RABBITS

Meat Rabbits

Meat rabbit breeding is quite distinct from raising pure bred rabbits for specific purposes like rabbit shows or providing stock for 4H. The standards for meat rabbits are set by the breeders and the primary goal is producing more meat. Common breeds with large carcass weights often garner more interest than mixed breed rabbits but they can also take longer to reach ideal meat-to-bone ratios. At Pips Farm we breed primarily mixed breed rabbits while selecting for size, growth speed, and hardiness. Coloration is tertiary at best, though certainly makes things more interesting than having monotone stock.

Mixed: Tricolor - Our buck Hermes

Rabbits with a tricolor phenotype are among the most recessive gene types and are actually a Broken Colored Harlequin. Tricolor rabbits are often preferred by pet owners and some efforts must be taken in breeding to ensure the coloration of the tricolor phenotype is not muted by a gene that represses the red gene’s expression. Once the red gene is no longer expressed the prodigy is no longer “tricolor” - which we have seen ourselves in our internal breeding program. Experts have estimated that Hermes expresses a combination of Lop and New Zealand traits.

Mixed: Chinchilla - Our doe Freya

One of the main phenotypes used in the rabbit fur industry, the chinchilla is also one of the more difficult phenotypes to produce. The gene sets that produce coats in rabbits are complicated and it often takes a seasoned breeder to differentiate some of the subtleties in physical appearance, as well as the knowledge of what genes produce what outcome. With some colorations the precision of identification is not extremely important, but when the market specifically requires a chinchilla to have exact physical characteristics to be marketable, precision is everything. Experts have estimated that Freya is likely a New Zealand-dominant cross.

New Zealand: Black - Our doe Nyx

We introduced Nyx in fall of 2025 and she is a gorgeous rabbit with a larger frame than our mixed chin Freya, and we very much look forward to unveiling her alleles over time through breeding.

Selling Rabbits As Pets

One element of breeding is the instances of producing wonderful and unique colorations as well as the odd and unfortunate runts that are both equally tempting to sell as pet stock. Too beautiful to butcher and too small to make a meal can make a perfect pet, right? Not always. Pips Farm is not in the pet market and the stark reality of selling rabbits as pets is that they are all-too-often released to the wild and contribute to a growing problem of feral rabbits in urban areas. The cost of spaying or neutering a rabbit is multiple times more than a consumer is willing to pay for a pet, and as a result we do not offer rabbits as pets, and nor do we sell live rabbit stock to individuals who aren't committed to butchering their livestock and stewardship of their land by ensuring no rabbits become feral.