What is a pedigree?

A pedigree is a basic summary of an animal's ancestry record. A standard 3-generations pedigree will list the animal's parents, grandparents, and grand-grandparents, as well as some very basic information about each of them. A pedigree is NOT a mark of high quality and does not guarantee that the animal is pure bred. Both purebred and mixed breed animals can and do have pedigrees. Humans have pedigrees, in fact YOU have a pedigree as long as you know the basics of your family history. An animal's pedigree is nothing more then a simplified breeding record and it represents the utmost basic record keeping that should be taking place when breeding. It essentially means that a person put in a few minutes of effort to write down the names of the animals they were breeding. 

A pedigree in itself is not a formal registration document, however registration documents do include a copy of a pedigree. A pedigree is always prepared by the breeder. It can be a fancy printout from a computer database program, it can be hand written on a pre-printed form, or it can be written on a restaurant napkin. If it lists the animal's parents, grandparents, and grand-grandparents, it is a pedigree. 

A blank ARBA pedigree template. 
One of many pedigree templates which
a breeder can use to hand write a pedigree.

It is very important to note that the existence of a pedigree in itself does not guarantee or suggest the quality of the animal. An animal can be of horrific quality, but still be pedigreed. It must be repeated that a pedigree is nothing more but a record of the animal's heritage no matter how good or bad that heritage is. It is a very common misconception among pet owners that buying a pedigreed animal is like some sort of a shortcut trick to ensuring they are purchasing a good quality animal. While the existence of a pedigree, or even more so the lack of one, do tell you a bit about the type of breeder you are dealing with, a pedigree is only an informational tool to be used while evaluating the animal. Every animal must always be evaluated individually based on their own merits in order to determine its quality. 

Some breeders and sellers do unfortunately take advantage of this misconception and use it as a marketing gimmick when dealing with inexperienced animal buyers, insinuating that their animals are better simply because they are pedigreed. Now that you know better, don't fall for this trick!   

A pedigree is good to have even if you never plan on breeding. It can provide possible clues if you you have the misfortune of dealing with a medical condition. It is also good practice to support quality breeders who at the very minimum keep proper breeding records and therefore are able to produce a pedigree instead of people who just put a pair of animals together for the sake of selling arbitrary babies. Even if the names on the pedigree mean nothing to you when you purchase your rabbit, with time you might learn to understand the information better and will have a much better sense of your rabbit's heritage.

The more you learn about a breed, the more valuable a pedigree becomes as a tool in evaluating the quality of the animal. Once you are able to recognize different lines and names which show up on pedigrees and understand what their strengths and weaknesses are, you begin to get a much better intuitive feel for what quality you can reasonably expect from the animal who's pedigree you're looking at. This is really when pedigrees become more valuable, but this is a skill that takes time to learn and requires dedication and commitment to the breed.