Stuff

We've been dealing with the snow & cold since last week when the storm rolled in. We got about 8-10 inches of snow and it was really cold . . . and windy for a couple days. The snow has started to melt the last day and it's been a bit warmer. Last night wasn't as hard of a freeze, so maybe we'll have a few days here without having to do water crocks. But, I've gotta go water the buns in a few, since today was pretty cold.

Another snow storm rolled in tonight and it's supposed to snow up to 3 inches tonight. This storm doesn't have the wind with it though, thankfully. Very calm & peaceful snow fall :).

Yesterday was a very nice sunny & slightly warm day, so I went ahead and dumped the trays. The hoses were all frozen under snow & ice still, so we had a hose hooked up to our bathtub to rinse the trays off. That hose was about 25 feet short of reaching my barn, so I couldn't rinse off the big tray system. Instead, we filled buckets and dumped it on the tray to wash it off and also raked it off. Worked pretty good :).

Since it was so pretty outside yesterday, I went across the street with some of my family to see what my cousin & siblings were up to with training the horses. And while I was at it, I went ahead and took Brandy on the walk with us :). I have a small dog harness and it fits her very well. She needs some practice on walking, since she doesn't always walk . . . she just sat there with the harness & leash on half the time, LOL! But, she did do some walking and I think the snow & ice melt was what hindered her from walking too much. She didn't care for the slightly damp feet ;). Maybe I can train one of the buns to walk well on a leash, that'd be fun.

Here's a few pictures of Brandy & her snow adventure:








Qadoshyah

Snow & More

I decided to keep Daisy around for a little while longer. After thinking about it, her & Cameron would make some very pretty babies. Since my cages aren't as full anymore, I decided it would be worth it to keep her for another litter. So, Daisy is bred to Cameron as of yesterday (Wednesday).

Yesterday was a warm day and I totally should've changed the trays yesterday. But, I put it off and thought I'd try to do it before the storm & cold hit today. Well, I missed the opportunity. By the time I got up at 9am, it was already way colder than was predicted and the storm was just starting to hit - with rain. So, the trays didn't get changed. Maybe by the time the weekend comes, things will be warmer and clear.

Late this afternoon it started to sleet & then snow. The temperatures quickly continued to drop and it's been snowing since then. There's probably 5-6 inches right now and it's still coming down. By the looks of the radar map, it'll be snowing all night long. We may end up with 10-12 inches (or more) by morning. This will be kind of fun :). Since we don't get snow all the time, it's kind of fun when we actually do get it. It's a lot sooner than last winter, so I wonder how much snow we'll actually get this year? Last year snow didn't come until the end of January/beginning of February.

My brother is almost finished with the shutters on the barn. He only has two top ones left to put up. They are framed up already, but because of the storm, he couldn't put them up. He spent all day yesterday working to get another side & a half done, which was very nice. The drafts are WAY less in the barn . . . pretty much none, which is VERY nice. I'm curious as to how much warmer this will actually keep the barn.

Pictures hopefully soon. I took a few pictures of some buns & babies today. Hopefully I can get more tomorrow . . . of the snow too . . . and post 'em up.

Qadoshyah

Happenings . . .

My brother is half-way finished with getting the shutters up on the barn. They're looking good!! Two sides are up and two sides have to be done. There are a few small things that have to be finished on the two sides that are up, but they are at least up and functioning for the most part! I have a great brother :).

I also finally got a few does bred over the weekend. That was nice, since my does have been so finicky. I calculated a few of my junior buck's ages and realized they are older than I thought. Kyle will be 6 months old tomorrow (the 22nd). Wow, time flies. So, I went ahead and tried him with a doe. He got the job done! I'm expecting babies from:

Kyle X Kaylee & Cameron X Jana.

Cameron X Jana babies should be b-e-a-utiful! I also left Champagne in with Brantini for a day, so hopefully she took.

I'm working on getting a few more does bred too.

Brad was giving me a hard time with even being interested in any does, but his interest finally was peaked when his neighbor got a doe in his cage ;). When Kyle was breeding Kaylee, Brad was very hyper, so I stuck a doe in his cage and he went right to it. Kadence didn't get bred, but hopefully I will be able to get her bred soon.

Nick is another story when it comes to does. He is interesting, haha. I'll be trying him again soon hopefully.

Sarabeth's babies are all looking good. Their eyes are all open now and they are starting to get curious. I can't tell yet if there are any pointed whites, but I haven't looked too hard yet either.

Hopefully I can work on getting pictures of the babies and any others soon. Oh, yes and pictures of the shutters on the barn as well :).

Time to give the bunnies hay . . . goodnight,

Qadoshyah

10 gone

10 rabbits went to new homes today. They all went to great homes - two breeders from Shawnee. The rabbits that left were:

Josh
Kristen
Blush
Crystal
Tatianna
Mud
Clara
2 baby jrs
black jr. doe

It's so nice to have 7 more empty cages!! I only have a few more bunnies left to sale. Hopefully I can get the sale page updated soon.

Off to go rearrange bunnies and play musical cages in the barn :).

Qadoshyah

Pictures . . . Hay & Babies

Today is a bit warmer (high around 40), so waters were able to thaw out some. We refilled all the water bottles and if the forecast is right, hopefully I won't have to fill crocks 3x a day over the weekend. We'll see.

