Update on the situation

Wow.

Ok, let's see- yesterday I found the 4th baby, which the Chestnut Foster Mom promptly attacked. When it became obvious the doe I suspect is the mother wasn't even going to pretend to have an interest in it, I braved the overly aggressive little doe's cage to add the 4th baby to the pile- giving her 9 to take care of.

Everyone was alive and if not fat, at least fed.

Thankfully my wooly doe Smoothie kindled two babies this morning. She's now also taking care of two of the mystery babies. Hopefully that'll go well.

I'm still waiting on Barbi to kindle- she's pulled SO MUCH fur, but her well built nest is beginning to look a little ramshackle. I'm hoping everything is going on. She's only 3 days over due so I'm trying hard not to freak out too quickly. I may try to induce labor today though. She's been very vocal and does NOT want me to touch her belly, so I haven't been able to palpate her to see what is going on.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

A bizzare rabbitry experience

I'm in the rabbitry checking on Barbi, who's overdue. No babies yet . So, I go around just saying hey to everyone else and checking the temperatures in different parts of the rabbitry. I decide to breed a doe who just missed and when I stoop to unlock her cage, realize there are two babies on the ground....ALIVE! Both are nice and clean, and not really chilled (thank god for summer), but I'm warming them up anyway.

Now- my quandary... there are TWO does in that area that are due. These babies were right in the middle of the cages, so they could really belong to either one. I check the trays for signs of afterbirth and see NONE in either cage but WAIT......there is a white baby in one of them! And this baby is like, a week old .

My best guess is going to be it's from Shadow's litter, on the other side of the rabbitry, and it crawled half the length of the building and up in to the poop tray. I've got to go count Shadow's kids right now, I brought everyone in to get cleaned up.


I'm so confused at this point.


A quick nose count confirms Shadow is missing a baby, so I put the white one back in and vanilla her nose, since the missing baby smells like another doe's bathroom.

Now on to the newbies.

We found a 3rd living baby! A broken blackish looking creature. Broken is the key, one of the does is solid, one is broken, both bred to solids- so that means it has to be Oh Crap's babies! I thought she had missed, this would have been her 5th day overdue.

But...wait. Last night, a second doe kindled- a broken chestnut holland who is in the same area. She's small and had 5 babies living and 1 DOA, so I think it's reasonable to assume she didn't really have 9 babies crammed up inside of her........I think.

Barbi is a good mom, so we don't suspect that these belong to her- she's been pulling fur for a week in preparation for the arrival of her kids.

At least I'll be able to tell by colors in a few weeks- Oh Crap is broken black tort and the other doe is a broken chestnut. The good news is.........the baby daddy is the same for all 3 does in question .

The three foundlings are all marked with sharpie and living with the chestnut doe's litter. I'm hoping Barbi kindles soon so I can foster them over to her!

-Kristen

SALES LIST!

I NEED SPACE!!! For once, I'm happily overrun with babies, so I really need some space.



Hare's Mystic Moon- Smoke Pearl Sr. JW Buck- 11 GC legs.

Came from Susie. I'm willing to do a VERY, VERY good deal for anyone that wants him. I've got several litters out of him and I HAVE to get some cage space. He's a bigger buck.



Keep's Dallas- JW Jr. Buck. Out of WWR's Constant Comment x Keep's Tryon. Very promising baby, 8 weeks old. I believe he will be a show buck.




Keep's Dusk- Black Jr. HL Doe

Unshown. Out of Keep's Barbi x Camelot's Gumby. She's got VERY nice lines. Very much in her uglies right now. She has nice bone, definitely not going to be oversize. I wish she had shorter ears and wasn't ugly right now. Needs to be worked with when posing.




PET ONLY AOV JR Buck- very cute but will be pedigreed only on father's side (mom was full JW, I sold her without keeping a copy of the ped, doh).

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Some up and coming juniors

It's been a while, so I thought I would post some pictures of some up and coming juniors! This is their first real attempt at posing, so you have to use your imagination a bit lol.

