Good and the Bad

Looking at last blog date, very interesting. The day after that blog was written I lost another great herd animal, this time the best animal so far produced. HD’s Mysterious Ways or Myst I found dead wed morning in her cage, Alana her cage mate in the corner, witnessed it all, poor girl. :( It was also unexpected as this doe was just shy of 6 months old. I did an autopsy and discovered she had an abscess mass on her stomach that had ruptured, causing massive internal bleeding ultimately leading to her death. (Sorry for the lingo, I am an EMP after all) This doe was just coming outta gangles the past month, the picture taken of her was a week before her death, she was going to be a show stomper for sure. She is what I am striving for in my herd, guess I was not ready to have that goal handed to me just yet but I will not give up! Maybe she reincarnated into one of the babies from my current litters, who knows.
Now before I begin updates for the past week, I must first say that these 3 deaths in a 1.5 week time were not related to disease or even bad food. They were just a “series of unfortunate events” that happened to take place at the same time. I figure best I can come up with is the last 2 weeks have been such nice weather might have triggered some of the internal stuff. I have a closed rabbitry and medicate/isolate rabbits when nessessary as well as keep tabs on a strict feeding regime. So please don’t worry when you buy a rabbit from me!
Ok so on to updates! With the 3 major losses comes 3 good things, almost like fate. First I had my first litter with Sobek born on the 18th with Bette. 3 happy fat babies. Two perfects with what looks like some very thick eyebands like dad and a broken sport! I just about died when I saw it, NEVER expected it! Ive wanted a broken for soooo long, not only because they are adorable but also they help darken/thicken the eyebands which I desperately need in 2 of my lines. Ive also seen/heard that brokens are nicer typed then any perfect hotot and can fix type by a mile. So the broken is most likely staying as are the rest, I may grow them all out unless some are ugly in type or all same gender. The same day I had my first homebred hotot flower give birth to 4 babies. She was bred to Laura-anns black polish herd buck Blackie who has at least 3 legs. Super nice buck! Strangely I was expecting broken marked hotots instead I got hotot marked with some black spots on face, ears and back. Just like the common places to find black spots on hotots. I will most likely keep a doe out of this litter to grow out, I really need a compact typed body and the polish bloodline might just fix it. The rest will be available as pets because they are F1 crosses…or crossbreds lol. But both excellent tempered and small size. The icing on the cake was on the 23rd, I come home to find starwalker giving birth in her cage. The night before I noticed she had pulled a tiny bit of hair so I happened to give her a nestbox, being 5 days early I thought whatever. She had the babies in the nestbox, premature but moving. I took some hair from bettes box to cover them because walker was struggling and exhausted from the birthing process. She ended up having the last dead baby 7 hours later, was stuck perty good. She is doing great now, babies are happy and fat. Not bad for a first time mom that’s almost 2 years old! I was VERY surprised, I was about to advertise her as a pet because this was her 6th attempt and this time she only took once with ELO, other times it had been 5-6 times. She will be however available to a pet home after this litter, I don’t want to risk breeding her again knowing this time was very hard to kindle, not to mention she was very early. I will be keeping this whole litter unless all same sex or ugly lol. Eyebands look very nice though! As for the last doe that hasn’t given me a litter, stargazer. I have put her in with ELO for 2 weeks in hopes she gives me something like she did last time. She’s only getting one more chance then she will be going to pet home as well.
So I have 10 new babies in the box, will be breeding both my thriantas and some new hotots after the chestermere show beginning of may and hopefully savannah will have a live litter in a couple weeks so my hotot program can move forward!
Note to all, I do have a pair of hotots im letting go, I wouldn’t call them a breeding pair as they are half siblings but good for a program nonetheless. I am currently out of town working in a camp for a week until the easter weekend so will get in touch with people who have contacted me after this time. I will be bringing just about everyone except pregnant/current moms at the easter displays this weekend…dawson creek co-op mall on Friday and easter extravaganza on sat. Will also have a whole bunch of other breeds to see and some for sale, lots of breeding stock in many breeds and of course information booths! Come check it out! Now to go enjoy this gorgous weather we have outside!

