Hoppin' Herd of Hares

Something Not Related to Rabbits....RON PAUL for President 2012!

2012-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

I typically don't post stuff about politics on this blog, but because it's my blog, I can use it as a platform to share about pertinent issues from time to time :).

While politics don't necessarily have anything to do with raising rabbits, the laws our politicians make, and the president we have over our nation greatly affects what we can and cannot do with our daily lives.

With that being said, that is why I feel it is abundantly important to share this on here. I moved to Oklahoma from California because of one overriding issue: Freedom. There is so much more freedom in Oklahoma than California, simply because of the way the politicians make laws (or don't make laws) that hinders us or gives us more freedom.

That is vital to what America stands for, or what it used to stand for. Our freedoms are slowly being taken away. The federal government makes more and more laws which regulate what we can and cannot do. Some of the laws may be "good", but because they are laws which the government does not have the right to make under the Constitution, it slowly undermines personal liberty.

The 2012 election is an important election. Our current President, Barack Obama, is re-running for office. He has done so many things which have continued to destroy our constitution, strip freedoms from Americans and ruin our nation. We do. not. want. to see him in office for another 4 years. It's vital that the GOP bring a candidate against Obama who can defeat him and not just go into office and do more of the same things.

The only candidate running for office who is actually different than Obama and all the other GOP candidates is Texas Congressman Ron Paul. He has been saying the same thing for 30+ years. He is an OB/GYN who has delivered over 4,000 babies. He wants to Restore Freedom to America and he has a PLAN to do so.

Ron Paul wants to:

....restore Freedom to Americans!

....bring our troops home, so that they are not fighting wars which America cannot afford and that are not approved by the people (Congress)

....cut $1 TRILLION dollars in the first year

....repeal ObamaCare

....follow the Constitution and return power to the States and the People.

....abolish the IRS and Federal Reserve (get rid of taxes!)

....repeal Roe v. Wade

....cut the president's pay to just under $40,000

....make a stronger military

....AND LOTS MORE!!

Visit Ron Paul's 2012 - www.ronpaul2012.com - site for more specific information on the important issues. Ron Paul has a Plan to Restore Freedom to America and everyone needs to read it (click here). You can also visit some of these links to see more on why you should vote for Ron Paul:

www.whyronpaul.com
www.ronpaulflix.com

Ron Paul receives double the amount of donations from active military than all other GOP candidates and Obama combined!!

Here are some videos which I would greatly encourage you to watch. The news media doesn't cover Paul as much as the rest of the candidates, but he is surging! He finished with a strong 3rd place finish in Iowa and a strong 2nd place win in New Hampshire. He is surging in the South Carolina polls right now and has the endorsement of SC Senator Tom Davis. He has the most organized campaign out of all the candidates and a large grassroots movement of people who want their freedom back and want change in big government America!

He is the only voice of hope for America. He will bring back the Constitution. He will restore liberty and freedom to Americans.

A lot of people have questions about Ron Paul's Foreign Policy. He has the strongest Foreign Policy out of all the candidates. People want to say that he is anti-Israel, when in fact, he is the strongest supporter of Israel.

This is an EXCELLENT video on why you should support Ron Paul, if you support our troops.

This video is from a speech Ron Paul gave and it shares his concerns about our current Foreign Policy, and explains his Foreign Policy well.

So, what can YOU do? Spread the word. Share this with people. Join the Ron Paul and Ron Paul Revolution facebook pages, as well as other pages.

Most of all, GET OUT AND VOTE!!

Vote for Freedom!

Vote Ron Paul 2012!

I will close with a great song, The Light of Revolution, put together by Jordan Page, a Ron Paul supporter. He mentions all the issues very well in this song.

Babies Everywhere!

2012-01-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

There are about 40 babies in the barn right now! I'm very thankful for that!!

Quadra just kindled to a litter of 8 big, fat, healthy babies this morning. She has 4 brokens and 4 solids - sired by Donovan (brkn chocolate chinchilla).

Renee kindled to a litter of 6 beautiful babies on the 10th. She has several solid agoutis, several solid selfs or steels and 1 sable chinchilla - sired by Jaxon (sable steel).

Abilene was also due the 12th and she was bred to Lam. But, on the 10th, I found 6 big, fat healthy looking babies all born dead in her box. She had made a nice nest and everything for her babies, I felt so bad for her. I'm very disappointed though because it was my last chance to have anything out of Lam. I think it had something to do with Lam though, as his litter before this one (born in Sept, I believe it was) was also born 2 days early by Krissie and all were dead. Praise the Lord anyways!

But, the rest of the babies and bunnies are doing good!

Kibbles babies are 2 weeks old now and I need to get some updated pictures. These pictures are from about a week ago or so.

She has 1 lynx, 1 brkn lilac chinchilla, 1 brkn chocolate chinchilla, 1 brkn chocolate, and 1 brkn chocolate chestnut. The solid lilac that you see at the top of the picture below passed away unexpectedly this morning (it must've been a fader).

Her 3 little chocolates :)

Her brkn lilac chinchilla. A total cutie.

The brkn chocolate.

I thought I would take a picture of Lam's 3 daughters that I kept from his litters that I had while he was with us. From L to R (youngest to oldest): Golden Cadillac, Lexus and Millie. All 3 are gorgeous girls.

Here's a recent picture of Lexus. She's a rock-solid beautiful girl, don't ya think?!

And miss Goldie is a beauty also!

Here's a picture of Goldie and Escalade (my one buck out of Lam) next to each other. He's quite a character and it was hard to keep him still in this picture (next to a doe!). His head is still coming in and he's still filling out, but I think he will look just like his dad (except in a different color) when he's fully mature.

That's about all for now!

Kibbles is a mama!

2012-01-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Kibbles is such a sweet girl and she just had her first litter of 6 on New Years Eve! She's one of those does who seems to thoroughly enjoy being a mama :).

She has 2 solid lilac colors, 1 brkn lilac color, and 3 solid chocolate colors. Time will tell whether any of them are chocolate/lilac agouti colors.

The little broken lilac baby! I am hoping this little baby will be a Lam Jr. Lam had to be put down on Dec. 30th. It was a very sad night and very disappointing to have to put him down. It's a complicated story, but he will be missed by many.

One of her little broken chocolates.

This is Escalade...the daddy to the litter. His hair is still growing back on his head (and he's in a head molt), that his neighbor decided to chew off! He's the only buck I have out of Lam and I am so thankful I have him. He looks and acts just like Lam, only in a different color. He does have some growing to do to finish filling out, especially in his head, but I have no doubt, he'll fill in.

Last spring I talked to a breeder who has been raising Mini Lops for 20+ years and she was telling me how she only feeds 18% PenPals feed. I think I mentioned this on my blog back when I switched to 18%. Because of what she told me - her does never slow down in production in the cold winter months, litter size stays good, etc - I switched to 18% back then. I wasn't too sure how my does would do on it, but now that the winter months have come, I am seeing the massive difference. This time last year I had 3 litters - a litter of 2 (that were almost weaned), a litter of 4 (that were almost weaned) and a litter of 6 (that was just born). And no other litters due anytime soon. It was quite depressing. This year I have 5 litters with a total of 28 babies. Plus, 3 litters due next week and 4 more litters due the end of the month. This makes it so that all my does are on litters or bred except for my youngest two does (who are just seniors, so will be bred soon).

It's very nice to have such a bountiful winter with so many babies!

It's a Beautiful Winter Day

2011-12-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful, albeit chilly, winter day today. The bunnies are all doing good. I had a head cold the end of last week and then got hit with the stomach flu the beginning of the week. By Wednesday, I was doing much better, so it was time to tend to the barn, which was well overdue for a cleaning. I spent 3 hours in the barn on Wednesday cleaning it out and it feels much nicer in there now!

The babies are all doing good.

I just have Abby's 1 doe that I am keeping left out of her litter. She's a VERY promising doe and I will get pictures sometime soon, Lord willing. I still haven't decided on a name for her. I also need to get pictures of Abilene's little buck that I kept out of her last litter...Hoppin's Abe. He's a cutie for sure :)!

Kahlua's, Ginger's and Rum's litters are 5 weeks old today. I will be going through them next week, Lord willing and will be letting people know which babies are available and which are not. I have a waiting list, with some people who have been waiting for awhile, so I am not sure which ones, particularly of my chocolates, will be available.

Kibbles is due on New Year's. She's bred to Escalade, who is Lam's son, so they should be beautiful babies! And ALL chocolates and lilacs!

Renee (bred to Jaxon) is due shortly after her. And then Quadra (bred to Donovan) & Abilene (bred to Lam!) are due after that. I have a few other does I will be breeding soon, Lord willing - Abrielle, Vixie, Kate & Abby.

Abilene is bred to Lam and palpates positive! So exciting!! I've been trying to get a litter from Lam since his last litter which was with Kahlua in August. He has done this very odd thing when he breeds the doe ever since that last litter and ends up not actually "getting" the doe when he crunches up, but rather missing her and therefore getting the table wet. It's been very frustrating, because I KNOW he can breed, as I've had litters from him. So, with Abilene, I assisted with the breeding and "held" him in the "crunched up" position once he actually went to crunch up. And success, the table wasn't wet underneath him, so he actually bred her. I'm very excited to have Lam babies again soon, Lord willing. And it gives me hope that I will be able to get him bred to more does soon. I think his issue just happens to be something with his age. Although, he is not very old, he has had a rough year in his journey to Oklahoma.

In sad news, Sugar passed away this past Monday. She had been battling with something for about 2 months, as she went off feed 2 months ago. She would eat parsley, carrots, apple, vitamin C, rabbit nutridrops, oatmeal, oats, hay and goat milk. She would eat no pellets and drink no water, only goat milk. I had treated her for GI issues, coccidia, hairballs, etc and no change at all. She did quite well despite this, but as of Saturday night, she started going downhill. I could tell she wouldn't make it much longer. I had palpated lumps in her the past couple months, so I suspected that she may actually have uterine cancer or tumors (as there was no possibility of being bred).

When she died, I had to do a necropsy, because I wanted to see why she had died. Sure enough, my suspicion was confirmed. Her entire uterus was FULL, round and hard - about the size of a golf ball. It had a very peculiar smell to it as well. She had uterine cancer/tumor, which is very common in in unspayed rabbits. You can see pictures of the tumor and her uterus here.

I also received a Rabbits USA magazine in the mail this week. At first I had forgotten why, but then I remembered that I was asked a few months ago to share info on Mini Lops for this magazine. The gal from Rabbits USA who emailed me had said she would send a copy of the magazine once it was printed. So, we are here in the Rabbits USA magazine - pretty cool!

