Sunny Brook Rabbitry Blog

Updated Website & Mini Rex Trio for sale

2012-02-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

Website has finally been updated with the pictures!!! Really need to get new ones.. Think I am going to rope Kim into helping me... Maybe this coming weekend?

Also Kim has a trio of Mini Rex for sale, nice animals! Contact her (or me) at k_c_lops@telus.net

We are looking forward to the VIRBA show coming up in less than 2 weeks. Will only be showing a few Mini Lops, as I won't have any Juniors to show until probably this Summer... But hope to have a few to show!!

Cubby is due on the 15th by Hunter, I am positive she took. : )

If I manage to get some pictures of the buns I will post this weekend!!

Mini Lops - some pictures!

2011-12-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I took a few pictures of the Lops with my iPhone, I need to get Kim to come over and we will do pics with the good camera, I just took these while dumping pans. Then chaos began with Christmas so I haven't had time to write a blog!I didn't like Cubby's pictures so I need to re-take. Posey's Hunter:

Mitchell's Broken Sable Point doe

Velotta's Miss Mia

Posey's Dawson

Kitsemble's Sidney

2011-11-21T17:34:00.001-08:00

Website is now updated! I have added the "herd" onto the website. There is one more junior doe from Jody to add onto the site, once I know which one we are getting!I hope to get the trio from Jody next weekend, assuming we can get the barn done (just have a door to put on and one small part of window). Can't wait to be done!!Anyway, check it out!Sunny Brook Rabbitry

2011-11-17T07:44:00.001-08:00

So I have started to update the website with a new design, I still want to add some "tweaks" to it, and still have pages to finish. But all in due time!Also have the Mini Lops that are coming back to add on. Here is the list:GC Posey's Hunter is coming back from Jody MitchellMitchell's Cubby (a Posey's Brayden daughter, X Mitchell's Tammy, who is from Mitchell X Enumclaw genetics). Really producing some nice offspring!Mitchell's either Broken Sable Point or Frosted Pearl doe (out of Posey's Nyro X Mitchell's Tyra) Both of these girls are WOW! Especially for their colors...GC Kitsemble's Sidney (coming back from Nicole Velotta)Velotta's VEML2 (REW doe), a really cute junior doe!This will be a great start to our new little herd, a lot of the genetics we were working with before, with some new blood.

And we're back!!

2011-11-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

So it's been a hectic but FUN summer! So many things have changed in our lives, but most of them for the better...

After having a break for the last 3 months (technically ALL the rabbits left August 21), Kim and have both decided to get a few rabbits back. Kim does have 3 pet rabbits (2 hollands and a harlequin), but we both miss having our show rabbits.

So... I will be getting a few mini lops back. I will have 12 cages for them, so very small scale. But I am getting some of our original stock back, along with some new blood!

Kim will have 12 cages for Mini Rex at another location.

I will be updating the website with all this new & exciting chapter, over the next few weeks!!

Bittersweet!

2011-06-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

I never have liked Bittersweet chocolate, the end is just about near for us with the rabbits and we are both doing fine. It feels strange, and its going to be feel strange for awhile and we are going to miss them but it also in the same sentence feels right too.

It looks like the last 4 mini lops are going to oklahoma. We have 12 that go out tomorrow and then the rest will leave hopefully beginning of July at the latest...

We have 2 more 6 hole cages to sell- it looks like the old set is sold today, and then we have 6 brand new holes we are asking what we paid $270 and they are 24 by 30 each hole with red trim- very nice!

Then all we will have left is a whole bunch of nestboxes and some fans and then eventually we will go through everything else but it looks like it is all sold.

Pretty soon I will have Luke my golden retriever, we will have the barn cats and Cristina will have her Saint Bernard. wow.

August 1st, or September 1st Cristina, Jessy and I plan to rent a place together. That should be great fun!!
We leave for a 2 week road trip within the first 2 weeks of July. So, it is looking to be a busy and fun summer!

Mini lops, cages, and equipment to sell

2011-06-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

We still have some gorgeous Mini lops looking for new show homes! Posey's Boston, Posey's Damien, Posey's Meet me Halfway and many others are all available...

We have 3- stainless steel units, 6 holes each, 24 by 30 each hole. Very nice, will never rust! $300 each unit.

6 hole hanging cage.

Carriers, nestboxes and various other things available...

k_c_lops@telus.net

I'll try to make the time this weekend to write out an entire list...

Welcome to my silly life!

2011-05-10T21:03:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that is an understatement for Cristina and I these days. We have finally concluded with regardless of what we are doing or where we are going in life these days it isn't fair to the rabbits to see us once a week and to have a stranger( our lovely mom) feeding them every day and it is most certainly not fair to her to take care of 50 rabbits, 4 dogs, her cats, our 7 barn cats and the dumb chicken that adopted me. (saying in the nicest of ways of course)

So that being said this is probably the hardest thing we have had to do with the rabbits ever since we really love the Mini lops but many other breeders have had to do this for school etc so we HAVE To do it. Where we can find the time to figure it out is beyond me but I have to work down Island on Sunday for sure so I am coming back Saturday will clean the barn Saturday night, go out Sat night with my down Island friends, work Sunday then our boss(dad) has to have a bunch of doctor appts Monday morning before we all head back up so at this point we are thinking Monday morning..... We will go through the herd and decide.

The only rabbits we know for sure at this moment are staying is Hunter and Meet me Halfway. It is going to be some very tough decisions and we want the best possible homes for these guys.

I know we sadly will have to part with the gorgeous Boston- a Broken black buck- who has enough legs to send in for his GC is constantly winning and is gorgeous but we are already keeping Hunter and Meet Me Halfway and we have to honest with ourselves. We are never on the farm now becuase of work. Also Damien will be looking for a great home, he is also a Grand champion and is gorgeous but we have a son we feel is nicer and (although I'm not sure who gets to stay and who goes at this point either) but we know he deserves more attention he is a huge sweetheart. And there will be many more... and to the people waiting on us- thank you for your patience- Nicole, Lisa and Janine especially! We will figure this out.... Monday... Promised!

Probably Amie will be available, as well as Kylee and lots of others...

Bunnies, life and dogs

2011-04-24T22:18:00.001-07:00

Life is getting busier as the days go on, we are going to cut back even further on the herd to 25 rabbits as it looks like we will both be gone all summer and fall working so we need to have as faw rabbits as we can for our mom to take care of.. We have no idea what is for sale yet but if there is something you are interested in let us know! I was going to write a long blog but I am out of the notion so there is abit of an update...!!

A busy life

2011-03-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

I am home sick for the day. I woke up with a pounding head ache which lead to me feeling like I was going to be sick to my stomach. I am feeling better now but I am taking the whole day off to make sure it doesn't turn into the flu or something. I haven't been sick(touch wood) since last January so I really want to keep it like that! I am pretty sure I drugged up enough. I took Echinchea, Vitamin D, 2 sinutab and an ibuprofen. if that doesn't kill it nothing will!!

It is a busy life. I have been going insane working on a Budget proposal, 2 show catalogs, rabbits going to Oklahoma. I worked 6 days on, 1 day off, and another 5 on(should have been 6 with today). I have tomorrow off and then I work Friday and have Saturday off. Poor Cristina has not only been going insane with work but they are having all kinds of problems with boats and things not working out so its busy and things aren't going as they should so she is pretty stressed out. I have to get back to book keeping before end of April to get all that done for the tax season for my uncle who is paying me to book keep. I have to do my own taxes and there are numerous other things.

I am feeling a bit better at the moment so I am writing a blog before I go back to the couch for awhile.

The rabbits are all doing well. We have 6 sold to Port alberni, and 4 going to Oklahoma. It will be nice to have some gone to have some empty cages. Cristina and I have decided to raise some Californians for meat. We get a lot of inquiries for meat rabbits and a fellow breeder can't even keep up and she has asked us if we would raise some to help her out. We are going to give it a try and see what we think :) Having never raised cals before, but yet still wanting to keep our numbers down. However, if it works out like the other breeder has said she feels it will it should help pay the feed bill.

We have some very nice animals to show for the April 2nd show. I am looking forward to it.

I have told the fairs I won't be doing them this year. My life is too busy and we want to do a bunch of travelling and although at this point it looks like we might be here for the fairs instead of away I just don't know yet so I will continue doing the shows for Rabbits BC and table writing when I can but the fair shows I am giving up for now.

Otherwise things are fine. Still have some very nice mini lops for sale :)

For Sale pages all updated!

2011-02-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

We have FINALLY updated our For Sale page with ALL new pictures & new animals!!

For Sale Mini Lops!

We have transport available to California for March 11, if anyone down in that area is interested... This transporter is also willing to ship out of the US to other states (for a fee of course), if anyone would like stock and have it shipped cheaper than from Canada!

The for sale list- updated website to come ASAP

2011-02-15T21:43:00.001-08:00

Ethan
Gold Tipped doe Honor Roll
Chris - broken black buck Cristina
California Girl - brk chestnut doe Brea
Becca - brk silver tipped Italy
Black buck Sweet Rayne (has a name... cant remember it!)
Rew doe Sweet Rayne
Broken Black doe Cristina
Chin doe Kia
Boston
tonka
Glee
Aaliyah
Silver tipped doe Kia
Belle
Preston
Broken silver tipped buck Charlotte
Sweet Rayne
Kat
Jamison
Annabelle
Arizona
Italy (I think we can sell her...)
Italy blue steel buck pet
Iris
Juliana
Superman
Heriot
Marabell

A bigger herd reduction

2011-02-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

Cristina and I talked, finally, and decided we want to further cut back on rabbits. We've decided to go down to 30. Cristina will be leaving soon for a few weeks at a time for work, and I'm busy with all my other activities and in all honesty, we have spent so much money on rabbits over the years it would be nice to continue to be able to spend more on ourselves and our homes and our vehicles etc.

I think we are around 60 right now, so we will have to cut in half again... Probably only selling 2 stackers.. both 5 holes that we used for growing out jrs. No point in selling too much in the way of cages because they are too expensive to replace.

So, although we won't be doing it for a few days e-mail us if your interested in any stock.

I do know 3 rabbits that will NOT be for sale- Hunter, Damien and Mr.Mustache those at least are what I think would never leave us, they will live out their days with us. I'm not sure who else Cristina is really attached to but I know Hunter for sure and I love the other 2.

Anyway I will blog again soon.... It will be a busy spring!

Decisions, decisions!

2011-01-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

It's really hard when deciding which core breeding stock to sell, and replace with offspring. We think we have it figured out, but then we rethink about it, and decide well maybe if we breed this one to that one ....

Anyway, we've had Brea up For Sale, but I think we are going to keep her around for another litter for now. So in order to do that we need to sell another one...

So Sweet Rayne was added For Sale. Sales have been null & void anyway, which is pretty common for the New Year/January. So it wasn't like we had someone waiting for Brea, otherwise we wouldn't be changing our minds!

However, Sweet Rayne is going to be replaced by 1 daughter (a REW) and 2 sons (Gold Tipped Steel, and Black). I'm sure eventually we will narrow that down, but for now we are going to keep these 3 back. Really really like these 3 juniors, and it makes it really tough, because you wonder well if we breed her to this other buck, those might be more really nice juniors... But there is only so much cage space!

Rather, we are going to keep Brea around, even though we have 2 really nice daughters from her, I want to breed her to either Hunter himself or one of his sons... I'm thinking possibly Zippy. But honestly Hunter himself would be a really good cross, same with Meet Me Halfway or Matt... Hmm...

As I cleaned stackers tonight I looked through all these juniors again... and I'm really really pleased with them all. I can see the major improvements Kim made last year, while I was away all Spring/Summer and part of the Fall. She did a fantastic job on the culling of the seniors. I see major improvements in the juniors produced.

It'll be interesting to see how they all turn out, thats for sure! Some will be ready for the first Spring shows, others won't be until the late Spring shows... But it'll keep our show team fresh, I hope!

So finalizing the end of 2010 litters, we have kept back 5 from Honor Roll X Diablo - a Opal buck, Blue Steel buck, and 3 Gold Tipped Steel does. 2 from Italy X Hunter - a Chestnut doe, and Silver Tipped Steel buck. 1 from Charlotte X Rome - a Broken Silver Tipped Steel buck. 1 from Aaliyah X Preston - a Gold Tipped Steel doe.

Sidney X Meet Me Halfway's babies are doing great. This will be our only litter for awhile, just bred those 2 does the other day... but it'll be nice to have a bit of a break, I think. We have lots of juniors growing out, to play with anyway!

2 blogs in 1 week... wow, we're on a roll!!!

No time for blogging!

2011-01-20T19:26:00.000-08:00

So we obviously have really slacked off on our blogging abilities lately, but it's not from the lack of having nothing to say, but rather not having enough time in a day!

Here is the low down on the Mini Lops:

We have several juniors in the barn right now, so if all goes as planned we hope to have a good Spring lineup of stock to show.

Besides for Sidney X Meet Me Halfway's new litter born yesterday (consisting of 1 solid Chestnut, 2 Broken Chestnuts, and 3 Charlie Chestnuts - but with enough color to show), all the other litters are 7 weeks plus.

I don't know if we have any other does bred at the moment, but I'm thinking not?!

Of our late Fall / early Winter babies we are going to grow out most of Italy X Hunter's litter (promising!), all of Honor Roll X Diablo's litter (promising as well!), 1 Gold Tipped Steel doe from Aaliyah X Preston. We haven't typed Charlotte X Rome's litter yet.

We were not impressed with the Kylee X Damian litter, so did not hold any of those bucks back. Her first litter with Hunter was a lot nicer (Zippy is really impressive!)...

We kept back a Chestnut buck from Marabell X Damian, really typey little fellow. Should hopefully be smaller than dad, but the width to crown and head already is quite impressive on this fellow!

From the Cristina X Boston litter we have 4 still, really like these guys. My personal favorites at the moment are the Charlie Black doe (showable), and Black doe. The head width coming in on these 2 does is great. Love the deep short bodies too. Not so fussy about the crowns, but time will tell... Also have a Broken Black doe & Broken Black buck from this cross, who are cute as well.

In Brea X dayton's litter we kept back 2 does, and I would say one of my favorite upcoming junior does that was born around this time is the Gold Tipped Steel doe from this litter. Really cute! The Broken Chestnut doe is promising as well.. I like!

Sweet Rayne X Storm have 2 very cute bucks we kept back, again the Gold Tipped Steel buck is probably a favorite, but the Black isn't shabby either. I just don't overly love Black color... but when they have type I have to suck it up & look past the color!

Before Trinity left to her new home we kept back 2 juniors from her. They are around 4 months (I think) now, and the Broken Black doe is probably the "it" junior under 5 months in the barn IMOP. These are out of Brayden... Super duper cute! The Black buck is nice as well, harder to pose, but he will for Kim (brat!) ... My money is on the doe though... :-) (It's an inside joke Kim and I have just for fun!)

There is a list of does who need to be bred over the next while. Some we'll wait until closer to Spring, others need to be bred sooner. Would love to clear out the Sale animals first though...

With VIRBA fast approaching we have been getting a tentative idea of which Seniors we might be showing, and possibly Juniors. I think we should have a fairly decent number to show. Guess would be about 15 at this point. Some Seniors that I really like but are right on that cuff for weight, so we'll see about that. Others are coming off litters and need to see if they get toned up in time for the show (girls, I think we might need to send you to Curves!!) Then all of those bucks... I think we'll have a new show team for 2011 Senior bucks though, we might bring 1 or 2 older ones out but would rather have the next generation get some showing in.

There are a couple of Hunter sons that I am quite looking forward to seeing how they do... Also a few Hunter daughters I quite like that are now Senior...

We hope to debut some of the juniors as well from the Fall litters, depending on who is gangly and who isn't!

There's the low down for tonight, can't remember anything else I was going to say... Check back for another blog maybe next week?!

2011 Resolutions Kim

2010-12-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is my 2011 Resolutions:

Rabbit related:

Continue with better organizational skills in keeping on top of tattooing, and pedigrees, cage tags on cages.

Continue working hard on the Mini lops, I have seen a huge improvement on hindquarters and depth this year, better consistency in litters etc. I would like to do a fair bit of line breeding this year, and have all our bucks in the barn Registered/Grand Champions. We've worked hard on this and have quite a few that are.

Grand my first Tri Mini lop!

Win a Best in Show in the US.

Non Rabbit related-

I think I have more non-rabbit related resolutions this year then any.

