New Additions

On Friday night I picked up two new additions to the rabbitry. The hope was to pick them up early Friday morning, but the transporters didn't get out of convention as early as they were hoping. One is a chinchilla mini lop buck and the other is a chestnut agouti mini lop doe. They are both young seniors - the buck just turned 6 months old (like a few days ago) and the doe is almost 9 months old.

Buck: Posey's Cameron! I've wanted to get a buck from Kim & Cristina for awhile and it finally worked out a few months ago. This year I realized it was about time for me to bring in a new herd buck, since almost all my babies this year are out of one buck. I kept my eye on the Posey's sale page and asked about several bunnies, but then this little guy stuck out to me. I think he will be a great addition to the herd and looks like exactly what the herd needs. He's not from unfamiliar lines either, which is a benefit. Thanks again guys :). So, here is Cameron:




This is not the best picture of him at all, since he is a lot nicer than this. I'll try to get a new picture of him soon!

Doe: Silent Spring's Jana! I had tossed around the idea of bringing in a doe from the Posey's but that wasn't going to work out very well because of all the transport costs. So, I gave up on bringing in another doe, until I saw a post Michael put up doing a big herd reduction. Michael has gorgeous stock and I know he'll be selling out shortly for college, so I figured I'd get another rabbit from him while I had a chance with a transport. Jana is from completely new lines, but I know these lines mesh well with my current lines. Jana is out of pure Kitsemble lines :)! I have one doe from Sara Kitsemble, but she is in my pointed white project, so it's nice to have a doe for my chocolate/lilac project out of Kitsemble lines. Jana is one beautiful doe who I think will add A LOT to the barn :). Jana placed 8th of 39 in Youth ML's at the ARBA Convention in San Diego this past week!! She's having a bit of a rougher time adjusting to everything out here, but she's already starting to not be so stressed out.






Qadoshyah

Annoying Server

Since I finally had a chance today to upload some pictures to the website, I opened up the FTP program and can't login to our server. Oh well, praise the Lord anyway! Our server has supposedly been doing updates for like a week or more. It was supposed to be up in 24-48 hours like 72 hours ago. So, I will post a few pictures of the baby pictures that I took last week here . . . it's not all of them though . . .











I got pictures of the new additions, but those will have to wait for the time being. I'm exhausted, my brain's fried from working on MySQL/PHP stuff for a website and I've gotta get off the computer for a few ;).

Qadoshyah

Update time . . .

A couple days ago I gave a few does ACV in their water. It worked again. Jake successfully bred Sarabeth yesterday. I'm hoping Tatianna will be ready to breed in the next day or so too.

I was able to get new pictures of the babies on Wednesday, but haven't had a chance to upload them yet. Our web server is in the process of upgrading, so we can't do anything with the sites for a couple more days anyway. I'm going to keep the bk chocolate doe out of Daisy's litter. She is beautiful. Very short & deep. Not that I *need* to keep another baby, but she will be very beneficial to the herd, I think. Plus, this is the last chance I have to keep anything out of Deckles :(. I'm not keeping anything from Kristen.

My two new rabbits are ALMOST here!! They should be somewhere in Texas or the first part of Oklahoma now and I should be picking them up within the next couple hours :). Yay! Will give more info & pictures once they arrive!

Jaimie emailed me a picture of Thad with his BIS bunny & all the stuff he won with it. Congrats again Thad :)! I'm so happy the buns have done so well. And this doe of his is a broken chocolate too!!


Qadoshyah

Fall Cleaning

Thankfully this week has been SUNNY & much warmer. It's been a nice change from the cold, rainy, cloudy past couple months we've had.

I went ahead and took the opportunity to clean the barn today. I only got half the barn cleaned and re-organized, but the other half is *easy* to finished. The other half to clean is just the big cage unit and all that involves is taking the bunnies out of it and spraying it off.

I finally had the chance to get all the carrier cages cleaned out and put away under a tarp too. Some of them had shavings in them from random trips and stuff. I hadn't been able to get them all organized and put away right since my foot was broken and then it has been cold & rainy the past few weeks since I've been off crutches.

I hope to get some pictures of the babies tomorrow, Lord willing. We'll see though.

A couple days ago I received an exciting update from Jaimie in Louisiana. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I sold several mini lops to her nephew a couple months back.

My nephew just won BIS at our state fair with the broken doe! He won his first belt buckle, a plaque, and a banner. Just wanted to let you know. He is so excited.

That was some great news to receive! Thanks for keeping me updated Jaimie and congrats again to Thad :)!

Qadoshyah

Not much to report

Well, there's not much to report on with the rabbits. Life has been busy as usual with various things going on. But, the bunnies are all doing good.

The babies are all so cute & becoming so full of personalities! They are 5 weeks old now (wow, time flies by FAST!), so I will be getting some new pictures of them up soon. It probably won't happen until mid next week, but we'll see if I can squeeze it in before then.

I took a little peek at Daisy's babies earlier today - I think they are all going to look VERY nice. Their heads are so round, with such free-flowing crowns and their bodies are SHORT. I think it's going to be tough to decide who to keep!

We had quite a storm last night and today . . . lots of rain. This fall is much wetter than last year and MUCH cloudier. The sun has hardly been out . It was out for a little while on Wednesday until the evening when the storm rolled in.

None of my does are very eager to breed . . . :(. I haven't been in a rush to get anybody bred, but I'd kind of like to have some more litters soon. I tried breeding Sarabeth to Jake tonight. He got her once, but she wasn't really that ready. So, I think I'll put some ACV in the water of the does I want to get bred and go from there. I plan to breed Sarabeth & Champagne. Possibly Kadence also, but we'll see . . . she'll probably wait at least a month, so I can breed her to Brad. I think her and Brad will make some gorgeous babies!

