As a new breeder it was very hard for us to understand exactly what people meant when they would say “Commercial Type.” We started out by basically describing it as a basketball with a head!
We went to shows and did our best to listen and learn whenever any breed of rabbit that is supposed to have the body type of our breeds was on the table. We also discovered some really great resources, like this diagram of Commercial rabbit type:
Even as awesome as photos and diagrams are, sometimes it’s helpful to actually see something, so I took a few (very amateur!) videos of our rabbits and what we look for when posing and evaluating them. The disclaimer is that we are not rabbit judges and we are not the be all end all of rabbit breeders – but we are pretty good listeners and active learners from those who will teach!
Here is a dialogue of a few of the things we have learned and try to implement in our rabbitry. If these videos can be helpful, we’re happy to share!
Tagged: ARBA SOP, bunny, commercial rabbit, how do you evaluate a baby rabbit for show, posing, posing a meat rabbit, video of rabbit posing
Mad Hatter Rabbits & MicroFarm 
That was super helpful! I’ve never had anybody show me in person how to pose a rabbit, so this was awesome. Thanks a bunch! 🙂
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Oh I’m so glad!!
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Good tutorial, thanks for your time.
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Thank you for the great videos and diagram this is a really good resource and helpful to new commercial-type breeders 🙂
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Reblogged this on Trickster Hares and commented:
My friend put together this wonderful informative series of diagrams and videos about the commercial type in rabbits. (My focus in the past has been on mandolin types so my poses were off!) My commercial type breeds are the Harlequin, Blanc de Hotot, and Dwarf Hotot. I will be referring to this page the next time I prepare my commercial breeds for a show or photograph to sell! May this help in your own posing and rabbit selection 🙂
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Thank you very much, very helpful and beautiful animals you have. I just recently picked up a pair of Cinnamons, Silver Foxes, and a trio of Giant Chinchillas; to be honest I might as well have picked them up sight unseen with as much as I knew about commercial rabbits. Your videos have been really helpful in posing and starting to evaluate them. ^^
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I’m so glad! There are some things that video really helps more than descriptions, huh?!
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It’s been a very long time since you posted these videos and I can now only see 3 of them, but they are fabulous!! My kids are in 4H and we’ve just come home from the last fair of our season – we’re all very interested in learning more about evaluating commercial rabbits as we’d like to improve the stock we have (my 15 yo son has just agreed to buy 2 pedigreed Champagne D’Argent that look really good in the pictures we’ve received – they’re about 10 hours away – and he’d love to be able to charge premium prices for his rabbits!)
We had a couple does+litters at the fair and with a bunch of 4H girls oohing and aahing over the babies, it would have been really great to be able to say – this one is a great choice because of these things! So, now we’re going to learn more so that next year we’re prepared 😀
Is there any chance you could fix up the other videos so that they’re viewable again?
Thanks & I look forward to exploring around your site some more!!
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I’ll check them out! I didn’t realize they weren’t workig
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Thanks!!
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