Random News and My Chinchilla Beauties

There's not much to report on with the bunnies. Everyone is doing great.

I sent Kaden off today with a breeder and he will be making his way to Kansas tomorrow to his new home! I'm sure there Liz will enjoy him :)!

All the babies are doing great. Jenny's babies are 4 blacks and 2 chestnuts. Hopefully there will be at least a nice doe in there to replace here. Daisy's babies are a variety of colors - 3 lilacs, a chocolate chinchilla, a silver tip'd chocolate steel, a broken chocolate and a broken lilac chinchilla! Lilac chinchillas are seriously the most beautiful color ever! I'm hoping it'll turn out to be a gorgeous baby.

The steel in that Daisy's litter, Sugar's litter and Brandy's litter comes from Brant. I've figured out that Brant is a self steel (aabbCc(chd)ddE(s)E) and must've gotten that from his dam (she was out of a GT lilac steel). Oh well. That steel gene is very annoying at times.

While I was outside in the barn yesterday for hours (doing lots of "catch-up" cleaning and organizing), I snapped a few pictures of my little chinchilla cuties:

Qadoshyah

Wildflowers + 3 week old babies = adorable!

Brandy's babies are a little over 3 weeks old and Sugar's babies are a couple days shy of 3 weeks old, so I went ahead and took some individual pictures of them all.

I sexed all 11 of the babies too and there's only 2 bucks! Sugar has one and Brandy has one :).

You can see all the pictures of the babies here and here, but I will post a few of my favorites below.

Brandy's 7 ~





Sugar's 4 ~




Qadoshyah

Up to 30

The baby count is up to 30!

Jenny kindled to 6 babies on Saturday - all solid self & agouti black based colors.

It was a slight disappointment, but not a big surprise, that Jenny didn't have any chocolate colored babies. One of the reasons I was so glad to trade for her was that she was supposed to be out of a chocolate chestnut doe, which would mean she carried chocolate. But, I have bred Jenny to 2 chocolate colored bucks - Kaden & Brantini - and she hasn't had a single chocolate in the litter. Which means she does not carry chocolate and someone's color has to be off on her pedigree. Got some figuring out to do,I guess!

I am hoping to get some pictures of my keepers from the 7 week old litters tomorrow, Lord willing.

The 4 does bred the 22nd all palpate positive! Yay! Hopefully everything will go well with their litters. Just have to palpate Clara tomorrow . . .

Kaden is sold and will be going to a breeder in Kansas in a couple weeks :).

Well, not much else to report for the time being and it's getting late . . .

~ Qadoshyah

Munchkins!

Here's a few cute pictures of my little babies ~

Sugar's babies ~

Brandy's babies ~


Daisy's babies ~
Qadoshyah

24 & counting

Daisy was due yesterday and she kindled to 7 beautiful babies this afternoon. I was nervous she wouldn't have the babies in the box, as she kept scratching all the shavings out of the box (I refilled it like 3 times!), but she surprised me a made a nice nest in the box. She has 2 brokens and 5 solids -several chocolates & lilacs. Hoping for a lilac chinchilla from this cross - which is totally possible!

It feels so good to have big litters again! I haven't had this for months!

Jenny is due this Saturday and is HUGE. I'm expecting at least 8 and wouldn't be surprised if there were more. She's had her box since the weekend, because she made a nest with fur before I even gave her the box. I felt sorry for her, so went ahead a gave her the box early.

With Daisy's litter it puts the baby count to 24, which is nice. I haven't had that many babies for months! Brandy has 7 (raising 6), Sugar has 4 (raising 5 - one of Brandy's), Totsie has 4, and Kristen has 2.

I tattoo'd the 6 six week old babies on Sunday and made my picks as to who I am keeping from Totsie's litter. The ST steel buck & the lilac doe. But, I could've easily kept one of the lilac bucks as well. I'm giving Kristen's babies another couple weeks before I fully decide who I'm keeping, but I think it'll be the little lilac doe.

Friday-Saturday I went on a breeding spree and bred 5 does. Clara (to Justin), Tatianna (to Kaden), Kaylee (to Justin), Sarabeth (to Josh), & Tara (to Brant). Seriously, I am just hoping Clara takes sometime - this is the 6th try for breeding her. That's why I bred her to Justin - using any buck that'll make her have her first litter! I'm hoping the same for Tatianna, but if all else fails, I'll just move her along. Clara is one gorgeous doe who would be so beneficial in my chocolates!

I'm going to do a quick update on the site right now.

~ Qadoshyah

Consistency

I typed my two 5 week old litters today - Totsie's & Kristen's. Totsie's babies are VERY consistent and very promising. It's going to be very hard to pick who I will be keeping. I almost want to grow them all out at this point, but I can't! We'll have to give it a couple more weeks to be sure who I will keep. 3 of Totsie's 4 are bucks anyways, so that makes things even more interesting.

But, it is very nice to have a litter that is so consistent. They all look great. Very short midsection, nice shoulders, and deep. I haven't had a litter this consistent for months and I think it's all due to feed. It reminds me of the good 'ole days in California with my Templeton feed. I am hoping that my litters are back to normal now and will continue to be consistent. Time will tell.