One picture of Krissie's babies from a week ago or so. They are FAT little babies :)! I'll be getting individual pictures of them soon, Lord willing. She has 1 buck and 1 doe. Very sweet little munchkins too!

Individual pictures of Kahlua's, Ginger's & Rum's litters have been up on the site for a week or so.

Ginger's litter can be seen here.

Rum's litter can be seen here.

Kahlua's litter can be seen here.

Babies

2011-12-10T07:24:00.001-08:00

Well, Krissie kindled to a litter of just 2 a week ago. Normally she has 11, so it was a bit disappointing to just see 2. But, at least she had a nice healthy litter. They are some FAT babies, since she normally raises 11 by herself with no problems!

One of Ginger's little opals. Ginger's, Kahlua's and Rum's babies are now 3 weeks old, so they will be getting their individual pictures this coming week, Lord willing!

One of Kahlua's little munchkins! Her babies are so chubby!

Rum's babies are quite the entertainment bunch. They are so funny...jumping in and out of the box all day long and so playful :).

This is the little doe I'm keeping from Abby's litter. I've wanted to keep this doe since the day she was born. She's beautiful!

Lots of babies and long overdue update

2011-12-01T11:47:00.001-08:00

Just a quick update here:

Quadra's babies are 6 weeks old now. They are adorable little guys. The buck is available and he is very promising (he's the one in the first picture). I am planning on keeping the doe at the moment (the second two pictures).

What a deep little doe!

Abby's babies are 4 weeks old now and so, so, adorable! She has two chocolate chinchilla does and a 1 broken chinchilla buck.

This little doe below is the one I want to keep from Abby's litter :). She's got a monster of a head right now, so we'll see how her body looks in a couple weeks.

Ginger's litter of 6 is almost 2 weeks old. She has 3 opals and 2 chestnut agoutis.

Kahlua's litter of 7 are almost 2 weeks old. She has 4 opals and 3 chestnut agoutis.

Rum's litter of 7 CHOCOLATES are almost 2 weeks old. They are so adorable. It's nice to have a whole litter of chocolate colors.

Even self chocolates...finally :)!

Krissie is due today with Escalade's first litter. Kibbles and Kate has been bred to Escalade as well. Lam has been a little slow lately, but I'm hoping to get some does bred to him soon.

New Arrival!

2011-11-17T14:58:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Jennifer Townsend, Smokey's Kibbles, now lives here at our barn! I'm sorry to see Jen have to sell out of Mini Lops for the time being, but I'm thrilled to have Kibbles here. Kibbles is out of Hoppin's Britney, who was a beautiful doe I had sold to Erik from Smokey's Bunny Barn in WA last year. I never got to keep anything out of Britney before she left, so I'm glad to have Kibbles here.

I'll be breeding Kibbles to Lam soon hopefully and should have a full litter of lilacs!! They should be some nice, beautifully colored babies.

And just for fun, a picture of one of the outside kittens :).

Rainy Days & Baby Buns

2011-11-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

We've had a rainy few days lately, which has been really nice...we needed rain!

The ducks all have had fun playing in the rain and the puddles it's created. They sure are funny to watch!

Quadra's babies are now 3 weeks old and doing great. They are ADORABLE, fat little squishy munchkins! She has 1 buck and 1 doe. Aren't smoke pearls beautiful?!

I have an on-going saga with my red buck, William. He is S-L-O-W-L-Y maturing, but he is SO tiny. He's just 4.4 lbs at 8 months old and has absolutely no interest in breeding, which is very discouraging. Here is he next to my 3 1/2 month old junior, Goldie. She's just an average size ML junior...he is just a .... shrimp, LOL!

I also have some really sad news. I had to put down one of my red does, Sunrise. She was the nicer as far as body type goes of the two does. So, that is a bummer. She went off feed the end of last week and suddenly came down with wry neck. I started treating her as soon as I noticed her head tilt and I had to put her down less than 48 hours later. It progressed so fast, she was rolling within 1 1/2 days. It was by far the most aggressive wry neck I have ever seen. Very sad :(.

On a better note, here are a couple's a couple recent pictures of my other red doe, Vixie. She is maturing nicely and finally starting to fill in some! Hopefully we'll have red babies soon.....

Been awhile...

2011-11-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's been quite awhile since I've posted much on here. I've been blogging regularly over here and this has been put on the back burner.

The website has been updated. New litters have been born. Their info is up on the site. Abilene's babies have also had new pictures put up (individual pictures at 3 weeks old), which you can see here.

One of the newest developments in the barn...Shelby a new little kitten. She has the coolest eyes - one is blue and one is blue-green! What a sweet kitten she is :).

Lily is one of my youngest juniors. She was born the middle of August from Rum (X Scotch). Very wide, smooth girl.

Goldie (full name of Golden Cadillac) is another one of my young juniors. She's a beauty out of Lam!

Abrielle is one of my older juniors. She's such a pretty girl!

Here's just a couple pictures of Abilene's babies. They are all SO adorable!

Here's a color comparison between a chocolate chinchilla (left) and a silver tip'd chocolate steel (right)

Quadra's two babies. Both beautiful smoke pearls!

The newest litter is a litter of 3 (4 were born, 1 was DOA) out of Abby. This is Scotch's last litter here, as of right now :(.

One of her two solid chocolate chinchillas.

And her little broken black chinchilla.

A hilarious picture of the kitties playing together!!

Just Pictures

2011-10-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

I am well over due for a blog post. Things have just been too crazy and busy this week to think about doing any blog posts on here. Between family stuff, ranch chores, Grandma being in from out of town, website work, buddy walk stuff, and blogging every day for the month of October on my other blog, it's been crazy.

So, this is just going to be narrated pictures :).

The new barn kitten, Shelby. She's such a cutie and so sweet.

Abilene's babies...which officially are: 1 brkn chocolate chinchilla, 1 brkn silver tip'd chocolate steel, 1 solid silver tip'd chocolate steel, 1 brkn black, and 1 black chinchilla.

Quadra is due tomorrow (the 16th):

Lily (my keeper out of Rum's litter):

Goldie (full name: Hoppin's Golden Cadillac - my keeper from Kahlua):

New nestboxes cut by my brother, waiting to be put together:

Jaxon....my funky molting-headed boy:

Escalade...who also has a funky head molt going on:

Millie & Justin sniffing each other through the cage:

Have a great weekend!

Website Update, Pointed White Sell Out & More

2011-09-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

I updated the website this morning - adding and removing some buns, as well as updating pictures. I also updated the for sale page.

After much thought, I've decided to sell out of my pointed white Mini Lops. I've enjoyed working with them for the past 6 years, but times change and I'd like to focus on growing my chocolates & lilacs. And also work more with the reds. The pointed whites have come a long ways since I started working with them, so it is a hard decision to see them go. But, what I have now, are very nice bunnies, as I've cut them down anyways over the past few months to just my best. Transport to ARBA Convention is available for $25/rabbit, or I can ship them. I only have 3 left anyways - Hoppin's Jade, Hoppin's Kayla & Hoppin's Katrina. All 3 of them are very nice (a blue pointed white buck & 2 black pointed white does). You can see more info and details on the for sale page.

The rest of the buns are doing well.

The response to my last blog post on Rabbitry Husbandry, was a lot bigger than I expected with almost 170 page views on that post. I've received some crazy feedback and also some supportive feedback. The bottomline to the whole thing is that any rabbit breeder (regardless of who you are) needs to keep a clean barn, and clean cages so that you have healthy stock.

That's about it for today...just a short post! I have more to post about later :).

Rabbitry Husbandry....thoughts on the good & bad

2011-09-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

First off, the buns are all doing well! I've got several does bred and due in the next several weeks. The litters are all doing good as well :).

There has been a lot of talk in the rabbit world - on facebook, message boards, email groups, etc - over the last month or month and a half about the Six Bell Rabbits (Debe Bell) which were seized by Animal Control in Colorado.

At first, the report of the police & AC coming in without a search warrant and taking all 190+ rabbits was astonishing. But, when more pictures came out of the condition of at least some of the rabbits at this rabbitry, I can completely understand why AC took the rabbits. Now, I don't agree that the AC should've taken the rabbits like they did. If they were going to do something, they should have given a fine, told the rabbitry owner to clean up the situation and then followed up on it.

At first, I felt bad for Debe Bell, because from what I had heard it sounded like the AC came and took the rabbits without any cause or problem. But, in reality, there was cause for concern in the *AC's mind* by these pictures below.

These 4 pictures below were taken by the Jefferson County Sherriff's Office in Colorado.

Once I saw the above pictures, I was not surprised one bit that the AC would take the rabbits. Quite frankly the above pictures are disgusting. Sure, the rabbits themselves look healthy, but they will not remain healthy for very long in a cage like that. It'll cause all sorts of health problems.

Yet, there are still many, many rabbit breeders (show rabbit breeders) who are fully behind Six Bells Rabbitry and arguing around what these pictures show. In my opinion, these pictures show rabbits that have not had their cages cleaned or taken care of for a length of time....well over a week.

There are several facebook pages set-up either to support the Six Bell Rabbits or they were started because of this situation. I am not on any of these pages, but I happened to look over some of them.

One is called Save the Six Bell Rabbits

Another is called Show Rabbit Protection Society and there is also a blog for this FB page.

And the last one I found is called Rabbit Breeders United.

I've tossed around the idea of writing a blog post on this ever since the first news article surfaced about this. But, I hadn't felt like I should. On a rabbit board I'm on, some quotes were given from a couple of the above FB pages. I went to the pages, found the statements and thought I would share a couple of the quotes from the Show Rabbit Protection Society page. Once I saw these quotes, I felt I should post something on my blog about this situation.

"Yay, keep it up. You are deprogramming yourselves. And what else do we want? We want the rabbit to EAT poop. Rabbits eat their poop. Cecotropes. Remember? Defend the poop!! We want rabbits to poop, to sit in it, to eat it, to knock it around their cage and we never want the poop to stop! Defend the poop. A poopy cage is the number one sign of good rabbitry husbandry!!!!"

And another quote,

"I think something is radically missing in the whole discussion of poop and Debe Bell's rabbits. People who want no poop, those who think there is too much poop. come on people, we raise rabbits right? What is a sign of serious emergency illness in rabbits? No poop. As rabbit breeders, we WANT poop, lots and lots of poop, 24 hours a day poop, because pooping rabbits are healthy rabbits? Remember everybody? Hello? Why is everyone suddenly acting like poop in a rabbit cage is a PROBLEM?"

I've been raising rabbits for almost 9 years now and I know what it takes. I know rabbits poop a lot. I know they can get the "string of pearls" when molting which will get stuck on the cage. I know if you leave hay in a corner of a cage the rabbit may insist on pooping and peeing on the hay, which clogs it up and doesn't let it fall through to the tray.

