Page:Care and Management of Rabbits.djvu/75

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CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF RABBITS
65

breeders and pay them the price they ask for their best stock. This stock will be pedigreed and by paying an additional dollar you can have it registered in the breed book of your breed. This will give you something of a line on its ancestry.

If your stock is not good enough to be registered, do not buy it, for it is poor policy to start out with such stock. The fact that it has been refused registration shows that it is not Standard in some particular. Breeding from such stock would be worse than folly.

Do not fall into the error of supposing that a pedigree is evidence of quality. It may be and it may not, for even the best thoroughbreds sometimes throw scrubs. Every one should know that. The pedigree is valuable only in giving you a line on the ancestry behind the animal, for blood lines are far more important, everything else being equal, than the individual specimen.

Stock should not be purchased unless safe delivery is guaranteed by the breeder and the