Holland Lop Breeders in California

This started the way most of these things start. I kept Holland Lops before I ever bred one. I had lived with them for years, learned what they are actually like to have in a house rather than what a care sheet says, and after college I decided to breed them properly rather than keep them as pets and leave it there.

Everything on this site comes out of that. Not a business plan, and not a hobby that got out of hand. Just the fact that I already knew this animal well enough to want to do it seriously.

Why only Holland Lops

Most rabbit breeders run several breeds. It doubles what there is to sell and it halves what you know about any of it. Mini Rex, Netherland Dwarf and Lionhead are different animals with different temperaments, different growth curves, and different things that go wrong. A breeder running four breeds is guessing at three of them.

So there is one breed here, and there always will be. When someone asks me whether a particular bunny will settle in a house with a five year old, the answer comes from years of living with Holland Lops, not from a search.

The thing I got wrong

For a while I was breeding too many litters. Not dangerously, and not carelessly, but more than I could genuinely stay on top of. The rabbits were fine. What suffered was consistency, because when you breed a lot you are taking whatever the pairings give you, and you spend your time managing volume instead of choosing.

So I cut it back to five litters a year and I breed selectively now. Fewer pairings, chosen deliberately. The results are more predictable because of it, and a buyer who comes back for a second rabbit gets one that actually resembles the first. That was not reliably true when I was running more.

I mention it because every breeder website tells you what they are good at, and almost none of them will tell you what they changed. This is the thing I changed, and the site would be less honest without it.

How they live

The rabbits are in the house. They are around people all day, they hear a television and a doorbell and a vacuum cleaner, and they are handled from the point their eyes open. A bunny that has never met a household before the day it moves into yours has a much harder first week than one that has, and you will feel the difference in the first fortnight.

There is an outdoor hutch as well, and they go out to it to play. It is somewhere to run and dig and be a rabbit for a while, not somewhere they live. Central Valley heat is not something to take lightly with this breed. A Holland Lop is genuinely at risk above the mid eighties, and time outside is time out, not accommodation.

Before any of them leave

Every bunny is vet checked. Not as a formality and not as a certificate to wave at you, but because a rabbit will hide illness until it is serious. Prey animals do not show weakness, which is exactly why so many are lost to problems that were treatable a fortnight earlier. I would rather find something while it is still mine to deal with.

And they are part of the household until the day they go. That is not a slogan. It is why the temperament notes on the listings are specific, why I can tell you which one is bold and which one takes a week to trust you, and why I will tell you when a particular bunny is the wrong fit for your house.

How to judge any Holland Lop breeder

Including this one. If you are comparing rabbitries, these are the questions worth asking, and the answers tell you more than any about page will.

• What do they say when you ask what is wrong with it? Every animal has something. A breeder who says nothing is wrong is either not looking or not telling.
• Will they still answer an email in month three? The first fortnight is when things go wrong and when a new owner most needs someone to ask.
• Do they take money for a litter that does not exist yet? Deposits against unborn rabbits are common and they put the risk entirely on the buyer.
• Have they ever talked someone out of a sale? If the answer is never, they are selling rabbits, not placing them.

How I work

• Five litters a year, chosen deliberately. Fewer pairings, better consistency.
• Bunnies are listed only once they are ready to go. No waiting lists, and no money taken against a litter you cannot actually have yet.
• Every bunny is vet checked before it leaves, and every one goes home with three days of its own feed and a scent blanket from the nest.
• Transport is booked by us, and quoted to you before you commit to anything.
• If I think a rabbit is wrong for your household, I will say so, and I will lose the sale. That has happened and it will happen again.

Where we are

Arlen Rabbitry is in Bakersfield, California. If you are searching for a Holland Lop breeder near you and you are anywhere in the Central Valley, Fresno, Visalia, or Los Angeles, collection is straightforward and most local buyers come to us. Everyone else in the country has theirs driven.