A Few Updates

Diamond's babies are just over 7 weeks old right now. All of them are already spoken for, which is nice :)! You can see their current picture here.

Kayla's litter is almost 8 weeks old and she has several babies available still. Her babies are all very pretty. I don't plan on keeping any right now, because I am reducing my pointed white herd. You can see updated pictures of her babies here.

Kayla will also be for sale once her litter is weaned. Send me an email or a facebook message if you're interested in her.

Kahlua's babies are all doing really good. They are 3 weeks old now, so I'll be getting individual pictures of them very soon! All their ears are lopping....so cute!

My brother finished the cement floor in my barn today. I'm so thankful and excited. There's one tiny little spot he'll have to finish tomorrow, since the frames for the cement were put in wrong. But, that should be easy. The majority of the barn is drying now! It'll be so nice to not have the barn in a construction zone anymore.

Now, for a few pictures....

One of the kitties enjoying the new grass hay bale.

One of Kayla's babies!

A couple new pictures of Diamond. She's a beautiful doe :).

Kahlua's babies snuggling together.

A sleeping opal ... so sweet.

Rum's 4 fat babies!

And the odd-ball in the barn. Just one of the New Zealand does taking a spot in my barn while the other rabbit barn is under a little construction ;).

Rum's babies & more

Good, quality hay is quite few & far between out here, in Oklahoma. It's something I've had to get used to, since I could always get a nice bale of grass hay from the feed store in California. There's one feed store that I have gotten my hay from for the past few years, but they are the opposite direction from us, which makes getting to their store kind of difficult.

We have our own "hay guy" who brings truckloads of hay down for us, but most of the time it is alfalfa hay. It's very nice hay, but alfalfa is just too much for the buns. But, this past week he brought down a truckload of nice grass hay. The buns have been skimping on the hay for the past month, but now we've got plenty of it (until it's all sold, LOL). So, I'm setting aside a good 5-6 bales, which should last the buns a couple months.

A few pictures of Kahlua's babies. They are all in and out of the box now that their eyes are open.

Rum had a litter of 8 yesterday (2 were DOA). She has a box full of chocolates, which is so nice!

I thought I'd put a few pictures up of some of my juniors that I have right now and also a couple seniors.

Donovan is going to be one solid boy! I like him a lot :)!

Abrielle seriously has some of the longest ears around. I'm sure she'll grow into them though! She's a beautiful doe.

Escalade. Can I just say, I couldn't ask for more in this boy? I'm so happy with how he's maturing!

He's going to have a monster head on him.

I took a few new pictures of Abby last night. She's so pretty.

A couple current pictures of Ginger. She's maturing nicely. Could use a little more filling in still, but she continues to look nicely.

Look at her head!

Just a Few Pictures for Today

Just a few pictures snapped last night!

Diamond's babies Peeking!

Courtney munching on oats.

Kahlua's babies

William, my goofy little buck!

A pretty brkn sable chin buck. Yes, he is for sale. Email me for more info :).

And another funny picture of Courtney!

Kahlua's babies & barn talk

Kahlua kindled to a litter of 7 on Wednesday night. She has 2 solid chestnut agoutis, 1 brkn chestnut agouti, 1 solid chocolate chestnut, 1 brkn chocolate chestnut, 1 opal, and 1 lynx. Nice variety of color and it's fun to have some dilutes in the barn again :).

Her opal and lynx.

And the little broken chocolate.

It's been SO, incredibly hot here in Oklahoma for weeks now. But, it really spiked last week and the AC in the barn is hardly cutting it. So, I broke down and bought 2 box fans to run in the barn and keep the air moving during the day. It's helped a lot. Thankfully we've gotten a little rain and the weather is slowly cooling down.

Just a sweet picture of Vixie. She's maturing into a gorgeous doe and by far has the best personality of all of my reds!

A few pictures of two of Diamond's babies. They are CUTE and so chubby. Look at this little baby...isn't she a doll!

One more of Diamond's little does.

Krissie aborted a litter of 5 last Wednesday. I think it was due to the heat. That was quite disappointing. I'll give her a couple week break and then rebreed her to Lam again, Lord willing.