My two new rabbits have started their trip and should be to their new home by next Friday (Nov. 6th) - Yay!


Qadoshyah

Sweet Update

I received a nice email from Jaimie in Louisiana a couple days ago. Her nephew bought several mini lops from me a few months ago. Here's part of the email I received:

Just wanted to let you know that my nephew won BOB in both ARBA shows yesterday. In show A he won with the Opal doe and in show B he won with the Broken Chocolate doe. He was so excited! He had a lot of competition.

It's always nice to receive emails like this!

Here's a few pictures of the beautiful fall scenes that are everywhere now ~






Qadoshyah

Baby Cuteness

It's been almost 4 months since we've had any little babies here. Daisy's & Kristen's litters are at the beginning of the cute stage - 3 weeks old now. Yesterday, I finally managed to get their individual pictures and then got them up on the site today.

You can see the pictures here - Daisy's litter & Kristen's litter.

Here are a few of the pictures ~




My favorite picture of them all!



Qadoshyah

The week has gone by fast . . .

This past week went by extremely fast and we were in and out every day last week. We'll be staying home all day tomorrow hopefully, that'll be SO nice!

My bunnies have been doing pretty good. I haven't had much time to play with them, but I have made sure to give the babies some cuddles and give them all their loved treats (like hay & oats :)).

The litters are 3 weeks old now so they are due for some pictures. Hopefully I can get those tomorrow, as I should have all day available.

I lost Kristen's little lilac baby mysteriously Friday night. It was perfectly fine just a few hours prior and was dead in the midst of it's siblings when I checked them before I went to bed. I don't have a clue as to what happened, as it looked completely fine and normal. She was a very cute baby too!

All of Kristen's are does and the two "pinks" are both pointed whites. I can't tell for sure if one of the pointeds is a dilute or not, but I'm leaning towards not. Daisy's babies are 4 does, 2 bucks.

Hopefully more tomorrow,
Qadoshyah

Update

The weather has taken a turn and it's been quite cold this week. It's about 43 degrees outside right now. I know once winter hits, 43 will feel warm, but right now it feels pretty cold!!

It rained for about 13-15 hours straight from Thursday evening to Friday morning. Yeah, needless to say the creeks were overflowing. It was pretty windy here too and COLD, so I had to do the oh so fun job of securing all the tarps on the barn so that the wind doesn't get through to the bunnies. Everyone seems to be doing pretty well!

Because of the cold, I had to bring in Daisy's babies because they are at the age where they like to get out of the box, but they aren't big enough to get back in and they could freeze. One of Daisy's smaller babies is very hyper and likes to get out by himself, so he would very likely get WAY too cold and I'd lose him. He's the most adorable little baby too - so tiny, but with a HUGE head (that's a Deckles kid for ya ;)).

This week has been crazily busy and so will next week, but hopefully I can get some more pictures of both litters at some point next week. For now, I'll leave ya with a couple pictures of Daisy's little munchkin's (the blue & lilac chins) ~





Qadoshyah

Color Projects

On a rabbit breeder forum I am on, the topic of adding a new variety into someone's herd came up. This particular breeder who was considering doing this is very new to raising rabbits and already has one interesting variety in her breed. So, I thought I would give a little bit of information from my experience in working with colors for years now.

Shortly after starting raising my mini lops, I chose a color project - chocolates & lilacs. I also, not really by choice, had reds & tri colors going (a whole different project). Having both those projects going at the same time and both of them needing much work in their body type, it was way too much and way too overwhelming working with both right away.

I had to sell out of the reds and tris to focus on getting the type there on my herd and the one color I had chose. It was one of the best decisions I have made in my years of breeding. I strictly focused on that one project for a couple years and made A LOT of progress before I even *considered* bringing in another project. And, even that new project that I brought in (pointed whites), I brought in on a small, slow scale. I had wanted to work with the pointed whites for awhile, but it was not feasible for sometime for several reasons.

My main herd (largely consisting of chocolates & lilacs) needed a lot of work in their line. They needed help in establishing consistency in the barn. I needed to bring in other good reputable lines (regardless of color) to help get their type better. Working with two hugely different varieties (chocolates & tris) at the same time, with both needing LOADS of work on their type, was just too crazy to do. They couldn't really be bred together because they both had so many faults and both needed too much work.

I finally did bring in the pointed whites, but like said above, on a small, slow scale. I would still really like to bring back in reds, but I will not do it until I have adequate cage space and I feel it would be good for my herd. Over the years I have frequently considered bringing in the tri colors again, but everytime I come back to the same conclusion: it would be way too much, with my small rabbitry, and other color projects, to bring them in. They aren't compatible with several of the colors I currently have in my barn, so it just would not work. Reds, on the other hand, are compatible with MOST of the colors in my barn.

For new breeders, it is very important that you get the type on your herd first, see consistency, get your line & type defined before you consider adding in too many color projects. Color projects, which are very fun & rewarding, often times take a lot of patience, diligence and work to get them where they are able to compete with the "main" varieties in a particular breed.

Thankfully, I can say that the work it has taken to get the chocolates & lilacs with great type over the past 5 years is paying off and has been for a couple years. I just received word from a youth breeder in California that the broken chocolate buck, Hoppin's Java Chip, she got from me as a baby last December granded this past weekend! Congrats Allison!

But, some color varieties take a lot more work to get them to where they need to be. Like the pointed whites. In December it'll be 3 years since I started this project. Their type has come A LONG ways, but there is still a lot that needs help.

Qadoshyah