Blue Silver Fox

On the theme of starter stock and how to best begin your rabbitry in our previous post, How Do You Find Starter Stock?, I wanted to share some advice I saw an experienced breeder give recently.

This breeder recommended buying two pair of rabbits, a quad, when beginning your rabbitry. Most experts will suggest buy just a trio, two does and a buck. If you’re in an area where it’s easy to find your breed that is perfectly sound advice as one buck is certainly able to service two does without a single problem.

However, if you’re looking at a hard-to-find or rare breed, or you’ll have to transport the rabbits a good distance to get them home, you might strongly consider purchasing a quad. This helps insure your investment is anything goes wrong (because we all know Murphy and his stinkin’ Law!).

For example, what if something incapacitates just one of your rabbits… but it’s the buck? What will you breed to your does for babies? In the “what if” possibilities that buck becomes pretty important and have another boy around might not be so bad!

I had never considered this prior to reading his advice, but now think it’s a pretty smart plan. That second buck is like purchasing insurance – possibly never necessary or utilized but terribly, terribly important if worst comes to worst.

Tagged: breeding, buying new stock, disaster rabbitry plan, insurance, rabbitry set up, rabbits, starter stock