Travel- I want to spend a good part of the summer travelling, as I am ready to settle down and hopefully meet the right person and have a family some day and I want a summer of travelling before this hopefully all happens in the next few years!

Continue with my weight loss- I am proud of myself for what I completed this year, I have another goal for next year and although it is hard I know I can do it. I won't post how much I lost but I did very well!

This year I moved into my own place, and my ultimate other large goal would be to figure out a career so I can move into a larger place... I need to do a career change that makes much better money.

Fix up my truck- my truck is a nice truck but there are things that need to be done, either to fix it up to keep long term, or fix it up to sell and trade up.

And again, pay off those darn VISA's and don't rack them up again....

My last years resolutions:

2010-12-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

My 2010 New Years Resolutions, I will figure out 2011 resolutions soon. See how I did!
My Rabbit Resolutions:

Keep better track of rabbit's purchased, sold, and feed money(where is the money going!) Kind of completed but not very well.

Get better at keeping up with tattooing and pedigrees. Some of the rabbits end up being 5 months before being tattooed and their pedigree printed off. Because their are 2 of us and only 110 holes we can keep track in our heads but not a good idea to do, so we need to get better! Again got better at doing this, but still need to improve.

Improve the Depth and Density in my Mini rex- Did do very well in them, sold the breed this year to concentrate soley on Mini lops. Would say this was completed.

Keep working on improving the French lops. I like where I am going in them. Work on getting more litters since I have not bred anything LOL SOLD this breed

Better organization in the barn- buy a 5 tier unit to hold clean water bottles, and one to hold clean dishes. Absolutely Completed!

Buy a small fridge for the barn- Did not need this

Hook up hot water in the barn!- Moved to the farm instead, so no current need for hot water in the barn

Do as well as we did the Summer of 2007 and 2008 with numerous Best in Shows. 2 Best in Shows, and 2 Best of the Best opposites one weekend, and 2 Best in shows again with many good wins so completed this!

My ultimate rabbit goal this year would be a Best in Show in all 4 of the breeds... At least once! Sold all but one breed, so this did not happen!

My Personal resolutions:

Pay off both my VISA cards- Paid off one, but have since put it back up, the other is almost paid off.

Keep better track of where my money is going- figure out a monthly plan. Yes, have done this since moving out absolutely.

Walk the dogs at least 3 times a week at least 2 KM. Really good until this bad weather hit- getting back on track!

Lose " " this many pounds. Lost my entire goal, another goal for this year for sure!

I think these are many things to work with. Last year I wasn't really into New Years resolutions and I don't think I even thought about them after the 31st of December. This year I want to complete and succeed with all these things. Wish me luck!

Babies, Babies, and more babies!

2010-12-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

We have lots on the go right now with babies.The does were all very receptive and willing to breed.

Sweet Rayne has a very nice litter of Gold tipped steels, chins, REW's.

Dream on Boys has a very cute litter of a cream, broken fawn, broken blue tort, charlie blue tort and a broken tort.

Cristina(the rabbit !) has a litter of blacks and broken blacks

Marabell has a nice litter of chestnuts and steels out of Damien with his fat head and very good bone!

Brea has a litter of rews, and broken chestnuts and steels etc

And Italy has a litter fostered to Brea and Dream on Boys all brokens

Then new litters- Honor roll, Italy, Kylee, Aliyah, and Charlotte all have litters in the box. Our broken blue doe has one baby fostered to Kylee. I plan to breed Dizzy and the broken blue doe again shortly, that will be all the litters for a few months for us!

We havent had a lot of time lately to look at the older juniors but the last i looked we were pleased with how they are turning out. Next show for us is February - VIRBA, so we are looking forward to that!

All the other critters are fine. The cows and rabbits are going to get a really good bale of alfalfa for Christmas- something they never get(well once a year, for Christmas!). The cats and dogs will all get special treats, and new toys!

Start of pictures!

2010-11-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the Chinchilla doe we are keeping out of Kia X Jamison.

She is quite a nice doe, pleased with how her type is starting to fill out, but she needs a lot more time to develop.

We are also keeping a very cute Broken Black doe out of Trinity X Brayden, who is a replacement for her mom & dad (we do have 1 other litter by Brayden in the box which is about 3 1/2 weeks old so we may keep another offspring from Brayden depending on what there is!)

Here is a Cream junior buck, not sure on his type yet, but he is super cute! Out of Dream on Boy X Creamsicle.

Changes in the barn & Mini Lops

2010-11-18T17:36:00.001-08:00

With all our cut backs we have been re-designing our setup. Today we took the 14 cages that are sold out, and moved the 3 stainless stackers along the left side of the barn, along with the barn cabinet.

There is SO much more space in there now!!

We still have 2 of the stackers at the back of the barn to go (need to have the rabbits go first though), and 2 cavy stackers need to go as well (they are sitting there empty).

Very pleased with how the barn is shaping up though.

As far as the Mini Lops go, we are quite pleased with the quality of our summer juniors. Like always we have things we want to work on, but there are some pretty decent juniors we are growing out in a variety of colors (we have a super cute Tri-color doe, and Brk Sable steel doe)...

The Fall litters are coming along as well. We have kept back a broken black doe from Trinity X Brayden, which we really like. Also a Chinchilla doe from Kia X Jamison whom we also are impressed with. There are others in these litters we like too, but have kept ourselves to only keep 1 per litter (if anyone wants a nice G'Tp Steel doe out of Kia X Jamison there is a nice doe...)

The last batch of litters are still in the box, although first look at typing today looks quite promising.

We will be selling more animals as we replace stock with younger juniors, so if you are interested in something let us know... :-)

Pictures to come soon on either the website or blog!! Will do updated junior pictures at some point... this year!!! (Of the new juniors, we did do pictures like a week or 2 ago, so lots of new ones on the website then!)

All of this and none of that!

2010-10-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

We have turned into terrible bloggers!

I have to say though that life is busier then ever and this could be why. Actually, I am sure this is why! Plus there is only so much I can remember from week to week LOL

And you don't want to hear about all the boring life stuff only the rabbit stuff, and so that is what I'm going to write about.

Anyway!!

As you saw in the last blog we are drastically downsizing for a number of reasons:
Costs of raising this many rabbits is very,very high!
Time! and life changes are happening all the time as we get older : )

This Friday and Saturday we are having a big farm sale- from 1pm to 5pm at the farm on Friday and from 11-3 on Saturday October 30th. All the cages and stackers are now sold, however, we do have carriers, feeders(?) water bottles, horse water buckets, and lots of good quality Mini lops available!

I couldn't believe how fast the cages and stackers sold. I think the carriers and feeders are likely all sold too. The New Zealands are also sold.

The big animal related news around here is Cristina got a Saint Bernard Puppy! She is so bloody cute and sweet! She looks like a stuffed dog literally and is very very sweet! Luke is not too happy about this but we move this coming weekend so he'll be fine. He will be back to his spoiled one dog self : ) Unless I can convince my landlord that he needs a buddy and I doubt that is going to happen : )

Anyway big farm sale this weekend- lots for sale! Looking forward to this major downsize, Will give us 51 holes to work with, and we are keeping 39 Mini lops.

Even more cutbacks!!!

2010-10-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

We are holding a very large rabbit and equipment sale at our farm on November 6th at 11am.

Cristina and I really want to cut back, and, we have lots available! Again, we are NOT selling out, nor, are we even thinking of that however we would like to get down to under 40 rabbits.

Some of the stuff for sale:

Mini lops- very good quality animals. Some brought back from 2009 San Diego convention - REG/GC's etc. We've kept only the best for this big sale. Prices are $40-150.
Pair of beautiful red New Zealands- $75.00
Rabbit Feeders- all plastic EZ Feeders
Water bottles
Some used nestboxes
Big horse water troughs- retail at $25.00 each- fabulous condition
Cages- 14 cages with trays- left side of the barn in the pic on the website(rabbitry page). Must sell as a complete set. $300 as a set, 14 holes. $375 with water bottles and feeders. A fabulous deal!
Stackers- 2 Grandview Rabbitry stackers- with legs, we paid over $550 with shipping for these- with handles to pull out the trays. HATE to see these go as we LOVE them. $200 ea.
5 hole 18 by 24- $125- rabbits sit on shavings
5 hole 24 by 24- rabbits sit on shavings with plastic duratrays. $140

We have added another 6 rabbits to the For Sale pages too - we officially are keeping 39 rabbits. Although we will still have 51 cages, we would have to do some MAJOR renos to get rid of more cages, so will just keep them for now...

Basically if you are interested in anything left on the website, email & make an offer. We want to move them out ASAP, so will give discounts or throw an extra one in if you buy more than a few... But email see what we can work out!!

Major cut backs

2010-09-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

I finally got up the nerve to tell Cristina(who lives on Quadra Island now) that I would like to cut back to 40 rabbits because I just don't have time anymore with everything else I want to do in life, and I don't find this very much fun anymore by myself either! It feels like I have another job on top of my 9-5:30 job.

So, a huge for sale list will be coming as to cut back to 40 animals is selling all that we have for sale now plus over 40 more coming up for sale....

k_c_lops@telus.net or tini67p@telus.net

Many new for sale animals

2010-09-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

We have made a lot of hard decisions this weekend trying to make some much needed cage space!

Here is the list:

Chestnut buck Trinity X Gus- Nice and promising guy, but we have way too many solid bucks, would like to see him a bit shorter in body. $50

Titan- Gold tipped Steel buck. Shown twice in August- placed 3rd of 8 both shows. Very promising buck, we simply do not need another solid buck. $75

Broken Chin Senior doe Rosalind X Gus- more brood in type with fabulous hindquarters and very nice head,ear,crown. $50

Mitchells Snoopy- Broken gold tipped steel senior doe- after litter $40

REW jr buck- Annabelle X Oxford- very nice type, would like to see a stronger head. $50

Poseys Discovery- Broken chestnut senior buck- Rosalind X Gus- plan to use him before he goes. Excellent width throughout, very good head,ear,crown and bone. Lacks depth of body is the only reason he is being sold. Very good points on this buck we are just wayyyyy too buck heavy! $75

Poseys Chin jr doe- Very promising jr doe, we are keeping her chestnut sister. Was a hard decision. Kitsembles Sidney REG GC and Poseys Hunter(5 legs with 3 BIS) $75

Poseys Silver tipped steel jr buck- Hunter and Rosalee- very promising buck, again being cut because we dont need another solid buck! $75

Poseys gold tipped steel buck- Hunter and Rosalee- could use more depth of body in our opinion but nice and promising! $50

Poseys REW jr doe- Poseys Milky Way 1 BIS win X REG GC Minterbrooks Roo- unshowable due to no tail is the only reason she is being sold. She is a very nice doe we just dont need another! $50

RDs Chestnut buck- Harlequin carrier- would like to see more depth to go with his width and bone and head. Very promising buck for a tri program but Ive decided to keep my Tri buck and I will use the chestnuts I have instead to keep cage space opened up a bit. $50

Poseys REW doe - Laynie X Evan $50- Nice doe, needing more width in the head

Poseys Broken black jr buck- Dream on Boys X Evan- super deep buck, lacking in head right now and a little long in bone. if you need depth in your herd, this is the buck for you! $35

Poseys Preston- Gold tipped steel senior buck- producing extremeley short and deep kids! We are keeping a son and daughter for sure. We just need to make room. He himself lacks in the lower HQ and could use a broader head is not throwing either of these! $50

Poseys Black buck- Dream on Boys X Evan- very massive and smooth buck. I really like this buck but he has 2 things that are making him up for sale- one he is a solid, and 2 he has some scattered white hairs. $35

Poseys Chin doe- Annabelle X Oxford- really like this doe but we are going to keep her chin brother and Broken sable steel sister. $75

Poseys Pacheena- Gold tipped steel senior doe, just weaning her first litter and is an awesome mom. Brood doe for sure, we are keeping a REW doe to replace her from this litter. $50

2 sable jr does from Ritters Gillian and GC Minterbrooks Roo- we are keeping a doe from this litter. $35 each

Gold tippe steel jr doe from Maverick(Hunters brother) and Lynettes broken chestnut doe. Awesome bone on this doe, with a great coby body. Would like to see more depth. $35

Poseys Davinci- Broken silver tipped steel buck excellent head,ear,crown,bone and depth and lower hq. Is not yet proven have only tried him with one doe and will use him this week . Can not be shown due to a torn ear at birth. $

Poseys trinity- Black senior doe- nice doe unshowable as she has only one ear, excellent mom. Needs to be rebred we have way too many brood does! $40

REG GC Minterbrooks Roo- REW senior buck- weve decided to go with the broken sable chin buck from Braxtin as his replacement. Beautiful buck always in the top of the solid senior buck class but we are going to keep a sable daughter from him. And will use him before he goes as well.

Poseys MK2- REW senior doe- weaning a litter off right now, first litter excellent mom. This doe is very nice with a BOB win under her belt, we just need to make cage space. $75

Poseys Broken chestnut senior doe- keeping 2 bucks from her first litter to replace her. Nice doe, just cant beat her sons or brother we are keeping. Excellent mom! $50

2 gold tipped steel jr bucks- our first Damien litter(Reg and soon to be granded) out of Rosalind. We are keeping the chestnut doe and broken chestnut buck from this litter. Not sure how they will turn out but so far the one is nicely balanced and the other is very deep. $30 each.

Chin doe from Charley X hunter- just cant beat the others in the litter but not a bad doe at all! $35

White jr buck from Pacheena X Gus- very nice body, we just dont need another solid buck!! $35

Broken black jr buck from Alexis and Jamison incredibly deep! Not showable due to a tear in his ear. If you want deep and short this buck is for you... I really think he is going to look just like Dad but is going to take a lot of time. We are keeping the gold tipped buck from this litter. $40

Black doe Pacheena X Gus- promising doe- hold Julie

I think that is it.... lots of good animals for sale! We came home with 3 this weekend so we really need to consider cage space!! A broken blue buck and doe, and a chocolate buck....

A whole bunch of new sale animals

2010-08-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Cristina has been down for the past couple of days- finally. And I told her she had to make some decisions in that barn because I needed help! We have way too many juniors coming up for cage space.
\

For sale animals:

gold tipped steel buck- Rosalie X Hunter
REW doe- Laynie X Evan
REW doe- Laynie X Evan- Sold SH
REw buck- Annabelle X Oxford- Sold SH
REW buck- Annabelle X Oxford
Broken Chin doe- Rosalind X Gus- possibly bred 08/27/10
Posey's Davinci
Posey's Titan- 3/8 both times shown, just have way too many solid bucks. Gold tipped steel.
Posey's ? Chestnut buck- Trinity X Gus
Broken black jr buck- Alexis X Jamison
Black buck Dream on boys X Evan
Broken black buck Dream on Boys X Evan

There is a start... pics to come on website hopefully within the next week.

k_c_lops@telus.net

A great showing at VIEX, and winding down the summer

2010-08-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the VIEX, my favorite show of the year. Although this year was a little more stressful then most. My truck was broken into and they tried to hotwire it. Thankfully my beautiful Golden Retriever Luke barked and scared whoever it was, off. I then bought an alarm to install into the truck to better protect it. I also told my family I should get a 150lb Rottweiller like my old guy Harley was lol! Okay, maybe I just want another Rottweiler one day!

As well, when Luke and I went for a run earlier that evening some guy came out of the bushes and I'm not sure what he was doing- he was drunk but he made us run the opposite direction and pretty fast. It was scary.

I also managed to lose my friends cell phone, have all kinds of problems with the cavy sanction for VIEX, forget about needing the charters for the fair sanctions, spent way too much money and had to borrow a bunch, and had problems doing a shipment of rabbits yet again to Ontario. This time Air Canada wouldn't accept the crate that had ORIGINALLY flown with them. So, needless to say I wasn't impressed.

The show went great- and I already did a reply on facebook to everyone that I was not myself and stressed so if I seemed grumpy that is why!!

Posey's Damien won Best of Breed under Jan Coffelt, congrats to Sophia Marchetti on her BOS win with her very pretty broken doe! We had 1st solid jr buck and doe, and Jamison won BOSV broken and 1st broken senior buck.

Under Cliff Dick we did exceptionally well winning BOB with a Broken jr doe, and BOS with Jamison. We also won the solid jr buck class, Senior buck class, Senior doe class and jr doe class in solids. BOV Broken, BOSV broken. We only entered a few brokens- Anne Marie shouldn't have come but I was trying to find something in brokens to show so I entered her, she had just weaned her litter a few weeks before and although felt great she is just no longer a show doe!! Damian also managed an honorable mention BIS.

