THE TOY, SUPER TOY, MINI TOY AND MICRO TOY RABBIT

Humans have always had a curious fascination with the biggest and the smallest and, on many occasions, there have always been people who have taken advantage of this fascination to swell their wallets. 

Animals are one such fascination and, in this article, we will talk about something that many have heard of but doesn't really exist: the rabbit toy, super toy, mini toy or micro toy.  

THE PET FACTORY FARMS

When we visit a pet shop or see advertisements on multi-sales platforms it is very easy to find things like "rabbit toy", "super toy", "mini toy" and the like, we can even find things like "dwarf rabbit", but is this true? The vast majority of these rabbits come from large-scale industrial farms where the animals are bred en masse - an average of one million animals a year in one well-known Spanish multi-farm alone - without any specific control, animals without a name, without a breed, that are born from seminal mixtures and cannulas - they are not natural mating - and, in order to raise the price and deceive the unwary, they are given a card that they call "pedigree" which, in reality, is a dead letter, as no club or serious association allows this type of mixed breed cards. 

Nowadays, macro farms seem to be the only viable option if someone wants to breed, as local administrations only put obstacles when they are ethical breeders with a very low number of breeders that they keep in their homes, with high welfare levels and that really are what they say in their papers -they are not scams-. 

The world upside down.

THE SMALLEST BREED OF RABBIT

So, if the toy rabbit, the super toy and all that goes with them don't exist, what is the smallest breed of rabbit?

The smallest rabbit breed that exists is the Netherland Dwarf, which weighs between 900g and 1,100kg as an adult - always according to the British Rabbit Council standard and leaving aside the issue of the dwarf gene, which we will talk about on another occasion - an energetic and nervous rabbit with a small, compact and round body, with a broad, flat head, short legs and tiny ears of around 4cm. This breed has nothing to do with the famous "toy" rabbits in the shops because, as all these famous "toy" rabbits are mongrels, we can find specimens of 1kg and 8kg, a genetic lottery which we do not find in ethical and family breeding, with animals of certified breed.

The Netherland Dwarf is the most popular breed among breeders, not because it is economically profitable, but because they simply love them; it is also the most difficult breed to breed of all.

The Netherland Dwarf is especially popular in the UK and the USA, where events where they are the star attracts thousands of people from all over the country. 

So, if it is so popular and attracts such a large audience, why is it so unprofitable? The Netherland Dwarf is a breed that breeds when it wants to, funny isn't it? In truth, this is a widespread "problem" in all breeds: there are litters when both parents want, if the female does not want to get pregnant for whatever reason, she will not get pregnant even if the male mounts her several times; if the male does not want to mount, he will reject the female without assaulting her and refuse to do so without even getting excited... With luck, that female will breed maximum twice a year - against the twelve births a year of the macro farms - and sometimes twice in her whole reproductive life that extends over four years. 

The next "problem" that we find is that the litters of dwarf rabbits range from 1 to 5 rabbits and the Netherland Dwarf does not usually have more than 3 rabbits, so we have to discard the rabbits that die at birth or die in the first days because the mother does not produce milk, rejects them for whatever reason or they are born with some type of malformation incompatible with life: peanuts, faders, hippos, max factor or combinations of these - malformations that we will talk about in the article "The gene for dwarfism in rabbits".

Furthermore, from the age of two or two and a half months onwards, a stage begins in Netherland Dwarf called "the ugly period"; it is not that the animal becomes ugly, it is that it begins to develop and becomes "adolescent", looking ungainly: the head looks smaller, the body bigger, the ears very long... Everything turns upside down until the rabbit is 1 year old and, in the eyes of owners or buyers who have never owned a Netherland Dwarf, it may seem that the animal is ugly and, therefore, not very marketable - most ethical breeders sell them from the age of 1 year and, often, to other breeders who appreciate the beauty of that animal or its potential. In short: the Netherland Dwarf is a breed that does not make money - no well-bred animal does, as the investment and time needed to raise the litter is greater -, that is the "real toy", and that nobody would see in a pet shop if the owner of the shop or franchise is not the breeder.

The "toy"? Well, the mongrels of the macro farms and production animals are profitable because that is their function: to breed and make money no matter what. Dwarf breed rabbits do not make money and, when they breed, often those offspring do not even leave the house so that they can continue their owners' hobby and go to the next show. 

