The Rex rabbit farming industry is developing rapidly in our country

The Rex rabbit is the king of rabbits and has now become a precious rabbit in the world, raised mainly for fur and also for meat. Our country began introducing Rex rabbits in the 1930s, and by the early 1980s had introduced several batches of Rex rabbit breeding stock from the United States, New Zealand, Germany and other countries. Because of fluctuations in the fur market and the single-minded pursuit of economic benefits by some units, among various other reasons, the degradation of Rex rabbit breeds in our country is currently quite serious. From Fujian and Zhejiang to Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Beijing, surveys of more than 60 Rex rabbit farms from south to north found that very few Rex rabbit breeding rabbits reach a body weight of 4 kg. And the down content is also far below export requirements.

With the rise in international rabbit fur market prices over the past two years, our country's Rex rabbit farming industry has also developed rapidly. Because of breed degradation, in 1997 nearly 100,000 Rex rabbit skins exported from just the two places Liushi and Xinji were returned. International market demand for Rex rabbit skins is very large, and rabbit skins meeting export standards are worth 10—16 US dollars each.

For this reason, our country has introduced rabbits twice, bringing the Rex rabbit farming industry up to a new level. Their characteristics are a large body size and high fur down content, meeting our country's Rex rabbit skin export standards. Using them to crossbreed with our country's existing Rex rabbits can improve the quality of our country's commercial Rex rabbits. For this reason, relevant farms and breeders should pay attention when introducing breeding rabbits, and should adopt scientific breeding methods to improve the quality of the breeding rabbit flock and raise the grade of commercial rabbit skins.