A quick look at two week old baby bunnies in the nest

Pretty new babies!

We have successfully identified Love as the mother of this litter.  Based on the fact that none of them have broken coloration (i.e. patches of white like Reed and Arnold) we can make a well-founded assumption that Haystack is the lucky father.  We have one fawn - he's out front here-that looks to be a buck.  Drew named him Cracker.  The ruby-eyed white is a doe we've named Rosabelle.  The other three are tortoiseshell, probably chocolate, maybe black, and appear to be two bucks and a doe.  Drew will name them later.  We'll confirm gender in a couple of weeks but I've gotten pretty good at identifying them- just not keeping them away from each other!  I could have wished for more does and fewer bucks but we're lucky to have such beautiful rabbits.

I'm an idiot

Today Drew found one of our does pulling fur and building a nest.  Apparently, I didn't separate the boys and girls fast enough before getting the boys neutered.  Totally my fault. <sigh>

Shearing day

Snowflake is sheared!  It took about an hour but she is sheared, wearing her two layers of fleece shearing jackets and under a ceramic heat emitter.  She is eating which is a good sign that she is not going into shock from the change in body temp.  I gave her a few dried blueberries for being such a good sport about a rank amateur clipping her.  Wool everywhere!  Four gallon bags full.  Not all of it prime, of course, (3 inches) because, hey, first time and all.  I feel really good about the whole process.

Snowflake

Today, Drew and I ventured into new territory when we acquired this German Angora doe from Shelby Rose Rabbitry in Salem, WI.  The International Association of German Angora Breeders (IAGARB) had a rabbit registration at Simons Feed and Seed in Elkhorn.  Michelle France of Shelby Rose invited us to attend so we went at 9:00 and stayed until noon.  Leslie Samson, co-author of Completely Angora, the "bible" for all things Angora, is the current president of IAGARB and she came down from Canada to do the registration and judging.  She is a really great person and I was so happy to meet her.  She talked me through the judging and had me try my hand at evaluating body conformation and wool.  I was getting the hang of it by the time we left.  Everyone there was very welcoming and helpful and I learned a lot.

I haven't posted in a long time as I have been dealing with chronic lateral epicondylitis, commonly known as "tennis elbow."  I've been avoiding using my computer at home since I have to use it so much at work.  I've been having acupuncture treatments in the last week and it has helped tremendously really quickly.

Anyway, Drew and I sheared rabbits at the end of October and have had all our French Angora bucks neutered as we don't plan to breed anymore.  As a result of that decision, we discussed acquiring a German as they are bred for commercial wool rather than as show rabbits.  The focus for Germans is the wool, which is what we are interested in.

French seemed like the way to start because they can be acquired for less money.  We paid between $40-$50 for the rabbits we purchased and then of course we bred for more.  An unregistered German goes for about $175, a registered German for about $300.  Periodically, some breeders import new breeding stock from Germany.  Their body type is different from the French Angora, their wool is quite dense, and prime wool (at least 3 inches long) can be acquired from nearly every part of their body.  I saw a rabbit today that had nearly 3 inches of wool on the bottoms of her feet!  To be registered with IAGARB, they have to produce at least 325 g of wool at a judged shearing of a 90-day coat, producing 1300 g by the end of a year. You can read more about that here.

One of the benefits of having Germans and being a member of IAGARB is that they have a wool co-op.  You can send in a minimum of 5 pounds of wool at a time and get spun yarn back.  One of the things that disappointed me when we started is that there is no fiber co-op in Wisconsin.  I don't spin and so we would be selling raw wool to hand-spinners.  Having the option to have spun yarn for sale would expand our options.  We haven't committed to any of this yet.  We are going to see how it goes with our new doe Shelby Rose Elka.  We call her Snowflake. :-)

Photobomb!

Cherry is a notorious photobomber!

Cage-free

After many weeks of work, we finally have all 13 rabbits out of cages and living harmoniously together.  The last addition was Antonio, who was neutered after siring three successful litters.  He and Ray had to scuffle a bit when we first put Antonio out with the others.  We re-caged each of them on every other night for about three days until they settled down and accepted one another.  Today Drew and I groomed all the rabbits and trimmed their nails and took photos.  We had a great morning for it with 60 degrees in the enclosure so everyone was comfortable.  We also have our new straw shed up and ready for use.

Two weeks old!

Today has been a day of weird.  Cherry was terrorizing all the other rabbits.  They were all running at top speed around the enclosure and, at one point, six of them were hiding behind the food cans in a close heap.

