TARAX STUD RABBITRY
Tarax Stud Project 2
The Lion Lop
Well this project was unexpected to say the least lol :) It actually started when we had a chocolate point mini lop pop up in a litter and like Kim often does with the chocolate gene in particular....she wanted more :) We made inquiries for a buck or a doe and had a breeder (Steve Fisher) who had a spare one if we wanted her....Kim said yes and we traded a Lutino for her.
When we opened the travel box we saw we had a double maned Lion lop (The lovely Clarissa...above)....Kim said its the gene we want so mated her to our lovely Lilac tort buck 'Bollinger' and 31 days later a litter of 3 choc torts were born (happy Kim) :) trouble was that as the kits got older i noticed these 3 kits seemed a little 'fluffier' than past litters and showed kim....'we have Lion Lops' she laughed and thats where it began (grin) we watched as they got older and Kim got more excited...they did get quite a few positive comments from visitors with many saying they looked like actual lions :)
She was also lucky enough to get one doe as well :)
Well Kim ended up with two bucks who were real characters lol
Well the problem straight away was that Kim had 2 worries....the first was space...where were they to go and second she had no experience with this breed :( the 1st problem actually meant a big change for her as the guinea pigs had not being shown for a few years due to her mums health...so after much discussion the decision was made to let them all go and move all the choc and lilac torts into the shed instead along with the Lion Lops. So next came problem number two...and luckily this was soon sorted pretty quickly in the guise of a good friend Julie Livingstone who is one of the UK's top Lion Lop breeders.
Well Julie came over to access Kims 3 new youngsters and explained they were single manes and also gave advice on breeding and more importantly grooming she also gave Kim an invite to pop over to visit her own stud and may have stock available to help Kim move on with her new project....which of course she did lol and we came back with some stunning animals :) as you can see with the photos below.
Meet Solo SM REW buck...Cassidy DM smoke doe and finally Juliett SM smoke doe :) (thank you Julie)
Well so far it has been a little slow and only one litter has been born a hyper active little black who although looks and acts cute is the bane of his step mum and step siblings lol constantly jumping on their heads or diving and clinging to the hutch front :) at the moment he is in the main shed but as soon as he is old enough Kim wants him in with her lol
N.B just a note Kim gives another reason why she is hooked on them, she entered 2 of her little Lions into the London show in October 2017 and was lucky enough to get a CC with one of the bucks :)
Well we have done more mating's and many are due this December so I know once they are born we will keep you informed lol the main thing is although there are a few colours at the moment Kim will be sticking to just two colours eventually with the Lion Lops....chocolate and lilac tort of course :)
28/1/18 Quick catch up with the lions, well we have had the privilege of having our lion lop programme boosted in a big way....our good friend and one of the countries well known breeders of Lion lops had decided to give up showing this delightful animal and offered us some of her stunning stock...even being short on space how could we not say no lol so we have acquired 4 new additions to the stud. Already this has helped and we have had our first lilac tort (see below:) she is only a single mane but very striking and has a lot of presence about her this is her at just over 6 weeks old...unfortunately for us she was the only one born in this litter surviving her smoke brother :(
We thought we would also put these two boys up as well our 1st DM lion lops with the one on the left having the edge in type to the buck on the right :) mum is our choc point 'Clarissa' dad is one of the new additions to our stud the REW 'Gorgeous' :) obviously we are looking forward to seeing how these look when a little older :)
19/02/2018 more photos as they come on and how type changes etc. the photos below are a few weeks later of the little double mane lop we are keeping :) the 2 photos below him are of out little sooty single main doe at 5 weeks :)
25/04/2018 Quick catch up as Kim showed 2 of her DM Lion Lops for the first time :) The photo's were at the Essex Championship Show held on 22/4/18 she entered her 2 x black self who are u/5 her winning boy Shamus got his 9 stars against his brother in 4 shows :)
08/07/20 Due to Kim's long term health problems our Lionlop project has been wound down, we only have 6 left for the moment and unless advertised we wont be mating or selling stock unless circumstances change....our apologies on this.