The barn needs a desperate cleaning. I did a little bit today - dumped 4 trays. The trays haven't been dumped for like 2 weeks and the big tray hasn't been rinsed off for about a week. It's gonna be so fun rinsing that off whenever the hoses thaw out - Not! Some of the trays were SO full since the buns have been getting so much hay.

After I gave the buns hay last night, I decided to snap a few pictures:




Cameron, isn't he so cute!





Brad's head is really starting to "pop"!

And, finally Sarabeth's babies . . .



Qadoshyah

Frozen

Well, we've been frozen the past couple days. It has not gotten about freezing. I think it may have been just barely above freezing (like 33 degrees) by this afternoon, but still not enough for everything to thaw.

I had to get the crocks out for the rabbits and water them 3 times a day for the past day. It's almost time to do that again too - fun :/!

Today felt a little warmer only because there was no wind chill factor. So, I opened up the sunny side of the barn in hopes that the sun would warm things up in the barn a little.

Sarabeth did kindle to 6 babies on Sunday. 2 brokens and 4 "pinks." I think she may have a bk sable & a bk smoke pearl, but I'm not 100% sure on that yet. Because it was down in the teens last night, I decided to bring her babies inside just to be safe. Don't want any frozen babies!

Well, not much else to report. The sun is setting quickly and I better get back out to the barn before the temp drops too much more!

Qadoshyah

Pictures

My mom got a new camera (a Nikon D40), so I used it for a little while today. It's a fun camera and takes such cool pictures. Nice lighting, neat focus & blurring. Here's a few pictures of the buns & cats taken this afternoon ~

Kadence:
Truffle, the old girl :)
Brandy
Daisy

Grass hay ~ My cousin just picked this stuff up for me last week. It's so nice, fresh & GREEN! The rabbits like it a lot. It's so soft too. I haven't fed grass hay for a couple months and it's so nice to have grass hay back in the barn

One of the kittys
Mud (left) & Kyle
The beautiful Kyle . . . isn't his color just amazing. I will have to get some pictures of him out of his cage soon.
And the other kitty doing her "prancing" maneuver, LOL!
Qadoshyah

Huge Herd Reduction!

Alright, well I finally got the herd reduction up on the website. You can see it at www.hoppinherdofhares.com/forsale.html.

17 bunnies up on the sale page. Hopefully I can move them out soon. It'll be nice to only have about 20 bunnies in the barn again!

Some of the bunny bottles were frozen in the barn this morning. First morning that it's frozen in the barn this "winter." It's gonna be a long winter, since winter hasn't even technically hit and it's already freezing. Last year it was freezing until March at least . . . so fun. Not.

Since I had to take a few pictures of some bunnies for someone, I finally got a few new pics of the babies. My little keeper, who still has no name is turning out so nice. It's fun to have a broken self chocolate, since I haven't had a keeper like that for awhile!




Qadoshyah

A lot . . .

It's been awhile since I updated. Life has been crazy. Between working on building a search database that has half a million entries in it for a County Assessor's website, Thanksgiving, my 21st birthday party, getting new counter-tops and so much more, life's been non-stop-on-the-go :).

Daisy's & Kristen's babies are all doing good & getting big! Very cute. They're 9 weeks old already!

Sarabeth is due this Saturday and she is FULL of babies! I plan to breed Jana, Champagne, Kadence and maybe one or two more in the next few days. Jana to Brad, Champagne to Cameron & Kadence to Nick. Some new bucks finally and young does, should make some pretty babies.

I am planning on doing a huge herd reduction soon. I'm still thinking it through, but there will probably be 10-12 seniors/almost seniors for sale. I haven't decided 100% who they will all be. But, I need to do a herd reduction. It's time to refocus and reduce the numbers in the barn. With only 2 empty cages in the barn, that means there's too many bunnies! The tentative list of who I will probably be moving on out are:

Kristen
Daisy
Brandy
Lauren
Tatianna
Blush (pending)
Brantini
Mud
Josh (pending)
Crystal
Jr. pointed white buck (pending)
Clara
Nick

After the herd reduction is done, I hope to bring in a trio of another breed or a pair or trio of another color. We will see whichever one works out and seems the best idea.

My brother just ordered supplies so we can build new shutters for the barn. So we can get rid of the nasty tarps and I won't ever have to deal with tarps again, Lord willing! It should turn out nice and be much more airtight and insulated :).

I think that's about it for now . . .

Qadoshyah

Wow . . .

Where has the last week & a half gone?!! It's certainly flown by FAST! We just had flooring put in our downstairs, so the house was a disaster for about a week. It's just about all put back together now. It's so nice to have a smooth, easy to clean surface compared to bare wood :)!

The bunnies are all doing great. The weather has been pretty cold lately, but it warmed up today. It was beautiful today! So, we did the MUCH needed chore of dumping the trays and spraying off the big tray. Also, did some random brushing bunnies & playing with them.

Cameron & Jana have settled in REALLY well!

Jana is doing great. She's eating all her food and acting completely fine. She's a hilarious doe. Michael told me she was a bit shy when she was at his place . . . but she ain't a shy doe anymore. She's always pacing her cage when I step into the barn and at the door of her cage when I get close to her. She's so fun & so cute!

Cameron is also doing great. He's much less animated than Jana and would rather be starring at the doe in the cage behind him than pay attention to me being in the barn. But, lately he has been at the front of his cage when feeding time comes :).

I hope to get some new pictures of some bunnies (ones that I need to sell) soon, so we'll see. Hopefully that can happen in the next few days.

Qadoshyah

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