Deciding on Litters

We took the time yesterday to decide what juniors we are going to grow out from our currents litters that are 5-7 weeks old.

From the Milky Way X Kayden litter (the first one, which the doe was fostered to a French Lop) we are going to grow the REW doe out. She is quite promising little doe, pretty gangly right now, but we like the pieces we see.

From Gillian X Kennedy litter: we are going to grow out 1 Black doe. This was a "let's try and see" kind of litter. Kennedy was out of Velotta's Matty X All Summer Long, where as Gillian is out of Impulse X Sagatarious. The Black doe is the best of the litter. She is a little bit narrow in her head and a bit sloped over her HQ, but the rest of the litter turned out really flat/long, although almost all the others have heads! Ugh... But, we'll see how she turns out. You never know unless you give them time. We are going to pet the other 7 out. Just too long to keep, and we haven't seen that improve with age, even when we kept something back to grow out. So no point using the cage space.

From the Dream On Boys X Kayden litter: we are keeping 3 Black bucks. Really like these 3 boys. There is 1 pet Black buck in the litter too. So of the 4 of them, we really like 3, which is pretty good!

So that is 3 Black bucks, 1 Black doe, and 1 REW doe to add to our junior list.

I am really impressed with how our September juniors are looking. They are 11 weeks old now, and look forward to watching the 6 develop that we are keeping back. Will be doing some rebreeds for sure!

In the Dwarf department, we are really pleased with how some of the juniors are starting to fill out. Again they are 11 weeks old, so still really gangly, but have a lot of potential. If all goes well we hope to show most of them at VIRBA for comments.

We also typed the French Lop babies, we are going to grow the 6 of them out (3 from Emerald X Rugby, a Broken Chin doe, Broken Blue Chin doe, and Broken Blue Chin buck) as well as 3 from Squirrely X Rainstar Chestnut buck, 2 Blue Chin bucks and 1 Black Chin buck... We know Emerald's litter for Sarah, by Rugby, was very slow at developing, so we are going to hold off making any decisions yet. Our favorite is the buck (of course!) We really like all 3 from Squirrely, so might as well grow them out too...

Hopefully by about 4 months we can decide on a few of the French babies to sell. So Emerald's will be about 4 1/2 months for VIRBA, and Squirrely's about 3 1/2, so we probably will take a few to sell there if we have decided.

Mini Lop litters and Mini Rex litter

We tentatively sexed all of the Mini Lop litters and the 1 Mini Rex litter today.

Here they are:

Anne Marie X Zeb have- Broken Sable buck, Broken Black buck, 2 Broken Black doe, Black doe, and Smoke Pearl buck (haven't had a smoke pearl for a few yrs!!)

Jessica X Zander have - Black buck, 2 Broken Black bucks, Charlie Chestnut doe, Broken Chestnut doe.

Milky Way X Kayden have - 5 REW bucks!! Now what are the odds? Lol... At least we have 1 REW doe from this cross, that was fostered to a French lop from October.

Silver Dollar X Hunter have 2 Black Chin bucks, 1 Black Chin doe, and 2 Chestnut does.

For the Mini Rex litter J1 X David there are 2 Broken Black bucks, 1 REW doe, 1 Black doe, and a Broken Black doe.

Still have quite a few more litters due in December, mainly Mini Rex and Mini Lops. Did get Deja bred yesterday to Keno (she missed the last 2 X's to Matt, so trying Keno now!) Would still like to get Mae and Olivia bred, I *think* Emma might be bred, but not 100% sure. Still too early to check.

We did get several pictures today of Mini Rex that we were missing, might get those put on tonight!

A few new sale animals

With the French lops taking up so much room we only have 8 holes for them, and I am way over that!!

Here's a few French to sell:

Wildwood's Chestnut almost Senior buck, very deep buck. Lacks in size, nice type. $50.00 (what I paid)

Rainstar's Chestnut Senior buck- not showable due to missing part of his ear from birth- nice type, threw a super cute litter with Squirrely. Too many bucks, have a full litter running around (same breeding as him) and half brothers, and his sire as well. $45.00

Rainstar's Punch- Broken Chin senior doe- beautiful doe, going through a moult. Ready to breed. $40

After litter- Wildwood's ? Broken black almost senior doe. Just waiting for her to be breeding age. Planning to cross her to Rugby and then after the litter she will be available. $50.00- possible hold for Julie for spring.

