"Tickle The Tail" Method

I mentioned the "Tickle The Tail" method to make a doe more willing to breed in my previous post. Lana asked what it was/how to do it, so I thought I'd share here :).

Basically just take the doe and between her tail & vulva, closer to her vulva, "tickle" her. It will make her tail lift and then just let the buck mount her :).

Pretty easy and it seems to work sometimes.

Qadoshyah

Prego does & barn talk

Well, it's been a busy week for me . . . catching up from being gone for a week.

We finally had a couple warm days with no breeze last week, so I was able to get some stuff done in the barn. The bunnies also were able to get some nice sunlight and fresh air. I haven't been able to open the tarps for weeks. But, of course the weather is cold and breezy again!

I did a ton of cleaning & organizing in the barn on Friday. It felt good to get that all done. Had to clean all the trays and rake out the barn - it hadn't been done for about 2 weeks (since before I left).

I ordered 30 3" ceramic crocks from bunnyrabbit.com last week and received them the end of the week. They are so small, but I got that size because they are so expensive. $2/crock for 3 INCH crocks! Nuts. The bigger crocks were much more expensive, so I went ahead with the small ones. They'll do the job of giving the bunnies water in freezing temps. I've already had to use them and they work good. Only a few of the bunnies like to dump them over.

I re-palpated Tatianna and she is not prego. I figured she was not, but I felt something funny when I first palpated her, so I waited. Jenny is HUGE and Kristen has babies in her too. 5 more days! They'll get their boxes tomorrow.

I bred Clara & Totsie tonight. I'll breed them again tomorrow, as they didn't want to breed more than once tonight. I'm hoping to breed Tatianna and Tara tomorrow too. I tried the "Tickle The Tail" method with Clara & Tots and it worked. LOL, it's pretty funny!

Two of Sugar's babies were sold over the weekend - the lilac charlie doe and the blue charlie buck. Both to good pet homes :). I just have the opal charlie doe available still.

I am going to try to post some interesting, educative topics, but I've been very busy lately. I am still working on submitting the press release and getting the flyer for the book done, so that is taking a lot of time.

Qadoshyah

Home at last

I got home early Saturday morning. I had a nice, yet fast trip :).

Thankfully the weather was quite warm while I was gone, so my family didn't have to deal with frozen bottles much at all (except once). But, of course the weather is cold again and I've got to thaw bottles out.

I am planning on ordering a bunch of crocks, since the water does not freeze as fast in crocks as it does in bottles. The problem with the bottles is that the metal spout freezes first, before the water in the bottle freezes, so the rabbits can't get any water.

I palpated the does again who didn't palpate positive before I left. Kristen palpates positive! Yay, first Deckles babies! Clara is the only one who did not take. I'll breed the rest of the does soon here hopefully.

One of Sugar's babies came down with wry neck yesterday (Sunday), unfortunately. I caught it really early though, so I think he'll be fine after treatment. Thankfully WN is super easy to treat if caught early enough.

I have a mouse problem in my barn and I am pretty annoyed! I hate mice with a passion! I haven't had a mouse problem for years. I am going to have to put some traps out and also put a cat in the barn, our good-ole barn/"mouser" cat, KittyBoy. Hopefully I'll get that done today. I haven't seen the mice, but I've seen their droppings and holes. Yuck.

I took a look at the two babies I kept from Sugar's litter. The buck is not looking so hot right now, but I'll pose him in a couple more does. He is not that cooperative on some days when it comes to posing, so it's a little annoying. The doe looks GREAT right now though! I am very glad I kept her back. I've named the doe, Champagne. I've got a name picked out for the buck, but I don't want to name him it until I plan to keep him for sure, LOL :).

Kiss' baby is sad, LOL. He has no crown whatsoever! I think he'll end up being soup or tacos :/. Unless I can find someone who wants him as a pet . . . he does have a great personality.


And, here are a few pictures of Champagne ~




Qadoshyah

Palpated does . . .