TOY RABBITS WITH FALSE PEDIGREES

 A pedigree (derived from the English "pedigree", and this in turn from the French "pied de grue") is a document that analyses the genealogical relationships of a living being in the context of determining how a certain characteristic or phenotype is inherited and manifested.

In a more colloquial sense, the term pedigree refers to the document issued by some accreditation bodies certifying the membership of a domestic animal to a certain breed.

Some people think that this family tree is unimportant because they are not going to breed with their pet, but in reality it is very important for two very simple reasons:

1- We can know the origins of our pet, what their ancestors were called, where they came from, what colours they were... We all like to know more about our family, so why not want to know more about our pet's family? 

2- It is a guarantee. The pedigree is a guarantee that what we have bought, which has taken us months or years of effort and savings because it was our dream, or because we had a specific need that led us to choose that type of animal -for example, allergies, disabilities or work-related issues regarding working animals-. With the pedigree, in case there is some kind of scam - for example, being a mongrel in reality, which happens with some shop dogs and cats - it is a card we have in our favour because it is a document issued by an association or club.

In the case of toy rabbits, super toy rabbits and so on, they only carry a private card - issued by the farm - on which they put a couple of pieces of information - wrong breeds, wrong or invented colours... - and the same information about the father and mother, animals whose colour genotype does not coincide with what we see there or who are too old to breed anything. 

The pedigree of a rabbit, in order to be serious, must have a minimum of four generations - some have as many as thirty-six - be identified by tattoo, ring or microchip and have the details of the new owner and the names or seals of the clubs to which the breeder belongs and which endorse him. 

As a general rule, when an animal is adopted from an ethical breeder, it does not have a pedigree because it is an adoption, but this does not mean that it does not have one but that the owner does not receive it; this does not mean that it is not purebred because the animal is identified and we can ask the club if the animal has a pedigree. 

WHAT CAN I DO TO AVOID BEING CHEATED?

The answer is very simple: buy responsibly from the first moment, find out what the breed is like, go to the shows to get to know them better and see them in person... When the time comes for us to introduce our new furry companion into our lives, if we do not have any specific needs such as those mentioned above and we only want to give love and share our life with a bunny, we can choose to buy it from a shelter. The bunnies in the shelters are also mostly mongrels, coming from individuals, abandonments or shops that do not know what to do with them when they grow up, some of them have health problems or have gone through them, but they are already neutered -an important expense that we will not have to assume- and, as they are already teenagers or adults, we can know their personality and definitive size without having to wait. It is a great option in which we will save the life of an animal that has not had a good time and we can show it that human beings can be wonderful creatures if the right person crosses your path. 

If, on the other hand, you have the illusion of having a specific breed, you cannot find animals for adoption in your area - a situation that has occurred on occasion - or you have specific needs, you should always look for a specialised ethical breeder; someone who guarantees your health through a veterinary certificate prior to delivery, who seeks to follow up with photographs and videos, who participates in events and is a member of national or international clubs, someone to whom you can ask your questions at any time, however silly they may seem, and who will answer them with all the kindness in the world. 

It hurts a lot to be cheated, but it hurts even more when that cheating leads to abandoning that animal -something that happens all too often-. 

CONCLUSION

"Toy", "super toy", "mini toy" and "micro toy" rabbits do not exist, being commercial names to sell mongrels at high prices; as they do not come from ethical and specialised breeding, it is quite easy for them to arrive home with hereditary malformations such as malocclusion or splay les, for them to be skittish animals - poor socialisation - or for them to grow more than expected and we cannot handle them properly, as that little rabbit that was supposed to weigh 1 kg according to the man in the shop, ends up weighing 6 kg. 

If what you are looking for is a small rabbit, look in the exotic animal shelters and open your doors to an animal that will not give you any surprises as it will already be in its most developed stage; if what you want is a specific breed for some kind of need, always buy from a specialised ethical breeder. Any form of acquisition is good as long as it is done responsibly, and it is the owner who is the only person responsible for ensuring that the animal does not end up swelling the unofficial figures of abandoned animals that we have in Spain.

FROM RESPONSIBILITY YOU CAN BUY, ADOPT OR COLLECT, BUT NEVER ABANDON, NEVER MISTREAT,

YOU ARE THE HUMAN BEING YOUR PET TRUSTS THE MOST, DON'T FAIL HIM/HER.