The Ambassador Program

Help us introduce Mini Plush Lops to Washington state!

We love our Mini Plush Lops and are eager to help other families meet the breed. So, if you are a 4H or FFA student interested in showing our rabbits, please get in touch with us. We will prioritize getting you a buck or two that will do well in showmanship, etc.

Since Mini Plush Lops are not yet ARBA recognized, you cannot show them in most ARBA classes. However, even ARBA shows sometimes have a pet class where they would be perfectly appropriate.

We want to see Mini Plush Lops at the fair, in schools, and anywhere else rabbits can be found!

As I’m sure you anticipated, there will be some fine print before we hand over free rabbits.

Expect us to ask you what your intentions are for using your rabbit in the next year and to ask for references at our discretion.

Waitlist length will vary.

Sales Policy

Our goal is to improve the Plush Lop breed by making and selling phenomenal rabbits that are as sound as they are eye-popping.

However, we’d be the first to tell you that we are here learning right along with you. We don’t know everything, and will undoubtedly continue to learn for many years to come. In light of that, all rabbits are sold as-is.

If you need to see another angle or have specific questions before you buy, just ask! We’ll do our best to get you what you need.

If you get a rabbit from us and later discover an issue, please, please reach out to us! We may not be able to change anything for you but we will gladly learn along with you and together the breed will move forward.

We also reserve the right to not sell to a particular individual or farm at our discretion. We want to steward these bloodlines well and at times that may mean saying no to a sale.

Please note that you’re dealing with real people here. We tuck our babies in, agonize over feed prices, and continually press forward towards our goals just like you do. Reach out with any concerns or questions and we will do our best to be a farm that helps as we ourselves have been helped by others!

Pedigreed Rabbits Are Different Than Registered Horses

If you’re new to the rabbit world, you likely have in mind the puppy or foal paradigm of registration. In our case, we bred more horses than puppies and the registration process was actually quite simple. Both parents must be registered, of course. We then filled out the proper paperwork and mailed it (these were the good old days!) to the Haflinger registry with the appropriate fee, and soon we’d receive our official registration paperwork on the foal. If we sold the foal, the paperwork would go with him/her and the new owners would update it to reflect their ownership. Easy, right? 

With a rabbit, pedigrees are very different. A pedigree is simply a written record of your rabbit’s lineage. It must include 3 previous generations and usually includes their name, ear tag, and color. Breeders can hand-write these, but in this electronic age, they are often generated online and sent as PDFs. That’s it! No verification, no official registry to stamp it with their approval. 

Mini Plush Lops are not showable until ARBA recognizes them as a breed, so this is the extent of the paperwork you can expect for your rabbit. Some rabbitries will also generate a birth certificate (popular in the pet market) for your bunny scrapbook, or you are free to make one yourself if you like. 

So is it really important? For a breeder, yes. For a pet owner, no. As a breeder, I carefully examine my pedigrees to see what genetics my rabbits might carry. Most pedigrees tell me names and colors, but that color piece is a big deal for a rabbit! For instance, if I have a solid black rabbit, but she is out of parents who have Vienna markings (white stripes/blue eyes) or a chocolate parent, that is very helpful to know as I consider which buck to breed her to and which babies could result. Names matter also, as I want to be very deliberate when using the same rabbit again in a pedigree.

Ruthie

One fine day we were shocked to find a stunning Rex rabbit hiding under our car, in the middle of our rural neighborhood. Clearly, she was an escaped pet. So we caught her, (she had obviously been handled before) and tried to find her owners. Sadly, no owners were forthcoming which makes us suspect that she was actually dumped.

Ruthie has a glorious coat. Many people who have “pet rabbits before” have gasped as they touch her plush coat for the first time. It’s amazing! And the color is so rich and perfect. I would have told you a brown rabbit was boring, but her coat is incredible!

But that wouldn’t be the only surprise Ruthie had for us. A few weeks later, Ruthie delivered a shocking surprise: babies! Sadly, we had no idea these were coming and we lost several due to the cold. Happily, one survived and is the sweetest, silliest little guy. He’s totally used to being picked up and carried around by toddlers, and being snuggled by grown-ups.

What a happy first rabbit adventure for Sweet Huckleberry Farm!