The breeder needs to be honest with herself and not engage in the fruitless practice of denying the facts about any one rabbit in one's barn. However, one must be able to appreciate what is good about an individual animal as well as what its faults are. Years of work can be saved if the breeder is able to begin with excellent breeding stock. Quality foundation stock may seem expensive but pays for itself over and over. Compared to prices for premium breeding stock of other species, rabbit breeding stock is very affordable.
Most experienced breeders agree that linebred, related stock is the best to start with.
This would mean, instead of getting rabbits from each of several different breeders, one would look for quality, related animals that are linebred. A linebred pedigree shows a pattern. Rather than a different pair of rabbits used for each mating on the pedigree, the linebred pedigree may show evidence of some cousin to cousin breedings, half brother to half sister, uncle to neice, and so on. Now, it is not the linebreeding itself that makes a pedigree good, because if the linebreeding focuses on mediocre individuals, then it is of no value. But if the linebreeding focuses on quality individuals, then it shows that the rabbit bearing the pedigree may have a preponderance of the desirable qualities of the few individuals that appear more than once in the pedigree.