But, the rabbit NEVER has to have poopy cages, especially like the above pictures show. I've never had that in my rabbitry. Someone may be surprised by that. But, it is the truth. Why? Because I stay on top of keeping the barn and cages clean and free of poo. When it's not summer the trays get changed once a week (during the summer, they are changed every couple days), but the poop still does not pile up into the cage.

I highly disagree with the statement that "a poopy cage is the number one sign of good rabbitry husbandry." You don't need poop IN the cage with the rabbit for someone to know that the rabbit is pooping. All droppings should be in the tray BELOW the cage, not piled up in the cage. There is no way I want my rabbits to sit in their poop. That's just disgusting and totally unhealthy, in my opinion.

Any good rabbit breeder will know that it's unhealthy for a rabbit not to poop. They will die, if not treated soon & correctly, from GI Stasis. But, that's not what I'm talking about here. A pooping rabbit is a healthy rabbit. But, it does not need to e, and should not be, sitting in it's own feces. If there is proper rabbitry management, a rabbit never needs to have a pile of poo in it's cage.

A few "string of pearl" droppings hanging on the bottom of the cage wire is one thing. But, if it's maintained and those are brushed off every few days (or even once a week!), it will not build up, in my experience.

So, since today was barn cleaning day (it had been a week), I decided to take some pictures before cleaning the barn. Someone may be surprised by that. But, I thought it would help show that a dirty barn really doesn't have to be that bad.

I didn't take these pictures to say "see what I can do", but I took them to show that a rabbit barn does not have to have poop piled up into the cages after just one week between cleanings. It just doesn't have to happen.

This doe had a few "string of pearls" on her cage floor, but they were all hanging through to the bottom of the cage and she has no pile of poop in her cage.

See, how it hangs through! And there is still space left between the bottom of the cage and the tray (which is full, because it's been a week since cleaning).

This doe likes to poop in one corner of her cage, but there is still plenty of space between the tray and the bottom of the cage.

And even a doe with a litter of 7 babies. Their tray is full and ready to be dumped, but it's not built up so high that they have piles of droppings in their cage. That hay in the corner is just from the night before :).

And my retired does who have the solid bottom cages. It's been a week for them since their cage was cleaned as well.

And now the barn after cleaning is done :)!

Website Updates and more

2011-09-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update here with a few pictures.

The website is updated with some new pictures and updates.

Rum's babies are up on the site now. They are adorable little things - 3 does, 1 buck. You can see them here.

Kahlua's babies are doing great! They are getting big. I'll be getting new pictures of them soon, Lord willing.

The weather has been gorgeous since last Saturday. I'm very thankful for it! It seems like fall is finally here. It's actually been chilly at night...like 45 degrees. Such a relief after a L-O-N-G, H-O-T summer.

The does have all been very willing to be bred, so we should have lots of litters soon. Abby is due the end of the month (bred to Lam). Krissie (bred to Lam), Allie (bred to Scotch), & Abilene (bred to Landon) are all due the beginning of next month. By the beginning of next month I can breed my reds. I'm so excited!! It'll be so neat to have box fulls of RED babies.

Just a few pictures now....

Abrielle...one of my favorite juniors in the barn right now. She is simply beautiful.

And another cutie in the barn! Millie is such a doll and has some of the cutest looks ever.

Abilene is so pretty! She finally bred this morning...she's been a stubborn little doe. Hopefully she'll have a nice litter from Landon the beginning of next month.

Just a couple pictures of one of Kahlua's babies. She's a beautiful, SUPER promising girl! Posed pictures of the whole litter will be up soon, Lord willing....along with who is available.

Isn't she cute?!

A Few Updates

2011-08-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-01T14:41:00.001-07:00

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?

2011-08-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

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.

It's baby time!

2011-07-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

I finally took some time to get individual pictures of Kayla's & Diamond's babies today. I was in the process of getting the pictures resized to put up on the site yesterday when some friends showed up. So, I didn't get finished with that....maybe tomorrow, we'll see.

But, for now, here's a sneak peak of some of the babies!

A few of Kayla's babies:

And a few of Diamond's babies:

This is a little DOE! Look at her head, she's only 3 weeks old. Adorable!

Fuzzy little baby :).

Takin' a peek over the table :).

This is the little doe I'm keeping out of Melinda's litter. Hoppin's Millie! She's a doll.

These bunnies down here came from a breeder who was selling out. She wanted to get rid of her last few, so she gave these two to me. Not that I really needed anymore, as my cages are FULL. But, they are here :).

The doe is a Rugen's doe. She's a bit out of condition right now.

And the buck. I think I judged this buck as a jr at the Cherokee County Fair last September. He's thin and out of condition as well, so we'll get some weight on him and decide from there.

Heat & Buns

2011-07-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

The bunnies are doing great, even in this heat. I'm VERY thankful for the air conditioner, otherwise they'd be in trouble. It's been very hot for weeks now.

Here's a few pictures for fun, taken this morning.

Escalade is such a doll and SO sweet. My little sisters really enjoy holding him :).

Kayla's litter is getting big and needs their individual pictures taken .... soon, Lord willing! She has 4 does and 3 bucks.

Diamond's litter is also getting big. They are just barely 3 weeks old, but oh-so-adorable. They have monster heads and crowns....thanks to their daddy, Lam! She has 4 bucks and 3 does.

Abrielle is still looking pretty! Although her HQ's are looking a little funny right now, thanks to the awkward stage she's in :).

Just a funny picture of Allie...looking for food, since she's on a diet!

Beautiful Sunrise. She's a gorgeous doe, but so shy. This is her classic look of "who are you outside of my cage?"

She stayed laying relaxed even though I came up to her cage...big improvements for her. She's a lot better than she was, but I don't think she'll ever get as sweet as Vixie, or even William.

And just a couple pictures to show how DRY it is out here. Yes, there's a little green here and there, but not too much. You see that brown tree? It's alive, just in hibernation because of the heat.

The little bit of green on the ground here is the revived grass from the rain we had a couple nights ago. But, with 104 temperature days again, it won't be green much longer, unless we get LOTS more rain. Hoping for rain.

New BLOG Design now...along with some fun pictures

2011-07-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well, since the website design was changed, I thought it was time to change up the blog as well. So, it kind of matches the site, with a slight variation :).

Also, just for fun, I will include some fun pictures from the barn.

Melinda's babies all lined up. They're all so adorable!

The 6 reds. The 3 in the back all shipped out to Vermont a week ago.

Since we shipped some rabbits out last week to Vermont in the summer, we made some modifications to the KW Cages Airline Approved Carrier. For one, we were shipping 4 jrs in a "3-hole" cage, so I had to add an extra divider anyways. I took out the plastic dividers and put wire dividers in. This would allow more airflow through the cage anyways. Delta (the airline I use) has a pet program in the summer that ensures the rabbits are in a climate controlled vehicle or building the entire time. And it also ensures they won't be loaded until right before the plane is to leave and will be unloaded right away as well. It worked pretty good and they arrived a little stressed, but safely. And are doing well now!

William, my silly red boy!

And peeking into Katrina's cage while she's napping :).

New Site Design, New Pictures, More Babies

2011-07-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

It's been much too long since I put a blog post up, but it seems that's the way life is right now :).

Quite a bit has gone on here in the rabbits.

The biggest announcement is that the whole site has been completely redesigned. Our internet was out last week for a few days, so I took the time to finish up my new site design. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out :). There's just a few things I have to finish up on the site, but most of it is good to go. You can view it here.

And in that process, I took new pictures of just about everyone and put them up on the site.

Diamond's babies growing and getting big. She has several chestnut agoutis and a couple black chinchillas.

Unfortunately, her little charlie has no nose markings. It's the first charlie I've had born here that hasn't been showable, from what I can remember for probably about 7 years. My charlies always have a full butterfly. But, not with this little guy. Oh well, he sure is cute :)!

Kayla's babies are all doing really well too and getting big! I have to sex her babies and get pictures of them soon.

Melinda's babies are 5 1/2 weeks old now, so I just went through her litter to pose them all up. You can see them here. They are a promising bunch of babies! I like all of them, although her little chin buck could use some improvement.

I'm keeping one of Melinda's two broken chestnut does. She's so adorable :)!

Also, there are several babies on the for sale page on the site, as we have a few left available out of our last batch of babies.

That's the quick updates for now...more later, Lord willng!

Babies again!

2011-06-30T14:44:00.000-07:00

Boy, does the time seem to go by fast! A busy life, makes for time to fly by. But, I'm thankful for it all :).

The babies are all getting big and growing fast! Kahlua's & Krissie's babies are all weaned and there's just a few left from each litter. Rum's, Shirley's & Abby's litters are all close to weaning and looking amazing. Melinda's babies are just coming up on 3 weeks old.

And we are just on the next round of babies: Kayla kindled to 7 on the 28th. Brownie is due the 2nd. Diamond the 4th and Abilene the 6th. Then between Sunday and July 15th, I'll be breeding Allie, Abby, Rum, Kahlua, & Krissie, Lord willing.

Out of Krissie's litter, I am keeping a broken chocolate chinchilla buck, Hoppin's Donovan. Out of Kahlua's litter, I am keeping a broken chocolate chestnut agouti buck, Hoppin's ? (haven't named him yet!). Out of Abby's litter I am keeping a broken chocolate chinchilla doe, who has also not been named yet. Out of Rum's litter I am keeping a chestnut agouti doe. And out of Shirley's litter I am most likely keeping her sable steel buck (he's a beauty!).

I have a chocolate chinchilla buck, brkn chocolate chinchilla doe, brkn (charlie) black doe, and chinchilla buck available out of Krissie's litter. 3 of the babies are *very* promising. The brkn chocolate chinchilla doe is the only one I don't care for - she's a bit long in body.

I have a chestnut agouti doe and black buck available out of Kahlua's litter. Both are very promising.

There are pictures of all 6 babies ready to go right now up on my facebook page, as they haven't made it to the sale page on the website yet.

New pictures of Abby's, Rum's & Shirley's litters can be seen at....

Abby's litter
*She has some amazing, promising babies in her litter! They are all gorgeous!
Rum's litter
*Rum has a few promising babies as well. I like her chestnut babies over her chin babies. The doe is very promising and since I don't have a doe out of Rum yet, I'm going to keep her.
Shirley's litter
*Several of her babies are also gorgeous! Her pointed white doe is a-m-a-z-i-n-g, along with her two steels.

I have transport available from OK to KY/IN/OH/MO/etc very soon. And I also have transport available from OK to WA/Canada/OR (and through the states between there) in the middle of July.

