What's happening here . . .

I put Kiss' nestbox in today, since she is due in 3 days. I drew a blank and forgot to put it in yesterday, as I normally put it in 4 days before they're due. But, I don't sweat it if I am a day or two "late."

I hope she has them during the day or before I go to bed, since I am guessing she will have them out of the box. I am hoping otherwise. Maybe it will be otherwise, since her dam, Caramel, has always been an excellent mother (even for her first litter). The weather is soooo cold (freezing at night), the babies are sure to die if she has them out of the box and I can't get to them fast enough.

Deckles is doing great! I heard a lot of rabbits got sick from convention and he was one of them unfortunately. I started him on 2/10 cc per lb of LA-200 this past Tuesday (just a couple days after I got him) and he was looking better within a couple days. His nose is completely clear today, so we'll continue the LA-200 for 3-5 more days just to be sure. I'm SOOO thankful that he is clearing up. I was dreading having a bad outcome, since he is such a great little buck and *exactly* what the pointed whites need!

I'll post some pictures up here in a bit hopefully. Working on resizing them right now . . .

Qadoshyah

Not related to rabbits . . . but my book is published!

I know this is not related to rabbits at all, but I thought I'd put the news up here :).

As some know, I've been writing a book for the past couple years about Down syndrome. I have a WONDERFUL 3 1/2 year old brother with DS, so I wanted to write a book to help other families with children with DS.

So . . . the book is finally published. It's 589 pages long! You can see it (with a 15 page preview) at http://stores.lulu.com/gotdownsyndrome

~ Qadoshyah

Wow . . . Fibre3 feed!

I've been feeding the Fibre3 feed for about 2 1/2 weeks or so.

I hadn't noticed too many changes from the feed yet other than the rabbits LOVE the feed. My most anti-social doe, Kiss, is at the door of her cage every morning I go in the barn waiting to be fed. She never used to do this before! The rabbits go NUTS over the feed!

A breeder mentioned to be considering switching feeds to see if it'd help her rabbits who are messy. I hadn't thought of that before, so I went out and checked Truffle (since she ALWAYS has a messy butt no matter what I do) and amazingly she was TOTALLY clean!! I'm shocked. A few weeks ago I had started giving her oatmeal everyday to see if that'd help and I was disappointed that it didn't work.

I am stoked that this is working out so good so far!!!

Qadoshyah

I'm still here!

A lot has gone on in the past couple weeks. I'll be updating the site in a few minutes, so check it out.

Sugar had 7 babies on Nov. 1st. She's been a good girl, as usual :). All her babies are doing great. She has 2 charlie lilacs, 1 charlie opal, 1 broken lynx (w/ milk dipped ears :)), 1 brkn lilac, 1 opal & 1 lilac. Her litter is FULL of lilacs this time, thankfully! Hopefully there will be a baby or two in this litter to replace her. I may retire her after this litter, even though she is a wonderful doe and gives great babies. I really don't want to sell her, as I am going to be really picky who gets her if I do sell her. So, I may retire her and give her to my cousin who lives across the street from us :). Will be a good home and I don't have to keep her in one of my cages!

Kiss is due the 19th. I am really hoping she will be a great mother, since I don't have any other does due at the same time. Yikes! I normally don't do that with first timers. And of course it's my finicky Kiss, who I will not be surprised if she has the babies on the wire. I just hope it isn't too cold then, but I doubt that'll happen.

Kaden is starting to blossom and mature. He's certainly a slower maturing buck, as he is 5 months old and his head & body are JUST starting to come in :)! I'm glad to see him starting to look good though. Still no time for photos of him, but hopefully soon.

Josh finally looks like he is done growing & maturing. He has developed VERY nicely. I'll try to get some pictures this week. He has a great head on him . . . I'm impressed with how nice it has turned out.

Justin is just beginning to fill out. He is another slower maturing buck! He needs a head molt BAD and needs to fill out in his body. Speaking of his body, it has turned out really nice so far. I'll work on getting pictures of him too. He just needs more mass now. I really think the move from California threw some loops in the maturation of my juniors, particularly my 3 junior bucks - Josh, Justin & Dallas.

Dallas is okay still . . . I've been giving him time, but I'm not too sure that I like how he is turning out. We'll see what happens with him.

Caramel is sold and will be leaving with my cousin for California this week. 2 of Brandy's babies will also be leaving for California. One is going to an awesome pet home (to be spoiled ROTTEN!) and the other is leaving for a 4-H family.

Heather is back up for sale, as the person who bought her decided to go with Caramel instead. Heather is a nice young senior doe who should produce some nice babies.

Junior & Milky both made it to their new homes safe & sound - in Oregon & Michigan.

I picked up my convention bunny bright & early Saturday morning. He is doing good so far. He's very out of condition, but we'll get him back to condition soon, Lord willing. He's absolutely ADORABLE!! Deckles has the biggest head I have EVER seen on a mini lop - so cute! I'll get pictures asap!

