Baby pics

Here we go . . . here are a few pictures of my 3 litters born on Sunday & Monday.

Rose's babies ~
Caramel's babies ~

Brandy's babies ~

*the two in this first pic are the two being raised by Caramel. She only had 2 babies, so I fostered Brandy's two smallest babies onto Caramel. Everyone is fine & dandy now ;).


~ Qadoshyah

Kristen has babies!

Kristen kindled tonight around 10pm or so to 5 little babies. As I had figured, she had them all over the cage, on the wire . . . only one was on her hay nest she had made in the corner. I'm so glad she had them now instead of in the middle of the night. I was expecting her to have them today and all over the cage - JUST like her mom, Val, did on her first litter (except, all 4 of Val's babies died).

Kristen is doing great, ate some oats & raspberry leaves out of my hand. She's not eating pellets yet (hasn't for a few days), but I think she'll be fine.

I made a nest for the babies in Kristen's box and I think they'll all be fine. I'll check them one more time before I head to bed in a bit.

It looks like she has 3 "pinks" and 2 sables/smoke pearls . . . hard to tell since they were born half an hour or less when I found them. A couple of them have pretty bruised faces, but they should be okay.

~ Qadoshyah

Going International!

I dropped off 2 jr (5mth old) does in Tulsa with Maija from Finland. This is something that Maija & I have been working out for a few months (since Feb. or March!) and they are finally going to Finland! Maija will be flying out of Tulsa, OK tomorrow morning with the does. The does sound like they will be spoiled rotten :).

It was quite the fiasco getting the international health certificate for these does. The vet we used here in Keys, OK was nice and easy. BUT, because it is an international health certificate, it has to have a seal on it from the state vet of Oklahoma. The vet mailed the certificates to the state vet last Thursday after we had the health check done. It was supposed to be in Monday or Tuesday. It was still in Oklahoma City as of Tuesday afternoon.

We talked to the vet and told them they MUST have it shipped overnight to arrive on Wednesday, so we could take the rabbits to Maija on Thursday.

Come Wednesday, the vet still does not have the health certificate - this time it's FedEx's problem. The vet paid for overnight shipping. FedEx said it would be in around 10am on Wednesday, but then called and gave excuses and said it would be in before 10am on Thursday.

We called the vet around 9:45am this morning (Thurs) and the health certificate was not there yet. We had the vet call FedEx & they said the driver was in the town and he would call when he was heading their way. Well, he called, but the vet had to go meet him in town and get the health certificate from them. How lame is that?!

At least we were able to get the health certificate and Maija has her does and is very happy with them. We certainly learned to have this shipped overnight with UPS (NOT FedEx) way earlier in the week if we do international shipping again!

This vet (who happens to not be that far from us) has great prices on health certificates for the states (the international health cert was a pretty good price too) and they are very easy to work with when it comes to the office visit. The regular health certificate is just $15 - that's it. No office visit fee, etc. SOOOOOO much cheaper than the vets in California!

~ Qadoshyah

Brandy & Rose

Brandy kindled yesterday evening. She had 6 beautiful babies!! All are chocolates . . . most of them are chocolate chinchillas, in fact there is only one self chocolate (a solid). She has 2 charlies (both agoutis), 2 solids (1 agouti, 1 self), and 2 brokens (both agoutis).

Rose kindled this afternoon. She has 4 beautiful babies! All are lilacs :)! She has 3 brokens and 1 solid. Her brokens have *VERY* heavy patterns . . . my favorite! One of them looks like it has hardly any color on it's face - so cute. I haven't checked yet to see if any are milk-dipped ears yet.

Caramel is doing good now and both of her babies are doing fantastic.

~ Qadoshyah

First litter . . . from Caramel

Brandy, Caramel & Rose were all due today.

Caramel had her litter this morning. I figured she'd have them because she had pulled a bunch of fur in her box last night. She's had a total of 6 babies, but only 2 are alive. I am pretty sure I can still feel one baby in her, so I'm hoping she'll have that baby soon. 4 of the other 5 were born dead (not sure why) and the other died shortly after it was born. At least there are two babies! Hopefully Rose & Brandy don't have any problems with their litters. Caramel's 2 babies are a black & chocolate.

