Update on the Mini Rex Baby "HollyWood"

HollyWood, Cezanne's only surviving Broken Blue mini rex baby is doing awesome. Cezanne is an excellent mom who feeds him more than once a day. He has grown so much over the past 2 days that we can't believe it. I will post 2 new pics of him showing is ever-growing "Budda-belly" and then one pic of Armoni's bkn opal baby that we have fostered to Cezanne. HollyWood and the Bkn Opal immediately curled up together and were quite happy to be with one another.
Enjoy the pics of HollyWood and Cezanne's new Foster baby from Armoni.

BELOW ARE TWO PICTURES OF "HOLLYWOOD" THE MINI REX BABY!













BELOW IS A PICTURE OF "HOLLYWOOD" AND THE NEW MINI LOP BABY TOGETHER!

My 1st Mini Lop Litter

I am excited to announce that today, my first mini lop litter was born by Posey's Armoni and the sire is Posey's Burke. Armoni is a first time mom, and she had 5 healthy babies this morning. 1 Solid Chestnut Agouti, 2 Broken chestnut agoutis, and 2 Broken Opals.
Because Cezanne the mini Rex mom only has 1 baby, who Saskia is calling "Hollywood," we have decided to foster the smallest baby a bkn opal to Cezanne since she has lots of rich milk and her baby is growing fast. When we did chores tonight, Armoni's 4 babies all have bellies full of milk, so that is awesome.

Will attach 2 pics of Armoni and Burke's new babies now.

Our First Litter of the Year- Cezanne

Well, this morning at 9:20am Feb. 26, 2008, Cezanne delivered 6 mini rex babies. Unfortunately, 5 were DOA all broken blacks. 1 baby had a very purple mouth and nose and not surprised that it didn't make it but not sure why the other 4 did not. They were still wet and warm when I came to the barn, and I tried to revive them, but it was too late.

1 baby did survive and it is a broken blue. We are not great at sexing them young like Kim Posey, but Saskia and I think it is a buck. Cezanne has been caring for it all day. She has fed him more than once today and he already has a Budda belly. We are hoping that Armoni has a big litter and that she does well delivering them so we can foster a couple of Armoni's babies to Cezanne to feed.

Posey did not have a litter so no babies from her to foster to Cezanne and waiting for Ella, but think she has 1 big baby in her and not sure if it will live if she does have one. Nothing else is due till March 7-8th (the Harlequin- Joanie) is due. She has a passel of babies in her for sure. No doubt that Joanie is pregnant.

We are keeping our fingers crossed that Cezanne's baby makes it through the night with it being cooler outside, but Cezanne is in the nest box a lot with the baby so that is good. She obviously loves being a mom despite losing her other 5 babies.

I will add 2 pics of the new baby mini rex.

Baby's Budda-belly

Cornelius and Let it Be will be joining the Rabbitry soon!

I have decided to purchase Posey's Let it Be and Posey's Cornelius to add to my Mini Lop buck herd. Right now I have Sam and Turtle, but I really do need another buck or two to compliment the two bucks I have, plus Turtle will not be staying with me all the time. Diva does not like Sam at all, so I need to purchase another buck to complement her and I could not decide which buck I liked better "Cornelius" or "Let it Be." I like both for different reasons, so I am now purchasing both bucks to add to the herd and looking forward to seeing what they both produce in the nest boxes. Will probably get them in March when I head down Island again.

Here are the 2 bucks, pictures courtesy of Christina Posey (Sunny Brook Rabbitry).

Below Picture of "Posey's Cornelius"











Below Picture of "Posey's Let it Be" Brother to Braxtin Christina's Best In Show at VIRBA 2008.

New Mini Lops coming to our Rabbitry

Christina and I are working on the chocolate varieties in mini lops as a side project together. We both share Turtle, a chocolate SR Mini Lop buck purchased from Prominent Rabbitry in Alberta. I also purchased Q a Broken Lilac for our chocolate program, and I love her. Christina has her mom "Lady Godiva" a Chocolate Steel Doe, and Turtle is also Q's dad. These 3 rabbits will give us a good start in our chocolate mini lops. In addition, I have also bred 2 does to turtle to produce chocolate carriers. I have bred Olivia and Posey to Turtle and soon will be breeding Ella and Q to him too, before he spends some time with Christina breeding a couple of her does.
I have always loved the chocolate varieties, and this is the first chocolate variety of any breed that I have had in my barn. I can't wait to see what Turtle, Q and Godiva produce for us along with our other does that we are breeding.

