Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Small baby update

The website is  updated. It was just a couple weeks outdated. I got all the baby pictures up, my juniors up (Krissie & Scotch) and added a doe to the for sale page. Yes, I have one senior doe available at the moment - Hoppin's Brandy Daisy.

Britney's babies are doing pretty good. They seem to have gotten the hang of nursing now. Her milk has taken a bit longer to come in really full . . . I think her babies being slowed kind of halted some things. But, their bellies were decently full this morning. Her babies are all lilacs - 1 broken, 2 solid.

I'm hoping to get pictures of the 3 week old litters tomorrow, if things work out. They are all so, so cute now! Their ears are all lopping really well. I must say Molly's chocolates are stunning - so dark! I think Cori has a chocolate pointed white too, so that is really exciting!

That's about it for the time being.

Have a great day!



Photobucket

Lori Zeller Photography

Lori Zeller Photography is one of the photographers who used our bunnies this year in their spring sessions.

They were great to work with and I was given a CD with a few of the pictures that had the bunnies in them. I finally have a moment to put a blog post up about this with a few of the pictures they gave me. The pictures turned out wonderful and the bunnies were so photogenic!





This picture is probably my favorite :).The baby is so cute and thrilled over the bunny!



Photobucket

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Baby Pictures

Here are a few baby pictures I took this morning . . .

Kaylee's  . . .


Cori's . . .


Molly's . . .

Amanda's baby peeking . . .


Kadence's . . .

I lost another one of Britney's babies this morning. Didn't surprise me though since it wasn't doing that hot yesterday. Her babies have been really slow and not getting the hang of nursing too well for some reason. Britney is being an excellent mama and has tons of milk, but her babies seem to be a bit slow. I wonder if it has something to do with them being born 2 days early? It's only the second litter I've had born on Day 29 in 8 years of raising rabbits.

Britney was such a good girl this morning though. She let me flip her on her back and hold her there for a good 10-15 minutes while I let each baby nurse on her. 2 of the babies got a pretty good nursing, but the other wasn't too interested. Hopefully that'll give them enough energy and they'll get some spunk in them to nurse when Britney gets in the box.

Photobucket

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

More babies

I've been kind of out of touch with the online world for a few days. We took a somewhat spontaneous road trip to NYC area/NJ last Thursday. We drove straight through (24 hours ;)) there and back. But, I didn't get home until about 4:30am Monday morning since we had a break down in Illinois. Good times though, praise the Lord.

The babies eyes were all open when I got home and they had grown so much. Cori's babies have amazing point color. There is one in particular and I'd bet it's got a double dose of the pointed white gene, since it's color is soooo much darker than Cori's other PW's and Kaylee's PW's.

Okay, so the color record for all the litters is . . .

Kaylee - 4 pointed whites, 2 sables
Molly - all self chocolates (5)
Megan - 1 ST black steel, 1 ST seal steel, and 1 black
Cori - 3 pointed whites, 1 REW
Amanda - 2 broken ST black steels and 1 broken ST sable steel
Kadence - 2 broken chinchillas and 2 solid chestnut agoutis

Britney's due date was this Friday, the 23rd, but she kindled 2 days early. She had a litter of 5 in her box this morning when I checked on her. I think she must've just finished having the babies because they were pretty slow moving at first. One died shortly after it was born, but the other 4 look great. There are several brokens and maybe a solid. Not totally sure. They'll either be chocolates or lilacs, since she was bred to Brad. Should be able to tell more-so tomorrow.

Jana & Nicole both palpate positive. They are due the 14th & 16th of May. Then that's all the litters I'll have for a bit. All my does but 3 will be on litters. I think that's plenty . . . 9 litters to be exact. I have quite a few people waiting for babies and certain colors out of these litters. So, I'll do my best to keep y'all updated. If you don't hear from me, check the blog or send me an email to see what's up ;).

I should be getting individual pictures of the first 4 litters I had born early next week. They will be 3 weeks old the end of this week. So, it'll be time to sex them and take new pictures. In the meantime, I will try to get some other pictures, but we'll see how the days go ;).

The weather has been so beautiful lately! Everything is leafed out and GREEN. So pretty!

Photobucket

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Baby Pictures!

Finally have a chance to put the pictures I took of my 6 litters a couple days ago up on the website. I think I saw some coloring coming in on one of Cori's babies this morning when I was out there, but I gotta look closer. So, for now, here are pictures of the babies.

The website needs to be updated and hopefully I'll get to that sometime . . . maybe Friday, we'll see.

