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.