I will post pictures on my website soon of these guys (Turtle and Q).

Watch in the coming months to see what they produce. So excited about these guys and I have to add the Turtle has the most sweetest disposition ever and he loves to breed the girls. He and Q are welcome additions in the barn.

Last weekend Barn cleaning (Feb. 24th, 2008)

This past weekend, Saskia and I worked hard in the barn tidying up a bunch of junk that collected over the winter. We got rid of some old feed bags (not too many this last time because we just did it last month), got rid of old cracked crocks, broken water bottles, and other misc stuff. We also took some old carriers and rusty feeders to the metal recycling up the road. We started to disinfect all the crocks and water bottles not being used. Every rabbit now has a big water bottle with one rabbit having a water bottle and a crock as this rabbit doesn't seem to like the water bottles much.

We sorted through the rest of the nest boxes as well. Got rid of some old wooden French Lop nest boxes (keep 3 older ones in good shape and 2 new ones I bought from Jody in Sept.). We also kept 4 little nest boxes, perfect for smaller mini rexes (too small for Cezanne though). We also have 8 brand new medium size nest boxes and 1 older one that we have kept in decent shape. Everything else we gave to my dad to burn on his wood pile. He had fun.

We moved a few more rabbits around and hopefully soon will have everyone stationary for a lengthy time period.

We also stared our first sulfur methazine treatment of the year. We always do our first major treatment in Feb/March of every year before we are drowning in babies. Plus, with all the new stock we purchased from everyone, it doesn't hurt to have everyone on the same schedule so these guys won't need to be done again till summer or fall if nothing crops up in the mean time and I will of course treat any new arrivals as they go into my quarantine section.

We also finally cleaned all of our carriers from the VIRBA show and had them disinfected with bleach and Pinesol. Boy do I ever need new carriers. Some of the date back to my teenage years, so that is going back to the early 1990's. Once I have more funds, I will definitely be purchasing some new carriers and moving some of these old ones out probably to the recycling place. We do have a couple of newer carriers, but most are quite old.

We still have more tidying up to do, but we sure enjoyed the beautiful, warm, sunny weather on Sunday. I wore a long sleeve shirt all day outside even playing with water and I was warm till about 5:30pm, then I felt the cold.

Everyone is doing well and settling in. I still need to assembly my new 3 hole stacker that I purchased back in October from Grand view Rabbitry. That will get done soon, as the up and coming babies will need to be separated or we keep juniors.

This weekend, I will be finishing up disinfecting my vacant cages that are not in use right now. I also need to do some fur-burning again as some rabbits are coming out of their molts, before a new bunch start spreading their flying hair. LOL

Cleaning never ends- Does it?

Feed Issues: To Change or Not to Change.

Feed is always a concern for me. Living here on Vancouver Island, I personally feel that rabbit breeders are at a big disadvantage to those who breed on the mainland or in the United States. Shipping the feed is always a concern and is often difficult to have a continuous supply of newly milled feed on a regular basis. I have been very frustrated with the feeds in my area over the years, and are I am limited to what I can access or afford. The only feeds that are available in my area is Proform, Otter Coop, SureKare, and Top Shelf and the expensive Martins Feed., or at least that I am aware of. I have personally had numerous problems with Otter Coop feeds and switched a year ago last January (2007) after the rabbits just plain refused to eat it and lost 2 rabbits to the feed, and the feed dealer refused to bring in smaller amounts on a more frequent basis, so I ultimately switched feeds and feed stores. All I did was switch feeds (to Proform) and the rabbits started eating again and gaining condition back again.