I palpated the 4 does this morning . . .

Jenny - palpates positive. I'm SO glad she took! I was really nervous that she would be a pain to try to get bred - since she's 16 months old. Just hoping she'll be a good mother now . . .

Tatianna - palpates positive *I think*. I am pretty sure she is preggers . . . with a small litter probably though. I really did not expect her to take, but it looks like she did. This will be Josh's first litter, so I'm excited to see what she has.

Clara & Kristen - negative. I didn't feel anything in either of them :(. I will probably try to rebreed them later tonight. Two of the does I really wanted to take, oh well!

I cleaned all the trays today, which was much needed. With the cold weather & frozen hoses, it does not make barn cleaning easy. But, thankfully it has warmed up today and I was able to get things cleaned. Very nice.

~ Qadoshyah

Bunny Times

I didn't get any other does bred last week after the 4 I bred on Tuesday, since I got sick (yuck :(). I'll be palpating those 4 does later this week though hopefully. I hope they all took . . . I can't wait to see these litters ;).

The weather has taken another dive and got really cold again. It was . . . uhh . . . 5 degrees Sunday morning. Somewhere around that this morning too! Brrrrrrr. So cold! I'm having to change the water bottles 3x a day, since they are freezing so fast. This is such a huge change from southern California! I'll take this over California's laws though ;).

I put some (about 8 inches) double bubble insulation along the edges of the barn where the tarps meet the top of the sheet metal. There was a small airspace with a little draft. It hasn't seemed to have bothered the buns, but I just wanted to make sure there is no draft. So, it should be good now. I gave some toys and a few cardboard boxes to some of the buns today too. They liked the little chain toys . . . they haven't had them since we moved.

Now I just have to get the cage tags back up and organized for when we go out to California. My family will be taking care of the buns while we're gone.

It's gonna be a busy, busy week over here prepping for the trip, so don't be surprised if you don't hear anything from me until we get back from Cali. But, I'll try to post about the does and whether they are prego or not later this week.

~ Qadoshyah

Bred some does

I finally got to breeding some does today. The weather is a little bit warmer (in the 30's instead of the teens ;)) today, so it was bearable in the barn.

I bred 4 does today and will breed 2 more tomorrow, Lord willing.

Let's see, they are . . . .

Hoppin's Brantini X Hoppin's Clara
Hoppin's Josh X Hoppin's Tatianna
Silent Springs Kaden X Milkhouse's Jenny
Kasomor's Mr. Deckles X Hoppin's Kristen

I don't think Tatianna will take, as Josh only "got her" once, but I'll probably wait to try her again until I can palpate her. I plan on breeding Tara to Kaden and Totsie to Deckles or Laci to ????? tomorrow.

~ Qadoshyah

Here it comes . . .

We're supposed to have an ice storm tomorrow or sometime this week. It was a beautiful warm & breezy day today until about 4 or 5 pm when all of a sudden the cold front came in. The temperature dropped from 73 degrees to 45 degrees in just a matter of an hour or less. It is in the low 20's now and is sleeting right now. It might be starting to rain some too . . . once that happens, we're in for an ice storm! I tell ya, this Oklahoma weather is something else!

The bunnies are doing okay so far. It is cold in the barn, just about 6 degrees warmer than outside - which makes a difference when it's 23 degrees outside! I stuffed the buns cages full of hay and gave them a scoop of oats tonight, so they'll stay warm.

I updated the website today. I sold the last few babies (7) from my September litters earlier this week to a gal who owns a pet store in Tulsa. It was a great contact to make! She makes sure all the rabbits she sells goes to indoor homes only. She sends them with food to switch over to their new feed. I'm very glad I met her and hopefully we can work together again in the future!

I am planning on keeping Sugar's lynx doe and lilac buck. I have not named them yet, but I'll have to think of something. If ya have any ideas, let me know! They're out of Rose Dust & Daiquiri :).

