Now you need to buy more cages, because you didn't know how fast these guys would grow up and need their own space. And you breed your main foundation stock again. More babies. Some you sell as pets, others to other breeders in the area. But the majority you keep.
Now you're starting to breed the babies, who are now old enough. You breed the babies and their parents too.
At this point, you have a *small* rabbitry of oh...30 rabbits. And only 25 cages. Lots of bunnies are sharing, and it becomes harder and harder to care for everyone. How can you keep doing this?
New breeders can't imagine selling their foundation stock. "But that rabbit has given me so much!" "I love him!" "She's so friendly!" Great. Pass him/her on to another breeder (or pet owner), that would love him or her just as much.
As breeders there comes a time where we want to keep every animal we just produced, every animal we still have. That's when we have to make tough decisions based on the good of the herd. Because in reality we know that we just can't keep every animal we produce without selling the parents. That would be animal hoarding, in my opinion.
Yes. There comes a day when the foundation animals need to go. They have outproduced themselves by 2 generations, their daughters are outproducing themselves. It's time to move them on to benefit another herd, or to be loved for the rest of its life by a pet owner.
If your goal is to "keep every rabbit I produce. every rabbit I have", you will either buy every rabbit cage on the planet or not be breeding very long. There will come those rabbits that have helped you through tragedy, benefited your herd so much you can't let them go. That's okay. I have one of those myself. I couldn't think of letting my Gracie go. When she's done producing, she's going to stay here and be a pet with my house rabbit, Elsie.
There will be rabbits that have benefited your herd so much, and you want to keep them, yet think of this: someone else's herd might be struggling right now. Maybe they need that gem to keep them going, get some better rabbits.
This is how raising rabbits works, if you want to be a breeder and not an animal hoarder. It's the hard truth. My family - siblings and parents - were really surprised when I was talking about selling Holly's Cinnamon when she has outproduced herself, if she wins at shows maybe I'll keep her until she can't produce anymore and sell her to a pet owner. They were astonished.
You just can't keep EVERY rabbit that makes you smile, gives you some nice babies, or wins at a show. Because once you have been a breeder for a while, and start to produce some serious, quality stock, EVERY rabbit will begin to make you feel that way and do that for you.
Thanks for reading :)