There are some other subjects I'd like to blog about, but it will have to be next week, or this weekend!

Baby & Bun News

2011-06-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Life has been busy, as usual around here. Between working on websites, living on a ranch with a family of 13, doing household chores, and taking care of everything (animals & people), there's never a dull moment!

The bunnies are all doing great and handling the heat wonderfully. They are all cool in their barn with the air conditioner. I'm so thankful for that! I had a small scare with it a couple days ago. I got home and it was OFF. Thankfully it isn't that hot yet, so everyone was fine. I thought it was broken, but I found out that someone had just flipped the switch off (more than likely the silly barn cats did) and all is good.

Brownie palpates positive. I'm hoping for a LIVE litter this time! Diamond also palpates positive. She had 1 baby on her last due date (June 4th), but pulled no fur & made no nest. Which doesn't make sense at all, since she is not a first time mama. That baby ended up dieing a few days later, so she is rebreed. I just have to palpate Abilene & Allie (both Lam litters!). Kayla is due the 28th.

Melinda kindled to a beautiful litter of 6 last week. This is the first litter by Lam here and they are so pretty. A couple have pretty unique markings on their broken pattern, which is kind of cool.

I haven't had a baby with a partial face marking for *years*! This baby reminds of it's way-back grandfather, Velotta's Raymond who was a RGC and his markings were SO similar to this.

And of course, the usual broken, full face pattern :).

And this little baby has a little bit of "milk-dipped-ness" to one of it's ears. So cute. I haven't had a baby with white on the ears for years either.

Krissie's babies pictures are up now at this link. I am keeping the broken chocolate chinchilla buck out of this litter. I'll contact those on my waiting list soon for the other babies, Lord willing, unless you contact me first :)!

This is Krissie's smallest baby and biggest baby. The "biggest baby" really isn't that different than the sizes of the other babies in the litter. but, the smallest baby is for sure the run and is, as you can see, about half the size of his littermates. But, he sure has a lively personality and strong will to live, so he is thriving!

Abby's babies pictures are up also at this link.

And Kahlua's babies pictures can be seen here. I am keeping the broken chocolate chestnut agouti buck out of this litter. I'll contact those on my waiting list soon for the other babies, Lord willing, unless you contact me first :)!

And, finally, here are a couple pictures of the doe I kept out of Kayla's last litter. She's a promising doe. I still haven't decided on a name for her yet. I know, so bad :)!

Red Mini Lops are here!

2011-06-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been long in coming and much awaited buns. Red Mini Lops are finally back at Hoppin' Herd of Hares.

I used to raise them about 6 years ago, but sold out to focus on the chocolates and lilacs. But, over the last couple years I've wanted to bring them back in. Thanks to ARBA Judge Jody Rosnik in Colorado, I was able to bring in a beautiful trio of reds. I spent a fair amount of money on them and bought them sight unseen. I normally don't do that, but I've worked with Jody so many times over the years, she said she'd pick me out the 3 best in her litters.

I couldn't be happier with the 3. They are beautiful. They are a little shy right now, but I think they will come around, as they are only 3 months old.

Two does and one buck came. Here are a few pictures:

Alpine's Sunset (doe):

Alpine's R (buck):

Alpine's Vixie (doe):

Lots of babies!

2011-05-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

All the babies are getting big in the barn!

Shirley has 3 sable steels, 1 sable and 2 pointed white babies. One of the babies might be a REW, but I don't think so. They both look to have a little bit of coloring on their tail. I was kind of hoping for a REW.

Abby's babies are all so adorable and fat! They are all chinchillas - 5 chocolate and 1 black.

Rum's babies are looking very nice. They are going to be some t-h-i-c-k babies and all chocolate carriers.

Kahlua's babies are 4 wks old now. She has 2 bucks and 2 does. I did get new pictures up of her babies last week at this link.

Krissie's babies are 3 wks old now too. She always has the cutest babies *ever*! She has 6 does and 4 bucks. The new individual pictures are up at this link.

That's about it for now! Just a short little update.

Babies All Over

2011-05-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

We've got more and more babies being born here, thankfully :)!

Krissie's babies are all getting big. She still amazes me at her mothering abilities. She's such an awesome doe. To be able to raise her whole litter (large litters - 9-10 babies) by herself is a big blessing. She is a doe who will be around for awhile. Not only does she raise amazing litters, the babies always have gorgeous type (she's a beautiful doe). Her whole litter of 10 last time was extremely promising.

Krissie's self chocolate baby next to the smallest in the litter. Yes, the baby really is that tiny. He probably wouldn't have made it, but I let him nurse on Krissie extra in addition to the rest of the babies. It was just enough to get him up over the hump and now he's catching up beautifully. I don't normally do that with babies. But, this little guy had a will to live and I thought he stood a chance.

One of Krissie's broken chocolate chins. I think the pattern on this baby is so cool!

Kahlua's cuties...

This is the baby that Kahlua is raising of Krissie's.

One of Kahlua's chunky babies. This little one is so squishy!

Shirley's babies. She kindled to a litter of 7 yesterday (Sunday). All are shadeds of some kind, plus 2 whites or pointed whites.

She has 3 like this baby. They are all very light and look really dilute. But, I know sables can do that too. So, we'll wait a few days to see if they are sables or smoke pearls.

One of the lighter babies next to one of the two dark babies. The two dark babies are definitely sables. I'm so hoping that they are smoke pearls!

Just for fun, Kayla's two girls. The one in the front is the one I'm keeping (I think). The other will be going to Missouri, Lord willing.

Striper, the old man of the barn. He's just a couple weeks shy of 7 years old. He got fly strike last week (even though there are almost no flies in the barn...ugh...) and I thought he wasn't going to make it. I cleaned him all up, gave him a bowl of water, his feed and made him all cushioned in a carrier cage. This was at 1am in the morning and I really didn't think he'd be alive when I got up in the morning. Sure enough he was a live and a whole lot perkier.

He was eating & drinking and able to hop around. He surely has a will to live and has survived the odds a few times now, when I thought he was going down. He can't move around as well as he used to, but he's still eating, drinking & going strong.

My sweet old boy...

Rum is due anytime now. Abby is due in 4 days. Diamond palpates positive. And then I've got a few more does to palpate in the next few days.

Views from the Barn

2011-05-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd put a post up with just some updates from the barn.

Krissie's babies are all doing great. She has one *really tiny* little guy, but he seems to be hanging on quite well right now.

One of Kahlua's chocolate chestnuts. She has two of these!

One of Kahlua's babies and her baby from Krissie that she's raising. Amazing how much bigger the baby is of Kahlua's, even though it's just 3 days older.

Just a cute picture of....well, you can see who it is by the name tag :)!

Kate, Diamond's doe that I kept from her last litter.

Ginger trying to peek out of her cage...she's such a funny girl!

Striper and his new little ramp & shelf area. He likes to sit "up" on something!

The silly little cats, who like to lay on the grooming table all the time! Which, by the way, we're expecting kittens the end of the week!

The white board in the barn. This is very handy to have. It would be nice if the full thing was a whiteboard, but this works. It's nice to be able to write down birth dates, due dates, who to breed and when to palpate.

Kahlua's babies getting socialization from one of my little sisters. It's one of her favorite jobs!

And last, the meat bunny barn which has a bunch of "ugly" meat does and litters in it. We've got 42 babies in that barn right now. And more litters on the way!

Feed Thoughts

2011-05-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

I was on the phone for awhile yesterday with a good ML breeder/friend. We talked about all kinds of things, but one thing we talked about was feed. I asked her if she had PenPals out in her area and she said that's what she's used for 15 years!

She has been using 18% though instead of the 16%. I use 16% just because that is what I've always used in a feed and had good success with it. PenPals is such an amazing feed and the rabbits fur & condition is *always* super.

Through talking with this breeder, she said with the 18% she always gets large litters and their condition is firm. Now, my does tend to have larger litters as well (Krissie just had her second litter of 10 today actually!). But, I do get my fair share of "smaller" litters (6 babies or so). When this breeder mentioned that she had a smaller litter born the other day....and that litter size was 7....it made me think.

I also asked her how her does do in the winter. I have always bred year round and winter has normally been the time when I have more litters. But, since I moved to Oklahoma, it has been so hard to get winter litters. From November to late January-February I get maybe 2-3 litters. Which is *not* normal for me and what I'm used to in California. This breeder I was talking to has an even less insulated barn than I do (and doesn't heat it) and lives in a climate that gets very cold (-20 to -30 below) in the winter months. And she has large litters year round with no drop in conception or production. That was very encouraging to hear.

I definitely respect this breeder (she is also an ARBA judge) and her thoughts on it. And I'm going to try out the 18% PenPals with the rabbits. It's the same price as the 16% that I buy anyways, so it won't hurt them at all. I could even do half the barn on 16% and half on 18%, but we'll see. To be able to have litters year round out here in Oklahoma would be so nice!

So, this was very fascinating for me to hear. I've always heard that if you feed the higher protein to a "smaller" or medium-sized breed that you will have reproductive problems, as in does not being able to take. But, this breeder who has studied feed on her rabbits since the '70's has never seen this.

I thought I would share this information I learned....maybe it'll help someone else :).

On other news...Krissie kindled to 10 babies between yesterday and today. She had 1 baby yesterday (not sure why), but had the rest today. She has 6 or 7 chocolates out of all of them! Yay, praise the Lord. Kahlua is raising Krissie's baby that was born yesterday. Krissie should be able to handle the rest.

New pictures of Kayla's babies will be up soon also!

Lots of happenings

2011-05-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

Wow, I seriously have been in a posting hiatus on this blog!

A lot has gone on in the last few weeks.

12 bunnies left to their new homes in the last week: 2 to Indiana (via Ohio "mini convention"), 2 to TX, 2 to NM, 2 to a breeder in OK, 2 to KS, and 2 to another breeder in OK.

A trio of chocolates will be shipped out to New York within the next week to week and a half, Lord willing.

Diamond has been bred to Lamborghini. That should be a very nice litter! I'll be breeding Prudence & Melinda to Lamborghini soon as well.

Kahlua kindled to a litter of 4 on Tuesday night. 2 broken chocolates (yay!), 1 black and 1 black agouti. Krissie is due tomorrow. And then we have a few more does due after that.

Brianna went to her new home this week...which happens to be to a breeder just a couple miles down the road :). She is also bred to Lamborghini and I'll be getting a baby back from her. Those should be some VERY nice, colorful babies.

So, there's a quick run-down of what's been happening in the barn :).

Lamborghini

2011-04-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

The buck who arrived from California a week and a half ago is doing great. He's out of quarantine & settled in well. So, I got some pictures of him. He's a beautiful buck and I'm thrilled to have him & his line back in the barn. I can't wait to breed him to my chocolate does.