~ Qadoshyah

Some updates & few new pictures

I updated the website a little today - for sale page, does, juniors, babies & Sugar's babies.

I put new pictures of Sugar's babies up - they are 5 weeks old, so they all got updated pics again. I also put a picture of Kiss' singleton on the babies page. What a cutie that baby is. I've figured out it is a chilled broken chocolate pointed white. It makes sense and I just completely forgot about that possibility. It's a FAT little stinker ;).

I am thinking of keeping Sugar's lilac buck and lynx doe, but I'm not 100% positive yet.

I took a bunch of pics of some of my other seniors. but the pictures just didn't turn out how I hoped. The buns are still blowing their coats and you can certainly tell in the pictures!

I am considering trying PenPals on a few of my rabbits that just don't seem to have the condition I want them to have. I am wondering if it is the Fibre3. But, it has been a great feed for several of my bunnies, so . . . I think I may do a test sometime soon here.

I'll close with a couple pics:

Kiss' baby ~

Brandy and Daisy . . .like mother, like daughter :).

~ Qadoshyah

Decisions

Today I had a family from Texas come up who's just starting out in the mini lops. They came up to get Hoppin's RB2 - Rose's broken lilac jr. doe. But, also were going to look around to see what I had. So, this morning I looked through all the buns real good to see what some of the juniors looked like and if there were any others I could let go.

Well . . . I decided to let Daiquiri go. He's been my herd buck for the past couple years and has given me a lot of nice babies! I had been thinking of letting him go for the past year, but I didn't have a son that I thought was nice enough to replace him. When I kept Brantini from the litter with Chocolate X Daiquiri in January, I thought he might end up being a good replacement. Well, he has finally filled out and looks like an awesome replacement. I have already had a couple litters out of him, so he is proven also. These are just some of those hard decisions that have to be made when you raise animals. It's always good to move on with new blood.

So, this family also went home with Daiquiri. They should have a nice start in their herd! Daiquiri was only 2 1/2, so he wasn't too old yet. I figured it'd be good to move him on before he got old and I decided to retire him like I have his brother, Striper & his dam, Truffle.

I will try to update the website sometime in the next few days.

~ Qadoshyah

Been a busy week!

It's been a busy week, which is the reason for the lack of updates. With the holiday and all, things were pretty crazy.

I was going to breed some does after Thanksgiving, since I have a few who I should breed before they get any older (especially Jenny - she's 16 months old! YIKES!!!!). But, some plans have changed and I will be making a trip out to California the end of December. I'll be gone for a week or a week and a half probably. So, breeding these does is being put off for a couple weeks. I really don't want my family to have does due while I'm gone - especially first timers. First-timers + COLD weather = possibly a bad deal, if not prepared!

Speaking of my trip to California . . . I will be able to transport rabbits that I have available out there for $20/bunny. My cousin did this before on one of his trips out to California, so this should work out just fine.

The rabbits are all doing great still. The weather was pretty nice last week, but it's very cold now. It even snowed yesterday (although it snowed all day it wasn't cold enough to stick much)! So I'll probably be dealing with frozen water bottles tomorrow . . . it was 30 degrees outside & 32 degrees in the barn around 9:30pm tonight - gonna be a coooollllddd night.

Kiss' baby is a VERY odd color and I have no idea what color it is, as it certainly looks like a color that is not possible out of Kiss X Justin. I'll get pics of the baby up soon hopefully.

Sugar's babies are all doing great still and they are so adorable!

Rose's broken lilac doe is on hold for Justin & his family. Brandy's charlie chocolate buck is sold. Rose's broken lilac buck is on a temporary hold at the moment also. The other babies & senior doe are available still as of right now though.

I have also had a hard time doing much online because our internet (DSL) has been acting up a lot the last week. It is still acting up right now . . . the service guys have been out 3 times already and it hasn't fixed it yet. So they'll have to try something else I guess!

More later hopefully,
~ Qadoshyah