TARAX STUD RABBITRY
This particular project is not an easy one as it is aiming to recreate a breed from scratch....
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When we started with the Golden Glavcot, it wasn't until we read its history that we found out that there was a Silver Glavcot (pic 1), this rabbit had also become extinct around the same time as the Golden.
We could find nothing on the web about it, but the BRC (British Rabbit Council) did have a standard for it which they sent a copy to us.
A Mr Wesley T Page wrote back in the 1920's
'This is the newest of the fur breeds, does not yet boast a club to further its interests, but such I hope will soon come into existance. This variety was concieved by Mr O Millsum. I bought his entire stock, but previous to the transaction I believe a few had already been sold to Lady Victoria Murray. Great progress has since been made, as is evidenced by my exhibits at Bradford in January 1924, one of which, a seventeen weeks doe, took the premier award. I think the variety has travelled already so far beyond Mr Millsums conception of same.'
The standard presented by Mr Page gave Kim a bit of a head ache as our first thought was Lilac agouti or lilac steel...and wondered how we were going to start...the first clue to start us off was in the description of colour....'intermediate portion bluer, slightly pearly....'
So this is where Mr G came in (pic 2) :) a lovely but slightly grumpy (initially lol) Perlfee from our friends Mark & Cath. Well we mated him up to the first of our rabbits this line being a Perlfee/Siberian mating (pic 3) producing our first F1's (all Perlfee's).
Meet Charlie (pic 4) she had the best coat and silvering so was kept for stage 2 of the programme.
Our next F1 mating was Perlfee/Glavcot mating this produced agouti's in various shades but Vinny (pic 5) was kept because of the dark ticking he had.
Tarax Stud Project 3
This project is on hold...as of 12/4/2014
With Vinny and Charlie mated up we then produced our F2's and as you can see with the 3 pics on the right we had 2 perlfees come through (both gone to brilliant homes :) ) A cinnamon and a lynx.
Now When we went to London Kim kicked up a long...conversation with a like minded person into genetics, colours and re-astablishing lost breeds (thanks Peter and no i still dont want spotties lol)...so much so that they both realised they need a pure Perlfee to cross back to, now initially we lost Mr G very suddenly so could not use him so we aquired a lovely young doe called October who Vinny will be mated to so as to start our next stage :) but unfortunetly thats for the New Year now...pictures will be put up as we progress as its a long way to go yet.
12/04/2014 Due to the time and more importantly the space needed...we are putting this project on hold as project 1 has now taken priority for the moment. We will keep people informed through our social media sites as and when we will be starting up again.