Ice Storm Pictures!

We experienced our first ice storm since moving to Oklahoma this week. Wow, it's pretty crazy & beautiful! Thankfully we had no damage from trees or anything and we didn't lose power. We got about an inch of ice and 6 inches of snow.

I lost my girl, Rose, on Tuesday morning. I do not know why, since she was acting completely fine the night before. She was such a nice doe and I didn't have any baby to replace her :(.

Anyways . . . here's some pictures:

(BTW, I just noticed that the pictures don't show up on the blog completely, so just click on the picture for the full picture)

Here's the barn and it's surroundings Tuesday afternoon when the storm was in full blast!


Sugar in the snow this morning:

These two pictures were taken this morning:



These pictures were taken Tuesday afternoon:



Qadoshyah

Cuteness!

It's kind of fun having just one litter right now :). I get to play with these babies as much as I want.

Here's a few pictures of them all:





This pattern is so adorable!



Qadoshyah

Babies are coming

It's been 10 days since I bred Brandy, Tara, Tatianna, Clara, & Laci, so I palpated the does this morning. All of them except Brandy palpate positive. Yay!

I'll repalpate Brandy in a few days, since I really expected her to take. She was so ready to be bred and Kaden "got" her 4 times. Hopefully I'm just missin' the babies.

Jenny has several chinchillas in her litter. 3 of the brokens are chins and the other 2 are chestnuts. 2 of the solids are chins and 1 is a chestnut. I'm glad they aren't all chessies!

I finally was able to put a mouse trap in the barn. I caught a mouse first thing Saturday morning. Yes! I haven't caught another one yet, but I think I just need to move the trap to another place.

The mouse trap we have had the most success with and use is the Victor TinCat trap. It's a metal box that has two entry ways into it. The mice can get it, but they can't get back out. You just put some bait in the middle of the box and the mice will go for it ;). The TinCat we have has a clear top so you can see without picking the box up if there are mice in it or not.

The first time I used this trap in my original barn in California, I caught 8 mice in one night. There was a major mouse problem there. Those were the days when I would see the mice come down into the rabbits feed bowls and eat the pellets. I would have to grab the mice by the tail (with gloves on, of course) and deal with them. That's when the good 'ole barn cats come in handy!

Qadoshyah

Busy week

I've had a very busy week. Not with the bunnies, just with life in general :). I have not been on the computer much at all since Wednesday.

Just a quick update here though, since I've got to get off the computer and head to bed . . .

Jenny's babies are all doing great still thankfully!

There is a weather watch in effect for Oklahoma, particularly the northeastern Oklahoma area (where we are!). They are predicting a bad ice storm, so there's a possibility we could be with out power for a few days if that comes.

I will try to put a better post up tomorrow, but we'll see how things go!

More later . . .

Qadoshyah

Jenny's babies

I took some pictures of Jenny's babies this morning, so here they are:

Brokens ~
Solids ~

Qadoshyah

Picture time!

I took some time this morning to take a few pictures that needed to be updated on my website, namely Kaden & Kaylee. I also took some pics of Chocolate - all the pictures are up on the site now.

Here's Kaylee. She's doesn't look so hot right now (especially her body), but I thought she needed some new pictures on the site, instead of her 8 week old baby pics.


Here's Chocolate. She just needed some new pictures!



And, finally here's my sweet boy Kaden. He's a naughty little guy and is so hard to pose. But, after letting him run around the barn for a few minutes and working with him to sit still for a few minutes, I was able to get some half-way decent pictures of him. He definitely still has some growing to do, but I think he'll fill in. He's still only 7 months old.

This pictures shows Kaden's personality so much!





Qadoshyah

Babies & Upcoming litters!

Kristen had her litter a little earlier than I expected. She kindled on the wire on Wednesday night. Because the temperature was so incredibly cold, and she had only 1 baby, the baby was frozen by the time I found it :(. It had probably been an hour or so since she had the baby.

I checked on Jenny shortly before I went to bed around 3am early Thursday morning and she was making a nest on the wire as well. So, I put her in a rubbermaid container with chicken wire over the top and brought her in to a warmer spot. So, she had a successful litter! Jenny kindled to 8 beautiful babies on Thursday night . . . around 11pm. There are 5 brokens and 3 solids. All the babies are either chestnut agoutis or chins. I was bummed I didn't get any chocolate colors and it's odd, since she was bred to Kaden. But, so be it.

My does have been giving me a hard time being willing to breed for the past few weeks. I just have to remind myself that the buns aren't quite used to the crazy Oklahoma weather. It sure is a ton different than the miiiiillllldddd weather we had in our California winters :). But, they finally we're willing and I was able to get 5 of them bred on Friday (the 16th)! I'm excited for all the litters and hopefully they all took. Should be some gorgeous babies.

