20 babies in 2 days!

Well, my 3 does who were due the 7th have all had their babies.

Cori had 7 babies Wednesday morning. One of her babies was a DOA, so she has 6 live babies. 4 "pinks" and 2 sables.

Kaylee had 8 babies Wednesday night. All of her's are "pinks" (since she's bred to Jake), so I'm really hoping she has a lot of blue pointed whites. It's genetically possible, since she's a blue pointed and Jake carries it.

Molly finally had her litter today, Friday. She had 6 babies. All are blacks (and I think all are agoutis, but will have to check again) of some kind, since she is bred to Cameron. Should be some typey babies though!



The meat rabbit doe we have also had a litter, but she only had 4 (2 were DOA). So her two babies were fostered off to Molly & Cori so that we can rebreed her. She more than likely had such a small litter because the buck she was bred to had only been here a day or two when she was bred. So, it was probably low fertility on his part, since her other two litters were litters of 9. Hopefully she'll have a large litter next time!

Kadence's babies eyes are all opening. They are getting to that really fun age now, where they are jumping in and out of the box :).

Baby pictures to come soon, Lord willing!

Kadence babies and random pictures

First off are some pictures of Kadence's babies, who are 10 days old now. There is such a variety of colors: broken chocolate chestnut, 2 chocolates, 1 lilac, 1 chinchilla, 1 chestnut, and 1 chocolate chinchilla.

This is the little broken chocolate chestnut and it's gotta be my favorite! I'm so hoping this baby will be a keeper. Chocolate chestnuts are such a pretty color.

And the little lilac baby. This baby is a chunk-a-munk!

I'm working hard on litterbox training 3 of my retired buns. Truffle's been litterbox trained for years, but Brandy, Sugar & Striper have been giving a tough time. After asking for some tips on a rabbit breeder forum, I think these 3 are slowly picking it up.

Striper doesn't seem too happy to have his cage size cut in half, but guess what, it's forcing him to use his litterbox! Hopefully he'll be back to his full size cage soon. It'd be nice to have these 3 litterbox trained when I go on vacation to California in a few weeks.

This is our Production White meat rabbit doe. She's due tomorrow and man is her belly huge! Look at that prego bulge. I've never seen a rabbit look so "pregnant" before!

I have 5 does to breed next week. I'm waiting until the 14th that way the does will be due a few days after I get back from California in August (Lord willing). I'll be breeding:

Brianna X Scotch
Nicole X Scotch
Britney X Scotch (or Cameron)
Sara X Kyle
Jana X Cameron

Updated Website & Baby Picture

Here are Kadence's babies . . . she has 2 black agoutis, 2 self chocolates, 1 broken chocolate agouti, 1 chocolate agouti and 1 lilac. Yep, quite a variety :).

5 bunnies will be going to their new homes tomorrow. 4 of the 5 are making a trip all the way to a show in Tennessee this weekend. 3 will stay in Tennessee with their new breeders (Amy Terry & Nora Anderson :)) and the other one will go down to it's new breeder in Georgia (Lauren from Hendrick's Hearth). The 5th baby, one of Nicole's little broken chocolates, will be going to Michael & Melinda in Arkansas for a show/4-H/breeding bunny. They are such a nice family and give the bunnies great homes :).

One of Jana's does went to a nice pet home on Monday evening and her second doe will hopefully be going to her new home tomorrow. And that just leaves me with one baby left out of my 8 week old litters and that baby is already reserved and will hopefully be leaving Thursday or Friday to his new home.

Britney's babies are doing fantastic! They were very small and slow in growing, so I decided to start them on a treatment for Coccidia last week. I had never had to treat any bunny for Coccidia in my 8 years of having rabbits, but I figured it was worth a try with these babies. I picked up some Corid from the feed store and used 2 1/2 cc's per 1/2 gallon of water. I kept them on it for a week and they are remarkably better. They are all keeping weight on really well now and they've grown a lot. They will be going to their new home in Missouri in a couple weeks hopefully.

I updated the website, since it was a couple weeks outdated and added on all my juniors, upcoming litters, etc.