We also sold 4 rabbits to Stan and Kathy Mobey, 2 to Colette Savarie, and 2 pets as well. It was a good show!

Congrats to all the winners! Tammi Knox had BOS with her Harlequin, and BOB with her Mini rex. Saskia Knox had BOB with her Mini rex the next show as well! Lita Laktin had 1st black Silver Marten jr buck and did well with her harlequins as well. Both girls were very excited to bring home 2 chocolate havana does that are bred. We will see about getting Saskia a few more mini rex soon and Lita a few more harlequins... shh.. don't tell the girls we don't want them too excited(I do want to be able to hear!)

Tonight I am dogsitting for my Aunt so I have more time to write blogs. Her dogs and I went for a 2 mile walk(she said she actually clocked it, so it is actually 2 miles) earlier this afternoon.

Next weekend is Saanich Fair and we've entered about 15 rabbits. Lita has 4 entered as well- 3 Mini lops and a Silver Marten. Saskia will be entering some Mini rex and Tammi is planning on entering a few as well(Mini lops that is)

The litters are all doing very well. A little too young to type yet but I have big hopes for all these guys as always. Our goal for the next round of litters(I have 2 litters due this weekend, plus I just bred 5 more does with at least 5 more does to breed) next goal is producing more quality brokens, and, becoming more consistent in the herd!

After Saanich is Cowichan fair which is a double open, single youth. And then the following weekend just the Saturday is Luxton Fair.

Otherwise not much else to report that I can think of at the moment... Thought I should finally write a blog!

My one bit of exciting news is I have a tri litter due tomorrow! I am very much looking forward to this litter!!

Lots happening

2010-08-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

What a crazy summer. Well, I know I always say my life is crazy but I'm telling you this summer has been insane! Lots of fun though!

We are gearing up for VIEX this coming weekend on top of everything else. I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the Midway or the rabbit show at this point.

I figured out our show entries late last night, we have 22 Mini lops entered this weekend. It will be a very busy weekend.

Rabbits are all doing well. This weather is too hot for me and them though. It is supposed to be about 37 celcius here today. I like it about 80 F, so this is way too warm LOL!
I am however going to go suntanning today since I haven't taken a day all summer to do anything like that. I also am getting my hair streaked and layered at noon today !

Cristina and I will hopefully have quite a few Mini lops for sale at the show this weekend. We have not enough empty holes for all the new litters coming up so we must make some room! We have 43 new babies in the nestboxes with a few more does bred. Actually, may only be 2 but still!

I actually realized we have a couple of does that are over a year old that haven't been bred yet.. I must breed them otherwise it could be a bad scenario. The weather is supposed to cool down by the weekend. I entered the one doe in the show because she isn't bred but I will probably breed her over the weekend.

There are some very nice Mini lops in the barn right now. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do this weekend. Some actually have fur right now too with this weather!

Otherwise not a lot to report. I haven't honestly spent alot of time in the barn this summer. I've spent most of it travelling and spending time with friends. I did get the barn power washed last week though which was a great thing to do. I am paying two teenage girls to get all the carriers ready today for the show this weekend since they were looking for extra ways to earn money.

Last few Hollands for sale

2010-07-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

Possibly Creator's Zip since it doesn't seem to be working out transport wise... Will know more later this weekend. Zip is $100.00

Creator's Olive- I paid $60 for Olive, am asking $40. Super sweet doe, threw a gorgeous fawn buck with Beach Boy a broken cream buck.

Creator's Bindi- Black/Orange Harlequin doe- I paid $75 for Bindi, asking $40.

I also have babies:
Frosted pearl jr buck- nice, show quality $25

Tri Jr doe- pet quality $25

Black/Orange Harlequin jr buck $25

Black/Orange Harlequin Jr buck- $25

Black/Orange Harlequin jr doe- $25 looks like the other black/orange harlequin buck above(2 above).

Wow, all these blogs lately!

2010-07-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I am suddenly writing all these blogs, actually, I do. At the moment I am waiting until 6:00 or later to give the next door neighbours cat a pill. If the cat doesn't get the pill every 12 hours he has seizures. I don't want to give it any earlier then 6pm as otherwise I have to get up that much earlier and give it to him tomorrow morning before 6am... yuck! so I am waiting until 6pm... That way I can do it between 6-6:30 tomorrow morning no problem. And not 5:30-6 ; )

Anyway, I haven't done chores yet either. I got out of work at 4:30 and was supposed to head to a birthday party at a restaurant in Nanaimo but I couldn't leave until chores were done and had to wait around for this cat. The party was to start at 7 and I would have had to feed as much as I could with the rabbits, come to Chemainus and tend to the cat, then head back to the farm after 6pm to feed the rest, and then off to Nanaimo. So I decided that was way too hectic even for me... I am doing a rain check with him in a few weeks and will have a nice birthday lunch instead! And too much gas money and what not too. You tend to watch how much you drive when you drive a V8.

Tonight I am hoping after chores to either get the rest of the feeders in the pool cleaned and bottles cleaned etc, or to start on the lower barn nest boxes... I will be in the barn very early again tomorrow morning if I have to tend to this cat at 6 or 6:30... So, I won't be in the barn too late tonight.

I am happy to report most of the Hollands are spoken for. However I do have the following still available: Would love to sell as a package!

Fawn Jr buck- definite show quality
Malibu- Harlequin senior doe(black/orange)
Hailey- Harlequin jr doe- black/orange
Broken tort jr doe
Bindi- Black/Orange Harlequin Senior doe

I would like to sell this package of nice animals for $175.00

k_c_lops@telus.net

I am looking forward to another day spent on the farm tomorrow with the dogs... I was supposed to go watch movies with friends tonight, and then I had many options for tomorrow- river tubing again, to a friends in Victoria, dog sitting for the night(paid with dinner) but I am going to play in the barn LOL! Sorry guys in case you read this, I do love you all. I just want to play with the bunnies!

Well it is quarter to 6 this has taken about 10 mins.... What else can I write.

Litters are all fine. Although website is not updated.

We have a cute Siamese sable jr doe available out of Storm Warning X Anne Marie.. Keeping the REW doe in the litter. This is Mini lops now.

Lots of nice quality Mini lops available as well.

Well... I will slowly walk next door!!

What a productive day!

2010-07-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

I am so impressed with how much Lita and I got done today, and then Tim came around 4:00? And helped us with many other things.

First, I cleaned the lower barn and outside hutch, and was just starting on the main barn when Lita came in and came to help me. We got the whole barn cleaned (which of course gets done every week, but with a 2nd person helping it does go so much faster!)

After we got all the cleaning just about done we decided we needed Ice Cream so off to Dairy Queen we went for a treat. Anyone that knows me knows I really don't like Ice Cream but even I felt the need for something cool!

We got back to the farm and finished the cleaning then started organizing the barn. With Cristina gone I've been finding it difficult to keep on top of all the regular cleaning and keeping things neat and tidy. I can keep things clean but the tidy part left awhile ago.. So all the nestboxes came out and got cleaned and disinfected and re-hung up. That in itself was a major job because first we had to dispose of a lot of feed bags that had ended up in the back alley of the barn. Then we found 3 cat chairs that we bought a few years ago, a tunnel and another cat scratching post. We cleaned the chairs and filled the swimming pool(kid swimming pool) with a mild bleach solution and stuck all the feeders and water bottles and crocks we found in the barn. By this time Lita and I were pretty hot and sticky, she is not one to get hot and she was sweating LOL!
So then we were finishing up to start sweeping when Tim came. I got him cutting feeder holes and we got every single rabbit in the barn with a feeder now. They almost all had them before but 3 stackers did not, so we did that.

Then we started to hook up water bottles instead of 20 oz crocks to all the rabbits as bottles are so much easier. I ran out of bottles so I ordered 30 more and they should be getting shipped out anytime.

Now, my next job - oh I also put the bale of hay in the bin, fed the rest to the horses, and cleaned a little bit of that aisle and gave the rest of the chicken food to my uncle for his chickens and put the hay bin in that spot and the ground flax container as well.

So my next job is the outside hutch will need feeders for Cristina when she takes it, and then I want to work on a few more things in the main barn. Then when I have 2 weeks off in August I will power wash the entire barn as well.

But, I am very happy with everything we got done. I want to clean under neath the barn ASAP as we have so much stuff stored under there, and then find a better place to keep our show carriers. Otherwise I am happy with how today went.

We also went through junior litters and decided on our keepers:

Aliyah X Hunter- 4 keepers! Broken chestnut buck, Broken gold tipped and Broken silver tipped they were one of each, and a broken chin buck.

Cricket- Broken sable steel doe

Milky- Rew doe
Rew doe
REw buck

Anne Marie
REW doe-
Really wanted to keep the tort and Siamese sable buck they just can't beat the others and we are SO tight on cage space... I will wait to see what else we throw for torts!

Alexis-
Black buck
Broken black buck

So that was my day.. now work for 2 days again(ugh!) and then I have Saturday off.. Then work for another 4 days and Thursday off... I wish it went back to 2 days in a row off LOL!
Whine,Whine- I guess I'm human. If a human isn't whining they are dead ;)

Posey's Kia

2010-07-14T07:10:00.001-07:00

Tammi has decided to keep Kia's 2 kids, and sell Kia.

Posey's Kia is available
Mini lop- Silver Tipped Steel
Posey's Braxtin X Posey's Carrie Ann

e-mail Tammi Knox
E-mail Address(es):
Tam4Jesus@shaw.ca

Can't seem to find a pic of her at the moment. Very deep doe, brood in type now, throwing very nice babies! Tammi is keeping her REW buck and Chin doe out of a breeding from us- by Storm Warning.

Prices reduced

2010-07-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

I must make cage space, badly!

All the Senior hollands have been price reduced to $40-50 each. I paid at least $60 each for those Hollands and most were $75-80 up to $125.

All the junior hollands are $25.00 each.

Contact info-
k_c_lops@telus.net

Sale fell through a few more Hollands available

2010-07-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

A few more Hollands are available.

Creator's Zip: Creator's NiteLite X Creator's Aurora- BMR, Creator's, SLR, ELS lines.
Pending Sale
Tri Color Senior buck- beautiful colored buck, very good head, ear, crown and bone. Very nice size! Just over 3.0lbs(3.02) Would fault him on needing a stronger topline, and he is a bit pinched. I paid $125 for him, am asking $100.00.

Creator's Sweetness- Harlie Senior doe- Awesome mom, typey doe throwing very nice kids! TM's Oxford X Forget Me Not Pekoe. Is half american fuzzy lop, has not been throwing fuzzy lops. Has had one litter for me. I paid $80 for her.

Creator's Bindi- Harlequin-Black/Orange- Creator's Bundy X Creator's Mya- BMR, Creator's, Sunny's, PSP lines and Forget Me Not. $75.00 is what I paid.

Holland lops for sale all babies reduced to $25

2010-07-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

I somehow missed Lite Brite before? Here she is pics above, Creator's Lite Brite- Tri Senior doe
Awesome mom, producing very nice babies! SOLD

Finally, all the Hollands for sale are here... Cristina is So, So busy that I hate to ask her to put up a page only to be taken down again, so I thought I can take the time this afternoon since I got all the barn cleaning done for the day by 1:00 by starting extra early! Anyway, I figured I would get a blog made up.

So to start I will list the Seniors not listing the ones that are pending.

Creator's Lite Brite:

Creator's Zebra SOLD- Magpie Senior buck- producing beautiful babies! I paid $80 for him and am asking this. DOB: July 10, 2009. Creator's Saturn X Creator's Crumpet- Creator, BMR lines.

Creator's Olive- Black/Orange Harlequin- July 29, 2009. Regent's Tango X Creator's Olivia. Awesome mom, nice producer. Very nice fawn jr buck out of her, plus a nice Tri Jr doe both for sale. I paid $60 for Olive, am asking $50.

Creator's Malibu- a big brood doe. Creator's Red Rave(Red) X Creator's Lite Brite. This doe produced a beautiful Black/Orange Harlequin jr doe also for sale "Hailey". BMR, Creators, and Forget Me not lines. I paid $75 for her, asking $40.00 with a free breeding to either Zip or Zebra, or a tort buck of a friends.

Juniors:

Where to start!

Fawn Jr buck
Tri Jr doe- SOLD
Out of Creator's Olive X Creator's Beach Boy
Absolutely love the Fawn jr buck, was the pick of all the juniors that round of breedings. He is smack dab in the middle of ganglies, as is his sister the Tri but he is going to be very,very nice! Price Reduced on ALL juniors $25 each!

Creator's Malibu X Creator's Zip
Black/Orange Harlequin Jr doe- "Hailey"
Very promising type, wish she was shorter in the shoulder with a stronger topline. Like everything else on her. $40.00 super personality! Price Reduced $25

Price reduced on all babies to $25 each.
L&R Melody X Creator's Zip
Fuzzy Holland Tri Jr buck- adorable, touch long in body, beautiful head,ear,crown, width! $40
Broken Tort Jr doe- Very promising doe. Would like to see a little more bone. $40

The battle of the bucks!

2010-06-22T20:52:00.000-07:00

Who wants a buck? We've got lots to choose from! Mini lops of course

This week I plan and hope to go through bucks in the barn... I have Thursday and Saturday off so I hope one of those days to go through the boys and decide who needs to go! I know we have lots.. there will also likely be some junior does coming up for sale, and possibly a few Senior does as well. We have lots of juniors to keep so we should move along a few others. We also have a ton of babies in the nestboxes and more does I need to breed!

Lots of very nice bucks will be for sale, simply because it was a spring of beautiful bucks!!!

Hopefully I can work on website updates and get it updated this weekend- well Cristina updating and me taking pics and figuring out who to keep and who can go....

If interested send us an e-mail k_c_lops@telus.net as I am going to get back to everyone on the waiting list in the next week.

A sigh of relief?

2010-05-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

So with numbers being down from where they were I am breathing a huge sigh of relief! It feels so much nicer to have fewer rabbits! I am actually able to enjoy the rabbits again without spending my entire days off just cleaning rabbits, and my evenings spent just doing chores. That doesn't mean to say I don't spend at least 8 hours a week cleaning and another 2-3 hours a night doing chores but that is better then the 2-3 hours a night plus 3 -8 hour days of chores/cleaning I was doing!

We just have a few Mini rex left for sale, and all the Hollands are still available plus we have 14 new babies in the nestboxes. We are wanting the Hollands to go to already established breeders wishing to continue with the Hollands where we are leaving off(and of course where Sherri left off) and keep improving the Tri's and Harlequins.

The mini rex left for sale are:

Black Jr buck- KT's Jimmy X KT's Anonymity
Black JR doe- KT's Song Sung Blue X S&K Black buck
Opal jr buck
$35 each to move them out!

And we have some wonderful pets looking for forever homes-
A broken castor young doe- 4 months
Broken black buck- 3 months
Red Senior buck- 3 years

All the calves were sold and our 5 keeper cows are out on pasture for awhile so that helps on the feed bill. They don't need any grain right now either they are well... a little fat LOL!
So we just have the horse(Susie), the ducks and chickens, and chicks and ducklings and rabbits/cats/dogs.

I would like to cut back on ducks still but they are all still setting and hatching ducklings so I am waiting for everyone to hurry up and finish... So far we have 2 Pekin ducklings that have hatched and another 3 Muscovies this past week with 4 more girls sitting on eggs... Total of 5 ducklings so far and lots more to come....

Lots of babies right now- Mini lops and Holland lops. Harlies, Tri's, Broken and solid tort in the HOllands. The Mini's are all Siamese Sable, REW, Chin,black, Sable chin, Broken and solid chestnut.

Anyway all is well and there is an update!

For Sale Mini Lops!

2010-05-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

We have updated our Mini Lop for sale page with 3 new sale animals.

For Sale page

We may have more available soon as well!

More updates

2010-04-23T20:48:00.001-07:00

Our Mini rex for sale page has been updated, all the available Mini rex are on there now. I have culled heavily and those are the best of the best. I also have 6 pet quality animals looking for homes if anyone is interested actually 8- a red senior buck and a castor senior doe are looking for pet homes as well. The buck has many Grand Champion legs but appears to be sterile unfortunetly. The other pet quality animals are a booted castor buck(11 weeks old and his 2 sisters- a booted castor and a charlie castor). 2 broken black bucks and a black buck.

The Ducks for sale left are:
Blue Muscovy drake- beautiful!
Blue/White Muscovy duck
2 blue Cayuga/Buff Orpington cross ducks

The calves are both available and I put their price at $300 but my uncle says $350. Both are heifers- half holstein and half black angus.

