The Otter Project

How it began, how we achieved it and where we are now

 I’ve always kept rabbits, as did one of my favourite Uncles, (see it’s a genetic thing!) as a child I had Dutch, as an adult I progressed to lops which is where my love of the big lop began.

 I decided to have a crack at breeding when I moved into our home in Hampton, it all rather fell into place, I’m a great believer of   “if its meant to be it will be”  and I know without a question of a doubt, I was meant to have otters! 

 My daughter started riding at a local stable and I drank bad coffee (not carte noir I hasten to add, all riding schools please take note!) and chatted to the other mums whilst Alexia plodded up and down the roads on very bored tired looking ponies.   It transpired that a friend of one of the other mums had some large lop rabbits and was having to move them on for personal reasons, I agreed to take some and found to my complete amazement that the two “black and orangey” rabbits I’d agreed to take were black otters!

 Primrose and her daughter Poppy arrived at Hamptons during 2002, Primrose was a larger doe 11lbs in weight and had reasonable type and Poppy was smaller at about 9lbs though her type was better, we rang the BRC and Hampton Stud was officially named.

 My first problem was the obvious fact that it helps most breeding lines to have a buck!  I considered this my first hurdle to overcome and bought myself a huge blue buck from a breeder in Southampton, I was absolutely thrilled with the stunning blue buck and mated him to both ladies.  I waited the 31 days with baited breath and when the litters arrived neither contained any otters.  I was dumbfounded.  Surely a self mated to an otter would produce otters!   Hmmmmm!

 I spoke to Jackie Smith who bred blue selfs at the time, Christine Hunter who I knew worked on otters in dwarf lop and Phil Batey the genetics whiz, in great depth and slowly learnt about the minefield that is rabbit genetics. 

 Phil advised that the rabbit I was using was probably something called a “modified steel” which was a huge problem in black and blue self frenchies then and even now many years on, he suggested that a far safer way would be to use an agouti or an opal and make myself some “otter carriers”, mate these back to the girls and hey presto otters a plenty!

 Alfred arrived, a large opal buck and we did just that, Primrose who was due to be retired after this her final litter, gave us a litter with only two babies in, one agouti doe (Bramble) and one opal Buck (Diamond Geezer), it seemed like she was doing all she could to help us, and as the litter was so small the youngsters where huge.

 When mature enough we test mated both animals to other stock and found that amazingly they both carried otter!  Talk about beginners luck!

 In April 2004 we mated Diamond Geezer to Poppy and the pair produced a small but very interesting litter, one orange doe, one blue otter buck and a strange looking opal which grew to have a curly coat, curly whiskers and eyebrows and was an astrex!

 We also chanced a brother to sister mating and put Diamond Geezer and Bramble together to produce otters which carried only otter (atat  to the ones in the know!), we got a black otter and a blue otter in this litter and knew these youngsters would be perfect for using to unrelated agoutis and opals to introduce new gene pools as all kits produced in future matings would carry the otter gene.

 We decided that astrex wasn’t what we wanted to produce and all stock was test mated for it and the astrex carriers and visual astrex animals were moved on.  We restocked with unrelated animals, including one superb agouti, Sophia,  from The Elliotts and used the non astrex carrying otters to make more otter carriers, and so the circle of breeding continued.

 Its now 2010, we are still working with our otters in all four recognised colours, black, blue, chocolate and lilac and have had the fortune to include some cracking bloodlines from The Elliotts in Bristol.  These animals have bettered the coat of the otters, bettered the type and upped the size, the otters we produce today are large, showable, quality animals with much research, work and adoration behind them.

 Hamptons is now associated with all things otter, amazingly new breeders come to us for advise and we always treat them with the honesty and respect we received from other breeders in the “early days”.  

 I truly believe that honesty is the best policy in rabbit breeding with the good and the bad traits of a line, you get respect that way.  You can hold your head up high knowing that you have never “done the dirty” on another breeder.  It also means that when you need help in return there are always many, many wonderful people who step up and offer assistance.

 I adore working with French lops, the big gentle giant of the lop world, I wait with butterflies in the tummy on day 30 of a does pregnancy and that incredible feeling of excitement when you see a newly made nest in wriggly squeaky motion, will I hope, always be with me. The day it isn’t is the day I will retire from the breeding world – which I hope will not be for many years yet.

 I would like to take this opportunity to give huge thanks and hugs to everyone who’s supported us in our Ottering, you know who you are people and we adore you for it!