I have remained on Proform Feeds for over a year now, and I love dealing with my feed dealer. They always have a fresh supply of feed in every couple of weeks, but lately some of my new rabbits are not wanting to eat it. The French lops always eat it, but the mini lops by far are very picky and don't seem to like it that much, so yet again, I am faced with the dilemma of changing feeds once again. I am seriously thinking of changing to the 16% SureKare feeds for the Mini Lops, Harlequins & Mini Rex. I may keep the French on the 18% Proform as they seem to like it and I personally like to feed 18% to my French Lops, especially my Does and Litters, or I may mix 50/50 with 16% SureKare to make it approximately 17%. Some of these mini lops really don't like the Proform, so I feel it is best to change to Sure Kare as Christina Posey has hers on the SureKare and her mini lops love it and have great condition on them as well.

I also supplement with green Orchard Grass hay almost every day and Alfalfa cubes once in awhile, plus our treat mix which consists of 16% Dairy Text, Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, Oatmeal, Ground Flax Seed, sometimes flated barley is added, and often a mixture of cereals (Shredded Wheat and/or Cheerios). The rabbits all love this mixture and do well on it. At the shows, this is what keeps them eating.

Tomorrow, or shall I say later today, I will be going to SureKare and purchasing some 16% SureKare feed to mix in with my 18% Proform to switch the majority of my herd over to Sure Kare feeds, while keeping the French lops on a mixture of the Proform and SureKare feeds. I will keep everyone posted in how this is working with my rabbits and I hope to get those mini lops eating better. Some like the Proform, but a lot don't care for it too much, so hopefully they all like SureKare better and will eat it all up. One downfall, is that the SureKare feeds costs more than the Proform feeds, so that is frustrating as well. Will try it and see how it goes.

I guess that is it on the feed issue for now.

New Breed is Here!

Hi All,

I am hoping you have all seen my new breed on my website that Christina added for me today. My pair of Magpie Harlequins are finally here. They come from Wildwood Rabbitry (Barb Adams). My doe Wildwood's Joanie 6G2 Magpie-Black Sr. Doe is also bred to one of Barb's buck's name Wildwood's Tex a Magpie-Blue Sr. Buck. Joanie and Tex's litter is due March 8th. I am excited to see what they produce as Barb says to expect Blacks, Blues, Chocolates and Lilac Magpies as they are all in the background on these guys.

Pictures on the Left are of Joanie and Pictures on the right are of Wildwood's Popeye 7HJ3 another Magpie-Black Jr. Buck.

I have always been fascinated by the harlequin genetics, so what better way to learn than to play with the breed itself. This is a side project that I will dabble in for awhile. Can't wait for my first litter of harlequins next month.

Rabbits update. New additions coming.

I have decided to add one more mini lop doe to my herd. I am purchasing Posey's Azure from Christina, an opal jr. mini lop doe. She is the litter mate sister to Bodacious. We love Bodacious's personality and Azure is a bit better typed, so I couldn't resist adding another dilute to my herd. We will be getting her at the VIRBA show. I may add yet another doe to my herd, but will have to see if she pans out or not.

I forgot to mention that I will getting a young French Lop buck from Sarah McCrea to add to my barn as I have no FL bucks right now. He is a broken chin and I will be using him to breed to my does that will be ready to be bred in a month or so. So, I will be getting Gamroth's Libby and Rainstar's ? (I kinda like the name "Kid Rock" or "Fraggle Rock" for names. I have to discuss it with Sarah yet. He has no name yet, so not sure what to call him. I maybe getting one from Barb Adams yet, but the other buck did not pan out type-wise. I am still on the prowl for a great French Lop herd buck.

I have my first Mini Lop litter due this coming week (Feb 8-9th). Tamashanter's Rickie is bred to Velotta's Sam, so I am excited to have my first litter of the year. We also have other due at the end of the month. The possible colors that Rickie and Sam may produce include: Black GT steels, Blacks, Chestnut Agoutis, possibly chins, and I am not sure if Sam carries the dilute gene or not. Rickie does, but not sure about Sam. I will soon find out in a week though.

All the buns are settling well here. I still have a few more of them to move around, but hopefully that will all be done once I get the rest of the cages disinfected and then they can moved into their new cages. Everything takes time and good weather too.

