Organized Barn, New Babies & Sweetpea

Mercedes kindled to a lovely litter of 8 on Monday night. She was bred to Escalade, so the babies are all chocolates and lilacs. She has 4 brokens, 2 solids and 2 charlies. The charlies are VERY heavily patterned though.



Lexus had a litter last night (Tuesday) by Ganache. Just one baby. It's a chocolate. She tends to have smaller litters, so I fostered Mercedes smallest two over to her.

Monday was barn cleaning day. Everything came out of the barn. Got scrubbed down. Rust got ground off the legs of the cage system. The legs got repainted. New tray edging was put on the cage system. A new table was built in the barn with new carpet put on the whole thing.

It was a very long, 9 hour day, but it felt so good to get it all cleaned and organized.

An upclose of the new carpeted table that my brother built for me.



We had some baby kittens born in the barn a week ago also. A little calico (female) and an orange (male).

Several bunnies got nestboxes last night, as we have 8 does due within the next couple weeks. Goldie is due on Friday. Keerah is due on Sunday. Several are due the middle of next week, then we have about a 10 day break before the rest are due.

Sweetpea is my just turned senior doe from Goldie's last litter in October. She has her mama's photogenic side for sure. I got her out just to pose her up this morning and she sat there like a little doll for me :). Very sweet doe, as her name implies.

Storms, Babies & Feed

The buns are all doing fantastic on the new feed. It's been just over a month since the switch. I was pretty nervous about the switch and how they would do on the feed, but so far they are doing WAY better.

I have 7 does out of 14 who palpate positive and are due the first week of May. This hasn't happened since last Summer. 5 of the other 7 does were all very eager to breed and I expect them to palpate positive in a few days, Lord willing. The other 2 does have to be bred this week still. Manna Pro 16% is doing the job so far.

Everyone's condition is doing great also. I always give feed a few months to really be able to tell if it is going to work with my herd. But, I'm extremely impressed so far.

The bunnies love playing with pine cones and it had been awhile since we picked up any. But, we have a tub full in the barn now.



It's been a very typical Oklahoma weather year so far. That means it goes from cloudy to warm and sunny to windy and cold, to raining, to sunny again - every week!

Last Wednesday we got hit with the hardest storm we've had for a couple years. It dumped buckets of rain and hail. There were a few tornadoes in the area, but thankfully everything is intact around here. Lots of flash flooding from the immense amount of water so quickly. The creek that runs through our property was flowing - something that hasn't happened for awhile. No more drought here in Northeastern Oklahoma, that's for sure! It's been a W-E-T year.

The creek was going fast and full during the night of the storm - took out one side of our property and half of the dam that was in front of that fence line (meant to protect the fence line).

This tree, which is on our property, got struck by lightning . Kind of hard to see in the picture, but the lightning wrapped all the way around the tree - starting at the very top.  It showed the marks on each side.

The babies are all weaned (8 wks old) and ready to go. Camaro (my little doe I kept out of Abrielle) and Keone (my buck I kept out of Malia) got weaned and separated from the rest of the babies who will be leaving to their homes soon. Here's a quick shot of Camaro enjoying some hay today that I gave her to munch on & cuddle in, since it's cold today.

Feed Change

Well, it's been a rough few months in the bunny barn, although I haven't said much. It may be obvious if you have followed my rabbitry for very long. But, I've had an extreme lack of babies since the fall. I've had 3 litters born live (plus 2 DOA litters) since October.  I've bred the does over and over again. They are all doing their job - bucks are breeding, does are lifting. But, they are not taking. It's been very frustrating. 

After so long, I decided to switch feeds. I did some research and decided not to wait any longer to see if it was just the winter months. So, it's been about 2 1/2 weeks now since I started the switch to Manna Pro 16%. So far, so good. Since the PenPals is not mixed in with the Manna Pro anymore, the rabbits are not digging through their bowls looking for the Manna Pro, instead of the PenPals. So, I plan to give it a couple months and see how they do. Lord willing they will all start taking. If they don't, well, I'll be switching feeds again. I absolutely cannot stand switching feeds, as I know it's hard on the rabbits and takes some time to get them adjusted to it. But, I'm hopeful.

The babies are all doing well. They are 4 1/2 weeks old right now and so much fun. 

Justin is an absolute doll and is so much fun to have running around the barn!

I'll close with just a couple cool pictures from around the ranch. It's finally spring-like weather, since it was snowing and freezing last week. But, it's Oklahoma, so could change at any minute :)!

Pictures and Oh-So-Cute Babies

Howdy everyone! The bunnies are doing good. The babies eyes are opening and getting oh-so-cute. I'll leave it at that and let you enjoy the pictures!

Someone is spoiled rotten! Justin surely enjoys being the "King of the barn." He knows his name now. And has to come up for pets and loving.

We have babies!

Everything has been going good with the bunnies. I just keep forgetting to blog here. It's been a crazy month with the weather. We've had warm days. Then snow. Then ice. Then rain. Then hail. Then cold. Then thunderstorms & lightning. It's been up and down like crazy.

We also have two new litters! Malia had a litter of 8 (5 live) on Feb. 24th. And then Abrielle had a litter of 7 (6 live) on Feb. 25th. Lots of chocolates, lilacs, a few blues and even a black.

I also got my membership renewal packet from the AMLRC a couple weeks ago and found the new business card inside. It has two pictures from my rabbitry on it. Pretty cool :)!