Then, the one of the supposedly weaned rabbits from Lizzie's litter was upside down underneath her trying to nurse inside the mini-bunny house.  They are practically the same size!

Day #12

Eyes are open!  I took Daisy out at 1:00 am for a bathroom break and saw two of these little scamps crawling around the enclosure, exploring.  They are getting nice and big and I expect to see a lot more of them outside the nest in the next few days.

Day #10

As I was snapping this photo, one of the babies sense Mom was in the area and took off to try to nurse.  Cherry was frantically trying to turn the lid back over on the babies so they couldn't find her!

Day #9

We had visitors today!  Letty and Suzanne came to visit and see all the bunnies.  It's amazing how big Lizzie's "babies" look now.   They look bigger than Daisy, our 8-week-old pug puppy but they are nearly the same age.  Here are Cherry's five babies on Day 9.  I think I identified Robin by being slightly larger than the others and the mark on his right near his tail that I photographed the day s/he was born.

I think Robin is the broken at the top of the picture with the "stripe" down its spine.  Their ears are fully open and moving around.

Day #8

The remaining five are all accounted for.  Their eyes are just starting to slit open a tiny bit.  The last couple of nights have been a little chaotic due t o our new puppy disrupting our routine so the baby bunnies have been visited late in the evening when they are asleep and I haven't wanted to take them out of the nest.  I have three days off so I am planning to do plenty of rabbit chores, including a proper health and welfare check.

Day #7

I didn't disturb the babies last night but tonight I found that one of the little solid fawn babies was missing.  I took apart the whole nest and searched the entire enclosure--no sign of it.  I have no idea what happened to it or if it was there last night since I didn't move the babies to count them.  Yesterday's photo only shows five but sometimes one is underneath the rest.  Not this time.  It is very disheartening.

Day #6

Do not let this peaceful scene fool you!  I cleaned out the bedding, as after five days it is a bit soiled.  Trying to put them back in was like a French farce!  As soon as I got one in the refurbished nest, another one was escaping across the enclosure.  They are fast!  Drew was telling me to quit fooling around; I told him I wasn't fooling around, I couldn't keep them all in one place long enough to put the lid back on them.  We are using 1/2 of a dog carrier as as a "burrow".  I had noticed that Cherry had piled a lot of straw in the entrance.  I now know why!  She's worried about escapees.

Day #5

I had to wake them up for this one as I got home rather late.  Their ears are starting to unseal and all of them have nice round tummies.  Ray is particularly interested in everything I do when I am in the enclosure.  Cherry had to chase him away from the babies as she doesn't appreciate his interest, although he just seems curious.

Day #4

Cherry supervised while I took my daily photo.  They were jumping around and squeaking like crazy, very strong.

Then I got the privilege of watching Cherry nurse her babies, something that rabbit mothers usually do without an audience but Cherry trusts me.  I petted her gently while the babies nursed.  Then she hopped away, dropping them all in a heap!

Day #3

Today, three are clearly broken and three are clearly solid.  It's funny, as the genetics prediction says 1/2 solids and 1/2 broken, and it definitely is.  I know Cherry was feeding them this morning but I noticed all but one looked like they could use another meal.  Lizzie's babies always looked like Weebles, but again, this is Cherry's first litter.  I have been feeding her black oil sunflower seeds to add fat to her milk.

Day #2

I think I'm beginning to see the broken pattern on #1 and #6 (from left to right) and possibly #4.  The other three look fawn to me at this point but I will keep taking photos of this litter to see how the color develops.  One of the babies had a wrinkly stomach which means it isn't getting enough to eat.  I hope by tomorrow night that has been rectified.

Looking pretty good

Six babies, all active and looking well fed.  I think Cherry is turning out to be an OK mom!

Whaaaat?

Nearly 24 hours after Cherry gave birth to Robin, she gave birth to five more kits!  Drew found them in the nest in the late afternoon.  They definitely weren't there at noon when I checked on Robin.  Of course, now we can't identify Robin!  It's too early to tell whether or not any of them have the "broken" pattern that Cherry has with white and colored hair but we should be able to tell in a couple of days.

The only thing I can think is that Robin was in one of Cherry's two uterine horns and the five other babies were in the other.  She also gave birth rather late.  28 days was June 21 so Robin was born on Day 30 and the rest on Day 31.

One baby, all alone

Cherry gave birth to a single kit sometime in late afternoon/early evening on June 23.  She left it out in the middle of the floor so Drew put the baby in the nest that Cherry had prepared three or four days before.  We decided to name it Robin, in honor of Robin Williams, an actor we sadly miss, who was also an only child.  Robin can be a male or female name so we thought it would be appropriate either way.

