This is how my ranch started, it didn't start with rabbits, it really started before my children was born with ducks. Four cute little mallard ducks, which was my foot in the door with talking to animal people.
I was soon overrun with ducks and had to sell some but where do you sell ducks? I overheard someone telling me about an auction like place at Deerfeild fairgrounds. I attended with several ducks which I no longer wanted and traded those ducks for my first Rabbits, Mini lops or what I thought were mini lops.
I found out later they were Mini Lops but poor quality, well I had 2 bucks now, and no does can't go very far without does, so hunted around and found someone going out of Dutch. I aquired 7 Dutch rabbits, 2 bucks and 5 does, I was in business and soon found out as cute looking these Dutch were some of them were mean and some were scared out of their minds. I sent the mean ones to someone who wanted to eat rabbits, and kept the scared ones and worked with them every day until I could handle them with little problems. I bred a doe and 30 days later she had babies, my first. I did not know anything about the breed so to me they were just cute.
I also found out Dutch was not the breed for me, I liked the Mini Lops. This was a turning point for me I chosed to do Mini Lops and so got rid of all Dutch, most were given away to be pets, a few were given away for food.
I saw on the Channel 11 auction someone selling a pair of show quality mini lops, I bidded on them and won them. My first Mini lops were from a lady named Laurie, she was a judge and long time shower of Mini lops as well as other breeds. The first mini lops were a broken black buck and a broken black doe, after they were 3 months old I took them to the first ever show for me at Fryburg fair in Maine.
I have been hooked ever since that first day showing and found out how fun it can be to be around people with the same hobby and likes as well as how much fun the rabbits can be.
Have I made money showing or raising rabbits, well not really as most of the "money" I make goes right back into the rabbits in one form or another, either I buy more cages, feeders, feed or rabbits with what I "earn".
Do I have fun with doing the rabbits, a great big YES.
I meet alot of nice people, great looking rabbits and of course freinds who share the same hobby as I do.
I had a few of those and kept my first love Mini Lops, plus tryed my hand at a commercial breed, the Satin. I did enjoy the bigger rabbit but never developed a real love for them. I went back to the smaller breeds, and today I'm starting up with another big breed, the Cinnamons. They were such an unusual breed but the pleasing factor of them was the quiet gentle nature, and they only come in one color. This wasn't the only reason, also in case no-one told you this breed is dying out as not many breeders are breeding them so the gene pool is very small. I now have 5 on the property, the main buck, and his 2 sons and 2 daughters. Hope to be able to get a small group of 10 by 2005.
