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!