Oh ya. I got Kim and Christina to create a BCMini Lops yahoo group, as I have been thinking of starting one for awhile now, but just didn't know how to. I think it is great because Mini lops seem to be getting popular again in BC and on Vancouver Island, which is great to see.

Will post again in a day or so.
Good night :)

Cavies

Coleton has decided that he wants to breed Kara his TSW Peruvian sow. We put Seth in with her on Jan. 29th, and tonight he was certainly a busy boy. We are pretty sure they did a bunch of breedings tonight. Things are quiet right now, so hopefully Coleton will have babies from Kara and Seth in 10 weeks, so I guess that would be in mid April. We should get Black and Whites and hopefully TSW's, but not sure.

As for Coleton's new Silkie sow "Lola" a GA/R/W she came from Dillon, but I believe she originally goes back to Amanda Swan. We are waiting for her pedigree, so not sure what is in her background yet. She is definitely pregnant as I can feel lumps starting on either side. She will be due before Kara, and Lola is bred to one of Dillon's Peruvian boars. We are excited to see what Lola produces and what colors she has. This will be my first litter of cavies since I believe 1989.

I use to raise cavies when I was a teenager and still lived at home. I raised Abyssinian's and Texels.

Coleton's 3 cavies reside in our house. We do not have any source of heat in our barn, so hopefully this spring and summer we can move them out to the barn when it warms up . It would be nice to have them outside for at least a few months anyways. Maybe next winter, I can make an area for the cavies to be warm at the barn, so they can be outside for the winter, but they are neat to have in the house too. Love their chattering and squealing every time we touch a plastic bag or open the fridge door. Needless to say they are spoiled with treats. Lola hasn't learned this yet, but I am sure she will soon learn as Seth is always the first to squeal for treats with Kara following him. They are amazingly loud sometimes with their squealing. They back onto my bedroom wall, and sometimes they wake me up in the middle of the night with their squealing.

We hope to add one more sow to the caviary yet. Can't wait to have our first litter of cavies probably in March I believe.

Well, I think that is it for the caviary updates.

Barn cleaning

Today, the kids and I did a dump run, most of the stuff came from the barn. I got rid of some old crocks, broken things, garbage, and a few old cages. We also took some household garbage to the dump as well.
Tomorrow, I hope to take a few of the old rusty cages to the metal recycling up the road from us, and will take our really old nest boxes to my dad's to burn in his outdoor fire. We have so much cleaning that we need to do (junk wise) that it is not funny. I hope to sort out all the carriers and nest boxes and then in the next few months order a few new mini lop size carriers and equipment.

I still need to put together my stacker that I bought from Grandview Rabbitry this fall, but with all the empty holes we have had, I have not needed it yet. They are filling up though. Wait till the babies start coming then I will need the stacker for separating the babies.

Now that it is warming up, I hope to get some more disinfecting done in the carriers and cages, and hair burning off some of the cages. I want to have our barn all nice and clean this month, weather permitting of course.

That's it on the barn cleaning.

We picked up our New Rabbits

This weekend, the kids and I headed down island to pick up our new rabbits. Before heading down to Sooke, I went up to Dillon's (in Campbell River) and picked up 4 cavies for Kim and Christina to ship out (I believe for Janine). I also bought a pregnant Silkie sow for Coleton to add to his Caviary. He has decided to call her "Lola." Lola and Kara are getting along very well. I also culled 6 animals for Dillon.

On Friday, we headed down to Stan and Kathy's in Sooke. We made a quick stop at the Poseys' to drop off the 4 cavies and pick up Saskia's new mini Rex "KT's Cezanne OKT1" Saskia asked Stan and Kathy if she could breed Cezanne to one of his bucks, as Saskia does not have any other mini rexes at this time. Stan and Kathy will then get 2nd pick of the litter in exchange for the breeding. Cezanne was bred Jan. 26, 2008 to S&K's KS13 a bkn black SR. mini rex buck. Saskia saw them breed 5 times and then tried again the next day and Cezanne did not want anything to do with him, so we presume she is bred. Thanks Stan and Kathy for the use of the mini rex stud.

