When You Mix Blue and Broken Lynx What Do You Get?

The India Shrine Circus is in Oklahoma City this week, and we spent yesterday morning attending their free performance as a family.  While to our joy and surprise we came home to some new parents in the rabbitry.

Our mini rex blue doe Holly and our broken lynx buck Missing Lynx are the proud new parents of a beautiful litter of six baby kits.  Born on March 28, 2019 we are over the moon and very excited to watch this little ones grow and develop.

A-Town's Periwinkle Joins the Rabbitry

This month has been a busy one for our family and the rabbits we raise.  We have weaned several litters of kits, we have met and made new friends while attending the show in Duncan, OK.  We have even added some new bloodlines and promising rabbits to our herd.  Our newest addition comes to us from Courtney McCreery at A-Town Rabbitry.

Meet A-Town's Periwinkle a white New Zealand.  She was born on December 12, 2018 and comes with amazing bloodlines that include:

• Grace Hollow
• Schmidt's
• RODA's
• Dickerson's
• Effling's

Already big big enough to be a junior she got to compete in her first shows in Duncan, OK.  Where she took first in class in all three shows.  She came home and promptly won the hearts of each and every one of my children.  They spoil her with love and attention and we are looking forward to seeing her continue to grow and blossom.  A big thank you goes to Courtney for letting us bring this beautiful girl home.

Let There Be Babies

As we begin winding up the month of March we are pleased to announce a couple litters of baby New Zealands.  Our broken black doe Sassy had a litter of four babies on March 25, 2019 and our black doe Tempest had a litter of nine babies on March 26, 2019.

Sassy's litter of four

Tempest's litter of nine

With both litters sired by our grand champion Swift we have high hopes for these kits and are excited to watch them grow and develop.

Our First Grand Champion

Well, it's official I just mailed off Swift's grand champion paperwork. Our very first Grand Champion. And another big thank you to Baileywick Rabbitry for helping us get our New Zealand program off to the right start with his handsome guy.

Spring Time Brings New Rabbits in the Rabbitry

Spring time is the wonderful time of the year when the world is waking up from a long winter's sleep and we start to see buds on the trees and rose bushes.  We are also beginning to see green peeking up in the lawn in the yard and are watching as the blue birds and robins begin to flit and flutter about.  It is one of my favorite times of the year.

It also comes with new litters of baby rabbits.  Our newest additions to the rabbitry come to us from Roxanne Hanna a fellow red New Zealand breeder who has had some great litters recently and offered us the opportunity to purchase a couple of lovely junior does for our herd.

Burgundy Lace

Our first addition is a little red New Zealand doe who we have named Burgundy Lace.  Born on December 18, 2018 her sire is Rum's Wonka and her dam is Anchors Aweigh Scarlet.  Burgundy Lace is already at junior weight and attended the recent show in Duncan, OK where she took a couple of firsts and a second in her classes.  We are so pleased with this little doe and expect great things for her future.

Coppertina

Our second addition is a little broken red New Zealand doe who we have named Coppertina.  Born on December 21, 2018 her sire is also Rum's Wonka and her dam is Anchors Aweigh Sundara who just had her paperwork sent off for her grand champion certificate.  She is a sweet heart and I am quite often finding my kids with her in their arms getting loved on and petted.  She is also now junior weight and we are looking forward to seeing what the judges think of her at the next show.

A big thank you to Roxanne Hanna.  You raise beautiful rabbits and I couldn't be happier with our newest additions.

Rabbitry Record Keeping: Basic Health Chart Free Download

I have started to discover that if you are going to run and maintain a rabbitry with more than three or four rabbits that keeping good health records on each of your rabbits is essential.  Having a written record of what is going on with each rabbit, such as:

• how much they weigh
• when you do nail trims
• any treatments for injury or illness
• breeding records

All of this is important information to have and keep in order to take good care of your animals.  There are a lot of ways that you can track this kind of information, and I admit that I mostly use a computer software program to store all of this information digitally.  However I have yet to find a way to export an entire animals records into a file for easy printing from the program I use.  This means that when I sell an animal I need to create a paper copy of all the information.

A friend of mine Laura Thomas from Chughole Farm Rabbitry inspired me when I purchased a couple of her Red New Zealands a while back with her health records she included with each rabbit for me and so I got to thinking that this could only benefit the future owners of the rabbits I sell as well.  And so with her permission to tweak and recreate her health chart to suit my needs I have created a Rabbit Health Chart that I use regularly.  And I am making available to all of you to download and use for free.