Buck #1- VERY promising little guy, he's not a fan of being posed, but exhibits more depth than he's showing here. Nice head and ears on him, good full HQ!

Buck #2- Nice depth! This guy is the smallest of the litter. Promising head and ears, nice full HQ, a very nice animal! He will probably be for sale soon.

Meet my POL! This little GIRL! (YAY) has the whole package- she's a nice size, beautiful depth, amazing width, great HQ, a very promising head and ear coming in- very excited!

-Kristen

Keep's Rabbitry

Babies!

I've got a ton of babies bouncing around the rabbitry and man, that feels good! I have two litters of woolies for a total of 12 babies still in the nestbox! I have 14 pre juniors or freshly weaned babies (not including the one I just sold today, hooray!) and I've got a fair number of does hopefully about to have more.

I'm so thrilled :).

My only problem now is managing the herd- I need to make some cuts to senior animals so I have room to grow out babies. I need to make cuts to litters- the hardest is going to be the Vixen litter and the Constant Comment litter- both are Jersey Woolies and the babies are gorgeous. Not to say I don't have other gorgeous babies, but wow, these litters really have style :).

I guess I'm saying, keep an eye out for sales lists coming up- I'm hoping to have some animals ready for the Night show in July.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Flystrike update

I had to put down the doe that had flystrike. There at the end, she was breathing and that's about it :(.

Ugh.

We broke down and ordered some Fly Predators. The fly strips and Rescue! fly trap are working, but they just can't keep up with the flies, especially since it's so hot we have to leave the doors open.

Hopefully they'll get here in the next few days.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Awesome New Webcomic!

And I'm not just saying that because I'm the writer...or am I? You decide :D.


Lauren of Lil Bun Designs and I have paired up to create "Conk Bunny", a webcomic that follows the adventures of her nutty trio of house bunnies. It's currently going to be updated on Tuesdays and Fridays, but we have hopes of making it much more often.

Check it out and let us know what you think! Don't be afraid to pass on the link ;).


-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

I spoke too soon.

Got a call the other day that one of my does wasn't eating or drinking. Got a call the next morning that "she was eating and drinking a little". Got home, she's SKIN AND BONES. I got to looking at her, she's very swollen around her privates and she looks like she's got some urine scald. I gave a bit of Pen G and was going to clip the remaining hair from her butt to provide some relief when I saw them- MAGGOTS. Tiny, tiny little maggots are on her and crawling around.

I ran inside, got the Ivomec and applied half on her back and half directly to the privates, after washing her butt off. No diarrhea, no large poop mess in the cage, nothing that indicates this should be a problem.

So, we've got her inside. I gave her a bowl of water and she's so thirsty she's sneezing and spluttering in to the water because she's drinking too fast. I gave her a large dish of nothing but oats. I don't think she had the energy to lift her head up to drink from her bottle. She's also got hay.

I'm very frustrated and upset. This poor doe- she's at least drinking and has a little fight left in her, but... I'm not sure if she's going to make it.

*sigh*

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Vacation

I'm on vacation, which is why I haven't posted in a while.

We got a call last night that one rabbit wasn't doing well. She had stopped eating and drinking. So, the dull edge of worry turned up full blown. It was late when we got the message, so we knew she wouldn't get any help until the next day.

Then comes the "What can we do?" Without being able to examine her ourselves, we had to figure out the cause of why she's not eating and drinking.

The best we could come up with was generic- move her to a carrier in the house, give her some extra oats and hay, put her water in a bowl. A catch all for what ails, you know?

A call this morning had me twitching- I was worried it would be the post-mortem call. Instead, she's fine! The doe decided to eat and drink again and since she's looking normal, the sitters decided to leave her where she is.

Thankfully! Now the worry can go back to a dull roar :)

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Judges reading the SOP before a breed.

We've all seen it- "Jersey Woolies to _____'s table!" As we're putting up the first class of whatever breed, the judge frantically flips open his Standard of Perfection and browses the standard for the breed.

I've seen different opinions on this.