Will have juniors available out of Posey's Squirrely 4 legs X Rainstar's Chestnut buck, and Rugby X Emerald juniors as well.

Cavies:

Ga/W Coronet Senior sow- $25
GA/R/W Silkie Senior boar- $25
Red/White junior sow- $25 silkie

Thats all for now!
k_c_lops@telus.net

Dwarfs!

So for the few Dwarfs does that we want to get bred as being impossible right now! Last month (October) the Mini Lops weren't interested in breeding really. Sure a few does were, hence why we have 4 new litters now. But that took a few days of trying, and most of them only had the buck fall off once, as thats all the does would allow.

Now this month the Mini's are quite happy to be bred, the other ones who weren't bred, and the Dwarfs are refusing to lift!

I *think* we may have Emma bred to Matt, but not 100% sure. DeJa who was due on the 21st hasn't had anything yet. She feels full, but hasn't attempted to make a nest. Will see if she has anything by tomorrow.

The other Dwarf does are refusing to be bred though, so for now I'll keep trying. Would really like to get DeJa bred though, not sure when her last litter was, but this is 3X's...

What I was thinking though is will keep trying her over the Winter, and if no luck come Spring, will see about finding her a pet home.

Nothing new to report for the French Lops, but there is new Mini Rex news. I'll let Kim post that one!

More Mini Lops bred

We have had a list of Mini Lops that need to be bred for the last while. We bred those otehr does the other day, so held off breeding these other ones. But when we thought about it, technically we should breed them now, because with the Winter fast approaching often the does aren't interested.

I had 6 Mini Lops on my list to breed. Alexis, who hasn't had a litter since May, wasn't in prime condition. So will hold off breeding her for a few weeks.

Of the other 5, I had success with 4 of them lifting for the bucks and breeding. The 5th doe, who was Tortellini, had some color but she kept trying to attack the buck (Diablo), so will try her again tomorrow.

The 4 does who were bred are:

Annabelle X Preston (linebred Braxtin)
2nd Time Around X Kayden (linebred through Adson & Tippy, as 2nd Time Around is Ada's sister, and Kayden is Ada's son).
Charley X Gus
Kia X Braxtin (linebred Braxtin)

So it'll be interesting to see how these crosses turn out, assuming they take and kindle fine.

Still need to get pictures of 2nd Time Around.

That's all for now!

New Litters & rearranging barns

We have been needing to move our stainless steel until from outside into the lower barn (Dwarf barn as I call it). Also, I wanted to move our large 3 hole hutch, as it had sprung a leak at the join in one of the top corners. So it needed to be moved as well. So, with the help of our Uncle and his friend, the 3 of us managed to get both units moved into the other barn, and levelled.

It may seem like an easy enough job, but it took hrs. Between leveling the floor as much as we could (it's a dirt floor), rearranging the barn a few times so everything would fit & look good, and taking the rabbits out, dumping pans, and putting everything back together!

At least it's all done now though...

I wanted to get this done before the snow came, and with all these storms we've been having it was a good time to do it.

Anyway, we have had some litters born last few days.

First Annabelle had 9, 8 alive on the 16th. Unfortunately today when I checked on them, all 8 were dead in her box. All fed, but not fully covered. Looked like after she fed them, they weren't covered up very well, and got chilled. So that was unfortunate :(

The other does all delivered on the 17th.

Anne-Marie had 6 by Zeb (Black buck now in Ohio); Milky Way had 5 by Kayden; Silver Dollar had 5 by Hunter; Jessica had 6 by Zander; and a Mini Rex (J1) had 5 by David...

All is good with them, so far! All boxes had lots of fur in them, so hopefully all stay warm again tonight (having another storm tonight).

