Thursday, September 30, 2010

What's Goin' On In The Barn . . .

Okay, well, I've kind of been a slacker with keeping this blog up to date real well. I guess it's probably because there hasn't been too much to update on.

The buns are doing well. The weather is perfect. So, where to start . . .

Brandy, one of my retired does, was acting off last Saturday. Since she's a food & treat freak, it was very odd for her not to touch her pellets all day. So, I picked her up and checked her out. She was grunting at me when I would pet her, knocked her teeth together if I tried to flip her over on her back, and was sitting all hunched up. So unusual for Brandy who is normally friendly & easy going. After looking at her more, I saw some reddish-clear jelly like "stools." Nasty. First thing that came to mind was Mucoid Enteritis. How she would've gotten though I have no idea! Especially since she's an older doe and typically ME happens in babies/weaned litters.

So, anyways, I decided to treat her like she had ME, since I couldn't think of anything else that it would be. I had my cousin pick up some Neomycin Sulfate Oral solution. So, every few hours I give her a little bit of the Neomycin, several cc's of probiotics, several cc's of power punch (a Nutri-Cal like supplement since she isn't  eating much), and Corid. She's got all kinds of food in her cage - carrot, apple slices, oats, oatmeal, pellets, hay, etc. Just the last day or so she's started nibbling on some of the stuff in her cage, but definitely not her pellets yet. I think we're on the path to getting better, so hopefully she'll be her normal self sooner than later.

There are 4 does due in about a week. Today I did some musical cages and moved some of the does around to the bigger cages. Also weaned some of Brianna's litter (they're 7 wks old), that way her smallest baby may be able to take advantage of being the only one with her, so hopefully he'll catch up in size.

My cages are almost all full (only have 1 empty cage) and I have been this full in awhile. But, 19 bunnies (seniors & juniors) will be leaving over the next week to month. 7 will be going to NH next week. A couple will be going to some Oklahoma breeders next week. Another junior pair will be going to Missouri in a week and a half or so. Then, after that, some bunnies will be waiting for their rides to Convention.

There are two babies left available out of Brianna's litter - black chin buck and black chin doe. They are both very cute little babies!

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

Photobucket

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Baby Pictures

New 6 wk old baby pictures are up ~

Nicole's litter
Sara's litter
Brianna's litter

Sara's babies are all sold. Nicole's babies are all sold too. They're all just waiting to go to their new homes, since obviously they can't quite yet (they're all 6 wks old). There are 4 babies available at the moment in Brianna's litter. They are very nice babies and I'm sure won't last long!

More later . . .
Photobucket

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Cherokee County Rabbit Show

Last Friday, Sept. 17th, the Cherokee County Fair had a 4-H/youth rabbit show. They also do have an Open category too, but there weren't too many rabbits in it this year. We'll have to spread the word to get more Open folks involved in it next year. Since it isn't an ARBA sanctioned show, I was the judge for the show.

It was a small show - just 62 rabbits entered, but it was a lot of fun. So, here are a few pictures from the show.


Judging just beginning:


The bigger meat breeds were first - Cals, New Zealands, Satins. All (except for 1) were owned by the same breeder (the girl in the green shirt). She shows in ARBA shows and has won Nationals for certain breeds of hers before. She had VERY nice rabbits. She won both BIS and RIS.


Judging the mini lop class:


I felt so bad for this little mini lop below and her owner. She was about 10 wks old or so and since in 4-H shows srs & jrs are shown together, she stood no chance. Her color was terrible (very sunburned - at just 10 wks) and she was SO small. My 10 wk olds are a good 1 1/2 to 2 lbs bigger than her. She was about the size of my 5 wk olds. She wasn't skinny or anything, she was just so small. And her type . . . well, it wasn't that great either. I gave her owner a lot of tips, told her what her type should look like and all and of course gave her my card. She was a cute little rabbit just as a lop, but definitely lacked in a lot of areas for ML type.


Mini Rex:

This little doe had decent type, but she was molting so funny, it made her look so sloped off in the HQ's.



Explaining long & low shoulders to the Mini Rex owners :):


Choosing the best buck:


Some of the kids listening to the explanation of what they need to do for showmanship:


Chrysta with her Jr. Showmanship trophy! I got this girl started in ML's a year or so ago. She now has a nice little herd.


Mahala (the gal who runs the show) & I at the end of the show.


It was a good show and I had a great time!

Photobucket

Monday, September 6, 2010

Cutie-Pies . . . well and random Updates

First off, there are new pictures of my 3 three week old litters on the litters page now.

Brianna's litter - click here
Nicole's litter - click here
& Sara's litter - click here

Also updated the whole website with minor updates that needed to be done.

I'm considering selling Hoppin's Kyle, my sable buck. It's a tough decision, as he is a GORGEOUS buck and throws beautiful babies. But, I'm afraid I've got too many babies out of him that I'm keeping who are all equally nice. Kyle is such a sweet little guy too.

Bred 3 does today as well:

Hoppin's Krissi X 3R's Cade - expecting chocolates in this litter!
Hoppin's Kadence X Hoppin's Scotch - again expecting chocolates in this litter!
Silent Spring's Jana X Posey's Cameron - should be a beautiful, typey litter!

I may breed one more doe, but we'll see.

And, for a few random updates . . .

My sister found this snake eating a frog yesterday morning as she almost stepped on it. Thankfully it wasn't a poisonous snake, but it sure was interesting to see him try to eat a frog that was GIANT compared to him. The frog did get away, but not sure that it lived.



And the other day I saw this dragonfly sitting ever so carefully on the edge of a piece of wood that is on the rope to open my shutters. So, I had fund taking close pictures of it!





Photobucket

Friday, September 3, 2010

Babies!!

Alright, well it's about time I put some pictures up of my now-almost-3-week old babies. They are so cute and so fat :).

Sara's babies:



One of Nicole's babies:


One of Brianna's babies:

One of Brianna's normal sized babies and the runt of the litter. It's so tiny, but is starting to catch up to it's littermates!


And the temperature outside this morning around 11am . . . finally cool weather!! We got a few inches of rain last night with wonderful Thunderstorms, which was much needed. Things already look greener than they did yesterday . . . it's been such a dry summer for Oklahoma. Hopefully we've seen the last of the hot weather this year . . . this summer was SO long and hot!



Photobucket