Got another prospective trio I am looking at. Opinions please!

[promiseacres]

I would see about getting a pair, then a younger unrelated doe. A doe at 2 may have 1 maybe 2 years of breeding left in her. American Chinchillas are a neat breed, not super common. Then you can breed the offspring and not have to line breed unless all your offspring are for meat or you feel linebreeding is best. Just gives you some options.
I'm not sure if $200 is a good price, since I'm not super familiar with the breed, but it definitely could be especially if they have a lot of grand champion legs on their pedigrees.

 

[Beekissed]

These are for meat and they have only been bred once? Total? At age 2 now?? That seems wrong. I would think at least 2-3 litters by now. Did she show them? That could delay breeding but that seems really weird.

Or maybe I'm remembering mine wrong. Let me check my notes on my herd and get back to you later tonight on that.

Agreed....ours started breeding 6 mo. of age and the more you breed, the bigger litters you get. The less you breed~in rabbits, at least~the less likely they will breed and they produce smaller litters. Conservatively, the doe should have had at least 4 litters per year since turning 6 mo. of age.

Could be you are being sold the culls, those that aren't fertile. You won't want to pay that much for unproven stock unless you really, really trust this person.

 

[Bunnylady]

You mentioned that part of your interest in this breed is because it's "a heritage breed that needs help," so I'll tell you about a conversation I had with a breeder a number of years ago. He told me that Am Chin breeders were basically divided into two camps. It seems that at some point, someone decided to "improve" the breed, and did some outcrossing. I don't know the breed well enough to say what made an "old-type" Am Chin and how that would be different from the "new and improved" version, but how well an animal did at a show would partly depend on which type was dominant in the area and which way the judge leans. The guy I was talking to was a supporter of the original type and wouldn't have given a nickel for any of the animals that had placed on one certain judge's table that day . . .

Understand, that conversation was several years ago, and the dust may have settled on that debate long ago, but it had been going on for years at that point and these are rabbit breeders we are talking about. Just letting you know that one person might think these animals are worth every penny and someone else might think their best use is as rabbit stew, and, depending on which type they preferred, they could both be right.

Two years old is about the point at which most does' fertility begins to decline, so that's about as old as most folks would go when it comes to buying a doe. You should be able to get a few more litters out of them, but you'll want to keep a close eye on the numbers, and compare that to whatever they did when they were bred last year. There are things one can do to try to help a doe achieve the largest litter she is capable of producing, but time isn't generally on your side with girls this age, and most breeders ask a good bit less for animals of this age when compared to, say, a six month old.