Mark Schmidt
from Cedar Rapids, IA |
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How may years have you raised Dutch? |
4 to 8 years |
What recognized varieties do you raise? |
Blue, Tortoise |
What non-recognized varieties do you own? |
I've had Gold and Harlequin and would again if they were accepted. |
When using other breeds of rabbits in the development of these new colors, it will take many years to get animals that consistently show a good Dutch type. What about the colors we could have just crossing the varieties we already have? Lilac Dutch for example were very popular back in the days of the AOV class. |
I'm a returning Dutch breeder; I initially raised Dutch in the '70s as a teenager and have returned to rabbit raising again as an adult (2005) with Dutch as one of my primary breeds. When I started breeding and showing, the existing Dutch AOV class had recently been ended but there was still a lot of AOV stock being used as breeders; one of the bucks that considerably improved my lines was a very well marked and typed Gold from Larry Bengston; and I could get a nice Lilac out of my Shufflebotham Chocolates, too, from time to time. Here it is almost 40 years later and not only has the Dutch club not re-accepted these naturally occurring varieties, that has been no other movement forward, either. And in 40 years the complexion of ARBA has gone from mostly adult male to having a strong youth/family component; at the same time, the other "toy" breeds from the 70's like Polish and NDs have exploded; and many new sub-6 pound fancy breeds have been introduced and also exploded, like Mini Rex and Holland Lops, Mini Satins are exponentially expanding right now. But not the Dutch, not at the same rates and not with the same aggressive youth expansion. Is it lack of variety? Don't know, and we won't know, until we add some colors and see if it draws new breeders. |
If we start adding new colors of Dutch to the Standard will we get carried away with the entire thing? for example, the Netherland Dwarfs and Mini-Rex. Will this benefit our club or the Dutch breed? |
First, the simple control of the Dutch marking standards will slow or impede the color expansion and there's just some colors that wouldn't look so good on a white belted rabbit. But come on, no new varieties in almost 40 years? Polish have only added a few varieties in that time, but they did add some, and look at the increased following, especially among youth, that that breed now enjoys. |
Will the Chinchilla Dutch complement the Gray and/or Steel varieties? This would still need to be proven. |
I can't comment, I don't have a lot of experience with Agouti/Wide Band varieties to know specifically how it's combine with Gray or Steel. What I will say is that I've heard comments about Harlequin Dutch to the effect that this variety would "screw up other colors", but compared to Steel or Chinchilla, which certainly can leave a lot of mealy specimens among self colors, the harlequin gene is mild-it is also behaves as solid or self type of gene in that it's either ON or OFF in the phenotype, and if OFF, acts like a recessive Chocolate of Blue, not some sort of blended dominance as we see in Agouti varieties bred into self colors. If Chinchilla is to be an accepted variety, then Harlequin, or perhaps a re-defining as "Tortoiseshell" to get away from the near impossible task of getting a perfect Harlequin blocking combined with perfect Dutch markings, should also be acceptable to the Dutch breeders; genetically, it's much cleaner. And existing AOVs like Gold and Lilac should be no-brainers as new additions. |
Would the Red Dutch complement any other colors? |
I love the idea and appearance of Red Dutch, but red can be a complex set of multiple genes in the context of other colors. Supposedly Thriatnta red is a "self" color and if that is the gene base and it follows self color rules, then it's easier that if it behaves as a Wide Band gene with blending and co-dominances. We already have a problem with that via Gray and Steel. My guess is that Red would be limited to inbreeding and perhaps supplement outcrosses to Black; Tort and Chocolate would likely mess it up and vice-versa, but if not, we might see some brightening of Tort; Agouti crosses probably would leave ticking in the red but red might boost the yellow band in in Agouti; Blue/Lilac would result in a color not really red. |
Instead of adding more classes of Dutch to be judged, would it be better to have an agouti class in place of the Gray? |
An Agouti class would make sense if you also created a Self class for Black, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac; Wide Band or Self for Red, depending on the gene sources, but also for Gold; and a Shaded class for Tortoise and then we could also add Siamese and Sables variations as well. But that would assume that a substantial group of Dutch members want to expand the variety pool at all. If you start creating variety Group classes, I think you are opening the door and accepting that there will other varieties that will follow that will also need Grouping. Don't go there if you aren't ready to accept more varieties yet. |
At many shows the number of Steels shown is not very good. Will more colors hurt the Steel numbers even more? Plus will it add to having more varieties with poor showings? |
If you are worried about poor showing within a variety, stop the Chinchillas now and BAN Steels immediately, but accept Lilacs, as it should be pretty easy to see both numbers and quality short term out of the strong Blue and Chocolate lines already in existence. Dutch are harder because they are a marked breed with exacting standards for those markings; Steel is harder yet within that as it has to be made and maintained via 2-3 other varieties, so it's always going to have fewer followers. If the only reason to keep out new varieties is to artificially lower the competition on perhaps less popular varieties in existence, than that's stagnating the breed, not allowing it prosper as to the breeder preference of the time. |
Having more colors of Dutch may just add interest from people who haven't raised Dutch before. |
In Iowa, we have some of the US's best Dutch breeders and available stock for youth and new breeders, and we put a lot of single rabbits with kids and recruit as hard as anybody. Yet our state club is mostly 40+ adults and we see 1 new youth or other age members to the 10s that go to NRs, HLs, MLs. MR and now MS. Dutch are indeed harder as a marked breed, but much easier to work with in temperament, hardiness, breeding/litter rearing than other breeds and if it is lack of color varieties that lose these potential breeders to other breeds, then I think we do our Dutch a future disservice by not hooking some of these kids and families now and letting them slip to become lifelong advocates of another breed with more options. I also raise Creme d' Argents and get about 3X the new breeder interest I do in Dutch. Why? They all say "it's the color", even though the breed has several inherent type flaws, stock is hard to get, fairly expensive when you do and it's 2 X the size of the Dutch. If I only had Orange Silver Dutch, I could convince them to go that way...but they might also if they had Gold, Lilac, Harlequin/Tortoiseshell, Siamese or other varieties that aren't yet in existence. |
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