09/14/2026
✨ I only breed pet rabbits, so I don’t care about the SOP. ✨
Oh, boy! That is not the flex you think it is. Actually it's something I said at one point in time because I had no clue what the SOP meant and I was embarrassed to admit that. You don’t have to show rabbits to learn the Standard of Perfection. (I don't personally show mine) You don’t even have to WANT show quality rabbits. But if you are intentionally producing rabbits generation after generation, “they’re just pets” is a pretty lousy excuse for refusing to learn what a correctly built rabbit is supposed to look like.
The SOP isn’t just a beauty pageant scorecard. It teaches you to LOOK at the animal in front of you. Bone, topline, Hindquarter, head, feet, fur, teeth. Shocker that these matter far beyond a show table. That super long, lanky dwarf with legs for days?
Cute color. Still not what that breed is supposed to be. Those long limbs usually come with an animal that is stretched out, lacking depth and balance, and moving farther away from the compact body type generations of breeders worked to establish. That long, narrow, snippy little face on a breed that should have a broad, balanced head? Again, adorable color. Still poor breed type. If you aren't paying attention to improving the body quality and are just focused on color what else are you not paying attention to and missing? Jaw alignment, teeth, width, bone, overall balance? What about narrow or weak hindquarters? Lack of proper fur density in breeds where fur protects the feet? (I just cancelled a sale on one of my rex and culled her for this the second a noticed, because yes it's that serious) Those things don’t magically stop mattering because somebody is buying the rabbit as a pet.
A pet rabbit still deserves to be bred thoughtfully. “But mine are PET COLORS.” Okay??? Vienna markings don’t erase structure. A pretty broken pattern does not straighten bad feet. Blue eyes don't fix a bad topline.
✨ COLOR IS A PROJECT. STRUCTURE IS THE FOUNDATION. ✨
Breed whatever colors make you happy. Seriously. I LOVE color projects. If you scroll my page you'll quickly realize I have about 23 trillion of them I'm working on right now.
But the goal should be, How do I make this color while ALSO improving the rabbit? Not, I got the color I wanted, so everything underneath it is irrelevant. Also no, I'm not claiming every rabbit you produce will be perfect when you start focusing on structure, mine certainly aren't. That is literally WHY we evaluate them. We keep learning. We make selections. We breed the better structured animal forward.
We try to learn to recognize faults. We make the next generation better than the one before it. That is called a breeding program. Otherwise hate me if you want, but you shouldn't be breeding if you don't have a purpose in doing so.
You don't have to breed exclusively toward somebody else's interpretation of perfection. But if you are going to call yourself a breeder, learning the SOP for the breed you're producing should be something at the forefront for you.
Because “they're only pets” should never be your excuse.
Pet breeders should care about quality too. Actually, I'd argue they have even MORE reason to. Those rabbits are going into somebody's home to be loved for the next several years. Give them something worth loving AND something thoughtfully bred. Pretty colors are the sprinkles, and y'all already know how I feel about sprinkles.
Sprinkles don't build programs.