~ Qadoshyah

Boxes in & more

Brandy, Rose & Caramel got their nestboxes this morning. They are due in two days . . . while I normally give the does their boxes 4 days prior to their due date, these girls got their boxes late. I had some trouble getting good, small wood shavings to use in the box, so it was delayed a bit. They started nesting right away though! Yay, I'm looking forward to babies!

I took Amber & Lilac Perfection to the vet yesterday for their health certificates. They will be flying to Finland on the 26th. I'll be meeting their new owner (a ML breeder in Finland) early next week and then she will fly back with the girls. We have to wait until Monday or Tuesday to get the health certificate back, because when flying international, the state vet has to sign the papers. So, here we are waiting!

The barn is almost completely done!! Hopefully I can move the bunnies in next week sometime :).

~ Qadoshyah

Hurricane Ike

We got A LOT of rain & some wind from Hurricane Ike yesterday (Saturday). It poured for hours and it was pretty windy too. It had to have rained a good 6 inches at least! All the creeks in our area are FULL or overflowing. It's supposed to be clear for at least the next 10 days according to the forecast right now . . . .

This is certainly a huge change from California :)! Everything is fine though.

The bunnies are fairing well though . . . they are in their stall in the barn still, so they were completely fine. The barn is VERY close to being done . . .maybe this week, we'll see.

~ Qadoshyah

Coming Along . . .

The barn is coming along really well. There's not too much left to do, just another week or less worth of work to do, if it doesn't rain all week (like the forecast says!)!

Here's a few pictures from a couple days ago. The roof now has all the metal roofing on it . . .



~ Qadoshyah

Yay . . . Chocolate & Kristen!

I palpated Chocolate & Kristen yesterday and they both palpate positive! Yay! Out of the 6 does I bred, 5 of them took :)!!!!

Kiss is the only doe who did not take, so I'll re-breed her sometime soon. I tried re-breeding her the other day and she did not want anything to do with it - oh well.

The bunny barn is coming a long pretty well. All the rafters are in. There's just a little bit more work that has to be done on it until the buns can move-in :).

More later . . .

~ Qadoshyah

Rain!

Well, Hurricane Gustav is reaching us up here in Oklahoma. It's been windy and raining since yesterday around noon and it's supposed to continue until Friday. They're expecting 2-20 inches of rain - wow! This is so different compared to California. But, I like it a lot! It's not too cold, but it is cool (in the 60's) and it's so neat.

The bunnies are all doing great though. . . nice and cozy in their stall. We can't work on the bunny barn right now because of all the rain. But, we've got all the lumber, so when it stops raining, we can put the roof up.

~ Qadoshyah

Heat Sterility in Bucks . . . true or false?

I palpated my does I bred on 8/21. 3 of the 4 palpate positive! The 4th doe, Kiss, I will have to re-palpate in a few days. She's a first-timer, so we'll see if she took.

These does were bred to my bucks who were in 90-95 degree heat for about 3 weeks! These breedings are the first breedings I've done since then. This has proven to me that heat sterility in bucks, like they claim, is totally a myth.

But, everyone claims that bucks go sterile (and will remain sterile for 3 months!) if they are in 85 degrees or above for more than 3 days.

This has never set well with me. It's never made logical sense. I've never had a problem getting does bred weeks or months after my bucks have been in hot weather.

Think about it . . . a buck's body produces a massive (several million) amount of new sperm per day. The old sperm dies off and is reabsorbed into the buck's body if he is not bred. So, how could a buck's sperm from when the weather was 95 degrees stay in his body and keep him sterile for 3 months?!! I don't believe it does.

The only truth I'll let in is that a buck may go temporarily "sterile" the day of the extreme heat. But, he will produce new sperm each day, so the "sterile sperm" cannot stay in his body for very long amount of times.

Just my opinion and thought I'd throw it out there :).

~ Qadoshyah