Several more does were bred yesterday too, 4 Mini Lops, 1 Mini Rex and tried 3 Dwarfs but they weren't cooperating too well. I will re breed Annabelle tomorrow, and need to breed Alexis as well. Also have some Mini Rex to breed, which didn't take this last time.

Website updates to come soon!

I'm so broke!!

So, we went a little crazy with Convention and pre-purchased 5 rabbits. Between the rabbits all going that were sold that had all been paid for, and transport paid for but I'm not very good at keeping things seperate so it was all a big "swoop" of money coming out of my bank account at once. And with the rabbits coming back they had to have transport paid for. So when it was all said and done it was over $400 for transport, plus another $700 in rabbits. That hurt!

I don't know about everyone else but our feed bill is still huge every month. Between dog food, treats and canned food. Cat food for 14 cats. Rabbit feed for 100+ rabbits, Cavy food, Cow grain, Horse cookies for the spoiled horses(our uncle pays for the horse grain and all the hay ;)
Thankfully!!!

We are down to just one rooster and that is it. We will put him in with our uncles layers tomorrow probably. But we are still at $600 or more a month in feed. Ugh!!! ;)

I know, I know. Do I want some cheese with my whine(spelled incorrectly on purpose!)

It doesn't help that shavings are impossible to find and we have to buy BAGGED shavings at $11 a bag. You can just imagine how many bags of shavings we go through a week. Thankfully the pigs and layer chickens are our uncles and he pays for all of that. Sure, this would all be fine if the animals paid for themselves but they of course don't. Well his chickens might pay for themselves but rarely do the rabbits ever.

My exciting news is we are expecting a calf to be born in about 3 weeks from Molly and a Red Angus bull. So exciting! : ) Molly will be 12 this year : )

Oh, I forgot the ducks above. We have 20 ducks and I go through 3 or 4 bags of feed a month with them plus whole grains. To get 1-2 eggs a day. Yippee. LOL Rolls eyes ;)

I was off work sick for 4 days last week with H1N1 and so I had to work all weekend to make up for it- great for money, not great because I got no weekend. I work again tomorrow, and have Tuesday off. Work Wednesday and no idea for Thurs/Fri/Sat. I'm hoping to just work on Tuesday and then have Thurs/Fri/Sat off.. will see!

Website For Sale page updated & Dwarfs

Our website for sale page has been updated. I have made individual breed For Sale pages, as it was getting too long otherwise!

Click here to go to For Sale page

Only the Satins and Mini Lops are up right now, but we don't have any Mini Rex or French Lops available right now. The only ones available in the Dwarfs are a few pet juniors and we need new pictures anyway!

I haven't put an update on the Dwarfs lately, so thought I would include it in this blog. The juniors we kept back from the breedings are doing very well, and they are looking quite nice.

We kept a Black Otter buck out of Olivia X Matt, who is really coming into himself! This wasn't our favorite litter, but held the 4 of them back, and really like this little buck.

From Mae X Keno's litter we kept 2 Black Otter bucks (very promising too), and a Blue Otter doe (favorite of probably all the litters at least right now).

From Alexis X Sonshine litter we kept a Black Otter (or is it a Silver Marten, can't remember at the moment) doe. This doe has a really super body developing.

So that is 5 juniors we have kept back to grow out. These are our VIRBA hopefuls for show juniors, they should be a good age for showing, at least with the Mini Lops we try to only show 5 - 5 1/2 month juniors, but it doesn't always happen that way. I don't think we'll have any Seniors to show. Maybe April though, she is looking nice and is small too. I don't think we'll breed her until after Feb. She doesn't turn senior until beginning of Dec, and if we bred her late Feb would still be under 9 months.It would be nice to show Keno too, but I'm not sure if he is over 2.08 lbs right now. He is 3 too, but we'll see when the time comes.

Deja is bred to Matt and due in the next few weeks. She has missed the last 2 times, so I told her 3rd time and she's out... But we'll see. We have to get the other does bred though before winter. I will make a good effort to get that done this weekend. I believe we are going to breed Emma X Reese buck; Olivia X Keno; Mae X Matt; and Alexis X Keno.

