I know it is customary to get a deposit to hold a rabbit, but I did not request that for the simple reason that Whoops did not take her first breeding and her age was a large factor. At this point, I have more reason to think the first buck was too young than Whoops was too old. Whoops is due on Sunday and this time I am pretty sure she will be kindling. I believe I felt a defined leg movement just this week, plus she feels full and heavy. I had not heard back from her prospective buyer when I sent updates by email for the past week, so I texted last night. As I feared, he backed out...not because he did not want my rabbits or that he bought rabbits somewhere else, but because his business was overwhelming presently. He was still interested, but for a later time. Unfortunately, a later time would mean that I would not have the Red Eyed Whites his wife thought would keep their children from getting attached. Next time I am in this situation (that I hope not to be in again),...

Whoops is turning 4 years old on March 2, 2018 and with age comes some challenges in regards to breeding and kindling: Older does tend to have smaller kindles. This makes it rather difficult to know whether Whoops was actually pregnant or not as rabbits, particularly meat rabbits, really do not show their pregnancies. However, she was rather cranky about me touching her...she even grunted at me this week, which completely out of character for her and common with pregnant does. Older does tend to go past their due dates. I was not too concerned about her not kindling on the 31st day after her breeding, which was Saturday, February 3rd, 2017, but it is still a wait full of anticipation and then impatience. Mostly because Whoops was bred to NZW-A and is promised to start up breeder who is also getting the last of my NZW-B, who is unrelated to the sire of this kindle. That way they could pick a doe or two to develop and breed with NZW-B that would not be related to their brood...

There are three big milestones in the life of a kit.  Being born alive.  Thriving until about ten to twelve days old when the eyes open and ears start lifting— so  very cute!    Weaning at around six to eight weeks.  Of course, the first one is very important, and all of them are wonderful, but I think I am partial to day when we can see each other eye-to-eye  and they begin to look and move around more bunny-like with their quick and not so controlled hops. It is kind of like the day a baby begins to walk. I am fairly confident in the colors I am seeing now, so here is my list of their phenotypes (how they appear so far): BMB1 - Chinchilla Agouti BMB2 - Chestnut Agouti BMB3 - Black Gold-Tipped Steel BMB4 - Solid Black  BMB5 - Solid Black with SF fur This is the first time I have had Agoutis, so it was fun to find tiny kits with white ears and bellies, but it was not what I was hoping to see thrown from NZW-B for my...

NZW-B is going to a new home in two to three weeks and I have bred him twice successfully. I cannot provide a pedigree on him but I can give his new owner what I know about his genotype, even if that is not really something that he will need if he only breeds New Zealand Whites as planned. However, plans change and now I wish I had kept more detailed records previously because I might have noticed some things far sooner and made different choices with breeding, but it was not our focus at the time. As I wrote, things change. NZW-B is a New Zealand White, which means that he has hidden alleles, with the exception of the ones on the C-locus, until bred and the phenotypes (the colors seen) in the offspring provide information. This works best if the genotype of the partner is known also (but I just learned what one thinks she knows about genotypes of her older does might not be completely accurate even then). This is the short answer about what I do know with certainty so far: ...

My plan was to breed NZW-B with Misty Blue and see what I got. I was hoping to get self colored kits (solids) and I might have gotten one or two, but I also got Agoutis and at least one steel, maybe two. I am still perplexed by the fur coloring on one. I do not want any steels or Agoutis for my Silver Fox hybrid line so that answered the question of whether or not we would keep him. I made him available as well as my NZW/SF junior buck BGG-1, who has a very firm body and would be a good brood buck. I did get an inquiry on the junior but after talking with the prospective new owner, I decided to offer him Whoops and NZW-B. Whoops should be two weeks along in her pregnancy, which would have been okay for her to make a move to someone set up and with experience, but this was a buyer just starting out with rabbits and he did not have cages yet. With the temperature swings we have had, I wanted to make sure the kindle would survive and thrive. I made the proposal that we would keep NZW...

Let me start off with how crazy cold it has been here this week with wind chill factors around zero! So cold that my fingers hurt within minutes of being outside even though I had gloves on. That is not the kind of temperatures to which I ever want to expose my newborn kits just to get a good look at them. I knew there were five and that they all were alive. I would put one cold hand into their warm nest blindly feeling around and counting them. For those who have not yet had the experience, baby rabbits do not lay still for this procedure. They constantly are flipping and squirming and are impossible to hold on to for long if you are trying to place more than two in your hand. Yes, that makes counting them very difficult, especially when there are more than four...and usually there are always more than four. At first glance on their first day, I thought I had three blacks and two blues as they squirmed around but some how they looked different than a blue should look. A couple ...