I bred:

Silent Spring's Kaden X Hoppin's Brandy
all chocolate colors

Hoppin's Brantini X Hoppin's Clara
solid chocolates and lilacs

Kasomor's Mr. Deckles & Silent Spring's Kaden X Hoppin's Tara
yes, I bred her to two bucks, because Deckles didn't want to "get" her anymore than once ;). I should have no problem telling the babies apart from who the sire is though.

Hoppin's Justin X Hoppin's Tatianna
chocolate & lilac pointed whites, REWs, sables & smokes - should be a really fun litter - color-wise.

Hoppin's Josh X Desurra's White Lace
pointed whites & REWs. Should be VERY typey babies!

I changed the look of the blog a little bit too - hope you like it :).

Qadoshyah

Updated website

I updated the website today - Bucks, Does, Juniors, For Sale, Babies, Breedings, Retired & Past Litters. Go check it out ;). I put a few new pics up on the Juniors page.

I was looking back at how many litters I had in 2008 - total of 19 live litters. I can only remember 2 DOA litters - so 21 altogether.

Qadoshyah

"Tickle The Tail" Method

I mentioned the "Tickle The Tail" method to make a doe more willing to breed in my previous post. Lana asked what it was/how to do it, so I thought I'd share here :).

Basically just take the doe and between her tail & vulva, closer to her vulva, "tickle" her. It will make her tail lift and then just let the buck mount her :).

Pretty easy and it seems to work sometimes.

Qadoshyah

Prego does & barn talk

Well, it's been a busy week for me . . . catching up from being gone for a week.

We finally had a couple warm days with no breeze last week, so I was able to get some stuff done in the barn. The bunnies also were able to get some nice sunlight and fresh air. I haven't been able to open the tarps for weeks. But, of course the weather is cold and breezy again!

I did a ton of cleaning & organizing in the barn on Friday. It felt good to get that all done. Had to clean all the trays and rake out the barn - it hadn't been done for about 2 weeks (since before I left).

I ordered 30 3" ceramic crocks from bunnyrabbit.com last week and received them the end of the week. They are so small, but I got that size because they are so expensive. $2/crock for 3 INCH crocks! Nuts. The bigger crocks were much more expensive, so I went ahead with the small ones. They'll do the job of giving the bunnies water in freezing temps. I've already had to use them and they work good. Only a few of the bunnies like to dump them over.

I re-palpated Tatianna and she is not prego. I figured she was not, but I felt something funny when I first palpated her, so I waited. Jenny is HUGE and Kristen has babies in her too. 5 more days! They'll get their boxes tomorrow.

I bred Clara & Totsie tonight. I'll breed them again tomorrow, as they didn't want to breed more than once tonight. I'm hoping to breed Tatianna and Tara tomorrow too. I tried the "Tickle The Tail" method with Clara & Tots and it worked. LOL, it's pretty funny!

Two of Sugar's babies were sold over the weekend - the lilac charlie doe and the blue charlie buck. Both to good pet homes :). I just have the opal charlie doe available still.

I am going to try to post some interesting, educative topics, but I've been very busy lately. I am still working on submitting the press release and getting the flyer for the book done, so that is taking a lot of time.

Qadoshyah

Home at last

I got home early Saturday morning. I had a nice, yet fast trip :).

Thankfully the weather was quite warm while I was gone, so my family didn't have to deal with frozen bottles much at all (except once). But, of course the weather is cold again and I've got to thaw bottles out.

I am planning on ordering a bunch of crocks, since the water does not freeze as fast in crocks as it does in bottles. The problem with the bottles is that the metal spout freezes first, before the water in the bottle freezes, so the rabbits can't get any water.

I palpated the does again who didn't palpate positive before I left. Kristen palpates positive! Yay, first Deckles babies! Clara is the only one who did not take. I'll breed the rest of the does soon here hopefully.

One of Sugar's babies came down with wry neck yesterday (Sunday), unfortunately. I caught it really early though, so I think he'll be fine after treatment. Thankfully WN is super easy to treat if caught early enough.

I have a mouse problem in my barn and I am pretty annoyed! I hate mice with a passion! I haven't had a mouse problem for years. I am going to have to put some traps out and also put a cat in the barn, our good-ole barn/"mouser" cat, KittyBoy. Hopefully I'll get that done today. I haven't seen the mice, but I've seen their droppings and holes. Yuck.

I took a look at the two babies I kept from Sugar's litter. The buck is not looking so hot right now, but I'll pose him in a couple more does. He is not that cooperative on some days when it comes to posing, so it's a little annoying. The doe looks GREAT right now though! I am very glad I kept her back. I've named the doe, Champagne. I've got a name picked out for the buck, but I don't want to name him it until I plan to keep him for sure, LOL :).

Kiss' baby is sad, LOL. He has no crown whatsoever! I think he'll end up being soup or tacos :/. Unless I can find someone who wants him as a pet . . . he does have a great personality.


And, here are a few pictures of Champagne ~




Qadoshyah