Monday, January 30, 2006
Pruning
I have a few grape vines growing on the fence around my now-neglected herb garden. (I'm sure you can guess the cause of the neglect - it starts with the letter R.) I've never been very successful with my grapevines and I think the main reason is that I don't prune them well. I've seen well-pruned vines and I can tell the difference in an instant. And I understand pruning conceptually.
At first, you allow the grapevine to grow a bit. Then you choose two main branches to grow, chopping off all of the rest. The next year, you select two additional branches to grow at the next level and remove the rest. Now you have four main branches. If your support allows it, you can select two more the following year, but most grapevines I've seen just have about four main branches.
Everything else is removed except these strong vine branches. That's the key.
Then, those branches are allowed to grow and bear fruit. If a particular branch doesn't bare good fruit, then it is pruned away. Perhaps another main branch is allowed to grow, or maybe the remaining branches just take up the available space. If the entire vine doesn't produce, then it's removed and a grapevine from better stock takes its place.
And we should do the exact same thing with our rabbits.
When you get started, you buy the best stock available to you and produce rabbits, observing the offspring to get to know what you are working with (that means growing them out, not selling them as babies). Then after awhile, you select a few main rabbits to be your foundation. It is time to get rid of the rest.
A long-time breeder once told me that everyone gets into rabbits awhile and then gets rid of everything and starts over. I think that's just the way things have to go. You have to have some experience to start out with the right foundation stock. Most people can't just walk right into that.
In any case, those main rabbits are bred and you check to see that you are beginning to get some nice bunnies out of them. If you run into problems, perhaps a strong genetic fault, then you remove that entire line from your program and work with the other lines or replace it with a stronger line.
I think that too many rabbitries flounder by not wanting to cut off the miscellaneous lines in their rabbitries. They fear giving up a genetic pool because it MIGHT produce something nice down the road. Those rabbits are like the tiny side branches that suck away strength from the main branch but rarely produce the fruit you are expecting.
Sure, they might. And if you've got the cage space to keep all of the rabbits that might, then go for it. But I think it is better to lop them off and stick with a few main lines (one or two for a small to medium rabbitry). And if they work well together, you've really got something!
You can tell when I've got my rabbit pruners out. All of a sudden a lot of nice bunnies will hit my for sale page at once. It's hard to let them go and trust that the ones I've decided to keep are truly part of the main branches. Sometimes I revert and take those rabbits back off of the for sale page, in fact. It's really that hard to do sometimes.
A friend of mine commented this week that it seemed that all of my litters seem to work out well. Of course that's just perception. I don't talk about the ones that don't work out as much as I talk about the ones I'm pleased with. But, the percentage of litters that are successful is increasing; that, I'm sure of.
I believe that it is all due to culling very, very hard. And not just keeping the nicest and selling the rest. You could keep the nicest bunnies you create and end up with a genetic hodgepodge to try to create your next generation with. I'm keeping the nicest within a limited gene pool and selling genetic outliers, even if they are every nice (starting a new main branch is not an option for me since I have decided not to enlarge my barn again). I'm trying to determine which rabbits and lines can be main "branches" and which are very cute, nice side shoots (which might, by the way, become a main line in someone else's barn).
So, when you want to say, "Why is she selling that very nice rabbit?" you will now be able to guess that it is not part of my long-term plan. I have a very cute junior buck out of BBF's Yankee Doodle Dandy (my last Dandy baby, I think). I'm going to keep him and show him through his junior career. But I know there is a 100% chance that I will sell him, no matter how well he develops. That's because I made the very difficult decision to remove that entire branch from my barn due to space limitations. He is now a genetic outlier and he has to go.
You may have guessed that I just picked some rabbits to let go of. And I have. I will be taking them to PA with me this weekend to sell. If I get the time to photograph them before I go, I will post them. But this will be a crazy week and I probably won't get the time.
But I have to sell them before I change my mind!
