• There's the way breeding and the Holland body operates. Some parts are easy to fix and easily lost. Other parts are hard to fix and also more resilient in your breeding program. Those are the parts I recommend you establish first: hindquarter, top line, bone, good flesh. The fringe benefit of working on those items is that your rabbits will appeal to meat judges and fancy breed judges alike. A good crown and head mount is often lost on the huge population of meat judges out there.
  
• Then there's your personal preference. I can't abide long ears and long bone. So I knew I was going to tackle that early on. I just can't be happy producing length, even if it's packaged with heavy bone or nice flesh. Too many of them do well as juniors and young seniors, then disappear from the table.

• non-showable color (consider keeping them for brood)
• injuries that detract from the appearance such as large rips in the ear or missing body parts (again, consider keeping them for brood)
• teeth issues
• split penis - make sure you fully expose the shaft and wait several seconds to see if it will flare open
• cow hocks
• very pinched hips
• significantly undercut hindquarters
• significantly sloping hindquarters
• wool
• toenail disqualifications
• broken toes
• significantly low weight (rabbits that fall behind their littermates rarely, if ever, catch up again - it's usually not worth keeping them)
• very light bone
• abnormalities such as missing or extra toes, spine that curves left to right, crooked feet, etc.

During the first culling, you may have suspected that certain rabbits are false dwarfs. By the second look at them - between 3 and 4 1/2 months old, you should definitely be able to determine the status of everything except the most borderline rabbits.

During the second culling, you can look at ear length (compare the ear length to adult rabbits, not to juniors - if the ear would look good on a senior, it's okay - ears develop early). Overall body length can be evaluated, too. Rabbits that look long now will be even longer later. You can often feel a spot over the shoulder that will indicate to you whether the rabbit is likely to sprout a lot of shoulder length later on. If you don't know what that means, just start feeling the tops of the shoulders and then observe what happens later.

Size, flesh, depth over the hindquarter, and fur can be culled for somewhat at this point. Frail Hollands, those narrow throughout, flat over the hindquarter, or with significant fur problems can be culled. Be sure you are looking at an adult coat. Some Hollands have been known to keep a baby coat for months longer than average.

Check for all disqualifications again.

By this point, you are showing or about to show your juniors. Judges' opinions may help you somewhat in your culling. They may find DQs that you overlooked or point out strengths and weaknesses that your barn blindness prevented you from seeing.

But let me add one huge caution - don't believe every word that comes out of a judge's mouth. First of all, judges vary tremendously in their understanding of the Holland standard and their ability to apply it. Second, rabbits have a way of fighting a judge and not showing their best side. Top lines, for example, can look awful or great on the same animal just minutes apart - either because of the rabbit's cooperation or the judge's handling or both. Third, competition has a lot to do with how the rabbit does on a given day. Some days, you can get a leg on a rabbit that should be culled. Other times, a judge is faced with five rabbits that all would normally be able to take a class. I've seen a judge with a class of six, place one of them and then announce that the rest of the class is virtually the same and he would have to split hairs to pick a winner.

So anyway, during this junior phase, you've culled a few more with disqualifications or you keep getting the same comment on your rabbit and you finally have to agree that she does indeed have light bone or he is indeed terribly slipped in the crown.

Now your rabbits turn senior and it's time to go at it again. For does, you have a couple of questions to ask. Should she stay in my herd and, if so, do I breed her or continue to show her? I think most does are in their prime from four to twelve months (as long as they are not bred). A year really is, in my opinion, the outside limit for putting a doe into your breeding program. So, for your girls, this is the moment of truth. It's time to check your goals - intermediate and long term. Does she help you meet these goals?

You may find that you need to sell a better rabbit and keep a worse one. Can you believe I wrote that? Let's say that you have 20 Hollands. Essentially all of them are sloping in the hindquarter but they have gorgeous bone and flesh. You bring in a rabbit from outside with good depth over the hindquarter to breed with your herd. Now you have produced 20 young seniors and it's time to cull. Nineteen of them have gorgeous bone and flesh and sloping hindquarters. One has okay flesh, okay bone, is a bit slipped, but has the great hindquarter you want. You may need to keep her to help you work on your goal.