Some folks HATE IT. They worry, and it's a justified worry, that it means the judge doesn't know what he (or she) is doing. They worry it's going to be a wasted $3.50 opinion.

Other folks, like me, don't worry about it.

My thoughts are- half the time I can't even remember the max weight on Jersey Woolies and I BREED THEM. I certainly don't have all the particulars of ALL the breeds floating around in my head. Think of all the dwarf breeds- posed differently, different min. and max weights, different allocation of points...... it would be HARD to remember!

I'd much prefer a judge to take a minute to remind himself of how to pose and what the point value on different aspects are, rather than trying to fake it. In my opinion, the worst judges I have ever had are the ones that don't know what they are looking for and don't care to remind themselves. Crack open a standard folks! I will never get angry for waiting an extra 5 minutes so that the judge can do the best job possible.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Another Death in the Rabbit World

Bob Whitman has passed away today from his battle with an aggressive cancer. :(

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Sad News

Brian Hartzell, a "big time" AFL and JW breeder and an excellent judge passed away today. Right now, I don't know for sure what has happened, there are rumors flying around the internet.

Regardless, our thoughts are with his family and his friends.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

AOV Jr. JW Doe for Sale

I've got an 8 week old AOV Jr. Doe available- Keep's Sylva.

She's a promising girl, excellent depth, good width, promising wool! She's out of my GC 4th place Self Sr. Buck (Convention) and the mother to my GC 2nd place Shaded Sr. Buck (Convention).

She could use a bit more in her lower HQ and she's a little low in her shoulders right now. She is undeniably at her awkward stages though, so there is no telling how she's going to fill out. She was my POL doe 2 weeks ago, but I think I need her sister's HQ a little more .

She's a "take a chance" doe- her mother is beautiful, her father is beautiful, her half siblings are beautiful and her littermates are beautiful. She definitely has the potential to produce better than herself. She carries REW. Has the potential to produce tort.

Will be headed towards the Conover area Monday, can meet you to deliver along the way

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Hot!

It's hot today! Ugh. Tim picked up a ton of octagonal tiles at a yard sale for free, so I've put them in the freezer. I'll be taking them outside in a few minutes to the cages.

Poor bunnies, I worry when the heat starts- especially since we'll be going on vacation soon. Thankfully we've rigged up a fencing to keep anything from sneaking in the backdoor and I can leave it open to make a nice cross breeze when we're here. Now if I can just figure out something for one of the front doors that is animal proof, we can leave it open even more!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Disappointment

Our Belgian Hare doe Jasmine kindled today, right on time. She pulled fur, made a nest and had 5 babies- all DOA. I'm wondering if a few of them weren't retained from the disaster last time. They definitely looked odd.

Anyway, we'll rebreed soon and try, try again. She's getting closer to getting it all right!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Baby Pictures.

Vixen's babies! They are getting so big!

There are battle royales for the coveted sitting in the feed honor.

The Barbi Babies :) The little black doe loves to use Mama as a chair.

RUN FROM THE UGLIES!!

The newest babies in the barn to get eyeballs- a sable chinchilla and black wooly litter.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

POL- Pick of Litter

Pick of the Litter- it means just what it says: Your choice of the best animal in the litter.

But- is POL always a good thing? Let's leave aside brood animals vs. show animals.

I'm bad about thinking I have to keep an animal out of each litter. I'm also extremely bad about wanting to try every possible combination in my barn. I'm trying to work past this.

Is it really a good thing to keep your POL, if the animal you keep is of less quality than the rest of your herd, just because it's out of Litter X?

Likewise, should you breed a doe to every buck in your barn, even if out of the first few litters, all you get is crap? I want my girls to be compatible with ALL my bucks, so I don't end up with separate lines running through the herd.

Lots of things to think about- but I think it's important not to be bogged down in Pick of the Litter. A substandard animal doesn't have a place in the herd. Only if it's an important line should I consider keeping animals not quite as nice as others- and then only if the offspring are better than the parents- or at least the parent of the same sex.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry