Show me your feet

Every breeder has That One Flaw™ that sends them into fight-or-flight the moment they feel it. Weak shoulders. Mushy toplines. Hip structure that makes the rabbit look like it’s melting. A peak wandering around like it’s lost its GPS signal. Drop yours below. What flaw makes you swear under your breath — and how do you fix it in your pairings?

People who refuse to cull properly and then shove the worst of their litters into the holiday pet market. Rabbits, puppies, small breeds — all dumped into an already overloaded system because someone wanted to cash in on Christmas. If you’re going to breed anything, you’d better be capable of recognizing when an animal should not leave your barn. Full stop. Rabbits get hit especially hard every holiday. Breeders selling whatever they produce, or slapping “show quality” on culls to sell to kids… that’s garbage behavior. Let’s clear up a few points: SHOWABLE Any rabbit that meets the Standard of Perfection (SOP) for the breed can be shown as that breed. Outcrossing is allowed in rabbits. People do it all the time to improve type, balance, or color. If the end result conforms to the SOP, it’s showable. That’s how new lines are built—intentionally, carefully, and with an actual goal. If someone is advertising it as showable and picture isn't posed . Or you feel.something is off... ask another breeder or open your sop and compare . REGISTERABLE / GRANDABLE These require the proper pedigree, weights, and variety, once your outcross is behind you. But a rabbit doesn’t need registration to win legs. An unpedigreed animal—or one with outcross behind it—can win. Its legs can be noted on offspring pedigrees until you have enough generations to register and grand the descendants. PUREBRED ≠ WELL-BRED A “purebred” rabbit is simply one with three generations of the same breed listed on paper. That doesn’t mean it matches the standard. The table tells you the ancestry; the body tells you the truth. A rabbit can be purebred and still be awful. SPORTS Sports meet the standard in everything except color. They’re not showable but are used as brood animals in breeds that show only in specific patterns. A solid-black English Spot, a solid-colored Rhinelander—great type, wrong paint. This is where color genetics matters, and that’s a whole separate lesson that I do get into on my skool.