We picked up S&K's Lady Godiva "Diva" MSK37, my new REW SR. Mini lop doe. She is a smaller doe weighing 5.05lbs. I am sure she will grow once she has her first litter. We tried breeding her but she was not interested and neither were Stan's bucks. She is out of Mitchell's Dotti JK96 (Bkn Black) X S&K's MSK13 (Bkn Black). We will give her a rest and possibly show her at VIRBA or breed her to Sam within the next month. I also picked up a baby French Lop from Stan & Kathy. She needs to grow, but I thought I would grow her out for awhile to see how she turns out. She a Chestnut agouti out of Mairs Justice 6BM10 (Bkn Chestnut Agouti) X Mairs 7BM3 (Black GT Steel). She was born Dec. 12, 2007 and her name is S&K's Daisy SKF7.

We also went through some of Stan & Kathy's stock. We looked at their nice Triantha does, and 2 French Lop litters. They have held back 5 from one litter. We looked at a couple of mini rexes, but we just ran out of time to do everything. We planned to leave just after lunch, but Saskia got the hairbrush really stuck in her hair, and that delayed us quite awhile. The kids were not in a hurry to leave as they were having so much fun. Saskia was hanging out with Krystyna (her best friend).

We arrived at Kim and Christina's after 3pm I believe. It was cold at the farm and ran into periods of snow on the malahat. The weather was weird and unpredictable to say the least, especially with sunshine as well.
Shortly after arriving at the farm, Jody stopped by and dropped of the little doe that I bought from her "Mitchell's Pearl" a cute chin doe. I also bought 9 new medium-sized nest boxes as we don't have many med. sized nest boxes and the ones we do are very very old(like 15 years old). Time for some new ones, and Jody does such a great job. At Luxton I had bought 4 or 6 French Lop (large) sized nest boxes. Jody also showed us the first stacking table that she is making and the first one will be mine and I can't wait to see it finished. It is green, my favourite color. Jody does such a great job on her wood working. We also had a chance to see her new Blue Silver Marten buck that she got from Nicole Velotta. I love this breed and he is gorgeous.

After Jody left, Saskia and I looked at alot of their juniors and went through most of the mini lops and some of the jersey woolies. I learned alot about Jersey Woolies, so thanks for the lesson Kim. She has some very pretty colors in her barn. Some nice typed animals as well. I am just not a wool-breed person, but if I had to have a wool breed that would probably be it or the fuzzy lops. We would have looked at more, but we had to be at Kim and Christina's for dinner at 6pm. Rita did a fabulous dinner and it was tasty.
We also had some excitement with a chimney fire. Glad things settled down and Norm was coming to look the chimney this morning I believe.

We went through all the animals that I was getting. The animals that we picked up were:

1) GC Kitsemble's Ella Sr. Doe who is bred to Sunny's As You Like it (Jan. 27th). Christina will get 2nd pick of litter.
2) Velotta's Posey Sr. Doe who is bred to Kitsemble's Show Me the Money (Jan. 25th). Christina will get 2nd pick of litter.
3) Posey's Abby Sr. Doe. I hope to show her at VIRBA.
4) GC Velotta's Olivia SR. Doe
5) Posey's Armoni SR. Doe bred to Posey's Burke (Jan.27th).
6) Posey's Linnea Jr. Doe
7) Posey's Sacha Jr. Chin doe
8) Posey's Make Ya Famous (Blue GT Steel Jr. Buck)
9) Posey's Bodacious (Bkn chin Jr. Buck)
10) Posey's Thunder Cat (Black GT Steel Jr. Buck) This guy was suppose to be a doe, but he is nicely typed, so I still took him. I really like this guy alot and the Blue steel too.

Hopefully the 3 Sr. Does are bred and keep their babies as they will be a nice addition to the barn with 3 youngsters going back to Christina for the breedings. Thanks Christina. I really appreciate it!!

Plus, on Friday, Saskia had picked up and paid for Cezanne Kim. Saskia loves Cezanne as she is such a sweetie.

We arrived home early this morning like at 1:20am, so we just watered and hayed the buns till morning. This morning we put them away and rearranged animals again. One of these day I hope to be finished moving everyone, but we are getting closer to having them where we want them placed for a few months any ways.

