Half Pints Rabbitry breeds unique Netherland Dwarfs

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Pat Carroll
Pat Carroll, of Darke County, Ohio, is at the forefront of breeding Netherland Dwarf rabbits with 30 years of experience in the trade. (Submitted photo)

SALEM, Ohio — The Farmers’ Almanac says it’s a good-luck tradition to say “rabbit, rabbit,” before any other words on the first day of the month.

On Feb. 1, rabbit breeders and enthusiasts will be reveling in their good fortune on the showroom floor of the Lebanon Valley Expo Center as the two-day Pennsylvania State Rabbit Convention gets underway in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Later in February, the annual Indiana State Rabbit Breeders Association Conference will offer another chance to see rabbit breeders competing.

As breeders crisscross the country with thousands of bunnies converging on showroom floors, it’s more than luck that brings out the best of the rabbits on the convention floors.

Pat Carroll, of Darke County, Ohio, expects her miniature bunnies to place well in competitions throughout the region. She is at the forefront of breeding Netherland Dwarf rabbits with 30 years of experience in the trade.

Carroll, of Greenville, Ohio, anticipates this year’s rabbit associations, clubs and conventions to be busy, both in terms of overall rabbit entries for all breeds and for people who care about Netherland Dwarf rabbits.

Self-taught

Longtime rabbit breeders like Carroll rely on their decades of self-taught rabbit knowledge and the breed standards set by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA) to raise the bar on quality show rabbits.

Born and raised in Darke County, Ohio, a touchstone in her life was her parents’ local, rural farm teachings that initially nurtured her talents with rabbits.

“I had a very old-school upbringing, value-wise, because my parents had a big heart for animals,” Carroll said.

At Carroll’s Half Pints Rabbitry, her focus is on dwarfs. Adored for their petite size — round eyes and faces with ears that stand roughly one-and-a-half inches tall, weighing no more than two-and-a-half pounds — ARBA says Netherland Dwarfs are “compact” with a “short, stocky body and small, round head” and “bright and bold” eyes.

“They’re supposed to be round in every possible way that you look at them: body, head, ears, all round, short and deep as possible,” Carroll said.

ARBA Executive Director Eric Stewart said adult Netherland Dwarfs “look like baby rabbits even when they age.”

“It is reasonable to find people are drawn to these adorable cherubs with their seemingly Peter-Pan ageless appearance and charm,” Stewart told Farm and Dairy.

The breed is healthy and its population is stable. Stewart said overall the breed is “not necessarily growing in popularity, rather it is remaining one of the most popular breeds.”

“ARBA nor any other agency has means by which to get a true census of Netherland Dwarfs, however, they are always the largest breed entered at every ARBA National Convention. Netherland Dwarfs also remain among the highest number of registrations performed annually with ARBA,” he said.

Paving the way

baby bunnies
Bunnies sleep in a nest box at Carroll’s Half Pints Rabbitry. (Submitted photo)

At Carroll’s rabbitry in Greenville, Ohio, she opened the door to a barn and greeted dozens of Netherland Dwarf rabbits tucked in their nesting boxes or hopping back and forth between their sitting spots and the doors. Carroll indicated the rabbits approaching the doors were the most friendly bunnies in her herd. A radio played guitar music for them.

“The Netherland Dwarfs are one of the most challenging rabbits to breed because there are genetic anomalies and things happen that aren’t your normal type of things to deal with as a breeder,” Carroll said.

While her work with tiny-but-mighty dwarf rabbits takes place in a barn in an alleyway on a nondescript street in downtown Greenville, miniature animals everywhere are grabbing the world’s attention, from tiny pets to pygmy hippos in zoos — “The United States now has its own baby pygmy hippo,” an NPR newscast broadcasted on Jan. 6 of the new baby pygmy hippo born at a Virginia zoo.

Other breeders rely on Carroll for her deep knowledge of the miniature breed. She tracks the moon to determine the best timing for breeding cycles and creates a monthly calendar to share with her network and writes about rabbits for the members-only newsletter at the American Netherland Dwarf Club. She sold 199 rabbits in 2023 and 190 in 2024.

American Netherland Dwarf Club Vice President Jeremy Collins said Netherland Dwarfs are “most often referred to as ‘the gem of the fancy’ but I have heard them called the ‘bulldog of rabbits’ because of their short bodies, squished faces, and stumpy front legs.”

Carroll, who was born colorblind, works on breeding a type of Netherland Dwarfs called brokens. Broken refers to a primarily white Netherland Dwarf with another color spotted (“broken”) on the face and along the body.

“Pat has bred this variety for many years and recognized certain traits that reproduce certain qualities of this color pattern,” Collins said. “By breeding the animals with these color modifying genes to one another and holding back those who exhibit the best attributes, Pat has succeeded in vastly improving the broken color patterns and genetic modifiers on dwarf rabbits.”

Standard colors can also include blue, lilac and black, among others, and “the newest variety recognized is the silver tipped steel,” in 2024, Stewart said.

“‘Steel’ has been a recognized variety for many years and at one time silver-tipped steels were faulted, whereas the gold-tipped steels were deemed ideal. There was a clarification made in the (ARBA) standard defining that only gold-tipped steels were recognized,” Stewart said.

It was Collins who applied for the necessary ARBA certificate of development for the new silver-tipped steel variety, Stewart noted.

Collins said Carroll is committed and “highly influential in her work on improving” coat colors and quality characteristics in rabbits.

“Pat Carroll is considered a ‘gem of our rabbit breeders’ because of her lovely demeanor, dedication to her animals and excellent husbandry skills,” Collins said.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Is that why she’s breeding these animals, as pets? That wind up in local animal shelters along w/ cats & dogs? Rabbits are a ‘wild’ animal that fit in the predator/ prey food chain, they were never meant to be ‘bred’ as another, often discarded, ‘human pet.’ Humans need to stop ‘using’ animals just to make another dollar
    Respect animals for why they were put on this earth, don’t turn them into ‘miniature’ $ signs.

  2. Read the article again.
    People like Carroll make little, if any money from the sale of their animals.Why? Because profit has nothing to do with selective breeding for a certain color.
    These are not wild rabbits that are bred.Read the article again.
    Carroll cannot be put in the category of backyard breeders,who do not care about health or genetics,only profit.Those are the ones
    you may want to target.You can include large chain pet stores that sell rodents
    like guinea pigs at half price around the holidays,
    to make a profit.Just take a look at Craigslist Pets sometime.Or some farms,
    that sell six different dog breeds.See the difference of responsible breeding?
    I know this as fact among
    responsible breeders I have known,concerning certain cat breeds.
    If you do things right,
    you will NOT make money from litters,but lose money.This is knowledge based on fact,
    not heresay or an opinion.Once an animal is sold by a responsible breeder,
    like Carroll,they have absolutely no say in what will happen to what they so lovingly bred.Take away from reading this:Do research BEFORE you buy,
    so the animal you take home will not end up on Craigslist in a year,or unloved,
    abused or abandoned.

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