Abby & Rum are due this coming weekend. Can't wait to see what they have in their litters!

Stay cool!

Rabbit Care & Helping Breeders

New breeders come onto the scene quite frequently, whether they are new to that particular breed or new to rabbits in general.

When I was a new breeder, I was helped by so many established breeders. Breeders who had been breeding for 5-20+ years. They were always helpful. Willing to share information, offer advice and share their tips or secrets.

Since I've been in the rabbit & Mini Lop world for several years now, I get new breeders frequently asking questions, and I willingly offer my help. I enjoy being able to be in a position to give advice and share information with new breeders - both new to Mini Lops or new to rabbits in general. I've seen some people turn into great breeders who started out just as a 4-H kid or youth rabbit enthusiast. People won't get as far, or it will take them a lot longer, if breeders aren't willing to help and share information.

From what I've seen on certain rabbit groups & forums, there are times it seems some people have lost sight of that. Or, some people end up getting so caught up in the politics of the rabbit world, that the friendliness of the hobby disappears. That is pathetic. Come on, it's rabbits.

There are still a lot of very helpful breeders around in many breeds, including the Mini Lops, thankfully. ARBA President Mike Avesing wrote a great article in the current DR (July/August '11). One of the statements he made, I want to quote here, because I think it needs to be remembered.

"I think it is also helpful to remind ourselves that this is a hobby for just about every one of us. Most of us get all the grief, aggravation and politics we need in our personal lives. Our hobby should serve as a refuge from those types of things and it will if we all work together to get there."

Thank you ARBA President for continuing to work to make the ARBA and all it's members a friendly, helpful group.


In light of wanting to share information, I've decided to add a lot more rabbit information pages to my website. Many of which will be focused on information for Mini Lop breeders and rabbit breeders in general.

Some of the new articles up on the site already are:

Wry Neck & How To Treat It *NEW*

Treatment for Mucoid Enteritis *NEW*

Vent Disease *NEW*

Coccidiosis (Coccidia) *NEW*

How to Sex a Baby Bunny *NEW*

And more articles to come are:

Tips to Take Pictures of Babies (coming soon, Lord willing)

Posing & Evaluating Baby Mini Lops (coming soon, Lord willing)

Developing Your Own Line (coming soon, Lord willing)

Explanation of Pedigrees (coming soon, Lord willing)

How to Ship Rabbits (coming soon, Lord willing)

Helping Fellow Breeders (coming soon, Lord willing)

Using Oxytocin (coming soon, Lord willing)

GI Stasis (coming soon, Lord willing)

Eye Concerns (coming soon, Lord willing)

Using Vitamins With Rabbits (coming soon, Lord willing)

Ways to Encourage Breeding in Rabbits (coming soon, Lord willing)

How to Get Rid of Ammonia Odor (coming soon, Lord willing)

Staying Organized (coming soon, Lord willing)

If you have any other ideas for pages that you would like to see on the site, just leave a comment here or let me know in an email, FB message, etc.

New litter pictures - Diamond & Kayla

Finally had a moment to put Diamond's & Kayla's litter pictures up.

You can view Diamond's litter here & Kayla's litter here.

Enjoy!

Spiders Anyone?

Last night I was checking on the meat rabbits (which are in their own open-air barn) and was grossed out by the so many spiders out there. Since it's an open-air barn, it means there's flies (although not too bad) and all sorts of little critters in there, which makes for a welcome environment for spiders.

I am so thankful for where we live, but the only thing I don't like at all are all the spiders. I've always been grossed out by spiders, but out here the spiders are massive and everywhere in the summer, especially at night. I was quite disgusted to see all the quarter size (or bigger) spiders hanging in their massive webs on the walls of the meat rabbit barn, on the roof, between the fence and my barn, from the tree, etc.

But, I thought I'd take the opportunity to take a few pictures of just some of the spiders out there (I took pictures of about 15 and there were plenty more, LOL), since they are pretty interesting looking critters.

Okay, while this isn't a spider. It's just another giant bug that is in Oklahoma!

An up-close of the above picture.

So, there ya have it. Part of life in Oklahoma, haha.