Breeder vs. Collector

This subject hit home the other day when Rachel & I were at the Midwest Mini Rex Rabbit Club Specialty showing her 2 does. We had developed a plan over the last few months and acquired these does to complement the buck I bought Rachel for her birthday. The buck is a little over-sized but when shown at the fair we were told by the judge to breed him and find smaller does. So we have a Black Otter buck to breed to a Black Otter doe with a plan to hopefully get a correct sized good quality buck to breed to the Broken doe we have. Sounds simple enough except for the fact at this show they had a silent auction for Mini Rex rabbits. Rachel bid on a Castor Jr. doe which should really be bred to Castor bucks, then was outbid and wanted to bid on an Opal doe which we also do not have the correct color buck to breed to. Of course they are cute and you want them all so then she walked around looking for the "for sale" rabbits. I redirected her to the raffle and gave her $1.00 to buy 4 raffle tickets. Should have looked over the prizes more closely as there were a few rabbits donated to the raffle. Rachel put all 4 tickets in for a black French Lop Jr. buck and fortunate for us ended up not winning. I explained you can be a collector or a breeder, and breeders have and set goals. Collectors see something they like and collect, or search out and collect. She got this when I gave the example of what we want to do with her rabbits and if she tries to buy everyone she likes then we may not have room to produce our own and won't it mean more to you to have bred and produced that "special" rabbit you intended? I told her I have goals for every sheep breeding group I assemble each fall and my flock means more to me because I built it from scratch with 2 bred ewes to start out and I've added important bits and pieces along the way and continue to work at it and the reward is reaching each goal.
The next point is collecting animals is an expensive hobby as they eat too much so best to collect something not alive!
What I did not tell her is I once brought a rabbit home with me from a visit to relatives in Oklahoma when I was about her age so I know where she gets this but the difference is my mother was not the animal lover her mother is and we did not live on a farm.

Signs of winter is here with a little white stuff on the ground and the ewe flock just got arranged in for winter quarters with water heaters.