New Zealand Rabbit Varieties At Sleepy Creek Farm
New Zealand Red Rabbits
The red variety of New Zealand rabbits are very popular among 4-H youth and urban homestead followers. Their intense red color is irresistible. For those who are not so skilled at rabbit processing, stray hairs from the Reds will not show up well on the meat. Our breeding stock are selected for conformation, color, and temperament. We have put a lot of legwork into recapturing size and growth rate with the New Zealand Reds so that they are versatile as both show and meat rabbits. We have several lines of reds in our breeding stock but owe considerable credit to rabbits from Manuel Hidalgo, including the herd sire JTX24 pictured above.
New Zealand White Rabbits
The New Zealand White rabbit is the quintessential meat rabbit; white fur does not show up on the meat, the rabbits stay cooler in the heat, and the pelts can be dyed any color of the rainbow after being tanned. The search for perfect colors in the other varieties has caused some people to overlook size, growth rate, and production capacity. The folks who raise the NZ Whites have never lost sight of these factors, and white is often bred back into colored lines to bring up the size and growth rate of the offspring. White New Zealands are an albino rabbit carrying other color genetics, so it can be possible for kits of color to show up in the nestbox. However, white bred to white usually produces 100% white offspring. At Sleepy Creek Farm, we have obtained White breeding stock from some of the Nation's leading breeders, including Manuel Hidalgo and David Cardinal, to improve our breeding program for all varieties of New Zealands.
Black New Zealand Rabbits
There is something striking about the sleek siloughette of the black New Zealand rabbit. A nestbox full of little black bunnies with their adorably little ears and big eyes pretty much defines "cuteness." The black variety can be interbred with blue, broken black, broken blue and potentially white (although the color genetics of the individual white rabbit will influence offspring). Sleepy Creek Farm's black rabbits all carry blue genetics, as they are used to create quality blue and broken blue rabbits.
Blue New Zealand Rabbits
As of December 2016, the ARBA officially recognized Blue as a color variety of the New Zealand Breed. Hooray! Blue is a "dilute" genetic expression of Black and can be crossed out to black and broken black lines. Sleepy Creek Farm has an intensely focused Blue breeding program with several "families" of blue New Zealands that incorporate a variety of genetic backgrounds. Credit is owed to blue and black breeding stock from Whitney Sprees Harper (Celsetial Fields Rabbitry), Al Esterline, and Jean Harris, in addition to a "lucky" white buck from Manuel Hidalgo who carried black.
Broken Red New Zealands!
Broken reds are very attractive rabbits. A broken buck or doe can be bred to a solid buck or doe, and produce both broken and solid kits. Caution must be taken when breeding broken pattern to broken pattern, as this can create undesirable "Charlie" patterns with too much white and not enough color. The ideal broken pattern rabbit has color markings on the nose, around the eyes, on both ears and over the loin. The "Booted" or "Blanket" pattern is no longer an accepted expression of broken pattern in the New Zealand rabbit.
The broken black variety follows the same criteria as the broken red. They are attractive rabbits with clown-like faces. Another benefit to the broken pattern rabbits is that they tend to process pretty cleanly, as the legs and vent have white hair and this is the part of the pelt that tends to interfere with the meat during processing. Sleepy Creek Farm has an outstanding matriarch line of Broken Blacks with exceptional conformation, dynamic growth rate, and fantastic temperaments that make good brood does and congenial herd bucks.
Broken Blue New Zealands!
Broken Blue is a personal favorite color variety at Sleepy Creek Farm! We have risen to the challenge of not only creating great color pattern, but show winning conformation and fur quality in the broken blues. Like other broken patterns, it is best to breed broken blue to solid blue or solid black varieties in order to avoid producing "charlies".