Isn't he cute?!

Litter Pictures

2011-04-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

Well, the babies are all getting big & doing great. The weather has been gorgeous lately, which has been nice for everything. The trees are growing their leaves. Grass is everywhere and the buns are enjoying nice weather.

Here are a few pictures of the babies, but the direct link to pictures of them all is:

Rum's babies
Abby's babies
Diamond's babies
Kayla's babies

A few of Diamond's babies. They are all very promising little ones.

A couple of Abby's.

This first one is the doe I'm keeping. Hoppin's Lisa. She's a really promising girl!

And the chocolate chin doe. She's amazingly promising. So pretty. I should've kept her for sure. Oh well. Will rebreed Abby & Scotch.

A couple of Rum's babies.

And Kayla's little munchkins who ended up just being heavily "frosted" pointed whites. Pretty interesting, huh!

This beauty arrived all the way from California via some breeders in OR and finally to ML Nationals this past weekend. He's a beautiful lynx buck out of 2 rabbits I sold a few years ago. I'm so glad to have this line back!

Kayla babies & Auction Find

2011-04-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

The bunnies are all doing well. Yesterday (Sunday) the weather was so sunny & warm, but today has been cold, rainy & windy. That's Oklahoma for ya though!

Saturday there was a college auction here in Tahlequah and we scored on crocks for the rabbits. While they aren't specific "rabbit crocks," they are the perfect size for watering the rabbits in the freezing weather. They are about the size of the 5" crocks which go for a good $5+ each. But, we scored on these and got them for $1/each! I've been looking for these for over a year now, so it was perfect to find these! And, I got 30 of them!!

And Kayla's babies had me stumped for a bit on their color (even though I knew no other color was possible out of this cross). But, come to find out they are just very "chilled" or "frosted" pointed white babies. The frostiness will all fade to their points. Hopefully they'll have very nice dark points!

Kayla's darkest baby ~

Her "medium" baby ~

The rest of the buns are all doing well. Krissie's babies are going to their new homes. Whiskey is sold to a new breeder and left yesterday.

I bred Brianna X Scotch on the 28th, Courtney X Jordan on the 1st and Kahlua X Landon on the 1st. I'll be breeding Krissie X Landon, Shirley X Scotch & Rum X Cameron soon.

So, since I want to get to bed soon, I'll close with a nice sunset picture from the other day.

Abby's & Rum's babies!

2011-03-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

Abby's & Rum's babies are 3 1/2 wks old now, so they were overdue for their baby pictures.

You can see their pictures at:

www.hoppinherdofhares.com/whiskeyXrum.html & www.hoppinherdofhares.com/scotchXabby.html

Kayla has 3 babies left out of her litter of 7 (although 1 was DOA). Her litter most certainly has me puzzled. I know who the sire is. I know what color the babies are supposed to be. But, I also know what color they look like at the moment - something which is genetically impossible. So, we'll see what color their eyes are when they open!

New baby pictures!

2011-03-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Krissie's litter of 10 is 5 1/2 wks old now. So, I went ahead and typed them all yesterday and took pictures. Wow, I'm very impressed! What an extremely consistently typed litter. There are only a couple in the litter which aren't my favorites. But, overall they show tons of promise.

All but 7 or 8 of the babies are reserved at the moment. If you are interested in a baby, let me know though! I forgot to add the names onto the babies which are reserved, so will do that sometime.

If you have a baby reserved from this litter, I'll email ya more later hopefully. At least the pictures are up!

You can see them here: www.hoppinherdofhares.com/landonXkrissie5wks.html

Buns

2011-03-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Kayla & Courtney both got their nestboxes the other day. They're both due the beginning of next week. Kayla has been nesting like crazy, so I'm glad to see that. I'm just hoping that Courtney will have no problems and pass the mummified kit(s) from last time.

I'll be taking new pictures of Krissie's babies tomorrow, Lord willing. They are looking quite promising!

Diamond's spotted broken baby.

And then one of her heaviest patterened babies :).

One of Rum's babies peeking out of the cage. They are at the wild 2 wk old age.

Another of Rum's fat babies.

I thought this was a cute picture. Both Diamond & Rum nursing their babies at the same time in the morning...

One of Abby's broken babies.

And the pile of Krissie's babies :)!

How close together can you get?!

Quick Update

2011-03-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Just a really fast update to say, I'll share more later, Lord willing! Here are a couple quick pictures for the time being.

One of Diamond's brokens.

Abby's FAT little babe!

For those in OK & surrounding states

2011-03-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

For those of you in Oklahoma and the surrounding states (AR, KS, TX, MO, etc) there is going to be a new club soon. A few of us breeders in Oklahoma would like to have more shows available than the only 3-4 shows a year that is typically out here. So, we are getting together with local breeders & those in the surrounding states who would also like to see more shows out here to make a new All Breed Rabbit Club.

More than likely the club will be Stormy States Rabbit Breeders Association. We need more breeders who would be interested in joining so we can get this club started. We're still in the preliminary steps, deciding who will serve what role, membership fees, etc.

But, we have a temporary site set up (will get a domain name once we're "official") that has a message board on it at: http://temporc.webs.com. We also created a facebook group for it. If you are interested in joining the facebook group, just send me a friend request at http://www.facebook.com/hoppinherdofhares1 and mention the OK new club.

Feel free to pass this a long to anyone you know who may be interested!

Thanks!

28 babies

2011-03-10T13:38:00.000-08:00

Diamond kindled to 6 babies yesterday. 5 brokens, 1 solid. All of them are black based babies. I was so hoping for more chocolates, but they should be gorgeously typed babies. Diamond & Landon compliment each other SO well!

Krissie's babies are all doing great. And same with the other 2 litters - Rum's & Abby's. Rum has 4 blacks, 1 chestnut and 1 chocolate chinchilla. Abby has 3 broken black agoutis, 2 solid black chins & 1 chocolate chin.

(Yes, I'm quite tired of having chinchillas!)

But, I am thankful that my does are doing great with their litters and giving me nice big litters. The baby count is at 28.

One of Diamond's brokens.

Another one of her babies. I really like this one's pattern. It's so spotty!

All 6 of her babies....

Rum's babies.

Rum's choc. chinchilla.

One of Rum's black babies.

Abby's babies.

The little choc. chin trying to nurse on my hand :).

Rum, who is such a great mama....seeming to wonder what I'm going to do with her box, LOL.

Enjoy!

The weather is gorgeous today. It's sunny & warm, so it's about time for me to head outside for a short run and breed a couple does.

Quick Post...

2011-03-06T21:17:00.001-08:00

Just a real quick post....

There are new, individual pictures of Krissie's litter of 10 at: www.hoppinherdofhares.com/landonXkrissie.html.

Enjoy!

Big Picture Update Coming!

2011-03-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

I spent several hours outside today and a little while outside a couple days ago clipping nails, brushing & getting new pictures of all the bunnies. There's just a few who didn't make it in, as they don't look as hot as they normally do. Like my 3 does on litters & 1 prego doe. They look fine, but their posing & condition is a bit "flabby" right now, LOL.

Also sexed all of Krissie's babies and she has 5 does & 5 bucks. Perfect split for 10 babies! I got pictures of all of her babies this morning, so will be working on getting them up on the website tonight too, Lord willing.

For now though, I'll leave you with a sneak peak of the pictures.

The photo-studio set up :).

The "supply" corner...all organized.

And my retired girl, Sugar. Anyone need a pillow to sleep on, LOL! She's got on large dewlap.

Yes, she was a momma to a lot of babies at one time in her life, LOL. She was such a good momma too!

And my other retired girl, Brandy.

She's a bit smaller than Sugar in the dewlap department. But, she's got her own pillow still!

My retired girls are so cute, aren't they?!

And Krissie's babies are all out of the box now.

Krissie's babies

2011-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

I have more that I can write on the blog, but for now, I will just share pictures of Krissie's babies. They're 2 1/2 wks old and lookin' quite cute!

All 10 of her babies!

The smallest baby taking a wandering from the rest of the crew :).

And a few individual pictures....

Just the chocolates.

Just the blacks.

I'll post more later, Lord willing!

Helping New Breeders

2011-03-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

There were some posts on a Yahoo! rabbit group I'm on by other breeders who were asking questions and the answers to them weren't given in a very helpful manner. So, I thought I would address the issue of helping new or younger breeders.

Everyone has to start somewhere in everything, even rabbits. When I first started with the rabbits a little over 8 years ago, I asked *tons* of questions. Some that were probably pretty basic, I'm sure. But, I didn't know, I had to learn. I was young (in age) & very new to rabbits in general, let alone breeding & showing them! If it wasn't for all the helpful breeders on the message board I was on years ago and the other breeders who mentored me, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Those of us who have been breeeding, raising & showing rabbits longer need to remember to be careful in our response to new breeder. And we need to be helpful & kind to them. Being quick or short with them won't help in the long run. A lot of people have different views and opinions on things, even when it comes to breeding & raising rabbits. There's some things that are of course out-right wacky, some things which are neither here nor there, and some things which are agreed on across the board.

There's a lot of new rabbit breeders who come onto the scene frequently. Having patience & being easy on them with their questions (even if it may be a "stupid question"), is the only way to help them become a more reputable breeder. And of course, there really is no "stupid question," because everyone has to start somewhere.

There are numerous breeders I've helped get started over the years. I've had countless calls or emails from them and always have been glad to help & answer their questions. Some questions as simple as anything, but eventually the questions lead into bigger areas, like genetics. I've helped several breeders learn genetics more. At times it can be easy to laugh at some of the statements made about genetics (particularly on various message boards or groups), because they are just down-right wrong & there's no logical way for them to work. But, I have to remember, there are tons of people who could care less about genetics and know nothing about them. Or, those who are still learning genetics & don't quite understand how they work yet. Because, I was once there and knew nothing about genetics! I'm just using genetics as one example.

Then you have other topics, such as things you may give to help a rabbit with fertility or the way people cull. Both of those, especially the later, can be very controversial subjects when the questions are asked. But, not everyone knows the answers to those questions. And there really is no right or wrong on those issues. There's preferences or maybe better ways to do something, but nothing outright wrong.

With the fertility issue, some people may think there is not much to do but wait. And some may think that the common "remedies" given to rabbits for fertility are worthless. Let's take Apple Cider Vinegar as an example. Some people think it's the best thing ever and some think it's a bunch of fables. So, the person should be given both sides, in a helpful, kind way and they can decide for themselves what they want.