Hollands for sale

2010-04-23T19:13:00.001-07:00

Creator's Lite Brite- Tri Senior doe- BMR Pluto X Creator's PopCorn- $80.00

Creator's Malibu- Creator's Red Rave(Red) X Creator's Lite Brite- $75.00

Creator's Olive- Harlequin Senior doe- bred to Creator's Beach Boy April 8th. Regent's Tango(broken orange) X Creator's Olivia $60.00

Creator's Sun Bun- Broken Orange, 1 leg. Lucky Lop's Fire(Red) X Creator's Crumpet- $75.00

Creator's Zebra- Magpie Senior buck- Creator's Saturn X Creator's Crumpet- $80.00

Creator's Zip- Tri Color Senior buck- $125.00- Creator's Nite Lite X Creator's Aurora

Creator's Sweetness- TM's Oxford(AFL) X Forget Me Not Pekoe- $80.00

Creator's Bindi- Creator's Bundy X Creator's Mya- $75.00

k_c_lops@telus.net

Prices are firm, no discounts with the Hollands as they were what I paid just 6 weeks ago before situations and circumstances changed.

Cavies for sale

2010-04-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

To save Cristina's money(since where she is working she has to buy internet time) I am posting the pics on this blog(since I have no idea how to update a website!). The first blog will be the available cavies:

Red/White Senior sow $10
Golden agouti/White Senior boar $15
TSW Jr sow $25
Silver Agouti/White Senior boar $30

All Silkies, the others are all sold, thank you!

2010-04-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

This may seem repetitive, but with Cristina now working out of town, and
with non-reliable farm help we have to cut back on our work load with the
rabbits.

We need to get back to just 1 barn of rabbits, therefore, we have to pick
just 1 breed to keep. That breed is the Mini Lops.

Hence, we are going to let the Holland's & Mini Rex go. The Holland's will
be priced at what we paid for them.

The list of Holland's:

Cream harlie doe - 85.00- beautiful! Pending
LiteBrite - 80.00
ZIP - 125.00
Olive - 60.00
Zebra - 80.00
Tumble - 125.00 SOLD
Sweetness - 80.00
Tri Star - 125.00 - SOLD
Bindi - 75.00
Malibu - 75.00
SunBun - 75.00
Triden Jr Tri Buck - 50.00- Sold
Tri-Mark-$75 - SOLD

L&R Melody-$60 SOLD

Some of the above are on Sherri's website still on the Tri pages.

List of Mini Rex:

See website, http://www.sunnybrookrabbitry.net/MiniRex.html

Also have junior Mini Rex available in the boxes and more than what is on
website! Way more then on the website actually- castor doe with 3 Best in Shows, and at least 4 legs and many others....

Mini Lops:

Posey's Boston - Broken black buck
Velotta's Hydro - Broken Black buck

Pictured on the Mini Lop pages!

Cavies- may just keep a pair, may only keep 1... I'm not sure yet but all cavies are for sale.... Need to simplify my life...Did I even spell that right? LOL

Double Best in Show wins!

2010-04-18T20:31:00.001-07:00

Rabbits BC held a double Open show yesterday here on the Island. We had lots of fun, and the judges were great! It was a long day though.

Under Cliff Dick we had BOB with 'Hunter' who then went on to take Best In Show for his granding leg !!
Kylee was BOS, even though her coat is slipping. For her granding leg. Excellent comments on both of them! Sweet Rayne is totally blowing her coat, but Cliff placed her 2nd SSD. He LOVED her, and said get her in prime fur and he thinks she'll do great!
Storm Warning was 2nd SSB, also with excellent comments. Just couldn't touch Hunter.

Congrats to Jody Mitchell on her BOV broken Sr buck - he was super cute!

Under Doug Sprague we had BOB again with Hunter - who then went on to take Best in Show again!!!!
Kylee also took BOS, and Oxford was BOV broken for his 2nd leg (was 2nd in the 1st show).

So it was a great day of showing with Double Best in Show wins!!! Will post pictures when we get them emailed to us...

Some other things have come up though, so we will be re-arranging our barns, making it into just 1 barn again with me away so much. So, look for some changes to come with animals available (possibly some Mini Lops, but not too many)... I need to find time to decide on some of them, but we will write a blog soon about what IS available.

A new endeavour?

2010-03-28T08:28:00.001-07:00

Where do I start... The past couple of weeks have been insanely crazy!

Cristina and I heard the sad news that Sherri Evan's of Creator's Critters was selling her entire herd of Hollands and Mini rex. I didn't do anything the first couple of days- telling myself to think about it. Then I just couldn't stand the thought of all of Sherri's years of hard work on Tri Hollands leaving the Island... So I went ahead and e-mailed her, with Cristina's permission to get a trio of Tri Hollands. That weekend Tammi and I went to Sooke to take a look. Cristina of course being up Island so we just had to text her to let her know.

So that first day we came home with not 3 but 10 rabbits. I know, insane! And then we decided to purchase 8 more.. So in total we now have 18 hollands plus one more new doe from Wally Holden. All Tri and Harlies except one Broken tort, one broken cream, and 2 broken oranges. Oh, and a red buck as well : )

As time permits we will start taking pics to get them on the website! We want to continue where Sherri left off with her hard work and see where we go. As Sherri said she figured another year or two and her Tri's could be competing just about anywhere. They were getting that nice! And I am really proud to have some in our barn to continue on.

In other news the for sale list is available to anyone looking. Almost ALL Mini rex- just because I have about 40 LOL.

A pair of junior Mini lops as well- very promising but we are keeping siblings. And a senior doe also available.

For sale list

2010-03-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

I am working on a for sale list- mainly Netherland dwarfs and Mini rex but possibly a few Mini lops as well.. Hope to have the entire list by Saturday night.

Here's the start:

Netherland dwarfs- Blue Otter Senior buck- Levi $30.00 (priced reduced on all dwarfs), Eden, Black Senior doe, Definetly- $20.00, Mae- $50(we paid $50 US), Emma $25.00. Will take $150 for all : ) Mae has a litter of 4 right now, available after litter is weaned in a couple of weeks. Definetly has a litter of 3 by an opal buck- available after litter is weaned or with litter.

Mini rex:
Blue Jr doe
2 Blue Senior does
Broken Blue Senior doe
Broken black jr buck(pending)
Charlie black jr buck(still showable)
Broken black jr buck

More to come!

Some updates

2010-03-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

With Cristina gone who is the normal blog reporter I thought I had better write something to show we are alive this week :- )

I am sure Cristina is suffering the bunny blues right now not having any animals where she is at for 3 weeks. I can say her cats and rabbits really miss her. Oh, and the dogs too but she finds them a bit annoying LOL!

I am on my way out the door to go clean the big barn and go through rabbits today. We have lots of Mini rex juniors available as well as we still have a few Dwarfs left, and some Senior Mini rex. We also have pet quality Mini lops available(babies, just about ready to be weaned).

I just finished walking the dogs and we had a good walk. It is raining/snowing here so it was a bit of a miserable walk but other then my feet being wet it was a good one!

Luke and I went to 3 hours of dog training yesterday and I can see it is going to be a huge benefit to both of us.

I am happy to say all the pigs have been sold so we were able to move the calves into that barn to give them more room since they are a bit too small yet to go in with the other cows.

I will try to write a long blog tonight.. we had company for almost a full week and that included a 5 year old.. I think either I'm never having kids or I'm just not ready yet- yowzers! That was a lot of work and I left by 8am in the morning and didn't get home until 7:30-8 at night and that was still a lot of work and clean up LOL

Otherwise when Cristina reads this blog, all the animals are doing great and Braxtin and Kayden are going through lovely moults- fur EVERYWHERE!

Moving out dwarfs

2010-03-02T21:15:00.000-08:00

Hi there;

We would really like to move out the rest of the dwarfs so we are offering the last 9 animals(Seniors) for $500.00 for all- that is less then $56 an animal, and we paid $150 US for Keno($175 Canadian approx), plus Mae($50 US). Some beautiful animals in this package!

If you can't take all 9 animals we are offering discounts on trios as well. Our favorite does Bianca and Latifa are left as well : )

k_c_lops@telus.net

Does are bred and due this month so they need to go soon, otherwise will have to be after the litters unless we can foster off.

Lack of updates

2010-03-01T18:21:00.001-08:00

My Mac computer has been being serviced, so I haven't been able to do any website updates for the last week. I hope to have it back tomorrow or Weds so I get the website caught up again, and figure out which animals are still available and which have been spoken for!

We have had a few new litters lately... Sidney still has her 5, I have no clue on the one color, but have been away for the last 4 days so Kim has been doing the chores. I leave again next weekend for up to 3-4 weeks, so am going to organize a friend to look after the the barn, along with Kim, while I am gone. Anyway, looking tonight it might be a Broken Sable Chin, but not sure. It's really light in color, so it'll be interesting to see!

Anonymity had 5 babies, 3 being peanuts the other day. The Broken Tort doe had 2 babies today, both brokens. That is for Mini Rex.

For dwarfs, Mae had 4 babies by the Reese buck.

No Mini Lops were due, we have some does bred and due in a few weeks.

Kim did get 2 Mini Lops bred for me while I was away though.

Kylee X Preston
Annabelle X Oxford

I want to get Gillian bred this week if I can. She hasn't been interested in lifting, so if all else fails will try her with Braxtin and see if he has better luck!

I think there are a few other ML does bred, last week I think it was.

Milky Way X Damian
Anne-Marie X Hydro
Dream On Boys X Da Vinci
Sara X Evan

When I return from the West Coast after my 3-4 week work, I will breed Laynie and Rosalie. Also any other does who didn't take while I was gone...

Rosalind's babies are getting super cute! I will type them this week, but from what Kim said the other day, I think we are going to keep her 3. She liked the REW from Rylee too, that Rosalind is raising. Not the black, but Rylee has 2 blacks (may be sables) in with her too, that we'll look at later this week...

Need to get my bunny fill in before I'm gone for the few weeks! lol...

Juniors!

2010-02-24T20:14:00.000-08:00

We've lucked out so far this Winter. We've had pretty good success with does kindling live litters, therefore, we have a decent amount of Juniors growing up, and in the boxes.

This weekend we will type some of the younger litters and see which ones we will grow out, in both the Mini Lops & Mini Rex. Although I think we are keeping Sienna (Mini Rex)'s 3 babies back to grow out. This is a 3X BIS winning doe, who in her day was REALLY nice! She is brood doe though, and I don't remember if she had any successful litters before this for Dillon. But she has 2 super cute Opals and a Castor in the box, 2 does and 1 buck. We are quite impressed with the Opal buck and Castor doe thus far. The Opal doe looks more brood, but if she has the type she'll be good to use.

I can't remember with Made You Look (Mini Rex) litter if we have decided yet, or Isabella.

In the Mini Lops, we have Trinity's litter to type again. I believe we were hesitating about keeping the 4 back to see. This is a litter by Gus.

I weaned Kia's litter yesterday, well 4 of the 5. Left 1 in with mom, just so she had company for another week or so. Lol... They are super gangly, but since they are Mini Lops they are still cute! ;-) (Right Kim???) lol... They are caged next to Kylee, maybe that'll help their looks by staring at her? ;-)

Rosalind's litter is still too young to type, same with Rylee's. But they are getting cute!

Sidney had a litter yesterday by Braxtin. 5 of them! Looking forward to this litter. :-) She has a Broken dilute color it looks like, guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

Have a few does to breed this weekend, in Mini Lops, although might have a few Mini Rex to do as well...

Then will have Rosalie and Laynie to breed in a few weeks. Probably a few others too.

Website has lots of new pictures on it from last weekend's photo shoot, so if you haven't checked it out, be sure to!

Dwarfs available

2010-02-23T21:10:00.000-08:00

Cristina and I have decided to sell the dwarf does that are bred before they have their litters to free up the lower barn for space, so anyone that inquired about those does and were disappointed that they had to wait please contact us again as the does are ready to go.

April and Fleet Mt's Opal buck are spoken for, as are Deja and a couple of the juniors in Olivia's litter.

Everyone else is available.

April is due next week so unless we shipped within the next week we will have to wait on her, but otherwise the rest are ready to go anytime!

One more work day and then 3 days off this week(I work Sundays unlike most people ; )
Then next week I have Thursday and Saturday off.

Not much else new besides did you see all the new pictures on the website? Lots of new Mini lops and some Mini rex pictures : )

Another Tough decision

2010-02-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

Its all about tough decisions in 2010 for us, geesh!

Cristina and I are very glad to welcome Tammi Knox to the farm, where she hopes to raise Mini lops and Harlequins one day in the near future. We have offered Tammi the lower half of the barn(our small barn not big one!) and we will keep the other half for our "overflow". However, our overflow has become the dwarfs which we are just not happy with. Don't get me wrong, please, we think the dwarfs are very cute and neat rabbits but they just aren't the Mini lops or Mini rex.. They just can't beat them for personality.

And since 2010 is a year of change and onwards and upwards for us we feel we want to sell the herd and continue with just our other 2 breeds.

I also(Kim) have decided I have my whole life ahead of me (LOL) and I don't need to keep trying all these breeds right now. I have another 60 years of raising rabbits that I can try different breeds as I go. Why raise them all at once? Gosh, am I beginning to grow up? Oh no! ; )

We don't have that many dwarfs but we would like to sell them individually. The following are the only ones NOT ready to go until after their litters- April, Mae, Latifa, and Bianca however they are ALL for sale. We also have a litter of 5 out of Olivia that will be for sale as well. 2 blacks and 3 otters. Babies from the 4 does above will be for sale when weaned, and the does will go then too. As of right now there is no one on our waiting list for anything except what is already pre sold which includes one of the otter does from the litter of 5. Everything else is first come first serve. So everyone knows we HAVE had white spots from the CN lines that we have been culling out. It is popping up in that line so no one can say "they never told me that" however with strict culling we are seeing less and less. There are more does for sale then bucks. Prices are either at what we paid, or what we feel the rabbit is worth. We are very honest and list exactly what we feel as picky as that may be. We won 1st of 6 Otter senior does with a homebred doe last weekend then she placed 3rd the 2nd show of 6. Some of the senior does ready to go are ready to be bred and SHOULD be. The only grumpy dwarfs can be Olivia and April. The rest are generally pretty good. These are not a breed I personally would recommend for a 4-h kid in this color. I've seen wonderful selfs and shadeds but so far we are finding the otters are a little grumpier. However, we have also culled heavily for tempermant so nothing in the barn is mean(it wouldn't be there!).

The other bit of news for us is we are down to under half a dozen cavies- I guess the only "2" doesn't work for us.

And I am going to not raise Red Mini rex or Chocolate Mini rex. I am going to stick to my brokens in blue and black, castor and opal. And my blue,black, castor and opal in solids.

My other exciting news is we are on the wait list for a Saint Bernard puppy coming beginning of May possibly! Very exciting!

All the other animals are doing great. If anyone is looking for pigs we have 8 for sale(the actual pig eating animal) a mix of boys and girls. About 3 more weeks before they are butcher weight, nice and big and healthy. $150 each.

Double Best in Show wins!

2010-02-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

The VIRBA rabbit show was last weekend. It was a huge success, with awesome judges and great fun! Thanks to everyone who tirelessly put all the hours into this show and making is run so smothly.

We had an awesome weekend. I don't have all the wins here, as I probably won't remember everything but here is the highlights.

Saturday Results:

Mini Lops under Melissa Magee:

Posey's Hunter - Best of Breed
2nd SSB was Posey's Storm Warning
3rd SSB was Posey's Diablo
4th SSB was Posey's Damian. Melissa mentioned that the top 4 were really nice bucks, but Hunter balanced the best.
Posey's Kylee - Best Opposite of Breed
2nd SSD was Posey's Sweet Rayne

BOV Brokens was Jamison
BOSV was Anne Marie (only 4 senior does and no juniors shown, so no leg for her).

Then we went on to win Best in Show with Posey's Hunter under Travis Finkle and Best of the Best Opposite in Show under Melissa Magee

Mini Rex under Travis Finkle:

We only showed 2 young juniors who didn't do anything, they were the only ones in their class, and couldn't beat the seniors.
The black senior doe we showed didn't do anything either.

Dwarfs under Travis Finkle:

We showed 4 dwarfs. The Opal buck was Dq'ed for overweight. Our Otter doe LaTifa won the Sr doe class for her first leg.
We also showed Levi. He was the only buck, but he doesn't have the head/ear to compete.

