I'm pleased to announce the addition of two Angora/California cross bucks. I had hoped for does, but there were only bucks left. One is a lilac point, and the other is broken black (he has spots on his butt too). Unfortunately, the broken buck was matted pretty bad, so I spent the better part of the afternoon brushing and cutting his beautiful fur to get him to the point where he'll be comfortable and able to grow out a healthy mat-free coat. Since I have no angora does, when they're older they may be available for stud services. As for right now, they're settling in and will be raised for their fur (which will be trimmed and sold every 4-5 months).
Trouble went to his new home today. He was one of the 4/24/13 twins. I'm excited to see him go to an active young family who will put the time into handling him and taking excellent care of him.
In other chinchilla news, three new arrivals made their debut yesterday. One beige male, one white female, and one (I assume) standard male. He looks like a standard, but his tail is oddly white, which could be just a fluke, or it could mean that he's a reverse mosaic. We'll see how he looks as he gets older. The baby bunnies are continuing to grow. There are three that are bigger than the rest (milk hogs), but otherwise, nobody is noticeably behind (no runt). I tentatively sexed them as 4 males, 3 females and one that I'm still not sure about. They'll be re-checked as they get older and bigger. Four of our five rabbits are now signed up to be shown at the county fair next week (Pickles will be staying home with her babies). Hopefully we can take home a ribbon or two. Since we're mostly breeding for meat and pet, show potential isn't a huge thing for us, but it'll be a fun experience for the kids. Tomorrow we're going to check out some new bunnies that we may be adding to the herd for fiber potential (harvesting their fur regularly to be sold for yarn making and felting crafts). What a fun new potential venture! We aren't planning to breed fiber rabbits (angora) right now due to lack of cage space, but maybe in the future. The baby bunnies are growing so quickly! Most of them have their eyes open now, and they are wandering out of the nest house and out into the wire portion of the cage. Today was the first time the babies (those brave enough to leave the box) got to discover a frozen water bottle. It was super hot today, but the babies (and mom) are just fine. They're getting handled every day, and now the kids are handling them too. Here are some updated photos from today (12 days old). The odd colored bunny. If this one is a doe, I'm considering keeping it (her) back. This one is gorgeous and continues to get prettier by the day! The nose is dark, eye rings are light, and it's starting to get agouti ticking throughout the coat. Not sure what color this is considered, but I like it!
The big rain storm today coupled with the wind ended up sending rain sideways into the enclosed nesting box, effectively soaking the baby bunnies and matting all of the soft nest fur to the bottom of the box. Thankfully I check on them every day before I go to bed, and I was able to bring them in the house and get them dry. I added pine bedding to the box to give them something to nest in, and I put a tarp over the entire cage for the night. Hopefully the rain will let up tomorrow so I can modify the cage to prevent this from happening again in the future. Crossing my fingers that the baby bunnies will be alright. One was cold when I found them, but all were warm and dry when they were returned to the box, and since it's now covered, even if they wander out of the box, or the rain picks up again, they should be alright for the night.
Baby bunnies are officially one week old today! Some of their ears are starting to open up so they're not all pushed back (see the blue baby in the photo below). In other exciting bunny news, father of this litter, Dark Chocolate Thunder (half lionhead, half mini lop) went to his new home today. No babies and no nesting going on with Stew, so I'm assuming there will be no babies from her. That's alright though, we'll just put her in the fair and breed her again afterwards. I think eight baby bunnies is enough to keep us busy for the next 5 weeks.
The baby bunnies are doing well and are growing so quickly! Here's an updated photo taken today (5 days old). I also updated their dad's photo. The picture I'd been using was taken as soon as I got him home from the auction, so it was definitely past due to get an update on him as well. Here's the father, Dark Chocolate Thunder... He's a lionhead / mini lop. And if anyone was interested in taking a peek... Here's the mom bunny (Pickles). She's a New Zealand Red. I owned both of her parents as well.
I did my daily inspection of the baby bunnies today and to my surprise, our little litter went from seven to eight! I don't know where the last bunny was hiding, but there are definitely now eight babies in the nest! Here is their photo (3 days old). Most of the black babies are turning brown (chestnut agouti), starting on the tops of their heads and working down their backs.
A new litter of baby bunnies arrived yesterday! There are seven in the nest. Six are black like dad, and one is a different silver blue color. They're squirmy and make the cutest noises. The last litter stayed still and quiet when checked on, but this litter makes a lot of noise and starts moving around. Taming them down should be fun. I'm hoping that odd colored one survives, as I'd like to see how he (or she) turns out. Mom is a New Zealand Red and dad is a lionhead/lop cross. Photos will be posted when they're a little older.
In other big news - Nymeria and her kittens are finally back on the webpage now! They were down and out for a couple months undergoing medication and staying in quarantine, but they're recovering quite well now and should be ready for new homes in about a week! I've decided to get out of hamster breeding all together. My son's attempts to breed the teddy bears did not result in any babies. The dwarf hamsters have not been selling as quickly as they once were, and the number of cages we're having to clean simply takes up too much time. As a result, I now have three female dwarf hamsters, five male dwarf hamsters, one grey female teddy bear and one black and white male teddy bear hamster in need of permanent homes (my son decided to keep the sable female teddy bear as a pet). None are currently pregnant or paired male/female. Photos have been uploaded to the hamster tab. The male teddy bear is healing from a whooping he got from one of the girls, but he will be available as soon as he is healed.
I'm also planning to scale back on gerbils. I'll be going from two breeder cages to one. Sam and Ruby (agouti and lilac) are officially for sale now too. They're a proven pair, but Sam is an escape artist, so he'll need a secure cage. Next week I expect one or two litters of bunnies. I put both girls with a male, but only one of the girls is pulling her fur and making a nest as of yet. One litter will be a cross between a New Zealand Red and a lionhead/mini lop (black/otter). I'm excited to see how that pairing comes out. The other litter (that isn't pulling fur yet) should be a cross between a New Zealand Red and a New Zealand White. The kids want to put two of the bucks in the fair this year. If the second female didn't take (unlikely, but possible), she may be heading to the fair too. My apologies for not updating the blog section lately. Life has been increasingly hectic with the last weeks of school and now summer vacation. I've been busily making decisions about which animals to breed and which to retire. All of our younger female guinea pigs are now of age to start breeding, so two of the three have been put in with the males. Two more may or may not be pregnant. They were with a young male, and if no babies by Friday, then we'll have to decide if they'll be kept in the female only cage to wait, or in with the males to breed.
Chinchillas are about to be switched out as babies are due soon (earliest possible dates). I'm excited to see what my ebony/blue-eyed white pairing will produce. The other pair (mosaic/beige) is a repeat breeding, so I expect similar results from last time. My son has suddenly decided to pick up with breeding the Syrian hamsters again. I was ready to retire them all and stop working with them. He's put both females with the male, so we'll see if either one ends up having babies (male is proven, one female has had small litters before and the other female has bred multiple times without success to another male). The gerbils are breeding like crazy! I currently have three litters ready to go and two more litters nursing. I can't seem to move them fast enough, so I may have to sell off one pair. I've completely switched out my rabbits and have the does from the 1/9/13 litter ready to be bred to a new NZ Red buck (he's handsome), and we may be trying out breeding one of the NZ does to the lionhead/lop buck just to see what we get from it. The kids have decided they want to try their hand at showing rabbits, so we'll see what we have by fall. |
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