreading the genes that cause the trouble.)

Personally, I would probably just get one rabbit from your friend's litter and buy one rabbit (opposite sex) from some other source. That means you only have to buy one rather than two or more. If you want more than a pair, maybe get all the females your friend produces, then go buy one male to breed with the whole lot of them.

Or maybe you can find someone else in a similar situation and arrange a trade. Swapping male bunnies could give each person an unrelated buck for their breeding project.

Are they any special kind of rabbits, or generic mixes?

 

[CherokeeFlats]

I have raised rabbits for 40 years. We line breed but never breed closer than half siblings (same mom different dads or vsv). Breeding full siblings wont necessarily cause issues but I personally wouldnt recommend it.

Parent to child is ok as well. that's part of line breeding. You want to breed for better animals. Don't breed just to breed. Nothing good will come out of it.

Rabbits are time consuming and expensive to keep. Once cage per animal.

I have about 60 rabbits, that's 60 cages, plus cages for weaning, $300 in food a month, plus hay, and time to handle everyone, socialize them with humans (not other rabbits)

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

For selling purposes

Sell them to friends and family.

Thank you for the info. Weird question, but what if it is father/daughter, mother/son, or cousins? I am only thinking of doing this because I don’t want to have to buy separate rabbits for breeding.

I think, genetically speaking, it would be better to breed parent/ child pairs. that is because the baby would have DNA from its moms parents and its dads parents, instead of having DNA from the same grandparents twice.