Feed is such a tricky and sensitive issue. You'd never think it is such an important issue, but it is. And you really notice it when you've used an excellent feed for 5 + years and suddenly switch to a terrible feed.

Kristen's babies need a few more weeks until I can really type them as they don't seem to be in their prime until 8 weeks old or so. But, her little lilac doe sure is cute right now. She has Deckles awesome head and width!

Check her out - she looks like a "mini Deckles"!


This little boy of Totsie's is lookin' cute too. His head is coming in a lot nicer than I thought (took his ears a little longer to lop than a couple of the others) -

But, he's in a close call with his lilac brothers. Both have promising bodies and one in particular has a very promising head.

You can see new (just taken today!) pictures of Kristen's babies & Totsie's babies up on the site.

Qadoshyah

Spring Time!

Wow, it is finally clear skies and gorgeous weather (in the 70's). Will take this kind of weather any day :)!

Brandy had her 9 babies last Tuesday and Sugar kindled to 5 babies (1 DOA) on Saturday. Sugar went 3 days over her due date, as she seems to always do.

On the other hand . . . Brandy gave me a stressful day last Wednesday. She hadn't fed her babies for over 24 hours. So, as usual I put her in the box to encourage her to feed the babies. She wouldn't have any of it. I don't know why, I can only assume she was too hot (it was warm that day). Finally, after much stress & tears and hours later (at 12midnight) she willingly fed the babies. Her milk always takes a little while to fully come in, so that does throw things for a loop. Especially when you have 9 babies that need to be fed. I lost 2 of Brandy's babies by Friday though. Not surprising, as they were runts anyways. But the rest are doing good!

I spent most of today painting my barn. It's needed to be done for a few months. Only half of it is done though, so hopefully it can be finished tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent much of the day outside because it was just so beautiful, so I got some cute pictures of the bunnies.

Sugar's babies ~
Brandy's babies ~
It's so nice to be able to have all 4 sides of the barn open and to just look out and see the green view
My little Jake
Goofy Sarabeth . . . she's such a flighty girl when I first open the cage door.
And, Mud trying to get out of the cage just because I was there :)!
Qadoshyah

Juniors

I updated the website today. Just a general update. Put up pictures of the pointed white jr. doe I have available. She's a pretty little doe :).

Here's some new pictures of my juniors. Jake, Daphnie, Kadence & Mud.

Jake ~ It's a shame he is a broken pointed white, as he is down-right gorgeous! With amazing type!



Daphnie's a petite little thing, but is maturing into herself ~


Kadence is developing nicely! She's definitely goin' through the "uglies", but I can see promise in how she'll turn out. Should be a fine replacement for her dam!



And last, but certainly not least is Mud! He's definitely growing right now, but I think he will turn out gorgeous. He's starting to do his head molt and I can't wait to see how big his head will come in. Mud is such a character and probably my favorite junior because of that right now. He's at one of the first cages when I walk in the barn and he goes nuts when he hears my voice. So cute!



I just went out to my barn to peek at the bunnies, since I typically do that a couple times a day. Brandy's due today, so I was so curious to see if she had her babies yet. I was expecting a bigger litter, since I could see the "belly bulge" and that was encouraging. I hadn't had a nice big litter for awhile (Bleh to Fibre3!). Anyways, I went out to the barn and sure enough she had JUST gotten done kindling. I started counting the babies and she had . . . . EIGHT! I'm so excited!!! Praise the Lord. They're all chocolate colors too - brokens & solids.

Qadoshyah

My old boys

As I was wandering around outside yesterday enjoying the beautiful weather, I let my two old boys run around the barn for a few minutes. Striper will be 5 in June and Deckles is about 5 1/2 (will be 6 in December). Here's a few pictures I snapped of them ~







Qadoshyah

Checkin' In

Wow, what an interesting week we've had!

A major thunderstorm rolled in early Friday morning. Thunder & lightning that was intense, down pouring rain, and golf-ball sized hail. It was crazy. Our internet has been down until today because of that storm.

It's been storming all weekend, with a lot of rain, and another storm has rolled in now :). Fun!

The bunnies are doing really good though and thankfully the storms haven't stressed any of the bunnies out. Sugar did start to stress out and come down with wry neck last Tuesday (from a thunderstorm the previous night), but thankfully I caught it early enough where she didn't get the head tilt & everything.

Totsie's babies are 3 bucks (2 lilacs, 1 ST choc. steel) and 1 doe (lilac). Kristen's babies are both does :). I took pictures of all of them today and will work on getting them up on the site asap.

I'll be palpating Clara & Daisy tomorrow, hopefully they took. I bred Jenny on the 30th to Brantini. I still just have to breed Tatianna - miss troublemaker!

Over the past couple days I spent some time looking over a few of the bunnies. I am really impressed with how everyone's condition looks. They look & feel great . . . something I haven't felt on several for awhile. Praise the Lord! My juniors feel really good and look very promising. Tennessee Mud is looking good, even though he is in the uglies. I have high hopes PenPals will be *the* feed.

Here's a few pictures of the babies and my new doe, Sarabeth:

First off - Sarabeth!


Kristen's babies ~

Totsie's babies ~

Qadoshyah