Alexia’s Mini Lops

In May 2005 Alexia joined the British Rabbit Council as she wanted to breed show quality mini lops, she found the French lops, though adorable, a little too large to handle and wanted to work on a smaller version that was more child sized!

She (like her mother) had a love for all things otter and decided to work mainly on this pattern trying to better the coat, type and colour.

She was given a young black otter buck (as a gift to start her off) by a lovely lady called Jane Duffy, this buck was the son of a well known black otter buck called Little Me who had won many shows during his time in the show halls.

Hercules

Alexia named the buck Hercules (a strong powerful name so he wouldn’t become worried about his small size when compared to the French lops!) and he became the pinnacle of her breeding line. 

She wanted to make herself a whole stud of Hercules typed animals with her dream being a showable lilac otter and was advised by Phil Batey of Ruskins Miniature Lops that Line Breeding was the way to go.  Phil recommended she buy three unrelated does and breed them all to Hercules to set in his type, keep his daughters, breed them back to Hercules and then finally keeping grandsons and granddaughters from each doe,  use them all to each other to truly set in the Hercules type genes.

Although this seemed a long way round Alexia bought herself three unrelated breeding does a blue otter Megara, and two chocolate otters Bourneville and Cadbury and quietly went about following Phil's instructions.

Bourneville,     Megara     &      Cadbury

She has now created a very show worthy line all of which are related to Hercules in some way.  It’s a line which breeds true and has proven itself to be honest and reliable.  She has sold her rabbits to some very well known show breeders and is getting a good reputation in the show world.

In 2008 Alexia introduced a new unrelated blood line in the form of a fantastic chocolate self buck bought from the aforementioned Phil Batey, one of the Uks top breeders and an experienced judge.

Ruskins Mr B

This buck was mated to two very typey does (both Hercules’s descendants) and the best of the resulting litters, Mini Monique and Mini Madge have been retained to breed back into the lines to continue the good work.

Hercules was retired and having been castrated he lived a calm life with one of his daughters, Midnight, in a six foot hutch.   He sadly passed away in May 2009 at five years old after having a fulfilled life and being truly worshipped.

 His progeny continue this fantastic line on his behalf.

	These two photos show Alexia in 2005 when she first started her line with the fantastic Hercules as a very young chap!
	and here in 2010 with Mini Melman her lilac otter who is Hercules' Great Great Grandson