I want and actually need to thin down the herd to make room for the grow outs and to reduce feed costs, so I am going down my list, bucks first and then the does. When we were breeding only for meat, our biggest concern was about health, good mamas, and fast grow outs. We were not interested in showing and Standard of Perfection, but that changed. While we have finally made the transition to Silver Fox only, we have chosen to now work toward show quality, so we need to cull with that in mind. I plan on keeping Canyon's three, two does and one buck, or maybe swap one doe for another. (I have yet to name them.) The Bucks I did an evaluation of my two senior bucks yesterday and it really set in how badly I did need a new buck with show quality type. I am so glad I decided to buy one. I had planned to keep one of the two I had and cull the other, but now I am leaning towards keeping neither one. However, I want to see how their kindles turn out before I make a final deci

My husband is so cute sometimes. Last night he was asking me why I needed to buy any more rabbits at all, just breed the ones I had and let the young ones grow out to see what we had. I explained why, obviously in more detail than he wanted to really know.  This morning he helped prepare our van with one of the transport cages that had been delivered yesterday and to make the hour long drive to Silver Lox , but he had decided to go with me because at least we would be spending time together, which admittedly is not something we get to do much. I suppose he thought he would keep me from buying the more than I should, but we only had two holes in the one carrier we were taking with us and that is my limit for cages in my rabbitry currently. When we got there, however....the impulse buyer side of him came out... as usual . I was specifically looking for a doe to fill the breeding gap I was going to have in the fall with culling of two does after weaning, one is just old and the o

When Misty Blue produced a chinchilla buck, I really loved his fur and was toying with the idea of a side project, even though I knew I really did not have the space to devote to it. Still, I kept the chin instead of culling with the rest of the kindle.  I was not planning to name him, because I was not sure that I would be keeping him, but a name emerged: Chinner, the Chinning Chin. He chinned everything when he saw me, which is a rabbit's way of scent marking. It was cute, until he got just a bit older and his hormones kicked in. Then he began scent marking a different way: spraying pee.  I was his main target. That rabbit was somehow "in love" with me. He had always been the one who came to me first and stayed the longest when I opened the cage door to handle the kindle, but I had not had a rabbit stay so fixated on me as it grew older.  The spraying began to take its toll on my patience with him. I had to constantly be on guard and keep a shield between h

The first day I weighed the XCY-3 kindle, I examined each kit as I usually do: ears, eyes, nose, mouth, legs, paws, genitals, and so on. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The very next day, however.... XCY2, the largest of the kindle, had an obvious abscess. I looked back at the weighing day pictures and could see a little possible swelling, or maybe I just thought I should.  It could have been an insect bite or sting or just irritation from who knows what. I was going to open it up the next day, but I found the abscess had opened on its own and she had white drainage on areas of her face so I wiped her down with a free and clear baby wipe and took a good look at the nose. It looked already cleaned out and ready to heal so I let it. It had scabbed over but I gently moistened it and lifted part of the scab to allow it to drain if it needed to do so, but it did not.  I kept taking pictures to be sure it was healing well and prayed fo