I haven't updated our litters pages with the next set of does bred. We have bred some Mini Lops lately, although not all have been cooperative. I need to check the calendar again to see when they are due. I'm pretty sure some took, but not 100%.

Gillian has a cute litter by Kennedy right now. They are around 3 weeks, something like that. Looking forward to typing them in a few weeks. Lots of Brk Blacks, and some solid Blacks too. Nice heavy pattern on the Brk's too (which I think makes them even cuter!)...

Enough rambling for now!

Convention Rabbits back!

Sunday we picked the rabbits who went to Convention up, as well as the new ones we purchased.

The 2 we showed had been travelling for the last 10 days, and lost condition on their journey.

Results from Convention:

We actually did the best with the ones we sold to other breeders. The 2 we sent were really docked for condition. They just didn't hold it. They started their travels on Thurs afternoon, and didn't get judged until Monday, and I guess they didn't eat great on the trip.

Kylee was 35 / 64 SJD's. So half in her class, not too great. She had good comments all the way through, except wanted more in her HQ (I agree), and more condition.

Storm Warning was NP in the SJB's. Good comments on his body, but only Fair head and lacks width in HQ (agree on that HQ).

The ones we sold though were 5th SJD/64 for Susan Howman, and 9th SJD of 64 for Susan Howman. The 5th place was Trixie, the sister to Porter, Parker and Kia. The 9th was a Gold Tipped Steel doe out of Trinity X Zeke. She had the HQ!!!

Also, Alison Votow had 8/50 BSD in Youth with Precious Moment, who is Jamison's sister out of Montana X Gillian.

Caitlin & Ben Votow had 5/34 SSB in Youth with Country Boy (the dad to the 5th place SJD in Open above). They also had 3/39 SSD in Youth with a Lilac doe out of Heather Rose X Diesel.

So not bad at all for first Convention... The comments were what we really wanted, and knowing that we need more work on HQ's really helps guide us for our breeding program this next year.

We actually went through our Mini Lop herd today, and decided what our next step was with working on the HQ, and also improving depth and trying to keep our shoulders short.

We have a list together of some For Sale animals to go up, since I removed everything off our for sale page for Mini's until we had a chance to go through the herd. That list will go up in the next few days.

As for the new rabbits, Kitsemble's Gus & Kitsemble's Sidney arrived. They will work perfect in our breeding program. Gus is a brother to Sara "Too", so will work great for linebreeding with her kids. He is a nicely balanced buck with similar type to Sara. He's also a big sweetie!! Sidney has depth GALORE!! She has 8 legs with a RBIS win. Very nice doe, with even a nice head. So we are thrilled to introduce her into our program.

We also had our 3 new Mini Rex from KT's Rabbitry arrive. We are very pleased with them, and can't wait to show Mayhanna when she returns from Florida! We bought a Black doe, Broken Blue doe and Broken black buck. I need to get the Mini Rex portion of our website set up. However we need to get pictures of all the Mini Rex. We will work on that soon (everyone here, besides me, has been sick so this will happen in time!)...

In litter news, I forgot to mention GB1's litter (ML) in my last blog. She has 5 babies by Ethan. So far we are keeping an eye on 1 G'Tp Steel doe. They are only 6 weeks though so won't make final decisions yet.

Bridget's litter is doing great too, so far we have our eye on a Brk S'Tp buck and a G'Tp doe. This litter is by Hunter.

In French Lop news (I haven't mentioned much about them lately, but it's been pretty quiet on that front). Emerald has 3 babies left. I think we are going to start the French on some Calf Manna when they have litters. They just don't have the milk supply like the other breeds. Anyway, Emerald has 3 babies. I believe 2 does and 1 buck. Squirrely has 3 babies left, 2 Blue Chins and 1 Black Chin. All bucks.

The older 2 French we kept back from our July litter from S&K Posey X Rugby are really coming into themselves. I like the depth and short body on the Sold G'Tp buck. He is a pretty decent size too. The Brk G'Tp has better size, and I know will be bigger. He also looks nice, with a better head, however isn't as deep/short. But still is looking promising!

Will post about Satin's in another post another day...