My hope in creating this free resource is to promote better awareness and add to the responsible care and keeping of rabbits.  As my own children show an interest in raising their own breeds of rabbits I know this will also go a long way in helping our youth and 4-H groups learn how to keep detailed records.

I have the PDF file available through google drive to download here.  This is a free printable resource.  Please feel free the make changes to it to suit your needs and use as many copies as you like.  I only ask that you direct people to my blog to download their own copy and do not host the file anywhere on the internet without written permission from me.  Thank you.  If you love the health chart and want to say thanks we are always accepting donations to help feed the rabbits.

Tempest and Angel Join the Rabbitry

We are pleased to introduce a couple of new additions to the rabbitry.  Both are senior Black New Zealands who we are hoping will be great mothers if given a chance.  They came to us from Roxanne Hanna who is a friend and fellow New Zealand Red breeder from Duncan, OK.

Angel

Angel comes with great breeding lines of Esterline and Chughole and was born on March 18, 2017.  Since she hasn't gotten a chance to prove she can be a great mom, we decided to take a chance on her and see what she has to offer.  I know that once they get a little older if they have never had kits, some rabbits have a harder time getting pregnant, but we have our fingers crossed and have paired her with our Grand Champion Swift for her first breeding.  We are looking forward to seeing what the future holds for her.

Tempest

Tempest also comes with a great looking pedigree from Esterline and Gillispie's lines.  She was born on December 19, 2017 and also hasn't had a chance to prove whether she will be a great mom or not.  So we have also paired her with our buck Swift for her first breeding and these two girls if they took will be delivering some black New Zealand kits within a few days of each other.

A big thank goes out from us to Roxanne Hanna for allowing us to give these two lovely girls a chance at motherhood.

Stephens County RBA Show Results

 We are home from our latest show with the Stephens County RBA in Duncan, OK.  It was a fun couple of days and a great show.  I had the opportunity to meet some new breeders who raise New Zealands and enjoyed visiting with friends and breeders that I already knew.

Everyone is relaxing before the next show starts

With three shows in one weekend, the rabbits got a chance to spend some time hanging out and relaxing in their carriers in between shows.  With the new additions that joined us at the show (more info on them coming soon) I ran out of carrier space and ended up buying an extra carrier to bring everyone home in.  Which was so silly because I took my daughter's mini rex that she showed on Friday home that evening along with my extra carrier.  I learned a lesson that day, always have an extra carrier space until the end of the show.  It will be nice to have another transport carrier though so I won't complain too much.

Thunderstorm

A couple of the rabbits I took did pretty well this weekend and for that I am pleased.  Our first winner is Thunderstorm a broken black New Zealand.  His wins this weekend were exciting for me because he is from the very first litter that I have bred and raised here at the bowery.  He took best of variety and best opposite sex of breed in one of the three shows this past weekend.

I had even offered him for sale to a couple of people looking to get into showing rabbits in 4-H this weekend.  I am kind of glad that they decided not to purchase him as this confirms that he is growing well and I am looking forward to seeing how he does in the future as well.  With such a sweet disposition and showing promise on the show table I look forward to watching him continue to develop and we will see how he does as an intermediate buck in the near future.

North Star

Our next winner is one of my foundation white New Zealand herd does from Joy Griffin.  She has done well on the show table before and continues to impress me more and more as she grows and develops.  We have finally picked a name for her and call her North Star here around the barn.  She took best of variety in whites in all three shows this weekend.  We are enjoying watching her grow and blossom and will be breeding her with our white buck Cirrus in the near future for our very first litter of whites.  He already has 4 legs from the first couple of shows he attended and I am super excited to see what these two will bring to the table as a breeding pair once North Star is old enough to be a mama.

Some of our other juniors took a couple firsts in their class and we are also looking forward to seeing how they continue to grow and develop.  The next show we are planning to attend is at the end of this month in Stillwater, OK.

Prepping for a Rabbit Show Starts With a Trip to Urgent Care

One would think that when you are getting ready to attend a rabbit show competition that the last thing you can expect to be doing is sitting in the urgent care waiting to see a doctor for stitches but that is right where my daughter and I were on Friday the 15th instead of loading the van and filling carriers with our show rabbits.

