Rabbit UK came to life in October 1989 in Den Bosch, the Netherlands when Lew Bevan bought his first group of continental rabbits.

We are based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in England. Lew Bevan is a College Lecturer in animal care his wife Helen Smyly is a Veterinary Surgeon. The rabbit breeding operation is carried out from the Melton Mill Stud set in five acres of rural South Yorkshire.

We are currently very busy breeding with several hundred youngsters due during the summer hopefully many will go on to compete at the highest level at stock and national shows for their new owners.

We only show twice a year and that is in the United States with the Netherland Dwarfs.

There are around 50 breeds of rabbit seen on the show tables around the world their names may change in different countries and the written breed standard may vary slightly, it would be imposible to claim to breed all the breeds.

As many of our enquieries are from first timers the concept of size can be difficult to explain with this in mind, we keep four distinct breeds as follows. Giants up to 20 lbs large 12 lbs small 3.5 lbs Dwarf 2.5 lbs.

We have covered thousands of miles and spents thousands of pounds finding the finest breeders from whom we have bought the finest stock which we hope will continue to produce top class show winners unlike some web sites we do not show pictures of rabbits we would like to own ….but don’t.

All photographs shown on the Rabbit Uk web site are of animals that are in our stable and breeding youngsters that anybody can buy, breeding is all about creating and cultivating a bloodline, very selective breeding needs to be practiced as rubbish needs to be spotted early and got rid of so that only the best of a particular line is kept to produce more winners. We will continue to import selected rabbits to keep our various families updated year by year.

Holland and Belgium are without doubt the leading rabbit showing/breeding countries of northern europe, we see more english visitors each year at Den Bosch Utrecht and the Nord show, yes you can buy some fantastic show winners as indeed I think that over the last three years the influence of just a handfull of Harlequins has had a positive effect on the classes being seen in England today.

I must get 200 requests a year from fanciers wanting to buy the ultimate show buck of a particular breed and the Bradford Championship and London Championship shows of the last ten years will show that the European imports have made a big impression.

Remember the great double by Phil Wheeler, Best in Show at Bradford with Doncaster Star, then world record holder with Toby lll. Phil's old bloodline with introductions from the late Ross Maloy USA and with great regret and sadness the late Leo Smits of the Netherlands made this possible.

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