However, the Mini's did excellent and we were thrilled!

Sunday Results

Mini Lops under Travis Finkle:

Posey's Kylee was Best of Breed (he loved her!)
Posey's Hunter was Best Opposite of Breed
Posey's Anne-Marie was BOV for her 3rd (and granding) leg!
Velotta's Hydro was 1st BSB for his first leg (he was DQ'ed Sat for no testicles, but he had them Sunday! lol).
Posey's Oxford was 1st BJB and BOSV for his first leg.

Kylee went on to win Best in Show under Melissa Magee

Hunter went on to win Best of the Best Opposite in Show under Travis Finkle !!!!

Mini Rex under Melissa:

We only showed the senior on Sunday. Anonymity went on to win Best of Breed !

Dwarfs under Melissa:

Didn't do anything really here. I think 3rd of 6 for Oprah. LaTifa was like 5th/6.

Again, it was the Mini Lops that did really well!

All is all, it was an awesome weekend winning Double Best in Show and Double Best of the Best Opposite in Show wins!

Hunter's Best in Show

Kylee's Best in Show

VIRBA show entry sent in!

2010-02-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

Well our show entry has been sent in. We entered 22 animals in total - 15 Mini Lops, 3 Mini Rex, and 4 Dwarfs.

We had 2 new litters born last week, both Mini Lops. Rylee had 8 for her first litter, however her milk didn't come in for a few days, and although we fostered some of her litter we lost 4 of them. She has 2 left she is raising and I left the other 2 with Rosalind to raise. Those 4 are doing great, but was too bad we didn't have 1 other doe to take a few on.

Rosalind had 3 babies of her own. All brokens by Gus.

We have 3 Dwarfs due today. Emma has fur pulled, but no babies yet. Not holding my breath on Deja, and I think Definetly took, she sure felt it, but again we'll see.

After this, we have a bit of a break from litters due until the 24th.

The other babies in the boxes are doing well, getting cute. We'll have to get some pictures of them all soon, probably not until after the show, but we'll see. Maybe we'll have time to get some pictures at the show this year (and remember to!)...

Hopefully we'll see lots of exhibitors at the show!

Mini rex

2010-02-02T19:57:00.001-08:00

I have been having so much fun with my Mini rex, I also like having under 40 rabbits of my own. It feels not so much like a job! We still have about 100 rabbits but the rest are Cristina's and then about 20 dwarfs that we share... So it isn't as intimidating!

We figured out all our show entries for VIRBA and came up with a great number of Mini lops, didn't do so well with the Mini rex but have a few to show, and found 4 dwarfs to show as well. In total we have 21 rabbits to be entered ! : )

I counted my keeper Mini rex and not including all the new babies I have 22 that I am keeping so that is a great number : ) Especially since I want to keep babies from all these litters and need to keep the cage space open for them!

I quite enjoyed the past couple of days spending time with the rabbits. It just feels so much better and there are still many more to go next weekend and throughout the next month. I think once they all go Cristina and I will breathe a big sigh of relief!!

All is well though. Litters are doing great in all the breeds. Cats and dogs and all the other animals are fine.

Juniors growing up

2010-01-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

Of our 6 litters that are getting closer to weaning age we have chosen which ones we will be growing out.

There are 2 Mini Rex litters.

From SPBP2's litter we are going to keep back the Lilac doe and Chocolate buck. We don't know how these Mini Rex lines develop yet, and these were always the best 2 in the litter.

From J1's (2) X David litter this is the same cross as the other J1(1) litter, which at first we weren't that thrilled with, but held back a buck and a doe from that cross (to sell as pets) and have been plesantly surprised with how they are turning out!! So with this cross we are growing out the best 4 of the 6. A Broken black buck, Charlie black buck (although has 10% color), Blue doe and Broken Black doe.

In the Mini Lop litters.

2nd Time Around's litter by Kayden we are keeping a Gold Tipped Steel doe that is pick of litter.

Charley's litter by Gus there is a Chestnut buck we have really liked since the beginning, but the other Chestnut buck is looking better too. So we might end up keeping both of them. We don't care for the Steel at all right now anyway.

Kia's litter by Braxtin is by far our favorite though. We are keeping 4 of the 5 back to grow out. Really like the depth on these ones and overall type so far.

But, like always, once the juniors have been weaned we will re-type them all before making any final decisions on who goes and who stays. Even if our pick of litter looks the worst at that time, they usually will come back into themselves given more time. Although they don't usually go too gangly until 9-10 weeks...

Also, while on the subject of juniors we are going to hold onto the 3 junior does that were on our for sale page. After looking yesterday, they are all so gangly still that they need to just sit back for a few more weeks and grow / fill out some more... I guess we shouldn't rush it to make cage space!

We have 4 does due tomorrow, we will see how they do. Plus some others due throughout February. I had a list to put on the website but I misplaced it at the moment. Will have to get it off the calendar again at the barn.

The VIRBA show is only 2 weeks away from this weekend! Still lots to get done before then!!!

It sounds like life to me

2010-01-27T21:16:00.000-08:00

2009 seemed like a year of change and rush,rush, rush. We hardly did any rabbit shows and yet the year flew by and it seemed our life was just always so busy.

So far 2010 does not seem nearly as hectic at 2009 even though nothing really has changed. Maybe we are better prepared or organized or something but it doesn't feel as crazy!

Cristina and I spent the day in the barn going through litters. We found a couple of really nice Mini lop babies, and a couple of really nice Mini rex babies. It would be nice to be really consistant and get more then 1 nice one in a litter but some nice ones in what we did get. And some super cute pets!

I think my favorite Mini lop litter was Kia X Braxtin- very nice!

All the French lops are now sold, not sure if I wrote that on my last blog or not. I think I did. We will be way down in Mini lops and Mini rex to keep back youngsters from our litters. We are breeding more does over the next few days, and finally have a dwarf litter in the box- 2 blacks and 3 black otters.

We have quite a few Mini lops to show at VIRBA and probably up to half a dozen dwarfs. Looks like 3-4 Mini rex only but that is okay, we have another busy year of getting more consistency in our herds!

We are down to just a dozen ducks- a much easier number, and the ducks are so much happier. Everyone was fighting and now everyone seems to be getting along and doing great. We have a pair of Pekins, 5 Muscovies, 2 blue cayuga cross girls, a khaki campbell/pekin cross, and a pair of Buff opringtons.

This weekend is the Rabbits BC meeting at our place.

Well I better go and get something productive done... : )

A couple new Dwarf bucks, and Mini lop does up for sale. Reduced prices on a few Mini rex as well.

2010 show season is upon us!

2010-01-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

3 weeks this weekend will be the VIRBA Spring show. So I have written a list of everything that has to be done before then, and have been trying to work on it as time allows.

So far I have added all the Dwarf pedigrees into Evan's Software (we didn't have ANY in there yet). But that is all done, at least with all the pedigrees we have. Although while I think of it, I forgot to add the Reese buck in. Will have to do that one!

I need to start the Sales list sheet, which will probably be very generic as I don't really want to list everything for sale on there as we won't have enough room to take everyone I imagine.

Today I went through all the Mini Lops and did a tentative show list. I need to weigh everyone still, but our scales batteries were dead. There is 2 senior bucks that I am iffy on if they are at that max weight or over. Last check a few weeks ago they were ok, but with their holiday treats I'm hoping they stayed within the weight limit! At this point I have 14 Mini's down, with 6 more to look at right before the show and decide. Almost all of the 14 are senior bucks! Well, there are some junior does, and 1 senior doe but all the does are on litters now, due for litters, or just weaned litters and I knew they still had that litter weight on them.

We need to decide on Mini Rex still, although I think we only have half a dozen or less to show. The dwarfs we need to decide too, but Kim gets to help me with them!

This weeks job in the evenings is to get the Mini Lop pedigrees up to date again, and pedigrees printed, or at least started for all the show ones, and for sale / sold animals!

Maybe if this is started early, we will be organized by the show! We can only hope...

Barn cleaning day

2010-01-22T21:39:00.000-08:00

It was barn cleaning day, in more ways than one. Not only did we need to clean all the pans, floor, etc but we needed to decide on which juniors from our October litters we won't need in our breeding program to make some cage space.

So after going through the Mini Lops juniors we decided to keep 1 doe from Bridget X Hunter cross (Aaliyah) and we added Kenya & Bella up for sale. From GB1 X Ethan's litter we are keeping Dakota and selling Brea.

For Sale Mini Lop page

For the Mini Rex litter from November we are going to keep 1 Broken black buck, who has really impressive fur so far and nice type. We have 2 nice brood does from this litter we put up for sale (the Black may turn into a show doe, but the Himi can't be shown at this point). The other 2 went to pet homes today.

For Sale Mini Rex

All of the French lops have been spoken for at this point. Thanks everyone! Same with all the Dwarfs.

We did have a new Dwarf litter born today. Olivia had 5 by Keno. Good job Olivia! :-) When Selina & Josh were here they helped us breed some of the other dwarfs. We did get Deja and Emma to lift for the bucks and they did connect, but we will see if either took. Need to re-try Mae and Definitly again, and will breed April too (she is being very hormonal so maybe breeding her will help!)

Here is a picture of our "helpers" today at the farm. Luke (the Golden Retriever), River (the Shih-Tzu), and 2 muscovy ducks!

The best of friends?

2010-01-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

We have 2 pet chickens- one rooster, and one "It". We purchased "it" as a Rooster, later thought it was a hen, then a rooster. Today I Ivermectined the rooster who was great to do, and when I tried to do the "It" it tried to eat me!!! So I really don't know.. However whether they are gay roosters, or an odd couple they are very sweet and they love to find us as soon as we have the rabbit treat bucket to steal the black oil sunflower seeds and molasses from the treat bucket. They will find you everytime!

I started my day off early this morning. I first took my dogs for a 45 minute hike. It exhausted them for a few minutes anyway, they managed to slime themselfs with drool all over Luke's head. It was really quite disgusting. For anyone that doesn't know as well, we sadly had to put Ben our almost 13 year old Lab down on Tuesday :(

We have Star the almost 12 year old German Shepherd/Flat Coated Retriever. River the almost 6 year old Shih Tzu and Luke the 3 year old Golden Retriever(up for adoption today LOL)

I managed to get all the ducks Ivermectined, and all the call ducks moved into a 6 foot by 2 foot hutch that is filled with shavings as they can't seem to handle the cold wet weather like the big ducks. I then gave the call ducks a bath in soapy water, rinsed them off(warm water) and then re-ivermectined them and put them away. I filled the duck houses up with straw, and cleaned the lower barn and outside hutch. I did a culling of 15ish rabbits, and organized our hay in the rabbit barn. We had some new litters born today and I did that, and took a few pics for the for sale pages. It was a busy day. I had to start on chores by 3:00 and when Cristina got to the farm at 5:30 I still wasn't done.. so that shows how long it all takes by yourself!

A couple new mini rex youngsters up on the for sale page tonight.

Tomorrow is main barn cleaning, someone coming for 2 muscovy drakes, and playing catch up in the barns...

The Right Decision

2010-01-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Cristina and I have been very overwhelmed lately with all the animals, so we felt it is best to downsize majorly. This meant selling all the French lops, unfortunetly. It means I am down to 27 Mini rex after the last few sell/presold go.

47 Mini lops
22 dwarfs

Still a lot of rabbits, but much more reasonable. Right now, with litters, we have over 180 rabbits... WAy too many. As says the feed bill as well!

I also decided to sell over half my ducks as the white call ducks are not happy being in an area that isn't very warm, and they need more. The other ducks do fine but I still felt I had too many, and since the ducks are very much mine as Cristina really doesn't have the same feelings for them as I do, I felt I needed to cut back to a much more reasonable number. So if anyone is looking for white calls I have 8 in total, with 6 available one pair already spoken for. I also have a trio of Cayugas, and some extra muscovy drakes and not sure what else... Probably more...

I am still going to do meat birds this year(because you only have them for 8 weeks), and 50 Pekin ducklings. I may also do an order of Buff Brahmas but they will all be for sale almost right away except the few Cristina will want to keep(her absolute favorite). I have sold all the cavies except a pair.

I think this will help.... It will certainly help the feed bill. I have some very cute Mini rex coming up, Cristina has some very cute Mini lops. Still waiting on dwarf litters, does due later this month.

In sad news, we had to put our 13 year old Lab Ben down today. He was failing the past few weeks and it was time. RIP Bennie Boy.

Anyway keep checking the for sale pages.. you never know!

We have a deadline!

2010-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

So we decided to sell 8 hanging cages and a 3 hole hutch. The 8 hanging cages have all been spoken for, and we have agreed to have them empty by mid-February.

We still have the 3 hole hutch that is 6 ft long X 2 ft wide for sale. Pickup at our farm. Asking $125, it was bought just this last June.

However, we need to have those 8 cages above empty by mid-Feb. We have several pre-sold rabbits going to VIRBA, but with eliminating these holes that brings us down 3 additional holes for the Mini Lops. We are at 45 Mini's right now, that is with selling Rylee after her litter (haven't added her to For Sale page yet).

We also will be selling 2 Black bucks from Dream On Boys X Kayden, possibly by VIRBA if they have matured enough (they will be about 4 months then), and possibly 1 of the does from Bridget X Hunter by VIRBA.

I'm not 100% sure if we will keep the Gold Tipped buck from Rosalind X Braxtin, or the Gold Tipped buck from All Summer Long X Ethan. We are growing both out right now, but they probably won't be both kept, maybe 1. We have SO many senior bucks, that we can only keep juniors that will replace the seniors.

So over the next month we'll have to come up with a plan on which juniors will be available at VIRBA, to give us a few more cages for this next batch of upcoming litters. Hence why I want to get down to 1 buck from Dream On, and no more than 2 does from Bridget. Also, will decide on the 2 gold tipped bucks above, as right now I don't think we'll keep either because we have so many solid bucks we don't need any more! (Not to mention that we have some super cute babies coming up from current litters, and looks like a lot of them are bucks).

From this last batch of litters we are keeping a REW buck & doe from Milky X Kayden (as well as a REW doe from this cross from a few months ago, really like that doe!), a Broken Chestnut doe from Jessica X Zander (to replace both parents in our program), a Smoke doe from Anne-Marie X Zeb (a really nice buck who is in Ohio now). These 4 are all counted for in the total above though.

But, if you are interested in anything that might be available for VIRBA let us know. We probably will have a better idea end of the month on who, and may even have time to get pictures then too! As I said, we need to have these cages empty by mid-February.....

Cutting down

2010-01-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

Here we go again... Cristina and I are feeling the "we have way too many rabbits" blues... We want to cut down. 110 holes filled is too many!

Anyone looking for some beautiful rabbits in any of the breeds? We are willing to part with some we weren't ready to part with before. Sorry, not Milky Way, Rosalind, Damien(at least not yet) or Sara ;) Gus or Sidney ;)

Just ask about the others though as you just never know. We are down to only 2 cavies left. I may sell about half the ducks. The feed bill is getting worse and I can't do half the things I want to do because of the animal feed bill. Between vet bills and upkeep and everything lately I can't spend any money on ME! ; )

So anyway, if your interested.. send us an e-mail!

A couple of things before I sign off:

You must pick the rabbit(s) up from our farm or pay the fee for us to ship out of Victoria or Nanaimo airports- unless the purchase is over $200 and then (gas) is free.
We can not hold the rabbit(s) any longer then 2 weeks unless arrangements are made, and you pay for there feed. Sorry!

Company from Yellowknife NWT arrived!

2010-01-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

So after many weeks of anticipating, and new coats of paint in their bedroom, new laundry room floor, and some good ol' elbow grease our company from Yellowknife arrived last night. We picked them up from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal at 11 pm. So this next week while they are here, we most likely won't be writing blogs, or having much time on email, but you never know!

One of the jobs we told Selina she has while here is to go through all of the Dwarfs again for us. Give us her opinion! So we'll see what she thinks about everything...

Even with company here this week we really need to take a few minutes one day and get some of the Dwarf does bred. I hope Olivia took when I bred her, but we still have Emma, Deja (going to try her once more before VIRBA, if she doesn't take she is sold), Definetly, Mae, and possibly Eclipse (pending if Selina thinks we should get a litter from her or not) to breed...

For mini lops we did get a few does bred last week, same with a couple mini rex. But need to re-try Annabelle, want to breed Peyton, and maybe Dream Girl.

I believe we have decided to hold off on breeding any of the French right now. I did breed Punch that one day, but we'll see if she took or not. We need to sell some that we have for sale first, as we have only allowed for so many holes!

