PEDIGREED OR REGISTERED RABBIT

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "PEDIGREED" AND "REGISTERED"?

Sellers sometime confuse "Pedigreed" and "Registered" and use the terms inter-changeably but they are quite different documents with different meanings.

A rabbit may be PEDIGREED a birth but may only be REGISTERED after six months of age providing it meets certain qualifications.

Unlike dogs, rabbits must be examined by a Registrar before a Registration Certificate is issued. In order to be Registered, the rabbit must be at least six months of age, have a valid Pedigree and (in a licensed registrar's opinion) conform to the American Rabbit Breeders Association's Standard of Perfection. If the animal meets those requirements it will be tattooed in the right ear by the Registrar will then be eligible to compete to become a Grand Champion.

If someone tells you a rabbit under six months old is REGISTERED, they are not as knowledgeable as they would have you believe. Check for the Registrar's mark in the right ear and ask to see the Registration Certificate.

A PEDIGREE is simply the breeder's testimony of three generations of like breeding. For example, the rabbit's parents, grand-parents and great grand parents are ALL of the same breed.

The left ear tatoo is a breeder's mark of identification and usually means it is PEDIGREED although large meat producers tattoo their stock for record keeping purposes. And not all pedigreed rabbits are tattooed. While some breeders tattoo all their rabbits, many leave the tattoo process to the new owner who may choose to identify the animal by it's name or the owner's name etc. The point of a tattoo is to be able to identify your rabbit, particularly on the show table, so the tattoo should be one you will easily remember.

Many back yard rabbit raisers don't understand the function of a pedigree and will fill out the form with the authentic ancestry but the breeds are not all the same having cross-bred Mini Lops and Hollands or Holland Lops and Fuzzy Lops or whatever. For a pedigree to be valid there must be 3 generations of the same breed.  The rabbit, it's parents and Grandparents must all be the same breed.

There's really no way to verify a pedigree but if they are Registered a Registration Certificate will be on file with the American Rabbit Breeders Association.