Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Finally . . . .

Well, it's been awhile since I've had many bunnies to add to the for sale page on the website, but I just did it. 7 junior does and 1 junior buck are available right now! They will all be ready to go in about a week. Check 'em all out here.

I'm hoping to get pictures of the juniors I'm keeping up on the site soon - Amanda, Ganache, Blush, Cori, and "undecided doe."

There isn't much else to report for the moment . . .

Qadoshyah

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Hot!

The heat has come full blast this week and the bunnies have been miserable. It was about 100 degrees or so yesterday and supposed to be the same today. Not supposed to "cool" down (to the low-mid 90's) until Sunday.

I didn't have an AC in, so it's been really hot in the barn. The fans were going stong and not doing much. It's been about 92-93 degrees in the barn by early afternoon and doesn't "cool" down much until after the sun goes down. Even then, the humidity is SO high, it doesn't feel much different than the day did.

Thankfully, I was able to get a 12,000 BTU (big enough to cool 670 sq. ft and my barn is 320 sq ft) AC unit. My brother installed it last night and turned it on. Finally, it was cool in the barn. This morning when we got up it was 68 degrees. The bunnies are doing so much better already.

Today will be the big test to see how much cooler the AC keeps the barn during the heat of the day.

In baby news . . . we have 27 new babies. Sarabeth's 7, Kaylee's 6, Clara's 8, Tatianna's 3, and finally Tara's 3 (born this morning).

Clara has NO milk. I nursed her babies on Sugar & Tat yesterday and it must've just been enough to keep them going through today. Since Tara always has loads of milk, I had her nurse the babies this morning. Sure enough, Clara's babies got nice full bellies. 5 babies look really good, 2 look okay and 1 is dieing (:(). I fostered 4 to Tara and 3 to Tat, so they should make it now. We'll see.

Between my 5 & 3 week old litters & my 1-2 day old litters the baby count is up to 51!!!!! Yay, praise the Lord!

I decided to keep two from Brandy's litter - the ST chocolate steel doe & the chocolate buck. Yes, the buck. He is just way too nice to let go. I think I would regret selling him if I did let him go. So, I've named the little buck Hoppin's Ganache Bliss. I haven't come up with a name for the doe yet.

My two 9 week old babies I kept are - Hoppin's Chocolate Blush (lilac doe) and Hoppin's Cori (pointed doe).

I do have the silver tip'd chocolate steel buck from Totsie's litter available. He is a promising little buck! I was going to keep him, but decided I really don't need him right now.

Jenny's 6 babies are ALL does! Between my 24 5 & 3 week old babies there are only 6 bucks!! Pretty cool :). I haven't had this many does in litters for a LONG time.

Qadoshyah

Monday, June 22, 2009

New babies & New pictures

I got new pictures of Brandy's, Sugar's & Daisy's litters all up. Daisy has 3 does and 4 bucks. Kind of evens things out since my other litters are almost all does. There's one baby of Jenny's I haven't sexed, but out of the 5 I did sex she has 4 does, 1 buck.

We also have 21 new babies! Kaylee had 6 babies & Sarabeth had 7 babies this morning. Clara had her 8 babies this afternoon. I had checked on them about 1pm, went back out at 2pm and her babies were in the box. No fur, no nest made, nothing. Just the babies. At least she had them in the box. It's really hot right now, so I expect to care for them more as it cools down.

I'll work on getting pictures of Jenny's 6 over the next few days. I have to do everything early in the morning before the heat comes, since I don't have the AC in. Not fun!

Qadoshyah

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Fast week

Wow, the week has flown by fast! I didn't realize I hadn't blogged since last Thursday.

I've had a busy week and have been trying to get the barn all ready for summer.

The summer heat has started to come, but it's not too hot yet. I had an air conditioner I bought, but it is too small of a unit for my barn. I got the barn all insulated, tarps all down and tried the AC and found out it was too small. So, the buns just have to have the fans & the open air/breeze until I get another, bigger AC unit. Hopefully soon! Thankfully it stays decently cool in the barn with everything open - it's so shaded.

Yesterday I had to deal with a mild case of Fly Strike on Truffle. Yes, thoroughly disgusting. Maggots all over. Thankfully I had been keeping my eye on her, since she is prone to having a messy butt, so I caught it somewhat early. I rinsed her in warm soap water, picked the maggots all out and then sprayed Blue-Kote on her. She looks good this morning. I've had her inside, in a cool spot for the time being also.

After dealing with that, I sealed the barn up more and made sure that there were hardly any spots for flies to get in. There's substantially less flies today, thankfully.

Brandy's babies are all looking great! I took some pictures of them this morning and will get them up on the website asap. I'm not sure which baby I'll be keeping yet, but there's definitely several nice babies in there. Of course, the chocolate buck looks the most promising. He is gorgeous. But, I so don't need another buck to grow out right now.

Daisy's babies & Jenny's babies are just a few days too young to sex. It's looking like Daisy has several bucks though. Which, I suppose may be good . . . if she has some nice babies.

I played musical cages this morning, since I had to move 5 does into my last 5 baby cages. All 5 of my does are still prego - no reabsorbing the litters this time! So Excited! That's even including Clara & Tatianna . . . . who are going on their 7th and 4th breedings and this is the first time they've taken.

Clara was bred to Justin - my chocolate pointed white buck. Should be an interesting litter, as it is a cross I typically would not do, but I just wanted a litter out of Clara.

Got 4 days to go until Tara, Kaylee, Tatianna & Sarabeth are due and 5 days for Clara. Tara is FULL of babies and the rest don't look too far behind her :).

Enough for now . . . will post when I get the pictures up.

Qadoshyah

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Random News and My Chinchilla Beauties

There's not much to report on with the bunnies. Everyone is doing great.

I sent Kaden off today with a breeder and he will be making his way to Kansas tomorrow to his new home! I'm sure there Liz will enjoy him :)!

All the babies are doing great. Jenny's babies are 4 blacks and 2 chestnuts. Hopefully there will be at least a nice doe in there to replace here. Daisy's babies are a variety of colors - 3 lilacs, a chocolate chinchilla, a silver tip'd chocolate steel, a broken chocolate and a broken lilac chinchilla! Lilac chinchillas are seriously the most beautiful color ever! I'm hoping it'll turn out to be a gorgeous baby.

The steel in that Daisy's litter, Sugar's litter and Brandy's litter comes from Brant. I've figured out that Brant is a self steel (aabbCc(chd)ddE(s)E) and must've gotten that from his dam (she was out of a GT lilac steel). Oh well. That steel gene is very annoying at times.

While I was outside in the barn yesterday for hours (doing lots of "catch-up" cleaning and organizing), I snapped a few pictures of my little chinchilla cuties:











Qadoshyah

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Wildflowers + 3 week old babies = adorable!

Brandy's babies are a little over 3 weeks old and Sugar's babies are a couple days shy of 3 weeks old, so I went ahead and took some individual pictures of them all.

I sexed all 11 of the babies too and there's only 2 bucks! Sugar has one and Brandy has one :).

You can see all the pictures of the babies here and here, but I will post a few of my favorites below.

Brandy's 7 ~





Sugar's 4 ~




Qadoshyah

Monday, June 1, 2009

Up to 30

The baby count is up to 30!

Jenny kindled to 6 babies on Saturday - all solid self & agouti black based colors.

It was a slight disappointment, but not a big surprise, that Jenny didn't have any chocolate colored babies. One of the reasons I was so glad to trade for her was that she was supposed to be out of a chocolate chestnut doe, which would mean she carried chocolate. But, I have bred Jenny to 2 chocolate colored bucks - Kaden & Brantini - and she hasn't had a single chocolate in the litter. Which means she does not carry chocolate and someone's color has to be off on her pedigree. Got some figuring out to do,I guess!

I am hoping to get some pictures of my keepers from the 7 week old litters tomorrow, Lord willing.

The 4 does bred the 22nd all palpate positive! Yay! Hopefully everything will go well with their litters. Just have to palpate Clara tomorrow . . .

Kaden is sold and will be going to a breeder in Kansas in a couple weeks :).

Well, not much else to report for the time being and it's getting late . . .

~ Qadoshyah