I can't remember the list of Mini Rex we did get bred, or who else needs to be bred, but I know Kim will be selling some of the seniors after litters to keep offspring.

We did finally go through the Mini Lop litters and decide from the latest litters who we were keeping:

Milky Way X Kayden: 1 REW doe, 1 REW buck (we sexed these guys when really young and with Christmas didn't get them sexed again until last week, we originally thought they were all bucks, but turned out we have 3 does, 1 buck). We also kept back a REW doe from this cross from October, who was raised by the French lop. Really like the type on that older doe!

Anne Marie X Zeb: Smoke Pearl doe, and possibly a Broken Black doe (still up in the air on that one).

Jessica X Zander: Broken Chestnut doe

We decided not to keep anything, at this point, from Silver Dollar X Hunter. The cross didn't thrill us, but we'll look again after they are weaned, and decide for sure.

In the Mini Rex litter from J1 X David we decided not to keep anything. There is 1 decent buck, but he isn't very deep and that is something the MR need, so we are going to see how the other litter from her sister J1 litter by David looks in a few weeks!

Should go see if our company is awake yet. We didn't get in until 1 am from the Ferry, and they travelled for 11 hrs yesterday, so probably not...

Sales list- first of the year 2010

2010-01-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

We are starting 2010 out with a big sales list. We are out of cage space, which therefore equals we need to sell some rabbits!!

We figured out 32 rabbits to put up for sale today a mix of all 4 breeds. Check out the website later tonight with everyone up for sale.

We also have some American and Silkie cavies for sale as well.

We also have many babies that will be available as well. Both Mini rex and Mini lops and French lops. Still working on getting dwarfs bred!

New Years Resolution (Cristina)

2009-12-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

Rabbit New Years Resolution:

- Improve the consistency of the Mini Lop litters type wise (IE: in a litter of say 6 have at least 2-3 really nice ones rather than maybe 1 really nice one and 2 or 3 not bad ones).

- Improve depth and HQ's in the Mini Lops.

- Get the Dwarfs to actual kindle litters when bred.

- Improve on ear shape and size on the dwarfs, and shorten bodies up.

- Get more organized in the barns, buy more bins as needed, and storage!

- Look into automatic waters for at least 1 of the barns (probably big barn as it would be easier to set up)

- Try to write blogs at least 3-4 times a week, if we have something interesting to report, rather than only once a week or once every other week. We used to be so good at writing every day!

Person goals:

- Pay off debts from college (IE: credit cards!)

- Make myself get that annoying drivers licence. (Can't you tell how excited I am... :P)

- Improve on fitness...

That looks like enough goals for 1 year! At least to start with...

Happy New Year everyone and you'll probably hear more from us in 2010!

My New Years Resolutions(Kim)

2009-12-30T18:49:00.000-08:00

My Rabbit Resolutions:

Keep better track of rabbit's purchased, sold, and feed money(where is the money going!)

Get better at keeping up with tattooing and pedigrees. Some of the rabbits end up being 5 months before being tattooed and their pedigree printed off. Because their are 2 of us and only 110 holes we can keep track in our heads but not a good idea to do, so we need to get better!

Improve the Depth and Density in my Mini rex

Keep working on improving the French lops. I like where I am going in them. Work on getting more litters since I have not bred anything LOL

Better organization in the barn- buy a 5 tier unit to hold clean water bottles, and one to hold clean dishes.

Buy a small fridge for the barn

Hook up hot water in the barn!

Do as well as we did the Summer of 2007 and 2008 with numerous Best in Shows.

My ultimate rabbit goal this year would be a Best in Show in all 4 of the breeds... At least once!

My Personal resolutions:

Pay off both my VISA cards

Keep better track of where my money is going- figure out a monthly plan

Walk the dogs at least 3 times a week at least 2 KM

Lose " " this many pounds

I think these are many things to work with. Last year I wasn't really into New Years resolutions and I don't think I even thought about them after the 31st of December. This year I want to complete and succeed with all these things. Wish me luck!

Christmas, & farm life

2009-12-26T19:43:00.001-08:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a nice quiet day, with some family & friends over for dinner. We did spoil all of our animals though. The rabbits enjoyed carrots on Christmas Eve, as did the horses and cows, and cavies of course. Then on Christmas day they all had alfalfa hay, which they throughly enjoyed! Still have banana to feed to all the rabbits, which I plan to do tomorrow.

The alfalfa will be slowly used between all the creatures, including the ducks (who loved all the lettuce we bought them!)...

We have had some new litters lately too. On the 23rd 2nd Time Around had 10 babies, 9 surviving by Kayden. Charley had 11 babies, 6 suviving by Gus, and Kia had 6 babies, 5 surviving by Braxtin. Also had a Mini Rex litter by J1 (#2) of 6 I believe last Sunday.

Had a Christmas litter as well yesterday, SBPB2 had 5 by the blue buck! So that was exciting to have a litter on Christmas Day!!

We have had several more misses this month than usual, but we are chalking it up to the time of year. For example, of the 4 Mini Lops due on Weds 3 of the 4 came through. Last Sunday we had 4 does due, 1 of the 4 came through. Today 4 more does were due, 1 of the 4 came through so far, but I *think* a few of the others are bred, just not holding my breath yet!

Our website will be updated, if not before, in the New Year with several animals from all the breeds for sale! We need cage space, so will most likely have stock in all 4 breeds available. So if you are looking for something, feel free to contact us. We also should hopefully have a decent selection available for VIRBA!

Pictures!

2009-12-16T21:15:00.001-08:00

Several new pictures have been added to our website, as of yesterday. Majority of them Mini Lops, but also some Mini Rex.

See home page for all pages updated!

We have 5 litters due on Friday, so we'll see what they have!

We almost culled too soon

2009-12-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, Cristina and I are probably the worlds best cullers LOL. If it doesn't look great at 8 weeks it is culled.

That might sound horrible but 90% of the time that is the case with our Mini lop line.

If it looks great at 4 weeks, and horrible by 8 weeks we hold onto it.

If it looks terrible at 4 weeks, and great at 6 weeks, and terrible at 8 weeks we hold onto it.

If it looks terrible at 4, 6 and 8 weeks it gets culled...

However.. With some new lines this past year we are finding some surprises. We are having to hold onto the animals longer 12 weeks or more to see how they are looking.

For instance, we were given a breeding from Nicole's beautiful Black buck Matty, we bred him to All Summer long who was a Ava X Black Jack baby. Same breeding as Kayden basically(Ada X Black Jack) Ada and Ava were siblings. Anyway, their were 5 babies in the litter. 3 of them never matured into anything. The best 2 were a blue buck and a Black buck. Unfortunately the blue buck had a white toenail and was the nicest of the 5. We culled him. The black buck was 2nd pick of litter, and is now in Ohio.

We got a breeding before he left to Gillian an Impulse daughter(I'm sure everyone knows Impulse!) and she had 8 babies. At first glance at 4 weeks nothing stood out, again at 6 weeks nothing stood out. We were pretty disappointed.

Today we went through to decide at 8 weeks who we should keep if any and we were pleasantly surprised to find 2 not bad animals. One is nicer then the other for sure, one is very massive with an incredible head but lacking some depth.

Both are bucks- both broken blacks. We will grow them out and see how they turn out! Had we have decided just a few days before they probably would be gone already and we would never have know. The same thing happened with GB1's litter- we are now keeping 2 from her litter, and we weren't impressed with that litter at first either. One again is nicer then the other but we will keep growing them out.

Sometimes it is difficult, especially with 4 breeds finding the cage space to grow so much out. Which I think is why we are so tough on our culling we just don't have the space to grow out until they are 16 or 20 weeks.

Here's our rules for culling:
Pinched or Severely or Fairly Undercut- we feel won't change and is culled
Your typical DQ's- White spots, White nails or mismatched nails, teeth(seldom seen in Mini lops but still something to watch out for), Broken toes, split penis etc
Long bone or Long midsection. If the back feet are long and narrow that is not going to change, and I can't stand(personally) long bone with narrow heads! It drives me nuts LOL!
Also, the midsection rule I've talked about numerous times- if I can fit more then 2 fingers between the rib cage and hip bone that animal isn't going to stay as that is never going to change. I will SOMETIMES let Cristina keep an animal with 3 fingers between those 2 places IF the animal is very nice elsewhere.

We do not cull for slightly long or narrow shoulders at the "picking who to grow out stage", slightly narrow heads, peaking a tad soon or early, or showing shadows in the loin. These can all change as the animal develops and comes out of ganglies.

Damien- A massive buck with a HUGE head even as a jr. He was flatter and longer then we liked but he had the perfect head,ear, crown and loin we wanted. He has developed very nicely has a leg for his only showing for BOB, and he balances very well. He developed some depth and kept everything else. I would fault him on being a touch long in the shoulder. He was never on our cull list, but he was never a favorite either.

Kayden- As a junior he was VERY deep but VERY narrow. We only kept him to get the depth in our herd, and to see how he developed. Another one we almost culled. I think we will learn our lesson yet! He developed into a beautiful buck with incredible body type and head. I would fault him on needing a touch more width in his shoulders.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that even after raising Mini lops for almost 3 years we still have a hard time and need to grow them out a little longer as they change so much. Maybe we look for something different then other breeders but I think we will start holding animals back... a little longer...!!!

All those juniors

2009-12-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Life has been pretty hectic lately, so our last slew of juniors, those ones that are 7-10 weeks old have just been sitting back and growing out. We had our 'picks' chosen, a few weeks ago for most litters, and were planning to "pet" out any of the others (IE, find pet homes or raptor the others). However, right now with the center closed for the season, you have to book a time, and we just haven't had a chance to do that. So, we've held off.

This afternoon, in amongst cleaning frozen pans, we looked through some of the litters. We had someone want 3 pets for tomorrow (depending on if we do travel up island to deliver pending the snow). Anyway, we looked through the Mini Lops litters. So once again have changed our minds, at least for now, and probably to hold onto them until VIRBA.

From the Bridget X Hunter cross: we have decided to grow all 4 out. I really like the one G'Tp Steel doe (the original POL, and Kim prefer the other G'Tp Steel doe, so we will grow both out and see how they develop.) We still quite like the Broken Silver Tipped doe, and the Broken G'Tp buck is actually really coming into himself. The whole litter has really awesome head & crowns, and I love that feel of well fleshed muscle when you run your hand over the HQ, which all 4 have. The buck is short and massive, with a really nice HQ ruffle developing, however would like to see more width to loin at the moment. The Brk S'Tp doe is very similar to the buck, just a tad deeper, but a little long in shoulder at the moment, however a fuller loin. So the 4 will be held back and we will grow them out!

From GB1 X Ethan, we went through the 5 the other day. This is one litter that really changed. We are growing 2 Gold Tipped does out. Really like the 1 doe, the other I liked a lot more the other day, today, well she wasn't bad. But might as well give her the benefit of the doubt. So will hold these 2 back. GB1 leaves potentially tomorrow for Amanda, so will be nice to keep something from her, at least to see how they develop.

From Gillian X Kennedy of the 5 we have left we weren't planning to keep any of them. However today, we liked 2 of the bucks. They actually have depth now, so we are holding 2 Broken Black bucks back. The other 3 will hopefully leave tomorrow for pet homes.

I think that's all the litters right now. The younger litters are obviously too young to type still, although they are looking very cute!

Our September juniors are doing very well. If all goes well they can make their show debut in February. The final decision was to keep 2 back from Rosalind X Braxtin, a black doe, and g'Tp steel buck; 1 Broken Sable Chin from Cindy X Hayden; 1 gold tipped steel from All Summer Long X Ethan; and 2 does - a gold tipped and siamese sable from Sara X Evan.

There are 4 Mini's due on the 18th, so hopefully it'll warm up before then, so they kindle when it's above 0 at night for their sake!

Updates and all that

2009-12-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted a blog for quite awhile. I usually write fairly long e-mails to my closest pals so I never feel like writing a blog LOL!

The newest and most exciting news is our Cow, Molly, delivered a healthy Calf this past Sunday. He is a big boy! Red in color with a chocolate nose,very cute, and very sweet!

Rabbit wise we have some super cute litters of Mini lops and one litter of Mini rex right now. With many more litters of dwarfs and Mini rex due around Christmas. We also have to breed one French lop doe, and a few more Netherland dwarfs.

I am all done my Christmas cards as of tonight. I am running upstairs to do my last 2 in about 10 minutes- as soon as I finish writing this blog.

We've been watching some Christmas movies. I haven't got most of my Christmas shopping done so I am hoping to get that finished on payday next weekend the 18th. I've been so broke lately!

My other good news is we won a photo contest, so we won a dog gift basket. Exciting!

We had a new cavy litter born last week of 2 babies. A tortoiseshell sow, and a Tri-Roan sow! Exciting again! I've been waiting for a Roan for ever it seems! Their dad is 5 years old so I am hoping I can get a replacement boar for him soon incase anything was to ever happen to him in the next year or two.

Saturday we are supposed to be going to Comox to drop Amanda's Red satins off, pick up cull rabbits for the raptor centre, and get our 6 new Mini rex from Dillon. Plus take him 10 cavies and 2 rabbits from Stephanie Flowers, and pick up some from him to bring back down here. They are calling for snow though.. so we shall see.

Well i better go and get something done!

Deciding on Litters

2009-11-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-26T17:46:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-24T20:46:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-22T19:29:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-11-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-11T20:37:00.000-08:00

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...

104 less blogs than a year ago

2009-10-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

We sure haven't written as many blogs in 2009 as we did in 2008. I wonder why such a difference?

Anyway, litter updates:

Dream On Boys had a litter of 8 last Sunday by Kayden. Brokens and Solids, but no REWs or Torts I believe.

Squirrely had a litter of 7 last Monday by the Rainstar buck. She lost 1 though. Dilutes and Chestnuts.

Emerald has 3 babies, plus raising Milky Way's 1 REW doe. They are doing good.

Gillian has her 9 still, and is doing very well (all Black / Broken Black).

Isobella (Mini Rex) has 4 still, 2 Blue, 1 Broken blue and 1 Broken black.

We have narrowed our Keepers down from the September litters. We haven't gone through them for a few weeks, but here is what we are planning to keep, at last look:

Sara X Evan - Sable Steel doe, G'Tp Steel doe

Rosalind X Braxtin - Growing all 3 out for now. 2 Black does, 1 G'Tp buck

All Summer Long X Ethan - G'Tp Steel buck (have 4 left, but at last look liked just 1, although we will re go through them first)

The other litter by Bridget X Hunter has very cute babies! 2 broken Steels, 2 solid. Thought there was another one I forgot about, but must not be...

We have 2 new Mini Lops coming back from Convention. From Silent Springs Rabbitry - Kitsemble's Sidney and Kitsemble's Gus. Looking forward to those 2!!!

Also have 3 Mini Rex from KT's Rabbitry...

Our For sale page has been updated with several Satins for sale. One day we need to go through Mini lops and sell some bucks!! We'll have time one day soon to do that!

Convention Update

2009-10-30T09:15:00.001-07:00

We've been slacking on our blog posts lately. Not sure where the days go, but when we think to write a blog we don't really have anything too exciting to report.

Let's see, first Convention news. We spent the day yesterday getting all the last minute details finalized for the rabbits leaving for Convention. We sent 13 animals down, 2 to show and the rest sold (4 others are being shown as well).

We are showing Kylee and Storm Warning. Will see how they do!

Even though we weren't attending Convention ourselves, the amount of paperwork we had to make sure we had ready was a bit crazy. Permission letter allowing Stan & Kathy to show our animals, and check them in/out; copy of ARBA card; Receipt of Entry submitted online; cage cards; mini-peds and all peds for pre-sold animals labelled to new owners. Also made a Convention booklet with all info for S&K in it, along with feeding instructions; and any other info I could think of!

Anyway, our exciting adventure to deliver the rabbits began at 3 pm yesterday. We loaded the extended cab of our truck (as we don't have a canopy for it, and we REALLY need to find one!!) with all the rabbits, we had Luke (our Golden Retriever) with us, so the 3 of us piled in the front of the cab. We had to run by the feed store first to buy a bag of feed to send down with S&K, them stopped at the Farm market and bought some Parsley for the rabbits heading down (they love it, and that way they can have a few sprigs over the next few days each). Finally got out of Duncan by 4 pm. We had to be downtown Victoria by 5 pm, to take 2 guinea pigs to the pet store. So we managed to get down there just after 5, found the pet store (right in the middle of downtown, and it was a zoo!), but we lucked out and found parking right in front. Quickly did that, at least we stacked the cavies so we only had to pull one other carrier out to get them.

