Lark Update

Well, here is the long overdue update on the wooly doe bred by the belgian buck.

She never nested, never kindled. However, upon palpating her again (she's over a week overdue), I still can feel something in there. Her belly is big and she just feels pregnant in general..

I suspect that I was successful in terminating the kit(s), but unfortunately she never triggered to go in to labor and since she is eating well and active, I suspect that the kit(s) have mummified.

Just perfect.

I have two options at this point- pet her out (she's not really got a pet personality, let's be honest) or rebreed her and try to get her to pass the belgian kits. Well I suppose a third option is to put her down, but that's one I'd like to avoid if at all possible.

Eurgh.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Getting overwhelmed

I'm trying to establish a routine. Now that I am thankfully employed again, Tim and I have been frantically searching for a second car. We've checked out probably every decent used car in several counties and unfortunately we've been screwed over trying to buy one (so we walked out) and the other was sold out from under us. *sigh*

So we're looking for a new car. Bah.

Anyway, this brings me to the rabbit point- I've been a bit overwhelmed between my new job and my "it seems like a full time job" car search.

I spent a few hours yesterday grooming out some juniors. Wow no one is in coat at all. It's a bit upsetting with the show season starting in just a few short weeks! The juniors I wormed in hopes of getting them to molt have disappointed me- no full blown molts!

The seniors are all looking half/half right now. Eurgh!! Incredibly frustrating. It's hard to stay on top of 40ish molting woolies.

I need to find the time to sweep the rabbitry floor, tattoo a few new ones and set up my breeding board so I know who is due when and who needs to be rebred!

I need to get a control on this soon before it spirals out of control!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Oddball doe-

I have a doe outside FRANTICALLY nesting. She keeps scratching the bottom of her box and carrying around large mouthfuls of hair.

The problem is- her baby is already born! In fact, he's two weeks old.

o.O I'm not sure what she's doing, but she is CONVINCED she needs another nest. I ended up having to take away her baby and foster him to another litter to make sure she didn't accidentally hurt him.

I had a litter born tonight- one REW peanut and one REW. Apparently, for whatever reason, I really favored the REW x REW litters this round. I think it will be my last litter with this doe. Her kits are beautiful and very sweet, but she's such a little witch. I think she really doesn't enjoy life.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

A Meanness Issue

I have a young junior buck. He's around 3 1/2 months old and at 2 weeks old was the most FRIENDLY baby I've ever met. He always greeted me at the front of the cage and would hop out if I left the door open to come visit my foot.

I weaned him and his foster sister. The buck went to his cage, the doe went to a separate one. For a while, that was no big deal.

Then, one day he started hiding at the back of the cage. I'd pull him out occasionally to run a brush through his wool and then put him back in.

Not long afterwards, he'd start feinting a charge at my hand. He never touched me, but he liked to act like he was going to.

We then progressed to actually touching my hand. Still, he never put his teeth on me.

Today he grazed my knuckle with his teeth when I put my hand in to feed. He knows I'm coming, as is evidenced by his hiding in the back of the cage and watching me like a hawk. He thumps when I walk by and runs to the back of his cage.

I'm really not sure what to do with him. I'm at max capacity with my cages as it is. I've had twitchy bucks that later turn sweet- well maybe not sweet, but at least they chill out some. However, I've never experienced a lover buck turn mean.

Part of me says give him at least until 5 months old to calm his little butt down. The other part says there is no place in the herd for a mean buck- especially since I need more space anyway.

Ugh, I guess I need to get out to Brandi's to pick up that 6 hole stacker I have on hold- that will help reduce the cage space strain and then I won't rush a decision.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Quick Update!

I managed to get WWR's Rice Ball bred and gave Wooligans Heartless her last try. If she doesn't kindle live babies for me, I'm going to have to let her go. She's a fantastically beautiful, bucky doe, but while she's kindled very large litters, they are always born dead. *sigh*


Brandi of BL's Bunny Barn is selling out. We're going to miss her. She's got some cute animals available, all ages and color groups, so if you're needing something, check her out. I am offering transport to Convention (via airline shipping).

Lark is nesting. Figures, she's the only one of the three girls due that is even playing in the hay. Eurgh.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Baby Boom!

I'm so happy, we're having quite the little baby boom right now!

Keep's Epiphany kindled two- one pinky (either REW or the dreaded Pointed) and one shaded baby! :D. She was linebred back to her daddy, Keep's Tryon, so I'm VERY excited about this litter.

Keep's Angel kindled two as well- one pinky and one pinky with a little color... could it, could it be an orange?! Only a little more time will tell, but my fingers are very crossed! Of course you know what they say about counting your kits before they are weaned.

Keep's Smoke kindled for the first time, one single DOA. Considering her age, I'm thrilled she kindled. Her nest could have been better, but she plucked plenty of wool, so she's got potential. It was this lucky girl's last chance. I'll wait a little while and rebreed her :).

Keep's Misunderstood, Keep's Lark ( :( ) and Wooligans Delaney are all due on the 18th.