It started out with a normal enough morning.  We got up and fed all the animals at the rabbitry then we finalized the list of rabbits we wanted to consider taking and started prepping transport carriers and my box of supplies that I always take with me.  Well, one of the things I always do before putting each of the rabbits into their transport carrier is weigh them one last time to confirm their size and make sure that there won't be any last minute surprises or D/Q's for being over or under weight for each rabbit's age group.

Both my older daughter's were helping with this task and while I was busy getting the next rabbit out my oldest opened and reached in to pick up one of our junior black bucks for weighing.  Now this buck has had some wonderful results on the show table up to this point, but has also showed signs of having a bit of a mean streak.  Until this particular morning he has never bitten anything except our big sleeves on our winter coats and I was giving him a cautious pass until spring, because maybe it was something about the puffy coat and the noise it made that set him off.  Well that all ended the moment my daughter reached into his hutch.

He lunged at my daughter's hand and managed to grab hold and bite down on the meaty part of one of her fingers.  And I mean he bit down hard.  She started screaming and crying and tried to lift her hand out of the cage and away from him when he flipped over and started kicking his hind feet into her arm.  At that point she jerked away from him as I turned to see what was going on and to my horror I see a 7.5 lb rabbit hanging from my crying daughter's hand.  She was finally able to get him to let go and I quickly shut the door to his hutch.

After one quick look at her finger I told her to run to the house and wrap it in a clean towel because she was going to need stitches and we were going to the urgent care right now.  All preparation stopped as I called my husband at work to fill him in and bolted to the house with the other kids who were helping trailing behind me.  Fortunately Seriah's teenage sister is only a year younger than her and is responsible enough that I could leave her to watch her siblings for 20 minutes until her father could get home so I could take Seriah to see the doctor.

The urgent care was able to get her into a room quite quickly and after two or 3 stitches and a finger wrap to immobilize it; she was patched up, given a prescription to prevent infection because the bite was very deep and we were on our way home again.  As we talked about what happened and played the event over carefully, we were unable to determine any trigger on our part that would have justified him getting defensive let alone attacking my daughter like that.  So regardless of how he had done on the show table, one of things I am a stickler for is temperament.  With so many wonderful rabbits in the world I see absolutely no point in risking my kids with injury and keeping ones that have a mean streak of any kind.  Which means we now have one less rabbit that went to the show and one less rabbit to house and feed at this point.

I am also certain that I could not in good conscience sell a rabbit with that kind of disposition to another person and so this one is going to become rabbit curry in the near future.

First Litter of Mini Rex Weaned & Ready For New Homes

Clarilla and Yenogoo's kits are weaned and ready for new homes and eventually the show table.  My daughter has recently discovered Dr. Who and all the kits in this litter have gotten names from this science fiction show.

Meet Dalek.  He is from my daughter's very first litter of kits.  Born January 14, 2019.  He is a sweet little thing.  His parents Yenogoo and Clarilla  have given this little a nice type so far, and Clarissa is looking forward to watching him grow and taking her very first born and bred rabbit to the shows later this spring when he is big enough.  He is going to be staying in the rabbitry and joining our herd.

Meet Rose Tigger a spin on Rose Tyler from Dr. Who she is a cute little broken castor doe and enjoys being held.  We are looking forward to watching her grow, but are offering her for sale as a pet or brood quality rabbit.  She is available without a pedigree for 30.00.

Meet Noble our little broken castor charlie doe.  Since she doesn't have enough markings to be showable we are offering her for sale as a pet or brood doe only.  She is available without a pedigree for 30.00.

Winter has Arrived

Last month we had the opportunity to travel to Arizona for the state convention rabbit show in Kingman.  While we were attending this fun three day event we added to the foundation of our white New Zealand stock.

Meet Winter born November 19, 2018 from ABR's and Tisher's bloodlines.  Since she ended up with a eye injury from a kit and now how a cloudy eye, we will not be showing her, but will be adding her to our breeding program.  we are excited to see how she continues to grow and what she brings to our future kits.

A big thank you goes to Heather Wood and her daughter for allowing us to add this promising doe to our herd and rabbitry.

Our Holland Lops Opened Their Eyes

Eye opening day is one of the best days here at our place. Kana and Kaire's litter of 4 just opened their eyes the 5th. They are the cutest little black tort Holland Lops ever and Treysen is excited to watch them grow.