Horrible Week

This last week has been one of the worst in my years of breeding and totally unexpected. Losing two great animals within a short period of time was quite discomforting to say the least.
First happened last wed, I noticed zoey was not acting normal at all, she is usually the first rabbit at cage door at feeding time yet this time she did not move from the corner, I figured she was sleeping. I then grabbed her and noticed she was not moving too much, also noticing how she flinched when I touched her. I talked to Helga and figured she had a massive stoke because the color in eyes was gone and she was not even reacting to my voice, poor girl. Thurs morning I put her out of her misery and put her down, she was under 6 years old, being from the first fuzzy lop litter I had and also the last “original” I had left from my old herd. This doe showed no signs of health problems at all and always eating tons! She was a sweetie though and I will miss her a lot. :( RIP Zoey

Second was even more unexpected. On Sunday I happened to have the day off work and had some people coming to get some rabbits, I was showing them the dwarfs and noticed calvin sleeping in corner of cage with his pig buddy. Figured he’s an old man and needs his sleep, also had door open so sun was on him. After they left I went back out and seen he still hadn’t moved, I picked him up and he was limp in my arms. Bringing him in house he wasn’t moving and started to seizure, about half hour later I went outside and put him down, almost beat me to it the little pain. That last half hour I was petting him, he must have known his time was up, loving every pet closing his eyes and enjoying it. I will miss him even though I only had him for a short time, he loved attention and was never mean. The last 6 months he was spoiled silly with treats, runs in the house and a pig buddy. His kids and grandkids I have here will live on. RIP Calvin :(

In more positive news I have 2 does due this week, Bette bred to Sobek (who is doing better finally) and Flower, my home bred who is bred to a GC polish buck from Laura-ann. I may keep a doe from litter we shall see.

In regards to my herd in development, looks I will be getting two unrelated proven brood does at Chestermere. Helps to replace the two does I lost this past month and a new bloodline. So for whats for sale it will be whatever is out of these litters, Dice will be available once I breed him to someone and also ELO this summer once I can finally get a litter outta him and stargazer. I will be using sobek and devil on my does for now as both are different blood and size, etc.
Devil is looking awesome in development, he is still 1 pound 4 oz now, as big as the pig buddy haha. Filling in head and still super sweet personality. Myst on the other hand has surprised the hell outta me this past couple weeks if I haven’t mentioned by now! She is filling out in body and head just beautifully. Take a look on the home page of a pic of her I took with my camera, shes gonna be a beaut! Jewel is also starting to look like her half brother devil with chubby cheeks and nice short body, will be a nice show doe too! Other then that I will update when I get litters in next day or so and find time to get some decent pics!

