Lessons: Butts

Let's talk butts.

First and foremost, I will openly admit that I am a Mini Lop person through and through. I want Mini Lop kind of type on my Mini Rex, and that means butts! We also like a good mug, but that's a different story. Disclaimer. These are my opinions, what I breed for, and should not be taken as gospel. I'm merely looking to teach.

In our first picture, displaying HB's Birthday Party Cheesecake, we see a decent example of what I like to see from behind. She still has some room for improvement, but she's the best I got at the moment. What are we seeing? Y'know, besides a bunny butt. We'll start at the table. You want a rabbit touching the table with the same width as the width through the rise of the sides. She's almost there. A tail 
should be pulled up from under the rabbit in a proper pose. I tried with Cheesecake and she sat on it again. From the table, you want a nice horseshoe shape. That means the wide base, often referred to as the lower hindquarters, rises with the same width through the knee and up through the loin. A well filled loin, much like Cheesecake's loin, shouldn't have any dimples. You can also see the pinch, or lack thereof, of the upper hindquarter from this view. I'll get to exclaiming that later.

This second picture here is also Cheesecake. She was leaning forward in that picture. Same rabbit, taken seconds apart as I tried unsuccessfully to fish her tail out from underneath her. She loses a bit of her horseshoe shape here throughout her loin simply because she has more weight to her front than her back. She's a tick more triangular up top. It suggests that she could still use some muscle through her loin. If you felt her hands on, you'd be able to feel that little bit of softness to her flesh. THAT alone is why you trust your hands over pictures.

Another bit of information about me. I ALWAYS evaluate through pictures when going through babies. But only after I've run my hands over them and noted their muscle and flesh first.

This is Cheesecake again. From above. This view really shows the width of the loin and hips/upper hindquarter. You don't really get a great picture of a rabbit without the behind or above 
views. I don't buy a rabbit hands-off without an above shot. It's hard to hide a pinched hindquarter or hollow loin with it. Here you can see how much width Cheesecake has in the hind end and how her width of 
hips correlates to her width of body.

The next two pictures to the right are of a resident lynx. She displays the best width of lower hindquarter in my barn. You can see how wide she is at the base versus the width of her body, loin, and upper hindquarter. You can also see that she lacks in the loin in comparison to Cheesecake from behind.

The most noticeable difference is from above. That's where you can really see the pinch she has in the hips, and how that consequently leads to a narrower back end.

The next picture is one of my blacks, one of my favorite rabbits. She's the mother to Birthday Party Cheesecake. She's HB's Black Betty Bambawam. From behind, the view suggests a beautiful rabbit. Almost full to the table (don't let her skirt fool you completely), beautiful horseshoe shape showing a well filled loin. But she has one fault.

From above, you can really see Betty's fault. She's a little narrow in that hip, leading to a less rounded animal from above. She's far from tightly pinched, but the lack of width in that hip unsettles the balance nevertheless. If you look hard enough in the picture from behind, you can see that narrowness from that angle as well.

We move on to the next rabbit, a chocolate by the name of HB's Princess of the Forest. We're moving from some of my best rabbits to lesser rabbits now. Princess is a little narrow in those lower hindquarters. You can really start to see the taper to the table after the knee. She still has pretty good muscle and loin, however, above that knee. The point of Princess is to show a general lack of width. One of 
my biggest pet peeves in showing is when a narrower rabbit like Princess wins over a more balanced rabbit because her lack of width can be posed into a tall rabbit. Princess is a grand champion. Registered and granded and all. Maybe it's because she's just a chocolate. Granted, she isn't terribly pinched anywhere back there, but she is a narrower rabbit overall, and is easily the narrowest rabbit I'll be using as 
example tonight.

The next chocolate, starting with the pictures below, is HB's Bun with a Hex. Don't get me wrong, I love this boy, he feels great, and he's one of the best chocolates I've ever seen. Probably why he's my grand champion BOSV at ARBA Covention guy. Kind of puts into perspective what us chocolate breeders are working with (I have more I may or may not like better, but I'm just not showing them off). But he's also going to be an example tonight. Of what?

Hex is my best example of a narrow base. I wouldn't go so far to say he's pinched in the lower hindquarter, just narrowed. A pinched hindquarter will give you a sharp V-shape from knee to table from behind or a sharp V-shape starting from the hind end from above. I don't have great examples of this. I've culled for it. So we're going to use Hex as an example of just how pinched I'm willing to tolerate. This 
narrowed base makes his knees stick out much further than any of the does before him. He loses that horseshoe shape.

Hex has good muscle, but he's lacking just a little bit in his loin. You can see that dimple above his knee. It's more pronounced than any of the does before him.

Then from above, you can see that Hex isn't really pinched in the hip. He's wide from start to finish. But you can also see where he's lacking in the loin again. He isn't continuous from rib to hip. There's a dip where his knee starts. This is lacking in loin from above and behind.

I think I've pretty much covered everything I can think of when it comes to butts. It's something I've culled HARD for the past few years. It's difficult to pull together a proper lower hindquarter or base, an upper hindquarter that isn't pinched or narrow, and a well filled loin. That isn't even counting the muscle, which is really hands-on only! All FOUR of those points are very common faults in this breed. Any breed? Definitely something I think more people need to be aware of.