And, you may want to keep some of those with the same problems as the rest of your herd to breed back to the good hindquarter buck you brought in. Then you might have to shift your culling to the older generation of does and keep the younger works-in-progress.

Okay, let's shift our attention over the boys. It's a different situation for them since they are still a year away from their prime. You know you don't need and don't have room for another dozen bucks in your herd. But how are you supposed to pick now the ones that will be good later?

I don't know. Get out your crystal ball, I guess! That's one way, but I think we can do a little better than that.

Let's think about the things that can be culled for now: bone, overall body length, fur quality, ear length, top line, hindquarter, disqualifications (teeth go bad or testicles never descend - a junior can get away with that), width between the eyes, crown placement, ear substance, chest width, and head mount.

What will change in a year's time? The three biggest things are head size, crown, and shoulder width. Body length will continue to develop, so a young senior that is longish will probably be long in a year.

Sometimes you can get a hint of what the head is going to do . You will see a growth around 6, 12, and 18 months. Then there's a more gradual growth throughout the rest of his career.

Crowns often continue to widen, even up to three years. I've seen four-year olds that still have tight crowns, of course, but I've also had young seniors who look as if they are trying to fly with those ears with lovely crown width by 12 or 18 months. Crown definition may also improve some, but remember, crown placement isn't going to get any better. And sometimes, when the head grows, it makes the crown placement seem worse.

Shoulders can widen, but they also can lengthen, so take that into consideration.

Now that you've culled two of the bucks and you still have ten left, what do you do? Now's the time to get out your goals and determine which will help you the most. Which bucks are just like other bucks you already have - but not really quite as good (taking maturity into account)? Which ones are pushing forward on your goals for your herd? Are there bucks that you want to breed back to their wonderful mothers? Are these bucks complementary to those does?

Although it's tempting to always keep the bucks you feel will do best on the table, take your breeding plan into consideration first.

You will continue to cull your rabbits through their lifetimes. Hopefully, you will cull many because they are replaced by better rabbits from your line. Some does will be culled because they aren't good mothers. Other rabbits are culled because they produce too many disqualifications or you can't find a good match for them in the barn. Sometimes, you may let one go just to help someone else in their barn.

I believe it is better to occasionally let a good one get away than to keep a poor one and make it part of your line. I believe we should keep all of the good ones that help our goals, even if that means keeping all of one litter and none of another. I think it's okay to let a line in your barn die out. I think it's okay to keep two rabbits that are almost identical - as long as they are the same in their positive characteristics.

I also believe that getting a second opinion from someone else is a great idea. We lose our objectivity quite quickly in our barns. We love the parents of a rabbit or spent a lot of money on a line. We want a rabbit to be good, so we see it that way.

We also tend to keep the same things and sell the same things over and over, which doesn't help us with our goals. A friend was picking out a buck at Convention this year. She has a clearly stated goal - to increase mass in her rabbits. She was picking from between an absolutely adorable, but small buck, and a larger, more massive one that was not nearly as cute. She was already cuddling the small one and cooing to him when we reminded her of her goals. It seemed to break her heart to choose the one that could help her over the one that was just like what she already had. I told her that it was a hobby and that she should do what would make her happy. But, if she wanted to improve her herd, she should take the one that could help her.

I really don't have any problem culling hard. Well, unless it's my favorite one. Or, unless that rabbit did well at a national show. Or, if it's sweet. Or, if I paid a lot of money for its parents. Or, if I really thought I did a great job of pairing its parents and anticipated that it would be good. Or, if it has a really cute broken pattern on its face.

Other than that, culling is a piece of cake. Not.

Laurie Stroupe
The Nature Trail Rabbitry “Home Of Grand Champions”
Precious Pet Rabbits
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