. . . Kaylee's litter . . .

. . . Molly's litter . . .

. . . Cori's litter . . .

. . . Amanda's litter . . .

. . . Kadence's litter . . .

I know, some of the babies almost look like they're dead. They aren't . . . they were all just snoozing away all over the boxes since it has been so nice and warm :).

Megan will be leaving tomorrow to a 4-H home. I've bred her to Cameron for the new family, so hopefully she'll do well for them. One of Sara's bucks (from her litter in December) who went to a photographer for a couple weeks will be going to a new pet home tomorrow too. Which means I only have one rabbit left for sale at the moment . . . .the other broken sable buck from Sara's litter.

Speaking of photography, I have some amazing pictures from the photographer who used Sara's 2 bucks for spring photo shoots. And I will put a post up with some of the pictures along with a link to their website soon, Lord willing.


Photobucket

Monday, April 12, 2010

6th litter

Kadence kindled on Friday night to 5 little babies. I lost one of her babies today, since it was a tiny little thing. But, the rest are doing great. She's such a good momma, just like her dam, Jenny :).

I've got new pictures of all the litters and will post them when I get them uploaded to my computer . . . hopefully later today.

Photobucket

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Retired Life . . . and babies

There are 4 buns in my barn who are just living the rest of their days out here. They are does (and one buck) who were vital in getting our herd and colors to where they are today, in other words, my foundation stock. So, they've earned their keep and I enjoy having them around even though they aren't producing any babies for me anymore.

Those 4 are: Hoppin's Truffle, Vail's/Hoppin's Striper, Hoppin's Brandy & Hoppin's Sugar Dust.

I really don't like these 4 to be in my baby cages or my regular cages. And I like to give them more room in their cages, since they are living the retired life :).

Truffle has been in a solid bottom 2'x4' cage for awhile. Striper has a nice big cage too. But, Brandy & Sugar have just been going between my baby cages and other cages depending on how many litters. So, today I went ahead and built the solid bottom cage I'd been wanting to build for them. It's 3'x5' (so they each have a 2 1/2' X 3' cage) and fits perfectly in the middle of the barn.

Here's Brandy's & Sugar's new cage. They seem to be enjoying it. Brandy is quite a spunky girl, so hopefully she doesn't figure out how to jump out of the cage!



And since I'm on the subject, here's Truffle's cage:


And Striper's cage,


Yes, I plan to litterbox train Brandy & Sugar, I just gotta get a couple litterboxes. Truffle was easy to litterbox train and I think Brandy & Sugar will be too. Striper . . . haha, he's another story. I tried and he won't litterbox train. So, I figure I'll just keep his cage clean. Not a biggie :).

Now  . . . the babies . . .

Megan hadn't fed her babies again. So, I put her in the box and had her feed them. She got them fed decently. But, I decided it would be best to just foster her babies to some of my other does. I gave Cori one of her babies and Amanda 3 of them. Which makes Cori have 5 babies and Amanda have 6. Should be fine and the babies should all do a lot better.

Amanda's "cream" colored baby is a broken sable. I was hoping it wouldn't turn out to be a sable, but I had my suspicions. Sables are very pretty!

2 of Megan's babies are seals. Maybe seal chinchillas, we'll see. I can't remember which one(s) have agouti markings at the moment.

Kaylee's babies:

Molly's babies:

Cori's babies with one of Megan's:

Amanda's babies with a few of Megan's:

Have a great day!
Photobucket

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Baby Count is up to 23

We're up to 23 babies born the last 2 days :)!

Molly kindled to 5 babies yesterday. All are chocolate colors, which is exciting!

Amanda had 4 (1 DOA) babies this morning. All are brokens. One of the babies' is kind of cream colored. Curious to see what it'll turn out to be!

Megan had her 6th baby yesterday afternoon/evening sometime. It was obviously a bigger DOA. I'm just glad she got it out. She's being such a spazz though! She didn't feed her babies at all yesterday. I tried holding her in the box, encouraging her to go in there and she was just flippin' out. Would not sit still and relax at all. This is so unlike Megan!

I split her babies up between Cori & Molly and took her box out of her cage for last night. This morning I gathered her babies up and put them in her box back in her cage. Thankfully she let me put her in the box and relaxed and nursed her babies. All the babies look good, except for one is a bit on the too small side of things. We'll see how it does. Hopefully Megan has gotten the hint now for taking care of her babies.