I could have SWORN I bred WWR's Rice Ball, but don't have it recorded. I'll palpate her tomorrow and if she's been sitting all this time, I'll breed her. It's possible she was in the earlier group that all missed.

I'm hoping to breed Rice Ball, Prancer, Heartless (all shadeds) and a new Agouti doe in the next few days.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

The Trials of Outcross

I brought in an outcross buck, who's pretty nice looking. I bred him around to several does so I could get a quicker idea of what he produces- IE, I bred him a lot, knowing I might have to trash him and an entire generation, rather than feeding him for a year and finding out the same thing.

However, if he throws gorgeous babies, I'll have lots of them more quickly!

I'm eagerly awaiting them to come out of uglies. They are all around 3- 3 1/2 months old, so most don't have any wool caps at all and still have a lot of filling out to do. By the time show season starts, I should *hopefully* know who I like. Unfortunately, most of the babies are BUCKS! ARRGH!!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Babies born!

YAY! I had three babies born to a first time doe, Keep's Snow. It's the first litter out of Lyle Creek's Fabulous. I was starting to worry that maybe he was sterile :(. I'm happy to report he's not!

All three babies are REW, because that's what both the parents are :). I have NO idea what color Snow is hiding, though I do know that Fabulous is a self underneath his REW. Snow was out of Keep's Forest, so she does have a chance of being an agouti, which means the babies also have a chance of being an agouti.

I checked on Lyle Creek's Kendra and her two nestbox babies while I was out- thank goodness I did! Kendra has pulled more wool and her two babies were slow cooking! I pulled some fur out and moved them to the front of the box where they could cool off a little bit.

I've got 3 more does due on the 13th. I'm hoping they all take, especially since one gives me my best chance for ORANGES!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Too Hot to Live!

Ugh, it's miserable outside! Thankfully the bunnies are safe inside their A/C'd barn. It's still warm in there, because I won't turn it on full blast, but it's definitely knocked the heat down a level.

I'm dying for a show! It's been so long. Most of my juniors look NASTY because of this weather! I'm going to go on and worm, which will hopefully blow their coats off. Even if they can't show in September, they'll be more comfortable and will be on their way to prime :).

I've got some woolies that are needing new homes- most can go as pets, broods or shows, they just need to go!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Keep Records!!

Oh gosh- I made a big goof and didn't even intend to!

When I sold out my holland lops, I had 11 babies to move out and I didn't record who I sold them to in my pedigree program.

I was browsing websites and found the website of one person who had purchased several animals- some pedigreed and some pets. I emailed her based on a picture on her site, telling her that the pedigree information listed for one of the rabbits wasn't correct- I had convinced myself she had purchased 2 brokens as pedigreed animals and 2 solids as pets.

It turned out the pedigree (which I had supplied) WAS correct- my memory had failed me and she did get a solid animal with a pedigree. What started out as an attempt to make sure her pedigrees were accurate (especially because the pet animals carried a rainbow of colors behind them, while the others didn't) turned in to my giving a youth breeder a mini-heartattack.

It's important to keep good records! Unfortunately, my tattooer needle BROKE as I started pedigreeing the 11 holland babies, so only one got any kind of ID mark in it's ear.

Because I was selling out the hollands, I didn't do my usual record keeping. Eurgh.

KEEP GOOD RECORDS! That way you don't end up making a similar mistake!

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

Palpating Lark

I palpated Lark tonight.

I sadly suspect she is pregnant, I thought I felt a baby in her stomach. While I'm not 100% accurate on palpating, I will be proceeding forward as if she is pregnant.

:(

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

My new barn!!

My new barn is ready!


The most beautiful thing I've ever seen! It took weeks to get the electricity run to the building in an affordable manner- the first quote was from someone trying to blatantly rip us off, then we had to dodge thunderstorms daily once we finally found someone to do it for us.


Looky what I have! :) I'm planning on just keeping a small amount of cool air running through the rabbitry- enough to knock down the heat and not much more.


The bunnies settled in! :)


I still have a few more things to set up- my shelves, my water jug, etc, but I'm so happy to have the buns in there! :).

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry

The Barn

We had plans to have the rabbits installed in their new barn yesterday. It figures then, that it would rain most of the day. In between dodging rain drops and sitting inside cursing the downpours, we managed to move 23 cages and their occupants in. :) So at least we're around halfway done!

It's weird to have the herd split up the way it is, I definitely am hoping we're able to fit everyone else in their homes tonight.

Looking out the window- it's still raining. NOO! At least anything could happen- with NC if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes.

I suspect I'll have to have another herd reduction. Ok, scratch that- I know I will. I've got too many juniors that will need to move out and since I knew not all of my cages would fit in the new barn, I'll have to get rid of more adults as well. I did talk Tim in to letting me keep a trio of cages in the garage to house the pets- Joe the Mini Lop, Scout the neutered mixbreed and Pants, the VM Netherland. I'm still hoping to convince him that Pants needs to come inside, but so far I'm losing that particular battle.

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry