This morning . . .

An ice & snow storm hit yesterday afternoon . . . and it's still going. It's been snowing all day today and is coming down heavy still!

Here's a few pics of the 1/2" of ice that was covering everything this morning. Now it's all buried underneath 6" or more of snow ;).






And we're off to go take a walk in the pasture as it's snowing heavily outside ;). Weirdos? Maybe so, but it sure is pretty outside!

Qadoshyah

The babies here & babies on the way

Daisy's babies are all doing great!! I've been feeding her extra to insure that she has plenty of milk for all 10 munchkins. Thankfully they all have super full bellies! There is one baby that is a lot smaller than the rest, so we'll see if that one makes it or not. They all look like they are black chinchillas - 5 broken & 5 solid. Not that fun of a litter as far as color goes, but they should be typey babies!

Jana palpated positive yesterday also. And, I was able to get Amanda bred to Cameron a couple days ago as well. Litters are on the way, praise the Lord! Brianna's due February 5th.

I sold a couple of Sarabeth's babies last week to a family I've known online for the past couple years. It was quite a funny coincidence, since the mom called off my craigslist ad which I had run. She didn't realize who I was until I gave her my website to look up! So, anyways, they bought 2 babies last week. But, then tragedy struck and their dog accidentally got one of the babies Sunday morning. So, they came back to get another baby to replace the little one they lost, since everyone was in tears over it. Well, they ended up leaving with one more of Sarabeth's babies, Brantini & Champagne :)! They should be a great home for them and I was so glad that both Brant & Champagne went to a pet home, as they are such sweet buns. They will be spoiled & loved on :)! They also went home with a bottle baby goat!

I've known this family via the internet because they adopted a litter girl with Down syndrome from the Ukraine a couple years ago. As some of you may know, I have a wonderful little brother with Down syndrome. So, it was neat to meet their little one who they saved from the orphanage she was in and the fate of a horrible mental institution. They adopted her through Reece's Rainbow.

With all the buns I've sold the last week, I have 12 empty cages!! I just have 2 more that I'd like to move out. One is my cousin's bunny, so he's okay. The other is just a pointed white just turned sr. buck who's sale fell through and no one has snatched him up yet.

The weather has taken a turn and is quite cold again. It's supposed to be cold all week long and down into the single digits by the end of the week! I cleaned the barn yesterday, since it was just barely nice enough to get that all done before the cold spell came.

Qadoshyah

Got a surprise today!

This morning I was feeding the buns and saying hi to them all when I noticed a bunch of fur spread all over Daisy's cage. I thought she had just pulled fur in prepping her nest box, since her due date isn't until tomorrow (Saturday).

So I looked in her box and she obviously had babies under the pile of fur. I was way surprised, as I haven't had a doe go early for 6 years probably! My does always go on their due date or a day over. I started to count how many babies she had and they just kept coming . . . total count was 10 babies!! Yay, praise the Lord! I haven't had a litter of 10 since we moved to Oklahoma. My biggest litter in Oklahoma was 8, but no double digit litters. I'm thrilled :). This is Cameron's first litter here too!

I don't have any other does due, but I think Daisy will be able to handle 10 pretty well.

Yesterday we were in Tulsa and I found a big rabbit cage on Craigslist for a pretty good deal. I picked it up for one of the retired buns . . . Striper. He seems to be enjoying it so far! We'll see if he litterbox trains as easily as his mom did . . .




Goodnight!

Qadoshyah

Beautiful Weather!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous this week. Praise the Lord! It's a sunny 50 degrees outside with not much of a breeze. I opened all 4 sides of the barn today, which is so nice. The buns always get so perked up when I open all sides.





Daisy's looking full of babies, she's 4 days away from her due date. I gave her the nestbox today, so hopefully we'll have a box full of babies soon!

Sara's babies' ears are finally falling. 3 ears were down today. Yay! I figured they'd lop, but I was beginning to wonder WHEN!

I looked out the kitchen window yesterday late morning and this is what I saw:

Shelley in between the screen door & the door. There's about 6" of space between the two, perfect size for a cat to be stuck in when the wind blows the inside door shut. It's not the first time I've seen her in there. But, I quickly go out and let her free. Silly cat.



Qadoshyah

Nicole . . . babies . . . and more

The weather has been so nice lately, so I took some time to get a few pictures yesterday. I'll post them below.

Brianna palpated positive - yay! I'm excited to see her babies. Daisy's due this Saturday. My first Cameron babies!!

Two bunnies left today - Nick & Lauren - to Jennifer & her family down in Lawton, OK. They are a great home for the bunnies. Enjoy them, guys :)! They are slowly getting their herd started.

The 5 babies I have left from my late September babies should be leaving this Thursday to a pet home. Which will be wonderful!!

I'll just have a couple buns left for sale after that. I am considering putting Champage and/or Megan up on the sale page. Do I *really* need them? I don't know. Just some decisions which I have to make.

Onto the pictures now:

Sara's babies. They are 6 weeks old. Poor babies, their ears are so funky. They still haven't lopped. I think the cold froze their crowns, LOL! Their parents both have awesome crowns, so they should lop. I've never had a 6 week old litter not be lopped. I've seen some floppiness to their ears though the last day or so, so I expect them to lop soon.





Nicole is turning out be a beautiful doe! I'm excited to have a SELF chocolate in the barn again. It's been awhile since I've had a self chocolate keeper.



And, a couple pictures of my little boy, Cameron



This is what I was watching from my barn yesterday afternoon. Since it was a nice day, my 15 yr old sister took her goat kids out in the yard for a little bit to run & play. They are so cute, following her like their momma (she bottle raises her kids).




Qadoshyah

Ice Falls

Because of the cold & wet weather we've had, God has created some beautiful scenes around here. The pictures below were taken just about 5 miles down the road from our house. So pretty.






Qadoshyah

Update Long Overdue

Well, a lot has gone on since I last updated. Much of it involving the c-o-l-d weather and having to deal with the animals in that.

I tried 3 different heaters in my barn and none of them were a go. The radiator heater was too small, the next heater (a dish heater) would've probably worked pretty well if my barn had more insulation. And, the last heater, which we thought would do the trick, was a disaster. We got one of those outdoor patio propane heaters. My brother put it together and started it up. It looked promising at first and worked pretty well for about 4-5 hours. It was up in the high 20's in the barn when it was about 0 degrees or close to it outside. But, then it tweaked and the flame was burning at the low setting when it was really on high. The propane tank & hose had ice all over it. By morning it was barely going and had used most of the propane up in the tank. So, that was a no-go, unfortunately. Praise the Lord anyways! I guess we'll just try to get the barn insulated with spray foam insulation and Lord willing that should do the trick for both winter & summer.

The bunnies have all handled the cold pretty well. Last week the lows were in the negatives and highs between 6-20. I just kept loading their cages full of hay and fed them oats as often as possible. Along with giving them hot water 3x a day. There were a few buns who I was concerned about, but they all pulled through well.

Thankfully this week it has warmed up to the 40's. It hasn't froze in the barn for a day. That's big when you've been dealing with freezing waters for the last several weeks :).

I bred Jana to Cameron this morning. Hopefully she'll take. And, we'll be working on getting some more does bred too.

Daisy is due in a week too :).

Sara's babies are all doing good and I'm hoping to get some pictures of them soon.

Yesterday I was finally able to get the trays dumped and the barn cleaned out. They hadn't been changed for a couple weeks and were long overdue. It was nice to get the barn back in shape & organized.

The buns seem to be enjoying the fresh air from having the shutters open due to the nice weather.

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

Qadoshyah

Heaters

The oil filled radiator heater didn't work . . . it was too small. Not too surprised that it didn't work. My dad & brother picked up an electric heat dish yesterday to see how that worked. It works okay, but doesn't really do the job.

So, we are going to try an outdoor propane heater. Since I have shutters that my wonderful brother made, I can have adequate airflow to let out the exhaust a propane heater will put out.

Hopefully we can get that heater picked up tomorrow and turned on, since it's supposed to be EXTREMELY cold the next couple days . . . like a high of 18 degrees and low of 2 degrees :).

I was able to get a doe bred yesterday, praise the Lord. I bred Brianna to Cameron. She was so hyper and wanted to be bred so bad, it was hilarious to watch her with Cameron. Cameron is slightly slow & laid back when it comes to breeding, so he had a hard time chasing her around the cage. Hopefully she took :).

Lauren also bred to Kyle very easily. She'll be leaving with Nick in a couple weeks to go to their new home down in Lawton, OK with Jennifer.

Some of the other does that need to be bred are looking like they may be receptive soon here. So, I'll keep trying and hopefully we'll have cages full of babies soon.

I sexed Sara's babies today . . . she has 3 bucks and 2 does, if I remember right. Only one of her babies is a pointed white and I'm pretty sure it's a broken pointed white. Oh well. Her two broken sables are adorable, but they are both bucks!

Oh and if you were wondering this is what I made for my brother the other day for his work on my barn :). Chocolate Peppermint candy. Simple, easy & yummy. Chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, peppermint extract & peppermint candies.




Qadoshyah

Cold Times

The chores in the barn the past few days has just consisted of feeding & watering. Watering 3 times a day, since everything's frozen solid and not thawing out at all. It's lightly snowing again today.

My brother picked a heater up for me from Lowes today. A DeLenghi Oil Filled Radiator heater. In the short amount of time it's been plugged in out in the barn it's 1 degree warmer . . . 28 degrees. We'll see if it works well enough to keep it above freezing or not. It's technically a little small for the square footage of my barn, so we may need a couple heaters. Or a bigger one.

I palpated the 4 does I bred a couple weeks ago - Jana, Kaylee, Daisy & Champagne. Daisy is the only one who took. So fun. Whoever said raising rabbits is easy, didn't raise rabbits in Oklahoma! I've never had such a hard time getting rabbits bred until we moved out here. The climate & weather is just so difficult. The rabbits systems don't seem to cooperate as well out here, haha! Praise the Lord, at least I have one doe bred.

Back to the breeding table with the other 3 and any other does I can get bred. Brianna, Amanda, Megan, Britney & Kadence all need to be bred soon too.

I better get off to check on the heater & make my brother some chocolate-peppermint candy for his hard work on my shutters ;).

Qadoshyah

New Year . . . New Barn Shutters . . .

Happy New Year! We had a fun & exhausting New Years party last night and were dancing until 2am :). So, today has been a not-getting-much-done type of day, because I'm exhausted still!

I finally was able to get pictures of the new shutters my brother put up on my barn. They are SO nice and work so well. We should've done this from the get-go.





There's just a couple small things we have to finish doing on these. Right now the top shutters are being held open by a string secured onto a nail that's in a tree, so that'll have to change. Pretty funky, but it works for the time being. We're waiting for some pulleys to arrive and then we can get them fully functioning.


A view from the inside:



Qadoshyah