Plan: Bred NZW-B x Misty Blue on December 13th with expected due date of January 12th. Goals: Test breed NZW-B a second time for the Broken gene and to determine if Misty is still fertile by breeding her with a proven buck. Observation:  Misty Blue is four years old and did not take with her first breeding; she may have been too old or the buck too young. Pregnancy this time could not be determine, although there was some weigh gain. Conclusion: Misty Blue kindled January 14, 2018 producing five healthy kits so she is still fertile, although it is a smaller kindle than what she usually produces. NZW-B definitely does not carry Broken as usually half of the kindle would show it. The breeding plan will not need to be changed and a Lilac out of Misty Blue in a few months is still a possibility if she carries Chocolate. What a nice surprise! I know better than to assume a doe is not pregnant. We lost our very first kindle of thirteen NZWs because of our inexperience with h...

Plan: Breed either NZW-A (or NZW-B) x Whoops Goal: Change NWZ-A status to proven (or breed proven NZW-B) Conclusion: Took a risk with NWZ-A and observed two fall-offs, but the unusually low temperatures we are experiencing may be a factor in fertility for the buck. __ __ cc __ __ __ __ cc __ __ En_ Today, I bred our remaining NZW doe, Whoops , with NZW-A, who is now about six months old. We are concerned about her age, but Whoops has always been receptive to breeding and is a good doe for a first time buck. However, she is not the type to want to cuddle after the deed is done and after the second fall off, she wanted nothing to do with NZW-A. In fact, she kept looking for a way out and became aggressive with him. For his safety, I removed her quickly. (White rabbits do not look as pretty when they have been bleeding.) We have kept the practice of observing the breeding since we started with rabbits. I have read that some breeders just leave the doe in with the bu...

As I wrote previously, NZW were not my favorite rabbits. They have their advantages. They are more heat hardy. They develop faster. They have been bred for commercial use for about a century without concerns about fur colors, just body shape and faster growth were the main goals, so they are often a solid rabbit with which to cross or even improve another breed. Because they are one of the most popular commercial rabbits, they typically are not handled much, therefore are not as tolerant to handling and can even be quite skittish even while in their cages. Our first doe liked to try biting me often, but she never got me, and the other doe was terribly skittish. However, we have been fortunate with good temperament in the NZWs we have had since our first three. Our first two Silver Foxes were not all we hoped them to be either. The buck was rather small and later he had some teeth and ear mite issues. The SF doe was difficult to get bred, but an excellent mother. Still, Silver Foxe...

Since we were getting back into breeding the rabbits this season, I began thinking what I wanted if we were going to continue to crossbreed and it did not include brokens so I planned to test breed the three NZW bucks to see if they carried brokens with my GT Black Steel, Golden Girl, and my Blue Silver Fox, Misty Blue. However, in my heart, I wanted to work with the Silver Fox lines only and we still needed a SF buck. 4K was one of the breeders I first contacted as she had been raising rabbits for several years. The rabbitry was not far away. However, she told me that while they are still homesteading, they cut back on the number and type of animals they were keeping, so she no longer had Silver Foxs. 4K also told me that WF, from whom we had gotten our first Silver Foxes, had moved and were no longer carrying them. She gave me the name of another breeder, JRRF, which was not that far away from 4K but when I contacted her, she only had does available at that time. It was ju...

When we first began crossbreeding our NZWs with Silver Foxes, we would get variety of coats, mostly of brokens. Brokens look mostly white and have spots of color. I just thought it was typical when a person has a white rabbit crossing with a colored rabbit to get about half as spotted and I really did not give it much more thought since our rabbits were mostly for meat, until the one kindle that had two rabbits completely different than anything we had previously.  We had only three colors of rabbits at the time: whites, blacks, and blues, but two from this one kindle had some variation in the skin color. One was black but not quite as black as her all black sibling and one was blue but a bit lighter than the blues typically are. Later when their fur grew out, the nearly black one had variations on hair shaft itself. The other looked like a lighter blue, almost frosted in comparison to his Blue Silver Fox mother. (He probably was a Gold Silver-Tipped Blue Steel. ( Edited...

I must confess that I have never been particularly fond of Ruby-Eye White (REW) rabbits, although I like their pelts and how they can be dyed. However, New Zealand White (NZW) rabbit breeders are pretty easy to find in these parts and they are a fairly hardy breed. For the most part REWs are not easy to tell apart and we did not mark them since we planned to use them for meat. We even kept the breeders names simple to remind us they had a purpose, in case they did not work out: Doe and Buck. However, the youngest one of three my daughter claimed so she named her White Sugar. Not knowing which of their bunnies was which made it easier for us all, particularly our young daughter, when it was time to cull. We almost always had new bunnies to keep us busy when my husband was processing the ones that had grown up—it became a rhythm in our lives. However, it was even difficult for us adults the first few times. The second thing that made it easier was that NZW rabbits have been bre...