From there we raced over to the airport to grab our shipment that was coming in from Ottawa (4 Mini Rex). So we got there at 5:45 (rabbits were supposed to be in at 5:30, but we were a bit late). Anyway, they tell us they've been delayed, and wouldn't be in until at least 6:30 if not later. So Kim comes out and tell me this (I've been walking Luke around the parking lot, as he is bored out of his mind already). So we take the dog for a long walk all around the airport, past all the travellers, etc. That takes us until 6:20. We get back to the truck and jump in, and wait and wait. By 6:35 we see the fellow drive the cargo truck over to an aircraft. So we think great, will wait another 5 and go in. So we go inside, and wait, and wait. Finally just after 7 the guy is finally back, and we can leave!

As we are leaving the airport we remember that the 6 chicks we have with us (forgot to mention those), the lady was meeting us at Stan's at 7, and we are a good hour away. Shoot! He number was restricted on my cell phone, so I call Stan, talk to his daughter and explain my dilemma. That way when someone shows up at their place, they aren't wondering what the heck is going on. So we thought since it was after 7, we'd just run through a drive thru somewhere and grab something quick. Well another phone call from Stan 10 mins later, and he says the lady is going to meet you at the 17 mile pub up the road. So rather than stopping, and having her wait longer we just kept going. We had to meet Wendy first in Langford to take Stan money and get a rabbit from her for someone else who is picking up Sat at our farm.

So we finally meet Wendy at 8 pm, and keep heading towards Sooke. But, we have a burnt out head light (low beam) on one side, and the road is black with no lights on the side (or reflectors). Kim knows the roads, but not that great in the dark. So we had to go slower. Finally get to the 17 mile pub,meet the lady who bought the 6 chicks. This was about 8:30 or so.

Finally we could head to Stans, unload and get dinner somewhere. As we are heading down the dark road to Stan's with just 1 headlight, Kim has a brainwave. We have fog lights. So she fiddled around with her lights, and figured out fog lights (was really foggy there, and this gave us 2 working lights). Finally we could see what was on the right side of the road. Lol.

By 9 pm, we were pulling into Stan's driveway. Start unloading the rabbits, and give him all the paperwork and instructions.

We left S&K's at 9:30 to head back to Duncan. Still haven't had dinner, so stop in Mill Bay (as there is nothing open between Sooke and the TC Hwy). So we get to Mill Bay just after 10, grab something for us and the dog, and run to the farm to unload the few rabbits, and put the ducks in their house.

By 11 pm we were walking into the door of our house... Whew! Sure look a lot of hrs just to take some rabbits down!!

So, that's that story. The rabbits are all off, they were leaving on the 10 a ferry and hope to by in San Diego by tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully they have an easy trip down.

Today we have a shipment of 1 rabbit to send to Terrace.

I was going to post litter updates, but that'll have to be another blog! This one is becoming a novel...

An update

2009-10-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit disappointed this year. We haven't been able to attend any US shows. In fact our last US show was 2 years ago this month!!! So besides for the few shows here on the Island we've had very few comments on our rabbits. We really need to go to a show and see how we are doing. I know with the rabbits we've sold they have gone on and done amazing things but we've sold most of our show stock the past year. Next year we need to keep show stock more LOL!

So I am a bit disappointed because sometimes I feel barn blind with just us looking at the rabbits. The last person to look at the rabbits was Cliff Dick and Jan Coffelt and that was in August. We had excellent comments in all 4 breeds(now 5) overall and are heading in the right direction but my 2010 goal is definitely more shows. I know Cristina and I are both disappointed with so few shows the past couple of years we used to be quite high in the sweep stake points(for Mini lops) and we have dropped a lot from the amount of shows we have been too.

We've discussed what we need to work on in each breed. The mini lops we have worked on the longest so we have come the furthest in them. We want to continue working on balance but also better depth. We actually bought 3 animals to improve our herd. One is Velotta's Hydro a nice broken black junior buck, the other 2 are Kitsemble's Gus and Kitsemble's Sidney. I wasn't actually going to buy Gus but both Sidney and Gus bred together produced some super deep and typey kids for Silent Spring's Rabbitry so I decided.... they cross well why not!

The Red Satins I have seen a huge improvement in overall type already. But, I do want to work on temperament. My really nice buck we bred is showing signs of aggressiveness-- something I will not put up with! So we will work with him. I have a re breed right now of 10 babies that are super sweet(as was he) so I think it is just a "I'm a buck and I know it kind of stage) but some really nice babies in this litter as well! I'm actually finding the Satins the does have better temperaments then the bucks all of the sudden? Maybe it is just the weather? The bucks are wanting girls? Who knows. Anyone interested I do have 2 juniors, a Senior buck and a Senior doe for sale.

The French lops are hard to tell with only a couple of litters underway. I did keep 2 nice junior bucks from the one litter though. Emerald is due on Saturday. Punch is hopefully bred, and I've bred Squirrely as well. I can't really say with them what I'm needing to work on until I get some more litters! Sarah from Rainstar rabbitry worked very hard on the type in her herd and I am so grateful to get a great start again them. So I am really pleased with what I have and look forward to working with them.

The Dwarfs we have a lot we want to work on. These last litters we thought for sure Matt's babies would be nicer then the Sonshine buck(Keno) but we like Keno's babies better. We have 3 nice herd bucks to work with now. I think probably what we want to work on the most in the next 6 months with the dwarfs is short bodies and fuller ears.

The Mini rex have a lot of good points but we have a lot of different lines that I don't know how they will all tie in. First generations might not be great, and 2nd generation line breeding should be better. Although, I know as a whole(breed) they seem to cross well most lines. And Mini rex have the best temperaments! I just love their cuddly personalities : )

So, end of 2009 and 2010 we have our work cut out for us, but I've never backed down from a challenge so I won't start now!! I also spent a lot of the summer thinking about raising/showing Ducks and Chickens(Or Waterfowl and Poultry I should say) but that took away from a lot of breeding and showing with the rabbits. So I've decided to just keep what I have with the ducks/chickens and if I get something nice maybe show it but otherwise just keep them for eggs/selling ducklings/chicks and go from there!

Today is Cristina's 23rd birthday. We took the dogs for a good run and play, and then we gave all 4 dogs a bath(boy did they stink!!). We've had a problem with dog food- we've been Feeding Go Natural! Chicken/Fruit/Vegetable and suddenly our dogs got violentally sick with major diarrhea. We didn't realize at first it was the food but other people were saying the same thing. The food smelled like cat food! Anyway I switched them off that, and their canned Tripe and they are doing fine. They are now on Acana Large Breed and a little Science Diet canned food. So far all is well and they are now finally doing fine. I was really worried. First it was our old lab and then it was the Golden Retriever, and then it was my German Shepherd. The Shih Tzu had the opposite problem and was getting constipated so I knew something was wrong. I am hoping Acana will be a better food. I was pretty disappointed as well that Pet Curean did not seem interested in helping myself or the other 6-8 others with the same problem- basically all from the same batch of feed and only chicken based product of theirs. "Supposedly" it is an isolated issue, or a water issue. It if it "IS" an issue. But, everyone having this problem were on different waters(City, North Cowichan, Wells etc)
Anyway, hopefully now on a better dog food!

Shipment of rabbits in from Ottawa!

2009-10-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

So, I had an e-mail sent to me from a friend telling me of a breeder in Ottawa selling out of Mini rex. I know, I'm insane now we have 5 breeds of rabbits. But, the way I see it, you only live once and if I'm able to do this, why not? I will and do keep my high standards in every single breed so I plan to do just as well in all the other breeds as our main breed- ML's. Anyway so I contacted the guy selling and the animals are all from Cresthill Rabbitry, with 2 animals from New York. These 9 new Mini rex are mine/Cristina's but Mayhanna the little girl that helps us has her own pair, plus read further for more info!

So after a lot of organizing-- they arrived today just before 6pm. We got them unloaded and put into their cages. Some really nice rabbits in the bunch! We had to clip a bunch of nails as they were really long but the rabbits look good and healthy and hopefully they eat and drink well tonight.

We sold a rabbit and a guinea pig today/tonight. We have someone coming tomorrow for a rabbit and actually 2 rabbits tomorrow so that will be good.

Very pleased with the new rabbits, really great type. Just need to go on some diets.

We've gone a bit crazy buying new stock this month. We purchased these 9 Mini rex, and a trio of Mini rex from KT's Rabbitry for Mayhanna : ) Plus 2 Mini lops- Kitsemble's Gus and Kitsemble's Sara and Velotta's Hydro to work on a few things in our ML program but still stay within the same lines. We also purchased the new Chestnut dwarf buck, that is all the buying we will be doing for quite a long time!

Otherwise that is all that is new!

Rabbits in general

2009-10-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Our blogs have been few and far between, at least compared to a year ago when we used to write one daily. I'm not sure what happened, but I just haven't been inspired to write much lately. Life is hectic, for one thing, but I just haven't come up with anything intelligent to write about. Maybe one day...

For now, here is an update. This is the best I can do for now! lol.

We have several youngsters popping out of the boxes. Some really cute ones too. 2nd Time Around X Montana have 2 ADORABLE babies. Seriously, these 2 have Holland heads and those short round ears. Now mini lop babies are usually cute, but these are extra cute (so maybe I'm a little bias, but even one of the guys who hangs around the farm agreed with me that they are adorable, and he doesn't usually think the rabbits are cute!) They are also both does, I believe, if my memory serves me correctly.

Hope has her 10 red satins, they are super cute too. Looking forward to typing them in another few weeks for first cut.

Rosalind has her 3, typed them for the first time yesterday, and am impressed thus far, but we'll give it a few more weeks and decide who we will hold back.

Sara has 3 still too, looking cute also; and All Summer Long has a very cute litter of 6. All Gold Tipped Steels too - awesome color. I know, I'm boring, but love the Steel color!!! Hoping for some nice typey babies out of that cross (All Summer Long X Ethan). ASL is a full sister to a nice G'Tp doe (Jersey Girl) who is in WA, and has done well in the shows. Ethan is a Sara son X Zeke. Zeke has produced some of our best stock, including the 2009 BOV winner Youth at Nationals... So here's hoping! Although 5 of the 6 are bucks, oh well.. You can show them longer!

For the dwarfs, we have 12 cute babies. Some we like more than others, but so far looks like we have some promising ones. Will know more in a few weeks. We are growing Emma X Keno son out. Nice cheeks on that buck (he's 8 weeks this weekend), and short body type. He can be a pain to pose though, so working on that. Also would like to see a rounder ear, but giving him the benefit of the doubt as he is right smack in that ugly stage, and will be for probably another few months. I remember what the dwarfs were like!

So those are our VIRBA show junior hopefuls.

Our next batch of litters are due this weekend. Bridget X Hunter; Cali X Zander (not sure if she lost her litter though, she decided to go off feed last week, so have been dealing with her being stubborn. She's back eating pretty good now, but not sure if she lost the litter. At least she is doing OK); Jessica X Kayden; and GB1 X Ethan...

Those will also be VIRBA juniors, a month younger than the above, but will see what comes out of those breedings.

Have 1 more dwarf due, Deja beginning of next week. Milky Way is due next Friday too..

We have added some new pictures to the website, but they didn't come out as clear as I would have liked. The CF card we were using was corrupted, so we lost half our pictures from the last picture day. That was a pain! So all those pictures were corrupted, and couldn't be opened / altered. Also, we should have move more out of the sun, so some have a glare in the pics...

Will need to retake some pictures one day, annoying, we actually had some really good ones of Naomi's kids!

Finally bred a few French Lops, Emerald was bred to Rugby a few weeks ago; Squirrely to the Rainstar buck (can't remember his name right now). Need to breed Punch still. I think those are all our senior does? Five Alive is a 6/8 now, I believe.. I think she is just 6 months or around there. Had her out today, wow, she is going to be huge like her mom Squirrely! Had a friend at the barn looking at the rabbits, and she is probably 10lbs. So good size for her age...

Oh, had a Satin litter born last Sunday. She had 2 (Tana)... Believe they are both does too!

We shipped 7 rabbits out today to Ontario. Glad to have those cages! Now end of the month have some more going, but some coming in too. Lol...

A couple non-rabbit updates. We now have 2 horses. Our own personal horse (our first!) is a 14.2 paint mare- will get pics this weekend! We just got her last night. She is 8 and a super sweet girl! Her name is Susie(we think she looks more like an April though). And the other horse at the farm is our uncles friend and his name is Avatar. He is a 3/4 Arab, and 1/4 Standard bred. We also got 111 layer chickens(well our uncle did).

Anyway, that's the update for tonight. Need to figure out Convention entries next week!!

Luxton and life

2009-09-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

So Luxton Fair was a great success. I took all my "other" breeds of chickens and some ducks and put them on display. I managed to sell every single chicken I took except for 2 that I thought I was going to keep(not a breed I want to breed/show) and now have someone coming to pick up those 2 girls on Saturday!

Which just leaves me with my silkies, which is the breed I want to raise : ) Then of course all my ducks in many breeds- Cayugas, Pekins, White calls, Silver Appleyard, Buff Orpington and I think that is it. Oh and I have a Khaki Campbell as well ;)

We also sold 3 nice Mini lops to Tara Grunwald in Sooke, and a French lop Jr doe. We also sold a Cavy as a show/breeding boar when he is ready to go. And hopefully have some more sold when they are ready to go!

I am trying to cut back on some cavies as I only have 4 big cages "designated" for cavies and I am into rabbit holes( X many!) so I need to cut back. I am considering parting with Just Hoppin's Charles who has a Best in Show win at a very small local show. Beautiful boar in breeding coat. Has produced terrific kids that I am keeping otherwise he would NOT be for sale. I also have a Kelly Gilmore boar and sow to part with(nice pigs!) and others! Many babies! I would like to get down to about 6 adults so I can keep some babies... I want to keep my Black boar, Roan sow, a Red/White sow, a TSW sow and Boar and 1-2 of my current babies... So the others are all available. :- )

I also non-rabbit related have a couple of young(baby) Silkie roosters, and some Black Cochin and Barred Rock chicks for sale.

We are planning a couple of quiet days. Tomorrow we are going to ship a rabbit to Terrace, and possibly pick up a rabbit cage in Nanaimo that someone is selling if not already sold. Try to get the chicken run completely finished and work in the barns!

I want to get some does bred tomorrow too. Babies are beginning to bounce around the cages- looking super cute!

Ohio Shipment sent out, and others!

2009-09-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

So it took a day longer, thanks to the Victoria cargo office, but going out of Nanaimo went with no hitches to get 9 rabbits off to Ohio (supposed to be 10, but will send the other one to Convention, she just didn't fit in shipment).

Cage space wise, that REALLY helped!

Also sent 4 Mini's down to WA (thanks Jan for transporting for us!!!), and we are doing a shipment of 1 Mini to Terrace tomorrow morning (7 am flight in Victoria.. not my idea of a fun Saturday morning! Oh well can use the cage.)

Now we just have to try to get through a few more weeks, with a few other people's rabbits. We have been looking after 2 Dwarfs, that are to go with a few ML's to another breeders place, and as of tomorrow will have 4 hollands we are housing until we can get that shipment off (along with 3 French lops).

Our nest boxes are getting full, have 5 ML litters right now, smaller litters though so not too high of numbers. New litter born yesterday by "2nd Time Around" a broken chestnut doe who is a sister to Ada and Ava. She was returned from a 4H home, as they found her scratchy. So I worked with her for a few weeks, and she really just wanted to be a mom! She is actually a super sweet doe, wanting head scratches. So she had a litter of 4 (3 alive) yesterday by Montana. Perfect timing, as we were just loading to send Montana to Ohio, so glad to have this litter by him!

I believe our last count of ML babies, including the 3 born yesterday is 19 I believe.

Dwarf litters are doing well. We have an Opal! Out of Mae and Keno. Something different for sure. Was expecting it to be a Blue Otter, but now that it has more fur / eyes open, we're sure it's an opal. Last count was 12 Dwarf babies. Have 1 more doe due, then nothing until Nov when we will breed a few for Dec litters (that way Selina can have cute 4 week old babies when she is here! Her request).

Still have the 10 Satin babies, Hope is raising 7, Rosalind 1, and Sara 2 of them. We have Tana due in the next while, can't remember when she is due, need to check barn calendar on that one!!