When I came home in the evening, Robin felt very cool to my touch so I found a box of wool I had clipped from Cherry a while ago and I chopped it up into small pieces with my scissors and filled the nest with more wool.  Cherry had pulled very little.  In the morning, when I checked on the kit, it felt warmer.

Busy Sunday afternoon!

Today we finally tried out our German clippers.  We gave Ray and Grace haircuts to cope with the summer heat.  Since I didn't have a clue what I was doing, I didn't try to get good wool, I just experimented with the clippers to see how to do it.

Ray's before picture

Ray's after picture

Hard to see the difference, right?  One, I was afraid to get too close to the skin and nick him and two, he had some matting that the clippers couldn't go through so I had to cut with scissors.  He should look more like this:

Sheared German Angora

I will continue to practice and see if I can't get a smoother cut.  

Then we tattooed the babies' ears.  I have no idea if the tattoos will be readable.  The cordless tattoo pen is supposed to be pretty easy but I think the kind that you just squeeze into the ear with movable type would be clearer and involve less wriggling.  We did wrap them up in towels but it's hard to know how tight to hold such little critters without hurting them.

Finally, we washed all the food and water bowels and put out fresh frozen ceramic tiles to beat the heat and came in for a much needed shower and cold beverage.

Faith forgave us right away for poking her in the ear.

Lazy Sunday afternoon

Introducing our newest herd members

Faith, a chestnut lynx doe

Hope, a fawn cream buck.  That's right, a male named Hope.

Love, a fawn doe

Ray joins the colony

From left: Cherry, Ray, Grace

Ray was neutered three weeks ago.  He is now cage-free and hanging out with all the girls.  Grace, especially, likes having him around.  They snuggle and nap together and chase each other around.

Making oneself comfortable

I cut myself off on the end but Drew said it didn't matter, it was clear I was calling this one a NUT.

Roaming around

Lizzie's three babies are out exploring now and interacting with all three does.  They are trying out hay and greens and water and snuggling with sister Grace and aunt Cherry. (Please excuse my heavy breathing.  Grass season is in full swing and my allergies are, too.)

One week old

Our three little survivors are doing well.  We can't be sure quite yet but it looks like one little black one and two little fawn ones.  I say we can't be sure because Grace looked black as a baby but she is definitely not black!  There was a beautiful little lilac baby that we lost.  It still grieves me at the loss of all those little potential beauties but I'm very glad that we still have these three darlings.

Freak accident causes loss

We lost six of our babies last night to a freak accident due to the torrential downpour.  Water overwhelmed the gutters and flowed into the nest.  We managed to save three.

Three days old

Oscar is all turned around!

Actually, they don't have names.  They are still so new they have tiny black umbilicus nubs on their tummies.  We are hoping for mostly does, of course, but we are just happy that they are all strong and active.

Babies everywhere!

Nine bouncing babies, all apparently healthy and active! At least three different colors.  Lizzie and Antonio did a great job!

Kissed by a bunny

I wish I had enough hands to have taken photos!  I was grooming Ray, our younger buck, and Cherry and Grace were swarming around us, nibbling at his head and tail and generally being nuisances.  The next thing I know, Cherry has jumped into Ray's cage and is eating his greens!  She has plenty in her own bowl, but no.  After I was done with him and put him back in his cage, I leaned over to pick up the matted hair I had brushed out.  Cherry gets right up under my face, gets up on her back legs, and touches her lips to mine.  Kissed by a bunny!

From cages to colony

It was clean-up day at the rabbitry.  I raked out all the old straw from the winter.

 I hauled out straw, hay boxes, various tools...

 I took the soiled straw to the raised bed.  That should put paid to all the weeds that keep sprouting up there, no matter how many times I spray it.

 I aired out the moving blankets that I put over the cages on the 60 below nights.

 I took out the girls' cages and left the boys in theirs.  Fresh straw on the cement floor, some straw bales for jumping on and some nest boxes for the hoped-for babies expected to arrive by next weekend.  Grace is having a nose-to-nose conversation with Ray through the cage door.

 Cherry is checking out the jumping opportunities.

 The girls have food, water, and hay available.

 The boys get to see as well as smell the girls at least.

The girls were out in the runs while I rearranged the area.  They were their usual crabby selves when they thought I was taking them back to their cages.  When they realized that I was going to let them just jump out and run around in the enclosure, they looked around themselves as if to say, "Really?"

Haircut Day

I haven't been doing too much with the rabbits outside of  basic everyday chores but it was haircut day today so my husband kindly recorded Drew and me harvesting Antonio's wool.  Check it out.