To help young member NOT to buy breeder's rabbit:

Forget the issue of supply and demand, we should have this as a sticky to tell new young members that if they buy a bun from breeders, there is a serious lack of genetic diversification on the baby bun. As a result, a lot of ugly sickness will occur prematurely. For e.g., like my bridge bun Goofball, she shouldn't have bone cancer just before age 2. Age 10 understandable. Age 1.8 -- bad genes.



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If you buy rabbit, you are encouraging those breeder to breed more bun as a supply. This is the condition that these rescue animals lives in

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_JqNdp2As

So when you buy a bun, you are doing this:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WCNr-VrkXl8

Hi Jason

I too have concerns about some Breeders but I do not think it is correct to say that they all have poor standards re the 'gene pool' they breed from.
Some Breeders are extremely knowledgable about genetics and would never breed from a Rabbit with unknown/unsound genetic history.

I make not secret of my 'anti-breeding' stance, there are too many unwanted Rabbits ( and dogs.....and cats.....) in the world already
But I think it is wrong to say that no Rabbit obtained from a Breeder can be genetically 'healthy'.

The videos are very sad and emotive

I supposed that can be true. In my past 10 yr., I haven't met any breeder that is responsible, from going to view rabbit competition to breeder house. Of course, my experience is w/ breeders in Canada

I have to be honest that whilst I would NEVER encourage anyone to buy from a breeder or petshop and promote the supply/demand cycle, even rescue rabbits have come from a breeder at some point so to class them all as genetic messes means not taking on rescue bunnies either.

There are breeders who really do try to better the breed by eradicating problem genes in their stock. I also have to say in my personal experience my only two problem free rabbits are the two I got from a petshop as babies , but I would still choose to give a rescue rabbit a good home any day.

We have to try not to make sweeping statements and generalise about these things because setting up barriers between the pro-rescue and pro-breeders cannot be constructive long term.

I will leave this thread open as long as it remains balanced and factual.