The weather has really taken a turn the past few days. It is pretty chilly here. Freezing or close to it at night and in the 50's during the day. If there's no wind, it is beautiful during the day. But, when that wind comes up, it's FREEZING! The barn stays about 4 degrees warmer with the 8 outside tarps down, so not too bad.

The leaves are off of almost all of the trees now. We had a small hailstorm with crazy winds on Wednesday night, so it took off A LOT of leaves! Here's a few pictures of the fall colors on our property from about a week ago - before the storm ;).








That's all for now . . .

~ Qadoshyah

Quick update

Quick update here just to let y'all know I'm still here and things are going good!

I'll try to post a big update on here and update the website on Sunday.

Sugar kindled to 7 babies last Saturday (Nov. 1st) and her babies are SO cute!!

I put a new blog template up, hope you like it :)!

Gotta long weekend ahead of us . . . picking up Deckles bright & early tomorrow, so more later

~ Qadoshyah

Updates

Small update here . . .

I palpated Kiss today and she finally palpates positive!! I guess Simin just wasn't the buck for her. I'm excited to see Kiss X Justin babies. All chocolate pointed whites or chocolate based REWs. Exciting!

I gave Sugar her nest box yesterday and she's made a little nest in it. She's due on Friday. We shall see what she has. Hopefully they'll all be fine when they are born, since the weather has been really cold.

I've decided to keep Brandy's little broken chocolate chinchilla doe. She is by far the nicest of the litter and actually looks really promising. I don't have a name for her yet . . . I'm trying to think of something. I'm thinking I'll go with a liquor or alcoholic drink name, since her dam is Brandy and her sire is Daiquiri ;). Gotta keep the theme, ya know! Here's a couple pictures of the little doe:


~ Qadoshyah

New baby pictures

I put new pictures of Caramel's, Rose's & Brandy's litters on the site. They are now 5 weeks old! Check them out here.

~ Qadoshyah

Changing Feeds . . .

This is something I do not like doing! I like to have one feed, that works great, that the bunnies are fed all the time. That's the way it was in California and I used the same feed for 4 years! Unfortunately that feed is a California milled feed and is only available in California.

I had done research before we moved and found a feed that looked good out here. A locally milled, Oklahoma feed - A&M feeds. The ingredient list on the bag of feed was a bit different than the ingredient list that I was emailed from the mill before we moved out here. The feed was very dusty, not that green & didn't smell super fresh. It was okay, but not great enough where I wanted to drive 45 minutes away to get it.

I used it for 2 weeks and decided to switch. I was going to use PenPals, but the feed store sent my brother home with the wrong thing - Purina Fibre3. I was disappointed at first. I have NEVER liked Purina feed. I was going to return the Fibre3 to the feed store & get the PenPals. But, I went ahead and did a bit of research on Fibre3. I found out it doesn't look so bad afterall! It's got a lot of good ingredients in it and it doesn't have a bunch of "fillers."

I figured I have nothing to lose, and possibly all to gain. So I went ahead and am trying it.

So far so good. The rabbits LOVE the feed and go nuts over it. It smells VERY fresh, looks fresh & is nice and green. Hopefully the rabbits will do well on it . . . we shall see. I don't want to have to switch feeds again in such a short time frame.

~ Qadoshyah

Pictures of Kristen's babies!

Kristen's babies are 3 weeks old, so I took individual pictures of them all. Her babies are soooo cute! She has a blue and a black pointed white - both are does. Very exciting. The smoke pearl doe is super cute too!! The sables are adorable as well . . . but to be honest, sables aren't my favorite color on a baby.

These babies all have EXCELLENT crowns/heads . . .something that the pointed whites have been lacking.

See Kristen's babies here!

~ Qadoshyah

Kristen's babies

Kristen's babies are 2 1/2 weeks old and coming up to the really cute n' fun age of 3 weeks old :). I normally make myself wait until the babies turn 3 weeks old to sex them, but I was way to curious with Kristen's babies. So, I decided to see if I could sex her babies today . . . and I was able to! I'll double check in a few days just to make sure I didn't mis-sex them.

She has 1 buck and 4 does! Yay!!! I'm so excited. The buck is a sable. That means, the other sable, the smoke pearl and the two pointed whites (yes, both of her "pinks" are pointeds!) are does. If both pointed whites turn out decent, I'll keep them both. I'm so glad Kristen isn't following after her mom and throwing 95% bucks! I'll be super tempted to keep the smoke pearl too if she turns out nice . . . I have the cage space right now, so maybe I'll do that. We'll see!

Oh and I'm totally hoping that one of the pointed whites is a blue pointed, but it's still too early to tell. I do know that one of them is MUCH lighter than other other . . . . sooo, just maybe . . . .

~ Qadoshyah