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ARBA breeds and show classes

OmniBurrow ships with every ARBA-recognized breed and its varieties already loaded, so you pick your breed and the varieties are there — over 500 of them across the catalog. Each breed also carries its show-class scheme, which is what lets OmniBurrow work out the division a rabbit competes in from nothing more than its date of birth and the date of the show.

Breeds and varieties are reference data​

Breeds and varieties come from a catalog that ships with the app — never a hardcoded list in the code. That has a few practical consequences:

  • Variety options follow the breed you pick. Choose the breed first and the variety list narrows to the varieties that breed actually comes in. On mobile the variety picker stays locked until a breed is set, for exactly this reason.
  • Varieties feed the genetics engine. The recorded variety is the strongest single piece of evidence the engine has about a rabbit's genotype — see Genetics Engine.
  • Off-catalog varieties are allowed. Working with something still in development, or a colour not recognized in your breed? Enter it as a custom variety. It stays on the record; it just cannot contribute the same genetic certainty a catalog variety does.
  • The catalog is bundled, not fetched. The mobile app carries it locally, so adding a rabbit works with no signal.

Breeds span all four ARBA size categories — small, medium, large, and giant — and size is what drives the show-class scheme below. The catalog also carries a few breeds working toward recognition, so you may see a name that is not on ARBA's recognized list.

Show classes​

Every breed uses one of two schemes, taken from the ARBA Official Breed ID Guide (April 2021), "Four or Six Class" column:

SchemeDivisions
Four-class — small and medium breedsJunior under 6 months · Senior 6 months and over
Six-class — large and giant breedsJunior under 6 months · Intermediate ("6–8") 6 to under 8 months · Senior 8 months and over

Nineteen breeds are six-class: American, American Chinchilla, Argente Brun, Beveren, Blanc de Hotot, Californian, Champagne d'Argent, Checkered Giant, Cinnamon, Creme d'Argent, English Lop, Flemish Giant, French Lop, Giant Angora, Giant Chinchilla, New Zealand, Palomino, Satin, and Silver Fox. Everything else is four-class.

How the class is worked out​

OmniBurrow computes the class from the breed's scheme plus two dates — the rabbit's date of birth and the show date — using exact calendar months, following the ARBA convention that "6 months and over" (or 8 for six-class breeds) is senior:

  • A four-class rabbit born 1 March is a Junior at a show on 31 August, and a Senior on 1 September.
  • A six-class rabbit born 1 March is a Junior until 1 September, Intermediate from 1 September until 1 November, and Senior from 1 November onward.

You never type the class in, and it is never stored stale — because it is derived from the dates, the same rabbit correctly shows as a Junior at one show and a Senior at the next. It appears on show entries and on cage cards printed for a show.

Date of birth is the input that matters

No date of birth means no age class. If a rabbit is going to a show, fill its DOB in first — it is also what drives weight targets and projected butcher dates elsewhere in the app.

Custom breeds​

You can add a breed that is not in the catalog — for a rare breed, a project, or a cross. Custom breeds sit alongside the recognized ones and default to the four-class scheme. Adding one never affects the recognized catalog, even if you give it the same name as an existing breed.

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