Yesterday I picked up some puppy training pads for my retired buns to try to litter box train 3 of them. Truffle litter box trained herself years ago. Now that Brandy, Sugar & Striper are all in cages with a solid floor and wood shavings, it'd be really nice if they were litter box trained too. So far, I haven't had success with just putting a litter box in there. I figured I'd try puppy training pads in the boxes and see if that will help them use the litter box. If anyone has any tips/ideas for litter box training an older rabbit, I'd love to hear them!

Babies!

Kadence had 8 babies last night. A large litter, just like I expected! She has 4 chocolate colors (1 broken, 3 solid), 1 solid lilac and 3 black colors (1 broken, 2 solids). Very excited for how many chocolates she had. And I'm surprised she had a lilac . . . totally didn't expect that!

I will work on getting pictures of them today hopefully. Jana's two GT steel does and one of Nicole's babies (chocolate chin buck) will be ready to go this week! They are 8 weeks old already.

We had a couple crazy, intense Oklahoma storms last night. We were watching the World Cup soccer game  (US v Ghana) at our neighbors house yesterday when it started getting really windy and dark outside. We ran home as the sprinkles started to come and no more than a minute or so later the down pour and strong winds came. Just missed it :). Those storms are always intense and exciting! Needless to say that has cooled things down a lot, which is a big blessing. I was more than ready for a cool weather break.

HOT!

Wow, it has been incredibly hot for the last several days. The heat advisory has been since Saturday I think and is still through today. The heat index is around 100-110 for the last several days. Heat + Humidity = YUCK! Thankfully we're pretty close to a nice little swimming hole and that has been very refreshing a few times this week.

I was outside for just a few minutes this morning cutting up some pieces of wood for a cage I'm putting together for Striper and boy was it sweltering. Being outside for any length of time can be quite dangerous in this kind of weather!

But, this is when I'm extremely thankful for the AC in the bunny barn. The buns are all very cool and relaxed . . . without it, all I'd do is try to keep the buns cool all day.

Kadence is due in 3 days and she is MASSIVE! She hasn't been eating tons the past few days and I think it must be because she is so huge. I have a feeling she's going to have a rather LARGE litter!

Sara reabsorbed her litter. I'll rebreed her and I hope to get one more litter from her. She's getting older, so I wouldn't be surprised if she has a hard time getting bred again. Hopefully not though.

Kaylee is being her normal pregnant self. Totally cranky, haha!!

I have two buns - a pointed white jr. buck and Brantini who are sold and will be going to Tennessee soon. We were just planning for them to go to Tennessee at Convention time, but an opportunity came up sooner, so they'll be to their new homes in Tennessee next Saturday (July 3rd). Yay!

Well, that's about it for now . . . .

Palpates Positive

Molly, Cori & Kaylee all palpate positive :)! Can't wait to see what I get from all their litters. Hoping for a few differently colored pointed whites.

Sara & Kadence are due in a little less than 10 days, so exciting! Kadence should have some gorgeous, colorful babies.

The bunnies are all doing good and handling the warm weather great. The AC is doing a great job of keeping the barn cool, praise the Lord. With the heat index being over 100 degrees, a temp of 80 degrees in the barn is great (especially since the humidity is so low in there, it feels so cool).

I am keeping three babies out of my 6 week old litters - Jana's steel buck, Nicole's broken chocolate doe and one of Nicole's broken chocolate chinchilla bucks. I've had so many people waiting for chocolates, I figured I'd better keep any nice chocolate doe so I can have more chocolates available in a few months!

I'll be breeding Brianna and another doe or two the beginning - middle of July hopefully. Not totally sure who I will breed them to, but I am hoping Scotch will be ready to breed by then . . . we'll see.

Not much else to report on at the moment. Have a great weekend and stay cool!

Baby Pictures

There are updated pictures of Jana's & Nicole's babies on the website:

Jana's babies
Nicole's babies

I'm most likely keeping 3 babies out of these litters. We'll see for sure though as they get a bit older. Let  me know if any baby interests you, as the waiting list is big and the babies probably will go quite fast, especially once they are ready to go!

Ewwwww . . .