Updates

So its been a couple weeks since the wetaskiwin show. I did attend with Laura-ann and we had a bit of fun. This show was more of a learning experience for me and my hotots in trying to understand the type and characteristics of them to make better show animals. I ended up bringing my jr buck devil, jr doe myst outta aly, bette, starwalker and flower a just sr doe. I also brought the three babies out of sweet who I just sold to a pet home. Im keeping both her daughters to grow out and see well they do. Funny thing is who to pick! Sweet emotion looks like a carbon copy of her mom but with a much fuller HQ and smaller size, still lacking in head but more defined eyebands, excellent body doe. Jewel on the other hand has a super cute head with correct ear and very very DARK eyebands, just not as clean as id like but definitely a start! Body wise she is short but lacking in shoulders like her half brother devil She is a head and eyeband doe lol. What to pick! We shall see I guess haha.
Getting back to show, my comments with both judges was very harsh but definitely what I needed and was aware of. These guys are a project and will take a while to get very nice in type. I was mainly lacking in correct size eyebands and depth with shoulders. Devil took BOB on 2 tables and very surprising myst took BOS & 1 BOB on other tables, she has great potential and was told she is nicer then walker and bette, both my best does, both judges agreed. I showed my jr thrianta doe Alana, both judges commented she has excellent body type and is a BIS contender when older and molted out of her jr coat. Im sooo excited for chestermere now! Im definitely kicking myself now for not bringing roo my frenchie buck. I tried for a month to get him back to normal weight after his little crisis over a month ago, he went off feed and refused to eat unless I was around, geezz separation anxiety or what. He was in coat for the show just was .4 pounds under the sr buck weight..damn. Maybe Chestermere, id really really like to grand him, he has placed so well in past and I know he has nice type and super cute personality! No I did not come home with anything haha. Just sold bunch of thriantas and the fuzzy and Holland bucks out of my lines. Leslie who bought BJ my blue tort Holland buck showed him over the weekend. He was of course DQ’d for being overweight but I was truly amazed at the comments. Both judges quoted he has excellent shoulders, excellent depth, HQ and bone, just folded ears and needs tiny bit more width between eyes, if he was underweight he would have gotten perty high in class. I was stunned considering how many hollands were there and how tight the competition is! Good luck with him Leslie, he should give some color and fix some bodies. He was also bred to Suzans broken blue doe out of Marg’s stuff, so should be some gorgous typed babies in there if she took, cant wait!
Arriving home from the show I had a sad sight of finding Ballade dead in her cage from what was pregnancy toxaemia. I preformed an autopsy on her and found she had 6 babies inside, 1 day from being due. So sad. :( RIP Ballade
Now this begs a serious question, where are my hotots going, I just lost ballade which was my other 2 lines. I do have her daughter starwalker who is excellent in type but I cannot get her pregnant. I have a feeling she was never bred before and she’s almost 2 years old now. I bred her to ELO once again last week, this is the last attempt for her, if she doesn’t have anything I will pet her out. So now that is 2 full lines ive lost.
I do have sav due today who is bred to sobek for his first litter. Sobek is another one im worried about, he picked up something at some point before getting to my place and hasn’t been better ever since. Currently im unable to give him antibiotics because he has lost so much weight this past week, will try to get his weight back up before dosing him again, poor guy.
Stargazer is also due this week but im not sure if shes pregnant or not. Ive palpated does for years and these hotots I just cant figure out, they are definitely pregnant, u can feel the lumps in lower part but they never have the litter. I’m wondering if its all retained kits or something, who knows. Why I’m trying to get something out of these older does to replace with younger stock I can at least get bred. Will have to wait and see.
Bette is supposedly pregnant too with sobek but who really knows. The only one I can confirm on is flower who is bred to one of laura-anns polish for a test breeding and see if eyebands improve, hopefully! I will be breeding all these young jr does after chestermere show in may so hopefully get some nice stock!
The real question here is where do I go, I currently have 2 real lines with little bits in between. They are BOJ’s Calvin which is in EVERYTHING I have, I don’t think I have a single animal without his name in there pedigree. The other major line is RC’s Colton which goes back to Charisma which is also related to everything I have, my goodness! So the plan for this year is to somehow find a black, blue or chocolate netherland dwarf buck and doe to put into my hotot line to fix the eyebands and type also to get a decent sized head on them. Not really much of a choice because everything I can find out there is still related to my stuff so tightly. The convention this year is in Minnesota which turns out is super close to the Canadian border so I may end up either driving there myself to go shopping or someone bringing back a super nice pair of dwarf hotots to use in my program. Otherwise im screwed for my breeding program. One consideration to put into play is if I do end up losing starwalker and then sobek on top of that I will put a hiatus on my hotots until I can find some decent stock to work with, maybe get a pair of Netherlands in the meantime to play with. Breeding full siblings and half siblings related to uncles and aunts just doesn’t work for me.
So that is the plan for this year in terms of breeding, now easter is coming up in April which I will be going back to the park of course for the easter extravaganza. I would also love to do a display for the gp mall this year if possible, will have to see! That is all for now, I will post again if any babies come along!