The babies were still doing well this morning and this evening when I checked. It's unusually cold here at the moment with temperatures dropping into the teens, so I haven't pulled them out for anything more than a quick check. Hopefully we will find a place soon as the county fair where we will be living is the first part of August which means breeding the end of April for meat pen.
Not everything has panned out the way it was supposed to here is Virginia, but we have had a little ray of sunshine. Brigid gave birth yesterday to 8 healthy babies. There are 7 chinchilla colored, and 1 white. The white is slightly disappointing, but not unheard of. As soon as we have our own place to stay we will breed Neala and possibly Juliet.
The babies were still doing well this morning and this evening when I checked. It's unusually cold here at the moment with temperatures dropping into the teens, so I haven't pulled them out for anything more than a quick check. Hopefully we will find a place soon as the county fair where we will be living is the first part of August which means breeding the end of April for meat pen.
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Well, when we get out to VA we will be acquiring a breeding trio of adult American Chinchilla Rabbits. One will already be bred. So it won't be TOO long before we have babies again. We could breed the other right away, but will probably wait, and keep it to 1 litter at a time for the first little bit, since we won't be fully settled and don't want to take on too much at a time. The Am Chins will be coming from really good lines out of Ohio, Clum Rabbitry. I look forward to showing them and competing in Meat Pen this fall. Also we have created a FaceBook page to document our progress as we start the "homesteading" venture. https://www.facebook.com/WhiteWingHomestead
Feel free to join us. Honey had a litter of 3 live babies, and 3 stillborn. Her live babies are doing fabulous. They are big. She had them Christmas morning. They should be opening their eyes any day now. Also, we are moving to Virginia. Because of this we are reducing our herd to a couple of JRs that will be ready to breed once we are settled. We have a buyer that is taking Muppet, Remmy, Honey and the babies once the babies are out of the nest. Flutter is going to the girl that got Galaxy and the 2 Chin girls from the last litter. When we get started back up we will be picking some American Chinchillas. :D One of the JRs we are taking with us is from the last litter with Flutter & Galaxy. She is HUGE! She is 8lbs and only 4 months old. Well, the craziness of the holidays, the limited amount of day light, and the snow on the ground eliminating most run time has put a damper on the Baby-Blog.
We are expecting 2 litters any day now from Honey and Charlie. *fingers crossed* We are also looking at moving very shortly so this may be our last litters for a little while. :( The other litters are pretty much 8 weeks old now and selected breeders will be made available soon. Sorry for the short post, gotta get back to work. Sorry there aren't a lot of pictures. I leave before the sun peaks in the morning, and get home as it sets. The babies of litters W009 & W010 are doing well. Nice and big and fluffy. It's been a busy week as the temps drop and winter storms start moving in. We figured that plastic barrier wasn't doing much other then scaring them. As a storm blew in the plastic was ALL over, not just pressed up against. So everyone go boxes wedged sideways under their shelf to hide in away from the wind. It seems to be working well. We also go ice cube trays and little plastic buckets to act as crocks when the tubes on the water bottles freeze. The moms with babies get the ice cube trays to prevent babies from piling up and drowning. They are loving it.
We also bred this weekend. So the waiting game begins again. Charlie was bred to Chinchin. After trying ALL day he finally got a fall off last night. Since she dropped 6 kits last time with barely even a mount, we are crossing our fingers that this was enough. We also bred Honey to Remmy, which should mean purebred New Zealand Whites available in February. Remmy did MUCH better this time getting about 8 successful falls with Honey. Honey was so eager that she was lifting Remmy off the cage floor, she lifted that much for him. So by Christmas we should have 2 more litters. I cleaned the nest boxes when their eyes opened as usual. Unfortunately a couple days later a few of Flutter's had crusted eyes. I cleaned, pulled the wooden nest boxes, and subbed empty, sanitized, plastic kitty litter buckets. All but one cleared up right away. Unfortunately one didn't do as well and we had to get medication. It is starting to improve. So soon the babies can start mingling. We got the front plastic on for when the cold wind blows, and got a shop light wi Well the babies are getting and their eyes are open. We have tagged their ears (with Sharpie). Still 19 babies. They are growing well. We have a nice variety of colors.
The babies are doing well. Both litters have nice fat tummies and are getting big. You would never know that they are 24 hours apart (at birth). It looks like we have chinchilla colored in both litters, a couple blacks, a couple steels, maybe a chestnut, and some white and/or ermine again. It's going to be a nice variety again. Oh yeah... An we have a new "skunk face"! This one looks like it will be a GTS like the last one ( a few litters back).
Today we had some great news. Flutter gave birth to 11, 10 live - 1 still birth. They look health with big fat bellies. This is our largest litter, and with only 1 fall off from a "baby" buck. Sadly, we also had our first birth on the wire. Apparently even though Charlie wouldn't let Argent mount, he was able get some in there. She gave birth to 6 babies, apparently shortly after the morning feeding and we found them when I got home from work. We now have a rabbitry "rule" of A nest box goes in 28 days after ANY contact with a buck. |
In The Nest Boxes
Here we post "blogs" of what is happening with our kits and breeders. We also have a blog under "Information" for general rabbit info. Archives
March 2016
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