Small Butterfly

This rabbit breed was selected in the early 20th century by Jan Vaclav Kalal, one of the founders of Czech rabbit breeding, from a population of spotted rabbits from the Tábor region. It is the oldest breed in this country where it has been raised consistently since its creation. The first club of the "Czech spotted" was founded in 1913, it still exists at the beginning of the 21st century. Abroad, the breed was exhibited in 1936 at the Universal Exposition in Leipzig. It was also exported to Austria in the 1950s and admitted to the standard of that country with a text close to the original. It was in 1972 that a German breeder, Arnold Hirt, formulated his desire to select a small spotted breed. He later claimed to have no knowledge at that time of the existence of a "Czech spotted" breed. Hirt took as his working base English butterfly females whose sides were poorly marked, which he mated with a giant butterfly male. When informed of this project, other breeders undertook the same approach. Hirt exhibited a batch (4 rabbits) of small spotted rabbits in 1974 at the Bundes-Kaninchenschau. It is proven that subsequently, many "Czech spotted" were imported to Germany which resulted in a spectacular improvement of the German strain. In 1978, the breed was recognized in Germany under the name of small spotted and admitted to the standard. In France, the breed was recognized in 1984 under the name of small butterfly.