Oh ya, Christina also made Saskia and I business cards. Saskia's business cards for her mini rexes and Bead Buddy key chains, and then I have my own as well. We also emailed a breeder back east to see about getting some mini rexes for Saskia, so hopefully in the next couple of months she will have a couple of more mini rexes to add to her herd. She does have her first litter due at the end of next month, so that should make her happy.

I think that is it for now. We all had a fun weekend and sorry it went by so fast.

Tam

Leah is alive.

Hi All,

I made a mistake. Leah is alive and not the rabbit that died of a heart attack. It was Connie. Saskia switched Leah and Connie and didn't tell me and the two does look alike. I am happy that Leah is alive.

Also, a customer cancelled out on taking Desi and Patricia, so I now have 4 French Lop does.
So the current list of French Lops that we are keeping are: Tamashanter's Annika, Tamashanter's Patricia, Gamroth's Leah and Gamroth's Desi. I am also getting a SR doe from Sarah. Gamroth's Libby and a jr. Buck from Barb Adams. I hope to get another older buck that is close to breeding age as I sold Hezekiah, but I thought I was only going to be working with a trio. That is ok, I love the 4 does that I have so that will be nice to have 5 breeding FL does.

I can't wait to get my trio of my new breed as well. One is a Sr Doe and she is hopefully bred and then a young pair which will make a trio.

Rickie our mini lop doe is looking pregnant so we are looking forward to having her litter next month.

That is it for now. Tomorrow we head down island to pick up a bunch of new buns. I think 12.

Tammi

Blogging for the First Time

Hi all,

This is the first time I have ever tried blogging. This seems like a cool idea, so I thought I would give it a whirl and update everyone what is happening in our barn.

Lot of changes are taking place right now.
First, Saskia and I both realized we needed changes. We were kind of disheartened this winter with losing a few of our favorite rabbits after culling and selling to just keep the few rabbits we wanted over winter. Saskia has decided not to raise mini lops right now, and has decided she would like to try the mini rex. She is purchasing her first mini rex doe from Kim Posey "KT's Cezanne" who is a nice typey brood doe. She will be a great start to Saskia's mini rex herd. We still need to find another few mini rexes to add to her herd. Saskia says she wants to raise blacks, blues, castors in both solid and broken varieties and also like the REWs and opals. In the next few months, we will work at adding to her herd, and we hope to find a stud buck to breed Cezanne to soon.

Second, I have become frustrated with Holland Lops. They at times are a hard breed to get bred or if you get them breed produce live babies. I was getting single huge babies, peanuts, and even some malloclusion. I sold my whole herd to a man up island, who wants them as pets for his daughter. Some did not go with their pedigrees. I also had cut way back on my French Lops and even toyed with getting rid of them all. In the last week, I lost a special doe (Leah), so I decided to keep one doe of my own breeding who goes back to Enosh and I am getting a doe from Sarah McCrea and a jr. Buck from Barb Adams. I will play with a trio for now.

I have also decided to take over the mini lops from Saskia, although we had sold off most of her herd, but we still have a couple of older does left and Sam. I am getting quite a few from Christina Posey who has great lines and has done well on the show circuit this past year. She has mostly Velotta and Kisemble lines, and a few others in there. I am so excited to be raising the mini lops myself this year. This coming weekend we will be picking them up from the Posey's and Saskia's mini rex doe. I am also purchasing a chin ml jr. doe from Jody Mitchell and a beautiful REW mini lop SR doe from S&K Rabbitry. Diva is a half sister to Africa who we just had to put down after the buck broke her back while trying to breed. What a freak accident and I have never had this happen to me before in all the years of breeding rabbits. Thanks Stan and Kathy for letting us buy Diva.

I am also adding a fun breed to my barn. A breed that I have never raised before, but have thought about over the years. It is a surprise and I will post later when I get them. I will be picking them up at VIRBA, and I am looking forward to playing with this cool breed.

We are also planning to attend VIRBA and will have only a few to show. We are going to VIRBA to pick up stock and of course hang out and mingle with our bunny friends.

This is it for now, will post more later.
All the best.
Tammi