I recently heard someone saying that because there are no medical studies to back up the use of Apple Cider Vinegar that it's basically worthless (paraphrasing what was said). But, to be so dogmatic about it *not* working, just because of that, is kind of unnecessary. I am one who will gladly take anecdotal advice over medical studies. I've been involved in the medical research world for several years now and know how often studies can be altered. While, I completely agree that they are helpful many times and not always altered, just because a study hasn't been done on something, doesn't make it worthless.

I have seen Apple Cider Vinegar work numerous times for me to help does become more receptive. I've seen it work within 24 hours very often. I've also seen the same with Vitamin E in both bucks & does. Is that proven by medical research? I don't have a clue, but I've seen it work. While, some may not agree that it works and don't feel it's worth it to try it, that's totally fine. But, just because someone may have been breeding rabbits for longer & has never seen this work, shouldn't put us on a high-seat to say anything else is wrong.

Or, how about the common antibiotic that is used in rabbits for upper respiratory infections: LA-200 or Oxytetracycline. I was recently talking to a rabbit veterinarian and he said he didn't understand why it was the "drug of choice" by rabbit breeders because it really doesn't get absorbed or used well in the gut. So, in other words, is pretty much useless if you're trying to save a rabbit with a URI. Did he come off with that statement in a derogatory type of way? No, he was very helpful & sharing about it. And instead shared the names & dosages of the drugs that actually do work good for URI's.

So, with all that said, if anybody ever needs any help or has questions, feel free to call or email :)!

A small update

2011-02-28T20:51:00.000-08:00

Well, Krissie's babies are all doing great. They're 2 1/2 wks old now and getting spunky! I was out of town for a few days over the weekend and it's amazing how much the babies change in just a few days.

Rum & Abby are both due tomorrow. Rum has made a nice nest. Abby's has a bit of a nest, but she'll probably make more of a nest right before she has the babies.

And a quick picture of Silence's little chinchilla buck. He's a cutie and very promising baby! He is just over 8 wks old and is ready to go anytime. Email me if you're interested in a promising little buck! More pictures & info to come soon, Lord willing.

And just a couple fun pictures.....

Jordan was all propped up in his cage, so I quietly opened his cage & snapped a picture :).

And Jade wanted some attention too :)

Krissie's babies!

2011-02-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

Krissie's babies are 11 days old now. They are so cute & doing so well! All 10 of them, praise the Lord. Since I had to bring them inside last night due to the temps dropping a bit, I took the opportunity to get a few pictures of them.

One of the broken chocolates

One of the broken chocolate chinchillas

The little broken black.

The heaviest patterned baby of the whole litter!

This little broken chocolate is one of my favorites...I'm a sucker though when it comes to heavy patterned brokens :)!

The little black chin charlie

All the babies in the box.

Warmth & Babies!

2011-02-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

Well, a lot has happened since I blogged last. Between company being over, extreme cold, blizzards & being really sick, putting up a blog post slipped out of the horizon.

But I'm back. The weather is warm again. The sun is shining. The 2' of snow has melted. The bunnies are hopping around & doing well. And babies are popping up everywhere on this little farm.

We had a couple whopper snow storms in the course of a week. Lots of cold, wind, snow, and even some ice. So, the buns are finally enjoying a clean barn with sunshine coming in.

We were dealing with frozen waters for a good couple weeks. Very thankful to not have to fill everybunny's tiny little crock anymore!

The barn kitties enjoying the sun.

Krissie was due last Friday and she kindled to 10 babies! All live & healthy babies. They are all doing great still and she is an amazing mother. She has so much milk and takes such great care of all 10 babies. I'm very thankful for such a great doe. It isn't even necessary to foster any babies to another doe, which is good because I don't have another doe due for a couple weeks.

Her 4 black babies: 1 solid black, 1 brkn black, 1 charlie black chin & 1 brkn black chin.

And her 6 (yes, SIX!) chocolate babies: 2 brkn chocolates, 3 brkn chocolate chins, and 1 charlie chocolate chin.

And then a few individual pics of the babies.

The black charlie baby.

The spotted baby.

The really heavy patterned baby.

And the chocolate charlie.

If you're interested in any of these babies, contact me to be put on the waiting list. I have quite a waiting list for these babies already.

We have 2 does due the 1st of March. Abby bred to Scotch and Rum bred to Whiskey. Both should have lots of chocolates in their litters. Then the 5th of March we have 2 more does due. Diamond bred to Landon and Brownie bred to Justin. Both should have chocolates in their litters too. Brownie hopefully will have chocolate pointed whites. Then I've got 3 more does to breed and I'll be breeding them next week hopefully.

Since I'm in a picture mood tonight, here are a few more random pictures from around the ranch today.

When I came out of the barn this evening the baby llama saw me and came running over for his rubs!

Since all the snow melted this week and it's warm, we've got green grass growing already! It so does not feel like February in North East Oklahoma.

Goodnight!

Silence's babies

2011-01-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

Silence's babies are almost 4 wks old now and I finally was able to get their pictures up. She has 3 bucks & 3 does. They are all very cute babies...and so chunky!

I'll put a few of their pictures here and you can see the rest at this link.

I'll also share a couple pictures that show the difference between a chocolate sable & a chocolate.

Chocolate sable (Brownie) on the left & Chocolate (Rum) on the right.

And here's a picture of Rum....she's turning out be a gorgeous doe!

Carrot Time!

2011-01-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

These pictures were taken last week sometime when I bought carrots for all the bunnies. They thoroughly enjoy them :)!

Landon ~

Cameron ~

Allie, my fat little baby!

Brandy ~

Diamond ~

Shirley (who is looking just as pretty as her mom & dad!)

Courtney ~

Justin ~

Krissie, who prefers attention rather than food, haha.

Prudence ~

And my 2 silly cats who think the laundry basket that I was using to bring the nestbox of Silence's babies in, was for them!

Silence Babies....Picture Time!

2011-01-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

Last night I snapped a few pictures of Silence's babies. They're just a little over 2 wks old now and are at a very cute age!

I think this is my cutest 2 week old baby picture *ever*!

All 6 of them together :)

Thawing

2011-01-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

The bunnies are all doing well and handling this cold weather quite well. I'm very thankful that their barn is insulated this winter. It's made a huge difference. It's still gotten down to 15 degrees in there, but what can I expect when there's not a heater and the windchill is -5 degrees outside! That's the next step....getting a decent heater for next winter, so they won't get below 32 degrees. But, progress on barns can take some time :).

Thankfully it's quite a bit warmer today and is a few degrees about freezing, which is nice. So, the buns are enjoying some sunlight & fresh air in the barn today.

Krissie is bred to Landon as of the 11th. I'm planning to head outside in a few to try to breed Abby & Diamond. They both need to be bred bad, but this weather makes it fairly difficult as far as the does being receptive.

Courtney & Brownie both palpate positive. They're due the 28th.

Silence's babies are all doing great and getting so big! They are very cute babies with huge heads! I'll work on getting some pictures today, Lord willing.

Brianna's babies are just over 8 wks old. 3 of them are for sale: 1 silver tip'd black steel jr. buck, 1 black jr. buck & 1 silver tip'd sable steel jr. doe. You can see pictures & more info at the for sale page. They are very promising babies!

Well, I think that's about it for the time being!

Website, Babies & Pictures

2011-01-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

The bunnies are doing good and staying pretty warm in their insulated barn :).

Got the website updated today. You can check it out here.

Silence kindled to a litter of 6 on the 28th of December. All are chestnut agoutis and chinchillas. I think a couple of the chins are seal chins, but we'll see for sure in a few. Here are some pictures of Silence's litter:

I was out of town for about 5 days last week, but I had my family breed a few does that I needed to get bred. So, Diamond is bred to Landon. Courtney to Jordan. And Brownie to Justin. Just have to breed Abby still. But, I'll wait until I palpate these girls to see if I need to rebreed any of them.

Also got back a doe I had sold when she was a baby (Brownie). She's a chocolate sable and will be really good use with the pointed whites to get more chocolate pointed whites. Especially since her sire, Justin, is a chocolate pointed white!

Krissie's one baby that I kept out of the litter stayed with her until a little over 8 wks, since I was out of town when she turned 8 wks old. And, wow, I've never had such a fat baby. She's 8 wks old and already has a little dewlap starting, LOL. Seriously, I think Krissie had plenty of milk for all 9 babies that she was preggo with until the very end (but she only raised 2, since 7 were DOA). As soon as I got home and was out in the barn for any length of time, I weaned miss Allie. Here are a couple pics of Allie :) ~

And I'll close with a few random pictures from the barn today:

Landon eating his food this morning

Kahlua waiting for some head rubs

Miss Courtney sitting in her cage

Off Topic a lot, but Very Important

2010-12-27T20:26:00.001-08:00

I normally don't post stuff like this, but this is an extremely important topic.

There is a treaty put out by the UN called the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US is the only UN country that has not ratified the treaty, which is a very good thing. This treaty would strip parents of their rights to their child’s education, health care and general raising of their child. It would give the rights that parents have now and should have to the child and the government. But, ultimately, if the child doesn’t agree with what the government thinks is best, the government will decide what is best for the child. This is horrible for our nation and will turn our country towards socialism.

We don’t hear about this on the regular news stations much, because most of the people pushing the ratifying of this treaty know that the average American does not want this perverted child’s rights.

But, there is a way to stop this, if everyone takes a stand against it. And that is in the form of a Parental Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. 7 Senators and 142 Congressmen are co-sponsors of this amendment already. But, the word needs to be spread more. This amendment would make sure that parental rights are not striped, even if the CRC were to be ratified.

You can sign an online petition at www.parentalrights.org. You can also see which of your senators and congressmen are co-sponsors of the bill. You can read the CRC and the Parental Rights Amendment at the above site too.

Parentalrights.org also has a video put together called “The Child” that goes into all the details, implications and problems the CRC would cause, as well as how the amendment would help. You can get the video for free or for a donation. I’d suggest you watch the video and also get copies to pass out to anyone you know who could make a difference. The direct link for that is http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={58D0E1F1-4EA2-45BA-9B40-941D71ED987F}.

The fact that some want the CRC to be ratified needs to be known and it needs to be stopped. If American’s do nothing, then our country will become like Germany in Hitler’s days – socialist and communist – and Americans will lose their freedom even more. The parental rights amendment is extremely important!

Please pass on to everyone you can.

Here is a short trailer on "The Child" documentary.

Baby & Bun Updates

2010-12-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

The bunnies are all doing good. The weather has been pretty nice and mellow as far as temperatures go, so the buns have been doing good. It's a foggy 50 something degrees right now, but with very little breeze, so the weather is gorgeous today. The buns are enjoying all the fresh air with the shutters open.