When I went out to feed yesterday morning, this is what I found on Truffle's cage. A huge hairy spider. It was a good 2" across with it's legs. Nasty. One of the things that grosses me out about Oklahoma . . . the huge bugs, haha!

As much as I hate spiders, I didn't kill . . . I caught it and let it go in the garden.

I'll be getting pictures of Nicole's & Jana's babies tomorrow, Lord willing. They are 6 weeks old this week, so time for new pictures.

During the summer with the AC on, the trays in the barn have to be changed VERY regularly otherwise the ammonia smell gets way too strong. Last year and part of this year, I used ZAPS-IT odor eliminator. That worked pretty good. But,  the company that makes ZAPS-IT came out with a new product called Knock-Out. I heard it worked better than ZAPS-IT from other breeders, so I decided to give it a try. Bunnyrabbit.com is one of the few places that sell it. You can order it directly from the company (Care Labs), but you have to order either 4 gallons of it or 12 quarts of it at a time.

So, anyways . . . . this stuff works GREAT! It's been 3 days since I dumped the 9 trays under my big cages and you'd never know. It hardly smells at all in the barn. I do still spray the big two trays on my cage system every day and spray with the Knock-Out. I was *having* to change the 9 trays every other day or otherwise the smell was too much. This stuff definitely is the bomb and works amazingly well! Way better than ZAPS-IT!

Update

Daisy & a little chestnut jr. doe left yesterday to head to New Mexico to Kate. They'll be going to her tomorrow, Lord willing (thanks Rebecca!). There are just two babies that have to be picked up out of my 9 week old babies that I have left - a chocolate buck and a broken steel doe. Both will be going to Jennifer next weekend down in Lawton :). They'll be spoiled at Townsend's Red River Rabbitry!

Nicole's & Jana's babies are all looking great! I'll be getting new pictures of them early next week hopefully, as they'll be 6 weeks old (and almost 6 weeks old - Nicole's babies).

The AC is working great still, praise the Lord. The weather hasn't been too hot in temperature, but it's been *extremely* humid, so that makes it feel nasty, hot & muggy!

I have 5 does bred. Kadence & Sara are due in about 2 weeks and they both palpate positive. Cori, Kaylee & Molly are all a little less than a week bred. Then I'll be breeding a few more does come early July hopefully. These babies will all be plenty old enough to go by Convention time too - so if you're interested in a certain something let me know. I already have a waiting list going.

Well, not much else going on with the buns at the moment.

Goodnight!

Buns Going & Moving Around

19 bunnies (18 babies, 1 senior) have left this week. 4 went to their new home on Sunday, 13 (12 babies, 1 senior) went to their new homes on Tuesday, and 2 left today.

There's just 7 babies left out of my 7 week old litters, most of which will be leaving within the next week to week and a half . . . except for the 3 I'm keeping. Oh and one of the babies has to stay here until Convention time, which is no biggie.

I think I'll be keeping both of Britney's solid babies - the lilac chin doe and the lilac steel buck. The are both a bit on the smaller side of things, but from what it looks like right now, they both (especially the buck) show a lot of promise. I'm hoping to get new pictures of her babies tomorrow, since they are 6 weeks old now.

Nicole's & Jana's babies are 4 weeks old now and are so, so adorable! I have several people on waiting list for these litters, especially Nicole's, so if anyone is interested in a chocolate, ya better let me know soon ;).

I've also got two does bred and due the end of June - Kadence (bred to Brad - chocolates!) & Sarabeth (bred to Justin). I'll be breeding more does within the next couple weeks hopefully. Both of these litters and anymore litters born in June through July/beginning of August, will be ready for Convention time.

My brother got the AC fixed in the barn yesterday, so the buns have been nice and cool since. I'm so thankful for the AC, the buns are so stress-free with it! Normally I open the barn up at night since it's cool and turn the AC back on in the morning. There was a chance of Thunderstorms last night and so I decided just to keep the barn shut up and the AC on. I'm so thankful I did. We woke at 2am to intense thunder and lightning. The kind of thunder that shakes the house and your bed! And then heavy, heavy rain and major wind! There would've been no time to get the shutters closed up from the time I was woke up til the rain started. Ah, the crazy Oklahoma summer storms!

Goodnight!