Still have some ML's due, with not breeding since May (last litters in June), we had a WHOLE slew of does that needed to be bred. Ones that had the last 6 months off. We have bucks that are 1 yr old that have only just now been used for their first litters, and does that are 1 yr old who have had 1 litter, and sat idle since then... So, we had to breed some of them!!

I think the next most important one(s) to breed are Alexis, and maybe Anne Marie, and Dream on Boys (as Mayhanna really wants her rabbit to have babies, and I forgot to breed her to Porter before he left... Whoops! I think she wants her bred to a REW though, so Kayden can get a girlfriend probably!!)

Those are all the updates for today, have a gazillion jobs to do with Luxton Fair this weekend.

I'm venting!!

2009-09-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay I'm sorry but I have to vent, about what you ask? FAMILY!

Not my parents they are awesome. Our uncle... He has kindly let us keep the rabbits at the farm for the past 6 years and the rabbits have never been a problem. Then we asked about getting sheep and he was all happy. Then we had problems with the sheep getting out of the hay feeders and into the barnyard area and it turned into a nightmare so we sold the sheep. So then we got into ducks and chickens. The ducks don't seem to cause a problem. We had a nightmare of a time with the cows getting into the duck pen until we moved it but that isn't a problem now. Now the problem is if a chicken accidentally gets out he freaks out. I could go into many details but now that I'm writing this I'm thinking why does the entire world want to hear my problems? You probably don't so I won't keep venting and complaining and b****** Who wants to hear that? But .. UGH! So frustrating! I am mainly only keeping my Silkie chickens, and Cochins as both breeds don't fly very well so they don't get out. However our other chickens do. And I may have to find homes for the other breeds if I can't keep them in. Netting over the top only works to a certain point. Now he tells us he is bringing home 100 chickens(layers) raising them in a 14 by 14 shed and never letting his chickens out because they will lay better. And on Sunday or Monday he has a horse coming to the farm(long story, a women is involved though). UGH! And Guess what? Guess who gets to feed and grain these animals, and clean the barns and all of that? Have you guessed yet?

Anyone have acreage to rent on Vancouver Island? Good barns and pasture, small house is fine LOL

Okay my vent is finished. Maybe I can just conk him on the head? ;)

Rabbits are all doing great. We have 14 leaving next Wednesday- CAGES! YEAH!

Lots of dwarf babies, a nice litter of Red Satins, and some nice litters of Mini lops coming up. We have Blue and Black Otters and one chestnut in the dwarf litters. So cute! The one older Dwarf baby we have is SO sweet. He comes running to the front of the cage for loving as soon as he sees us : )

The End of Summer

2009-09-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

The End of Summer is here. I remember back in high school that this last week before school started again I'd be all worked up about the new school year, but at the same time their was always the excitement of the new classes, seeing friends that I didn't hang out with over the summer, and just getting back into a routine.

That's what it's like with the rabbits. Usually this time of year, we are busy anticipating the show season, we would have 1 show under our belt (VIEX), but would have Cowichan and Luxton to look forward to. At the same time, we would be thinking ahead to breedings we had done for VIRBA, and when we should plan breedings for other Spring shows, depending on which we would be attending, etc.

This year however, our show season is already done. Cowichan isn't happening (due to the fair not being set up after moving), and Luxton no one else took over (we have done the secretary work for the last few years, and since it's the weekend after Cowichan have found it too much to run 2 shows back to back - however no one else stepped up to the plate to take it over). There is Saanich this weekend, however Kim and I decided we are going to scratch our entry. It's only a single show, and besides for 3 other Mini Lops entered, it's just ours. So that, and a few other reasons we have decided to save the money and apply it towards other rabbit 'things'...

We still have hope that we might be able to persuade a local breeder to show a few Mini Lops at Convention for us... Not sure if it'll work, but it doesn't hurt to try!

However, at this point our next show is VIRBA in February.

In breeding news, I did get GB1 bred to Ethan on Weds. Looking forward to that cross!

Sunday/Monday we have 6 does due, so will see what they have, if anything, after this long hot summer!! Technically it's not over yet either, but lets hope it stays on the cooler side now. I think I have a good enough tan for the Fall!

Fall breedings started

2009-09-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

With our last big cut back, we needed to start some Fall breedings for show juniors at VIRBA. We started last month with the first batch, 3 Mini Lops and 3 Dwarfs are due (plus 2 Dwarfs who came bred, although I'm not convinced they took, but we'll see).

So those 6 does we bred are due on the 6th and 7th of this month. That is: Rosalind, Milky Way, Sara for the mini lops, and Olivia, Mae & White Gold for the dwarfs.

Yesterday I bred a few more Mini Lops, for a few more VIRBA juniors. We need to be really careful not to breed too many, so we don't get overwhelmed again. However, most of these girls have sat idle since earlier this spring, with the exception of GB1 who weaned her litter earlier in August.

So I bred: All Summer Long X Damian, Jessica X Kayden, Bridget X Hunter and Cali X Zander.

Still have 2 more does to breed this round, then holding off on the other does for the most part. Some will need to be bred before long, but need a bit of a break inbetween!

Today I'm going to try and breed: Gillian X either Dominic or Evan; and GB1 X Ethan (although she wasn't interested yesterday, but we'll see today!).

Also have to breed Cricket, before she leaves to Amanda's. We'll be getting POL back, as we had planned to keep her for 1 more litter, but Amanda has transport this coming weekend for her, and not sure when she will again, at least not for a few months. So I think Cricket X Braxtin.

So that's the plan! Our website upcoming litters page is updated with all of the above, for the breedings already done... Will post the other 2 tonight if it works!

No wonder I'm always broke!

2009-08-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

I really want to go shopping tomorrow with Cristina and our mom, but I can't really afford to do that. I couldn't figure out why I was so broke, until I figured out what it is costing me to feed all my animals. I just about had a heart attack(okay well maybe not that extreme) ;)

But! $850 a month is animal feed. No wonder I have no money. No wonder I can't afford anything I want to do anymore. GEESH! I know half the problem is that prices have gone up so much but wow!

$407 of that is rabbit feed/shavings/hay and treat mix cost. $102 is cows, $110 is chickens and ducks, $125 is cats, $115 is the 4 dogs(and that is only one bag of dog food a month with 4 dogs(3 big and one small) at $75 a bag. But the 2 old dogs aren't eating that well these days, only about a cup each(they have great appetites for people food or canned food mind you(buggers!) so we don't go through near the amount of dog food we used to. Wow.

I will try to figure out a way to cut costs from here. I've been reading Keeps Rabbitry blog on cutting costs.. So far I haven't found a way for the animals. The above doesn't include the cost of hay for the cows- except 2 bales of Orchard Grass a month as a special treat(they have pasture and round bales) the round bale cost our uncle covers since he bales it himself- thankfully! This also doesn't include shavings for the ducks,chickens or cows... I could basically include another $300 every 3 or 4 months when I get a load in.. Just finding a load is proving to be a VERY hard thing. Shavings are a hard thing to find around here these days. We buy bags of shavings for the rabbits. The cows are out on pasture so their barn doesn't need shavings right now, and the chickens/ducks I am using straw for now.

Wow, I can't believe how much I spend!

And Sunday show results- just a few days late

2009-08-27T07:39:00.001-07:00

Sunday was another good showing. We also sold one cavy boar.

Mini lops- under Cliff Dick

BOB went to Jody Mitchell with Posey's Austin
BOS went to Posey's Lynette a broken chestnut jr doe.

Cliff loved Anne Marie. Damien was 2nd in the solid senior buck class. Flying Solo was being a jerk so he didn't get a good placing, he was spraying all over everyone!!

Satins got great comments under Jan Coffelt but no major wins. She really liked our jr buck

Netherlands- again BOG with very nice type for the otter buck

And French lops Jan absolutely loved as well, and Cliff really looked at Rugby for BIS but his coat is not finished.

Today our plan is to go through the Mini's again for what we are parting with. We have decided not to continue with our chocolate program due to space. We have 100 holes, and we don't want to have to keep buying more stackers LOL!

Anyway we are going to be posting the rabbits for sale for convention hopefully this week. We have room for 8 more to go to San Diego convention

We also plan to go through the 2 French lop litters, and the one Satin litter to decide who is staying and who is going. They are right at that stage now.

We need to get Mini lop numbers down STILL as we are over the 50 holes for them yet again... with a whole bunch of planned breedings and does bred now! It will help eliminate the chocolates but..... still need to do some major culling!

So look for more animals posted for sale. The ones on hold should hopefully be going in the next few weeks which will help cage space some more!

Show Results for Saturday

2009-08-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

We had a good show yesterday.

Satins-
Best of Breed with Posey's ? Can't remember what I named him but "4B" anyway, red jr buck. 10 animals shown by 4 breeders, 3 of the animals shown came from the US from Oregon. I was pleased, Cliff Dick said he was beautiful!

Mini lops- Best of Breed, and best opp sex of breed with Posey's Damien, and Posey's Anne Marie : ) We also had 1st solid jr buck with a black jr buck. I don't know all the placings but they did well!

French lops- unfortunetly our 2 were the only 2 shown!! So they were BOB/BOS however, Cliff LOVED them and said they were gorgeous and even had condition for this time of year and for being French lops LOL! He really raved over them. That was Rugby and a broken blue chin doe from Sarah : )

Netherland dwarfs- we just showed the one buck who got excellent comments and BOG but didn't go any further then that. Was marked as a "nice animal" but needed better color(black otter, he wanted to see him "blacker" which I can completely agree on. :- )

We sold all the feeders and carriers we took to sell. Now if we could just sell the rabbits and cavies I would be happy today!!

Will post show results for today, hopefully tonight!

Show entry & rabbits in general

2009-08-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well we have made a bit more room in the barn - we culled 12 today, which helped open more cages up. With the 20 leaving, what was that 10 days ago, or so. That really helps cages and the feed bill!

However, when we weaned more juniors / litters today, all cages are full again!

We did decide to sell 3 more Mini Lops: Tessa, Cappuchino, and Marley. They are up on the for sale page.

We are showing 12 Mini Lops at the show this weekend. Wanted to show Kayden too, but he is blowing his coat like crazy... Maybe by Saanich it'll be better!

Need to figure a few more out to sell, to make more room for Fall breedings. But will decide in the next few weeks.

More website updates done!

2009-08-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

Lots of website updates have been added on - loads of new Mini Lop juniors added (all page 3 is new, plus the last 2 on pg 2).

Also For sale page has been updated!

Dwarf pages also have been updated - Shaded and Self pages added on...

Dwarf litter, Mini Lops bred & Dwarfs bred!

2009-08-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Had a new Dwarf litter born today. Twig's Emma had 4 babies by Sonshine's Keno. 3 were peanuts, all dead. So she has 1 alive, it's tucked in under lots of fur. We couldn't foster any Satins to her, as they are like 5X's the size of the little dwarf... So here's hoping it'll do OK!

Had 20 rabbits leave over the last 2 days. So that helped our space out a LOT!!

Bred a few Mini Lops yesterday and Dwarfs:

Milky Way X Kayden
Rosalind X Braxtin
tried All Summer Long X Ethan (but they were not coorperating)
Cali X Rocco (need to try her again as well, she really wanted to be bred, but he was being a bit of a dork)

In the dwarfs we bred:

Olivia X Matt
Mae X Keno

Today I bred:

Sara X Evan (original plan was to breed her to Dominic, but he couldn't get it right...)
White Gold X Matt (Dwarf litter)

So I need to go order 3 dwarf boxes. Emma had to have a ML box for her litter today, as I hadn't got myself organized in time to order a few smaller ones... I'm not sure where July even went!!!

Working on a autumn design for our website... Should be done by September!

Some open cages starting this week!

2009-08-03T13:12:00.000-07:00

Starting on Wednesday we should start having some more empty holes. Right now we have 3 empty holes.... On Wednesday we have 4 adult French lops leaving along with Kingston, CoverGirl, Daphne and Grace and Tulip and Haley are all going. Which means 10 empty holes right there!!

Then we also have 6 Mini lops going to Shawn- Don't you know, Gavin, Lena, Show stopper, Eclipse. Which only is technically one free cage of those 6 because all those does have litters needing to be gone through/weaned but at least that will be 11 cages...

:- )

Still quite a few rabbits for sale.. another litter to go up this evening. Keep checking back!

100 holes and never enough cage space

2009-07-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Can you tell I'm on holidays? 2 blogs in one day is unheard of for us, especially this time of year. I'm actually having time to relax. OMG!!!

Anyway, we are cage crunched(whats new) and were figuring out holes. We have 100 holes and yet still we are out of room!! We need to move some Mini lops out fast! We are way over in the breed for our number of holes(54). 22 dwarf holes, 12 french and 12 Satin.

We have 8 Satins with 8 babies in the boxes. 11 French with 11 babies in the boxes, 50 Mini lops in our "keep list" with another 17 to decide on.. omg! Plus numerous litters that we have decided on with some that are way too nice to cull.. We are at 9 dwarfs with one upcoming litter. No mini lops are bred!

My exciting news is I'm going into poultry and waterfowl as well as the rabbits. Plus my cows too of course(Red Angus, Black Angus and a little Hereford). Anyway Water fowl we are going to raise Pekin, Cayuga, Khaki Campbell and White call ducks). Chickens/poultry we are going to raise White, Blue and Black silkies(maybe buffs too), Buff Brahmas(bantam and standard) and Cochins in Blue,Black, Buff and Partridge : )Plus have a flock of just layers in a mix of breeds :)

Anyway check our for sale page for GREAT deals.

1/2 the barn powerwashed

2009-07-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

We got half the barn powerwashed this morning. We did each cage, and pan. We also powerwashed the floor. We still have the 3 stackers and the other side of the barn to do but it was a good job to get done today. It is supposed to be about 100 F here today. It was up to 111 F the past couple of days. It was crazy! We all hate this heat.

We lost 3 rabbits in this heat :(

We are in the process of buying an air conditioner for the barn. This heat was too intense and with no insulation and a metal roof the barn doesn't get as warm as outside but it was 35.5 degrees C the past couple of afternoons. TOO HOT. We have 5 fans going- including an industrial fan, frozen pop bottles in each cage and a soaker hose on the roof.

Last weekend we brought home 39 ducklings- 35 pekins, a pair of white calls, and a pair of Khaki campbells. We also came home with 24 chicks :)

We are making a deal on Mini lops to make cage space- Buy any 3 mini lops on the for sale page, and get a 4th for free : )

Our crazy life

2009-07-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Life has been so very insanely busy that there has been no time for blogs. I really and truly hope that August can be and will be a slower month for us, although I seriously doubt that.

Today we were helping a fellow breeder(Kathy Mannweiller) look through her awesome Mini Satins and Florida Whites. Watch out! She has some nice ones coming up! Kathy always gives us a run for our money in her breeds on the BIS table!!

Tomorrow we are first if we can make enough time going to start working on the chicken coop/run, and the inside pens for the chicks/ducklings. Then we have to be in Nanoose at 10:00 to get a Mille Fleur rooster and also look through some of Wally's Hollands. Then we are heading up to Comox to take 7 chickens to Kelly along with her Champagne buck, and dropping 10 rabbits off to Amanda Swan, and picking up our chicks and ducklings.

Saturday we are taking the day off and just having a farm day!

Then back to work on Sunday. Starting next Thursday I have 9 days off(possibly 10) crosses fingers! And won't have to go back to work until the following Saturday or Sunday. We have a trip planned to Kamloops in amongst everything else.

Rabbits are all doing well. The high heat has not been something any of us have liked but we've all dealt with it okay. We purchased 2 cows last weekend(total of 4 cows now) we got a Gelveigh Cow and her Red Angus/Gelveigh heifer calf. Beautiful girls! We need to get pics of the 4 cows to show them off, they look super!

French lop pages are now up on the website, although quite a few more rabbits to add on yet. Because we only have 12 holes for the Satins, and 18 for the French I'm selling some of the animals this fall(not the ones on my regular pages, just the ones on the for sale pages). Rugby Emerald and Squirrely are here for life : )

Dogs/cats are all fine. Between weddings and meetings and potlucks and company from Saskatchewan and everything else it has just been exhausting! :- ) Oh well I'll wait until October and then I'll be bored again ;) Just kidding!

New pictures!

2009-07-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

Lots of new pictures have been posted on our website. Juniors pages (all but 1 junior is now pictured!), Bucks page, and some on Does too!

Lots of new pics of the For sale page too!

See website here!

Shipping available for trios or more, and there is room left on our Waiting list for this Fall!