Judging the show on Saturday morning went well. It was a pretty small show, most likely due to the holidays. But, it was a lot of fun and got to teach some tips to a few of the kids there. Overall Grand Champion went to a New Zealand doe who took 2nd in youth NZ at Convention. She was beautiful! Overall Reserve Champion went to a black Mini Rex. She was very pretty as well.

There was one young girl there who had a "blue New Zealand." It was either a very poorly typed blue NZ or an American. It did not pose like or look like a NZ much at all. That's one thing that bugs me, seeing kids come up to show with their rabbit and it's a horrible example of the breed. You'd think people would sell at least a little better stock to help the kids get started. But, so be it.

I also got to see a broken New Zealand. It was a beautiful rabbit, but definitely interesting to see. It's fur was so different than a regular NZ, because of the broken Satin that was bred into the NZ's several generations ago. With this particular line, it was 14 generations back that the broken Satin was bred into the NZ.

Krissie's babies are 6 1/2 wks old. You can see new pictures of them here.

Brianna's babies are almost 6 wks old, so new individual pictures of them will be coming soon, Lord willing. But, for now, here's a group picture of them :) ~

And I'll include a couple pictures of Hoppin's Melinda, a chestnut agouti jr. doe that I'm keeping back out of one of my recent litters. Can't wait to see how she develops, she's such a promising doe.

I am also keeping a chestnut agouti doe out of Kadence's litter. Her name is Hoppin's Prudence. And the broken chocolate doe that I'm keeping out of Krissie's litter is Hoppin's Allie.

Rabbitry Apron!

2010-12-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

December 18th, I have a 4-county rabbit show to judge in the morning. I had bought an Apron to wear at the last show I judged, but I thought it would be better to have something that had my rabbitry name on it and all. So, after I got the call that I'd be judging a show the 18th, I decided to make up a design and order a custom apron.

It arrived today in the mail and it turned out GREAT! Colors printed good and it turned out awesome. I figured it'd be good advertising since I'll be at the show anyways wearing an apron :).

An up close version of the design:

If anyone would like a custom apron for their rabbitry, I can design it for just $10. The printing company I use is Cafepress.com. They are great and I've used them for a long time now :). The apron is about $14.00 printed through them, but you can just buy it yourself once I upload the design.

Personalized t-shirts, customizable hoodies and even unique birthday gifts can be found at CafePress!

Goodbye Truffle

2010-12-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

Vail's Truffle, 7 1/2 years old, passed away in my arms last night at 1:15am. She hadn't eaten much the last day, which wasn't uncommon for her. She liked to go in bouts of eating everything to just nibbling. But yesterday she didn't even eat any of her pellets. I picked her up and realized she seemed real unsteady and weak, which isn't like her.

I decided to treat her for a hairball (didn't think it was that though) and give her some nutridrops. The stuff I was syringe feeding to her just would come right back out and she could hardly chew at all. I propped her up in her cage with hay for a few minutes and realized she was steadily getting weaker .... She went downhill fast in the 30 or so minutes that I had been in the barn.

I decided just to hold her, because she didn't have much time left. She died in my arms about 10 minutes later :(.

She'll be missed for sure.

Truffle was my foundation girl and I'll always be glad she came here. She had a happy life ... Especially being retired for the last 4 yrs.

She was the first good chocolate I brought into my barn and all of my chocolates go back to her...many generations ago. She came all the way from WA to CA at 9 months old. She was bred when I got her and had a very nice litter. That's where Striper came from...he's still living the good retired life in the barn at 6 1/2 years old.

I retired her 4 years ago, after she stopped being able to become pregnant. She made the long trek from CA to OK 2 years ago and was doing great up until just the last day.

Here are a few pictures of Truffle.

Updates, updates!

2010-12-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

It's an absolutely beautiful winter day here today, praise the Lord. The weather is just about perfect. I was able to get the wood on the shutters of the barn stained today, which is something that needed to be done for awhile now.

Anyways....

Krissie's babies are up on the website now. They're almost 4 weeks old already and so chunky! You can view them here. Both of her babies are does.

Brianna's babies are getting really big too and they are almost 3 wks old. Here's her little sable steel baby, who is my favorite :)!

I also updated the website yesterday and added several rabbits to the for sale page. We have 7 babies available and ready to go right now (they're 8 wks old today) and also a few seniors available. You can see the for sale page here.

Also added pictures of the new doe I got from Convention (via transport from WA). She's bred and due the end of December. Here are a couple pictures of the pretty girl :)....EE's Silence of the Lambs. A registered blue doe with 1 leg.

Speaking of the end of December, I have transport available out to CA for $20/rabbit.

New litter pictures & updated site!

2010-11-16T15:03:00.000-08:00

My oldest 3 litters are 6 wks old now, so they have new pictures up. They can be seen at:

Kaylee's litter
Kadence's litter
Jana's litter

I also got updated pictures of several seniors and juniors, which you can view here. There's just a few sr. bucks (just turned sr. bucks) and a couple of the jr. bucks that I need to get new pictures of. But, my camera battery died half way through the barn!

Picture Time!

2010-11-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd just put a few pictures up from today.....

Krissie's babies ~

Brianna's babies ~

How many babies can fit around a bowl of oats, LOL! Kaylee's & Kadence's litters eating their morning oats.

The old man in the barn...Striper :). Still going good and so cute!

Shirley ~

A couple of Jana's babies ~

Kayla ~

Courtney being a goofball ~

She looks so similar to Val, my first pointed white in her face :). Body is about 5 steps up though!

And the good ole Kitty Boy who patrols around outside the bunny barn. He was my original barn cat back in California.

Bun Update

2010-11-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Krissie had her litter last Saturday. She was full of babies, like I thought, but she only has 2 living.

Something went wrong with her labor. The first two were born live, but then she stopped having babies. After giving her several things and letting her run around and waiting, 12 hours later she had the rest. She had 7 DOA :(. Why all DOA? I have no idea what went wrong. The babies all looked fine and healthy, so don't know what happened. I'm just glad she has 2 live babies and that she's doing good.

Her two babies are a brkn black and a brkn chocolate:

Brianna is due in two days and she has a decent amount of babies in her too. My guess is 7, as that is what she normally has, but we shall see.

Courtney is bred to Kyle, her dad. Gotta palpate her in 2 days, and I'm so hoping she took. Kyle is at Convention right now waiting to go to his new home in TN.

7 rabbits left for Convention last Tuesday with Billy & Kristi....the rabbits are headed to Washington, Georgia and Tennessee. And, I'm getting one rabbit back from Convention....more to come on her when she arrives :)!

The 5 wk old litters are all doing great and looking so cute. I'll be typing them and taking more pictures of them all in a week, Lord willing.

Mini Lop Posing & Type

2010-10-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

I decided to make a page up on my site on posing mini lops & evaluating body type. I've seen this done for other breeds, but there's not one out there for ML's, so it was time to do it.

www.hoppinherdofhares.com/miniloptype.html

Hope it's helpful for at least some! I'm going to work on doing this with ML babies next....hopefully can get some with my current round of babies.

The bunnies are all doing great.

Krissie's due the end of the week, so she'll be getting a box soon. The boxes all got taken out of the 3 1/2 wk old litter cages today. The babies are all so cute & bouncin' around :).

3 wk old pictures!

2010-10-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

The 3 litters are all 3 wks old this week, so new pictures of them are up now.

You can view all the pictures at....

Kadence's litter
Jana's litter
Kaylee's litter

Just a short post for today, since I've got company coming over shortly!

More later....

10 day old picture time!

2010-10-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

The 3 litters are all about 10-11 days old now and they are all doing great. Kadence's litter is by far my favorite just because she has two GORGEOUS solid chocolate chestnut babies. I hope they'll be typey little babies (so I can keep one!), as that color is always SO pretty!

Without anything further, here are the pictures....

Kaylee's litter....see the two magpies?

One of the Magpies:

Jana's litter:

Jana's foster baby from Kadence:

Kaylee being a total goofball....I just had to include this picture :)!

Kadence's litter:

Kadence's little bk chestnut .... such a big head on this little guy!

One of her chocolate chestnuts:

The two together:

And the other chocolate chestnuts:

Such an adorable little baby!

Updates

2010-10-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got the website all updated. New pictures of several seniors and juniors. And I realized there are a few seniors who need updated pictures really bad, so I'll work on getting new pictures so that all the pictures will be current.

Krissie got rebred to Cade before he left last week. So, hopefully she took and hoping for lots of chocolates and broken chocolates :). Also bred Brianna to Kyle today, as I'd really like at least one more litter before he leaves. He's such a pretty boy!

The 3 litters born last week are doing great. Jana's 3 are chestnut agoutis. Kadence's babies are 2 chocolate chestnuts, 1 chestnut agoutis, 1 brkn chestnut agouti, 1 seal chinchilla and 1 brkn "something" (thinkin' it's a shaded variety, as it originally looked like a chocolate and now it doesn't). Kaylee has 4 "pinks" and 2 babies that are looking to be an odd variety. I'll give them a few more days until I say for sure what they are, but I will say that I hope my gut feeling is wrong.

Tulsa State Fair rabbit show

2010-10-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Friday-today was the Tulsa State fair rabbit show. I dropped the 6 rabbits I showed off Friday evening, as it was a cooped show. They showed yesterday (Sat.) and today (Sun.). I had someone show them for me yesterday, as I couldn't be there. But, I was able to show them there today.

They did awesome yesterday and I'm so glad the Hubler family was able to get them up to the table for me - thanks again guys :)! There were a lot of mini lops and a lot of rabbits in the whole show - 1,100 entries total (Open & Youth). So, the results are:

Hoppin's Abby (brkn chocolate) took 1st – which should get her her 1st leg!
Hoppin's Landon (brkn chocolate chin – Abby’s brother) took 1st – which should get him his first leg too!
Hoppin's Diamond Fizz (bk chin) took 2nd
Posey's Cameron (chin) took 2nd
Hoppin's Kahlua (chestnut) took 11/17 – not surprised by that, as she’s a very petite 12 wk old doe. She makes weight, but is just a small little thing.
Hoppin's Jordan (pointed white!) took 5th/17 – so excited by that placing, as he’s barely 12 wks old. I really expected him to be almost last in the class!

Today they didn’t do as well. I heard from several breeders that the judge who they were judged by today is like that – not too great on posing rabbits, I guess, oh well. But, anyways, Diamond got 1st today (not sure if she’ll get a leg for that or not, but I don’t think so, as the classes were smaller today). Today the others got: Cameron 3/5, Jordan 3/6, Abby 5/6, Kahlua 10/11, Landon 6/6 (yeah, totally opposite compared to Saturday, oh well!).