Nicole is looking so pretty! I had her out the other day and she really wanted to be bred, so I went ahead and bred her to Brad. Hopefully we'll have a bunch of nice chocolate colors in a month :).

Photobucket

Monday, April 5, 2010

Babies . . . 15 & Counting!

Kaylee was the first doe to kindle today. She had a nice nest of 6 plump little babies this morning when I went out to feed. She has 4 "pinks" and 2 sables or smoke pearls. Too early to tell for sure. Should be able to tell tomorrow.

Megan & Cori had litters when I got back from town this evening. Cori had 5 (one was DOA) babies in a nice little nest in her box. All are "pinks" as she was bred to Justin. I can't wait to see what color pointed whites she has. Hoping for some chocolate & lilac pointed whites.

Yesterday Megan pulled T-O-N-S of fur! Seriously, like enough fur for 3 litters. I took out a ton of her hair to save it and she still had plenty left. She pulled a lot more today and messed around with mixing it in with the hay in her cage. I was hopeful she'd have the babies in the box, but she didn't make too much of a nest. Just pulled tons of fur and messed around with collecting & mixing the hay & fur. So, today I came home to 5 babies ALL OVER the cage. Not one was in the same spot. Thankfully the weather isn't cold anymore, so the babies were fine. A couple were a little on the "cooler" side of things, but warmed up quickly once put in the nest together.

I pulled her box out and made a bit of a better nest to put the babies in. I thought I had all of Megan's babies, since I thought her box was pushed to the back of the cage. I thought wrong. As I put the box back, I heard a loud squeaking noise. I pulled the box out and sure enough there was a little baby squeaking so sad. It got a small cut on it's shoulder from the box (poor thing) and it was chilled. So, I put it in the "portable warmer" and it warmed up and it quit squeaking. I felt so bad, the baby made the most pitiful squeaks. Neosporin on the baby should heal it up quickly. It looked good when I checked on them a little bit ago.

But . . . Megan still has a baby in her that I can feel. So, I let Kyle breed her once, gave her some TUMS. And hopefully she'll have the baby sometime tonight. Otherwise, I'll have to let her run around tomorrow to get that baby out.

Molly is the last doe due today. She's already made a nice nest in her box, so hopefully she'll have the babies in the box.

Amanda's due in 2 days and Kadence is due in 5 days.

Goodnight!
Photobucket

Friday, April 2, 2010

New Look!

I was a bit tired of the old design and have been having fun messing around with all the coding on my blogs. You can do so much just by customizing the CSS & HTML coding. So, that's why there's a new layout, customized font, new signature, etc :)! Enjoy it!

Spring is certainly here in Oklahoma. We had our first spring storm today and it was so nice. The spring storms out here are so different than the rest of the year and are kind of exciting! It's a down-pour of rain and thunder. The kind of heavy down pours where it drops what seems like 2 inches in a matter of hours. I could've never imagined the intensity of these short lived storms until we moved out here. They're somethin' else, especially for this californian-grown girl :).

The buns are all safe in their barn. I shut most of the shutters up right when storm hit, since the rain was blowing in hard.

Photobucket

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Babies Coming!!

The weather has warmed up so much and it feels so much like spring. The dogwood trees are blooming (they're always first) and everything's slowly starting to green-up. Winter seems to take forever to let hold of it's grip up here where we are. But, by the end of April things are looking pretty green.

I put new sides & bottoms (& some fronts & backs) on the nestboxes. Since they are wood, they only last so many litters before they have to be "freshened" up. Plus, since I had bought a whole sheet of plywood, I was able to make 3 new boxes. Now, I have a total of 8 boxes, which is nice. I rarely have 8 litters at a time, but it's nice to have that many on hand and ready to go.

Molly, Megan, Cori & Kaylee all got their boxes today. They are all very full of babies! Yay, praise the Lord! Several of the girls were busy making their nests tonight when I was out there. Can't wait to see what they all have. I'm super curious what Cori will have, since she's bred to Justin. Hoping maybe she'll have a lilac pointed white. That'd be so cool. Both Cori & Kaylee are so much like their mom, Kristen. Total grunters when they are preggers, haha.

I also got fencing up on two sides of the barn for added protection against critters. Now I can leave the shutters open at night and the buns should be quite protected. Wire sceen + fencing should be good barrier for any pesty critters ;).

Daisy's 2 babies are sold and went to their new homes tonight. I only have Brianna's 2 does left available now.

I'm hoping to get new pictures of everybunny soon. We'll see when that can happen ;).

Goodnight!
Qadoshyah