A bit more about us.
Hello and welcome to our little corner of the internet! ☕️
We first established in 2010 with our rabbitry, in the small village of Bishopstone, Aylesbury and under a different name. There, we bred Mini Lops in Blue Eyed White (BEW), Blue, Black, Chocolate, and Lilac self and tort. Our breeding efforts ceased in 2016.
In 2019, working out of a small apartment in Hastings, East Sussex we started producing fancy rats as a private hobby after many years of keeping them as pets.
In 2022 we moved back home to Buckinghamshire and started working with ferrets (standard and micro) and reopened our rabbitry.
We base ourselves out of a working equestrian facility on the beautiful county borders of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in the heart of the Chilterns (approx. 40 miles from central London, 15 miles from Oxford, and 90 miles from Birmingham).
We prioritise temperament, conformation, and health in all of our animals. Only after that do we focus on our favourite coat types and colours.
As a family with small children, it is paramount to us that they are able to be involved with the husbandry of our animals, this is not possible without docile, friendly temperaments.
We do not, never have, and never will actively breed any animals for the pet trade, rather we breed for our own goals and what we want.
Excess stock that are suitable to be rehomed are offered as such to successful applicants.
Our Fancy Rats...
In 2011, we were introduced to the wonderful world of fancy rats, though just as pets, it gave us our foundation of knowledge that would later develop into a passion for breeding and the rattery we have today.
We established the rattery section of the stud in 2019 and sourced the foundations of our oldest line from Silver's Rattery and Pipistrelle Mouse and Rattery, and since then we have expanded into many other varieties with help from our friends on the continent and have, in turn, helped others within the UK work with these wonderful varieties.
We predominantly work with the more unusual varieties (unusual relative to availability in the UK, we understand these are commonly bred elsewhere in the world) such as coat types like velveteen/double velveteen, silvermane, and harley (long haired).
Our lines also work with marked varieties such as Marble, Downunder, Wedge Blaze (Badger), and more common coat colours like Fawn (Topaz), Beige (Buff), Pearl/Cinnamon Pearl, Mink, Blue (US/Powder), Russian Blue, Black, Cinnamon, and Agouti.
We currently have two Marble lines, one exclusively dwarf and one standard, and we have sourced these from Happy Tiny Rats and Rattery Strikon Gonafluf Kru respectively. Great care has been taken to ensure both lines have been bred from animals free of the tooth issues that affect some lines of Marble.
You will find that we mostly focus on dumbo ears but do often have the odd top eared in our breeding projects.
We currently work with both standard size and dwarfs.
You can find out more about our dwarfs, and dwarf rats in general, HERE.
Our Ferrets...
Our ferretry formally started in Autumn of 2022 but our experience in keeping ferrets far exceeds this.
Being from working agricultural families, we have been involved in ferreting and keeping ferrets for 20+ years.
The decision was made after a few years of consideration, to breed our own workers, however space and time restraints meant we had to hold off on this plan until 2022.
We predominantly work with micros, as we find these more suited to working environment. However we also work with standards and have plans to add Angora in the next few years.
While our aims for our ferrets is to bring them into a working environment during the ferreting season*, we also enjoy breeding to show with the British Ferret Club and have aims to show our Silvers during the 2023 season.
Most prominent in our breeding plans are Silver and Sable. But there are some "dream" colours we hope to work with in the coming years.
*ferreting isn't subject to a true "season" and can be legally carried out year round in England. However we prefer to stick to the timeframe between October and April as this is when visibility is clearer regarding vegetation.
Our Rabbits...
The rabbitry is very close to our heart as we consider it our official starting point and the quasi birthplace of the stud.
In March of 2010, we became registered with British Rabbit Council and we acquired our first Mini Lop rabbits in Blue and Black tort (Beige and Sooty Fawn respectively) and Blue Eyed White.
Later we expanded into Blue self, Chocolate (self and tort) and Lilac (self and tort). Around this time is when vienna marked a.k.a "Dutch Split" Mini Lops became a huge trend.
Later on, we started producing Mantle on Smoke and Chocolate. However this wasn't standardised at the time so our goals in breeding for exhibition were somewhat in vain.
In late 2015, we made the move to Hastings and gradually declined our rabbitry numbers until it was no more.
In 2022 we acquired some foundation stock for our lines and had a good selection of English Lops, Mini Rex, Mini Lops, and Plush Lops. In an unfortunate bout of bad luck, they suffered from infertility issues and a few were lost due to failed vaccine protection.
As of 2023 we work exclusively with standard Rex and will be introducing English rabbits in the future.
We may at our own discretion list kits for sale. But we generally do not sell to the general public.