Laurie Stroupe
The Nature Trail Rabbitry
Holland Lops Of Distinction
Precious Pet Rabbits
Pet Rabbit Care Information, Quality Pet Rabbit Breeders, and Rabbit Fun
¶ 9:38 AM
At first, you allow the grapevine to grow a bit. Then you choose two main branches to grow, chopping off all of the rest. The next year, you select two additional branches to grow at the next level and remove the rest. Now you have four main branches. If your support allows it, you can select two more the following year, but most grapevines I've seen just have about four main branches.
Everything else is removed except these strong vine branches. That's the key.
Then, those branches are allowed to grow and bear fruit. If a particular branch doesn't bare good fruit, then it is pruned away. Perhaps another main branch is allowed to grow, or maybe the remaining branches just take up the available space. If the entire vine doesn't produce, then it's removed and a grapevine from better stock takes its place.
And we should do the exact same thing with our rabbits.
When you get started, you buy the best stock available to you and produce rabbits, observing the offspring to get to know what you are working with (that means growing them out, not selling them as babies). Then after awhile, you select a few main rabbits to be your foundation. It is time to get rid of the rest.
A long-time breeder once told me that everyone gets into rabbits awhile and then gets rid of everything and starts over. I think that's just the way things have to go. You have to have some experience to start out with the right foundation stock. Most people can't just walk right into that.
In any case, those main rabbits are bred and you check to see that you are beginning to get some nice bunnies out of them. If you run into problems, perhaps a strong genetic fault, then you remove that entire line from your program and work with the other lines or replace it with a stronger line.
I think that too many rabbitries flounder by not wanting to cut off the miscellaneous lines in their rabbitries. They fear giving up a genetic pool because it MIGHT produce something nice down the road. Those rabbits are like the tiny side branches that suck away strength from the main branch but rarely produce the fruit you are expecting.
Sure, they might. And if you've got the cage space to keep all of the rabbits that might, then go for it. But I think it is better to lop them off and stick with a few main lines (one or two for a small to medium rabbitry). And if they work well together, you've really got something!
You can tell when I've got my rabbit pruners out. All of a sudden a lot of nice bunnies will hit my for sale page at once. It's hard to let them go and trust that the ones I've decided to keep are truly part of the main branches. Sometimes I revert and take those rabbits back off of the for sale page, in fact. It's really that hard to do sometimes.
A friend of mine commented this week that it seemed that all of my litters seem to work out well. Of course that's just perception. I don't talk about the ones that don't work out as much as I talk about the ones I'm pleased with. But, the percentage of litters that are successful is increasing; that, I'm sure of.
I believe that it is all due to culling very, very hard. And not just keeping the nicest and selling the rest. You could keep the nicest bunnies you create and end up with a genetic hodgepodge to try to create your next generation with. I'm keeping the nicest within a limited gene pool and selling genetic outliers, even if they are every nice (starting a new main branch is not an option for me since I have decided not to enlarge my barn again). I'm trying to determine which rabbits and lines can be main "branches" and which are very cute, nice side shoots (which might, by the way, become a main line in someone else's barn).
So, when you want to say, "Why is she selling that very nice rabbit?" you will now be able to guess that it is not part of my long-term plan. I have a very cute junior buck out of BBF's Yankee Doodle Dandy (my last Dandy baby, I think). I'm going to keep him and show him through his junior career. But I know there is a 100% chance that I will sell him, no matter how well he develops. That's because I made the very difficult decision to remove that entire branch from my barn due to space limitations. He is now a genetic outlier and he has to go.
You may have guessed that I just picked some rabbits to let go of. And I have. I will be taking them to PA with me this weekend to sell. If I get the time to photograph them before I go, I will post them. But this will be a crazy week and I probably won't get the time.
But I have to sell them before I change my mind!
Laurie Stroupe
The Nature Trail Rabbitry
Holland Lops Of Distinction
Precious Pet Rabbits
Pet Rabbit Care Information, Quality Pet Rabbit Breeders, and Rabbit Fun
¶ 9:38 AM
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I bought a fuzzy from Laurie!!! I just love Krystal a broken Fuzzy . Do you have any for salenow?? shempyboye@aol.com
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