Open Mini Lops were done judging by 11am or so, but we couldn't check out until 3pm. So, we had a lot of hanging out to do, which was fine, as I got to talk to a lot of breeders and meet new breeders. I had several people say "Oh, you're Qadoshyah?!" and they were all glad to meet me finally and complimented my mini lops, which was nice. One breeder, I'm not even sure who she was, since I didn't get a chance to ask her her name...but she obviously knew who I was! I met Pennie Grotheer, the Secretary/Treasurer for the MLRCA, so it was nice to finally put a face to her name. Also got to meet a couple other mini lop breeders I hadn't met yet...both in open & youth.

While we didn't get any pictures of the rabbit show....here's a couple pictures of the petting zoo area that was just a few feet from the rabbit area. This was my first time at the TSF...such a HUGE fair, with so much to see. We looked around only a little bit.

9 and counting

2010-10-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Two of the 3 does that were due yesterday have kindled . . . Jana kindled to 3 babies this morning and Kaylee kindled to 6 this afternoon. Just waiting on Kadence to kindle now.

Jana has 3 agoutis and Jana has all "pink" babies. I think there's a smoke pearl or two in there, but it's too hard to tell since they are just hours old.

Cori & Jake left today for their new homes. Jake went to Townsend's Red River Rabbitry in Southern Oklahoma and Cori went to Redneck Rabbits Rabbitry in Oklahoma as well. They are great homes for those two pretty bunnies!! I'll miss them both though :), as they were two of my favorite pointed whites. Just glad to have babies to replace them now.

9 more buns will be leaving tomorrow . . . 5 to NH, 2 to IL and 2 to VT.

Well, more later...

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

2010-09-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

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!

Baby Pictures

2010-09-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

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 . . .

Cherokee County Rabbit Show

2010-09-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

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!

Cutie-Pies . . . well and random Updates

2010-09-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

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!

Babies!!

2010-09-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

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!

The Haps At The Barn

2010-08-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here much for awhile, I know . . . I'm a slacker :).

The bunnies are all doing great. This week the weather has finally cooled down and the buns have been able to enjoy cool nights and slightly warm days in the open air, without any air conditioner. That's been nice! The buns seem to enjoy it too!

Brianna's, Sara's & Nicole's babies all have their eyes open. They are getting to the very fun age! Starting to get out of the box and all.

The colors in their litters are:

Brianna's - 1 chocolate sable chinchilla, 2 chocolate chinchillas, 3 black chinchillas
Sara's - 1 dark sable, 1 pointed white, and either 1 sable or dark smoke pearl . . . having a hard time figuring that baby out!
Nicole's - 2 broken chinchillas and 1 solid chinchilla.

The pointed white in Sara's litter was a shocker! But, it was quite a fun surprise. Since Kyle is out of a sable and a pointed white, he had a 50/50 chance of either being c(chl)c or c(chl)c(h) (carrying pointed white). And he carries pointed white. Which means, he can only throw pointed whites and never any red-eyed-whites, which is very nice, as far as I'm concerned.

James, the new bun from California, is doing great. He's settled in well and he fits in here perfectly!

Kadence's babies are just weaned. And the other 3 litters will be weaned by the end of next week hopefully. I have several babies sold or on hold and just a few left available.

Jake will be going to Jennifer & Nick at Townsend's Red River Rabbitry in a couple months, hopefully. Thanks guys :)! I'm sure you'll enjoy him . . . I know I'll probably miss him.

Cori is still available. She is a VERY nice doe, who throws gorgeous babies and is always an *excellent* mother!

Well, I think that's about it for now. I'll work on pictures of the 3 youngest litters sooner than later, Lord willing.

Kaylee's babies & for sale buns!

2010-08-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

Kaylee's litter is 6 weeks old now and their pictures are up on the website. You can see them by clicking here :).

I am keeping two babies (a buck & a doe) out of the litter. The whole litter is very promising. Jake throws some awesome babies! Can't wait to see how his babies develop.

Also have a few bunnies available:

Seniors:
Hoppin’s Jake – Broken Black Pointed White Sr. Buck. (carries dilute, so can throw blue pointed whites and smoke pearls). Very nice buck and throws amazing babies! Only selling him because I’m keeping babies to replace him. Pics can be seen at www.hoppinherdofhares.com/bucks.html. $45

Hoppin’s Cori – Black Pointed White Sr. Doe (carries dilute, so can throw blue pointed whites and smoke pearls). Very nice doe. Throws gorgeous babies, with very dark point color and super plush fur. Only keeping her because I have babies to replace her. Will be ready to go in about 2 weeks when her litter is weaned. Pics can be seen at www.hoppinherdofhares.com/does.html. Can be bred to buck of choice before she leaves. $75

Juniors:

Lilac doe, chinchilla buck and maybe a few others available out of my 7 week old litter. Will be ready to go by this coming weekend (21st/22nd) – www.hoppinherdofhares.com/bradXkadence6wks.html. Let me know if a baby interests you! $35-$40 each.

Pointed white bucks and does and one white doe available out of my 6 week old litter. They will be ready to go in 2 weeks. Very nicely typed babies! I would keep almost all of them if I could ;) – www.hoppinherdofhares.com/jakeXkaylee6wks.html. $35-$50 each.

Also, have two more litters that are 6 weeks old. Don’t have current pictures of them yet though. There’s 2 pointed white bucks, 1 sable steel doe, 2 chestnut agouti does, 1 chestnut agouti buck, 1 chinchilla doe and 1 chinchilla buck.

Transport available to convention. Also possible transport available from OK, through MO and into IL. The beginning of September I have transport available from OK to KS, MO, and NE.

New litters, New bunnies, lots of change :)

2010-08-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Well, the babies, juniors and bunnies all changed a lot when I was on vacation in California for the last week and a half. The babies all got a lot bigger. The juniors are all well into their head molts now. Scotch's head looks 10x better than before I left. I know his line is slightly slow maturing, so I'm excited to see his head starting to "pop."

The does who are due this weekend all got their nestboxes earlier in the week. And two of the does kindled this morning actually :). Britney & Nicole.

Britney had 5 babies (1 DOA) and Nicole had 7 babies. Britney's babies are 2 days early, which is what she did last time. Nicole is just a day early, which is no biggie. Pictures of their litters can be seen on the litter page.

I haven't looked at all the colors yet, but I know there are both brokens and solids. Scotch is the sire to both of these littes, so it'll be fun to see what colors we get :).

New, updated pictures are up of Kadence's litter now and they can be seen here. Her babies are almost 7 weeks old, so they will be ready to go in about a week.

Kaylee's, Molly's & Cori's litters are 5 weeks old, so they will be ready in 2-3 weeks.

Also, while I was out in California, I picked up a pretty dark smoke pearl buck. He's from lines I work with, so that is a huge plus. He'll be a great addition to the pointed whites, as we work on getting dilute pointed whites. He's such a sweet and pretty boy, with a monster head ;)!

The buns are just barely surviving the intense, crazy hot weather we've been having the last couple weeks. I'm very thankful to have an air conditioned barn, but it doesn't keep it near as cool as I'd like it to be. It does keep it 15-20 degrees cooler, but when it's 104 outside with a heat index neat 115, it can get a bit warm in the barn. I'll be very glad when we're back down into the 90 degree temperatures.

Molly's babies!

2010-07-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

Pictures of Molly's babies are up on the website now ~ www.hoppinherdofhares.com/cameronXmolly.html.

And here are a couple pictures of the meat rabbit (Production White) baby . . . which is being raised by Molly :). It's size doesn't show too much in these pics, but it is definitely going to be much bigger than the rest really quickly! It's a lot longer than Molly's babies and acts so much older, it's pretty funny. You can clearly see it's built differently than the Mini Lops here!

New baby pictures!

2010-07-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Pictures of Cori's litter and Kaylee's litter are now up on the site. You can see them at:

Cori's litter
Kaylee's litter

Hopefully I can get pictures of Molly's babies up tomorrow, Lord willing . . . still have to take the pictures.

Have a great day!

Pictures of Sunday's Work

2010-07-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from yesterday and some that I took this morning.

Kaylee being a weirdo and laying under the feeder. Why she liked it there, I don't know!

The front of the barn after we finished "landscaping" it some :).

Much cuter now :)! The little house is a house I keep out there for our cat who stays on the outside of the bunny barn. He used to be my barn cat in California, but since he's been outdoors for years, he did not want to be kept in this barn now. So, he patrols outside the barn!

The meat rabbit barn. It's right next to my barn in a spot that stays shaded all day long. That one piece of sheet metal will be the only "solid" piece on that wall. Fencing will be over the rest of that wall and two of the other sides. The north (where most storms come from) side will be a solid wall though. In the cooler months we'll probably have tarps to put at least on the west side (the side with one solid piece) and maybe some on the other sides. We'll just take it month by month.

The organized pile of extra carriers, tubes (to lay in) that I give the bunnies in the cool months and the extra 5 gallon water jug. That jug will probably go in the meat rabbit barn.

Britney & Nicole . . . and more

2010-07-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

Britney & Nicole both palpate positive as of today, so that is exciting :)! Just have Jana left to palpate.

Today was a long, very profitable day spent working outside. We got a lot done. 2 dump-cart fulls of rocks moved from the area between the house and my barn. It was like an obstacle course to pull a wagon or dump cart out to the barn. If you knew the area we're in, you'd understand why there are so many rocks. The ground up here in this particular part of NE Oklahoma is incredibly rocky. We picked up a lot of rocks, but there are still plenty to go around. Never a shortage of rocks around here! It's so rocky, it's almost impossible (or takes *forever*) to dig holes for fence posts by hand.

I picked up some landscaping bricks at a local auction for super cheap, so my little sister and I fixed up the front of the barn with those and a few other things :). I'll be sure to get some pictures soon, Lord willing!

Then we organized and moved the carries and extra supplies that are on pallets outside my barn to make room in front of the meat rabbit barn that's we're building. And we also got siding on one of the sides. Just have one more side to put siding on, then fencing on the rest. We have to have it done within the next few days, before I go on vacation! It's a small little barn - 10'x10', but should work perfect for the meat buns.

Goodnight!

Palpates Positive . . .

2010-07-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

The first two of the 5 does I bred last week were ready to be palpated today - 10 days along. Sarabeth & Brianna - they both palpate positive. Praise the Lord :)!

Tomorrow I have to palpate Nicole & Britney. Then in another few days Jana will have to be palpated.

The babies are all doing great! It looks like Kaylee has 5 pointed whites, which is great. I was hoping she'd mainly have pointed whites, since she had such a big litter. Hoping for all blue pointed whites - that'd be so nice! And all 3 "pinks" of Cori's are pointed whites. One of them is really light, so I'm hoping it's a different color. We'll see!

Well, that's about it for now! Have a great day :)!