I have been holding back a secret that I am now ready to tell. At our very first show, the judges commented much on the type of our Silver Foxes presented. One thing that I heard more than a few times was that many of our rabbits had long shoulders. So, I made a decision to try to find a doe with short, deep shoulders so that we could get better shoulders into the Georgia Silver Fox lines. The first breeder that came to mind was the same breeder of GC Miss Maggie's Leon. To my surprise, she had a junior doe entered into the 2018 ARBA Convention that she believed would be what I wanted and after talking about her back and forth for a short time, I was sold. I contacted my transporter to be sure she had space, which she did. Then I sent the breeder the full payment for Avery on October 9th, about 3 weeks before the convention, as well as paid my transporter. Imagine my surprise and excitement when the breeder contacted me to say that Avery had won Best of Breed at the co...

The Good These past few weeks really  swooshed  by! So imagine my surprise that I had a reminder on my phone that Starry Knight and Twilight have completed their quarantine as of today. This is very good! I had them in a soft quarantine as this was my second buy from Silver Lox and I had spent quite a bit of time there looking over all her rabbits, which were quite healthy. I am so excited about Starry Knight, but I am very glad I did get some Kevlar sleeves, because he will seem to be calm after I first get him out of the cage and will seem relaxed after a time then suddenly he just goes wild trying to get away, even screaming, although I am not hurting him. He is not vicious and does not try to bite, he is just scared. I will be working with him even more now that I have these sleeves and, yes, they do offer quite a bit of protection. Even though I have kept his nails well trimmed, he is particularly good leaving bloody scratches, but not one scratch through the sleev...

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 t...

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...

Today I weighed XCY-3 and they seem to be showing that "wow" factor I was hoping to see with this kindle. If they grow out with show quality as I am expecting, I am planning to keep the buck and a doe. I might keep the other doe as well or do a swap with her. I have been handling each one every day and working on them to relax when picked up. The XCY3 doe is the smallest, but she is also the one who relaxes the best when being picked up, if not the first time, then the second. The others are better about it when they are a bit sleepy, but they are starting to get it. I am going for that ragdoll trait that I had in a SF x NZW that I sold months ago to a meat breeder, who just loved how she relaxed when being carried.  Being a ground animal whose only defense is running and powerful kicks, rabbits do not like being off a surface or without traction. Being carried is something they tolerate and some tolerate it better than others. I want my rabbits to tolerate being han...

I went into the rabbitry with my focus on the XCY-3 kindle, but when I turned around, there was fur all over Misty Blue's cage and she was still pulling! In all these years, I have only caught two does kindling and she was not one of them. I was certain that she does not pull fur until beginning labor but today I witnessed it! So, I proceeded to feed the rabbits and while Misty Blue was birthing her babies inside the nesting box hutch side of the kindling suite, I played with the XCY bunnies. They are so much fun! The other thing I am very happy about is that Canyon, their mother, who was so fearful of me since coming here from Silver Lox, has been very relax about letting me pet her and play with her bunnies! They still like to lick me a lot and are just too much fun watching them zip around the cage. When Misty Blue hopped out, I checked to find only three kits not covered with about a day or two growth of fur on them all. Misty was a little annoyed with me, I thin...

I can hardly believe that XCY-3 is already three weeks old. Sunday I weighed them and set up their page on the top menu. I am particularly excited because they are in the weight ranges of my last kindle at four weeks old! I know that kits tend to be larger in general when the kindle is small, but still it is very exciting! Just looking at the size of XCY2 makes me smile.  I have been waiting impatiently for Misty Blue to kindle because I had it in my head that she was due on last Friday. Actually, her 31st day is today, but she had her last kindle on the 33rd day. I have been palpitating her for the last week and I can feel those babies. She has been more tolerant about that the last couple of days also, so I think she is feeling the time is close too. She has quite a nice nest ready and waiting, but has not pulled fur yet. She usually pulls fur just before kindling.  This is our first purebred Silver Fox in house breeding and I am hoping to see kits...

I have been wanting to do a daily photo journal of a kindle from birth to the eye opening event, but most kindles have so many kits that it is not an easy project to wrangle them all. However, being that XCY-3 is my first Silver Fox purebred kindle and there are only three, I decided to turn my disappointment in the small size of the kindle to an opportunity to do the photo journal on Facebook and Instagram and then collect them all together in one blog post here. They are all black, but they all are also blue carriers.  A few hours after birth, the kits are hairless and blind. The doe pulls hair from her body, mostly from her dew lap and around nipples to make a nest that will keep the hairless kits warm. They rely on the body heat of each other and the pulled fur in the nest to achieve this. Otherwise a kit can die of hypothermia quickly in the winter, but even in the summer. At a day old, the kits are just starting to grow hair. The reason these black kits look...

Plan: Breed Comet x Black Ivy using an introduction approach. Goal: Change Comet's and Black Ivy's status to proven; testing Comet to see if he carries white or any other recessives on the C-locus; testing Black Ivy to see if she carries Blue; offspring with even silvering inherited from both parents. Conclusion: Black Ivy lifted for Comet as one fall-off was witnessed. About an hour later, she again was receptive and one fall-off was witnessed. We scheduled Sunday for cleaning cages, culling, breeding, and moving rabbits to different cages, but it was a rainy morning, staying wet and breezy with temperatures again taking a dive to freezing! The temperature swings in April alone have been from freezing to 80°F! Last night it went to 31°F and today it is suppose to reach 70°F. That is nearly a 40°swing! I decided to put off moving Canyon and her XCY-3 kindle to another cage until the tomorrow. Misty Blue is due on the 25th so that will give her at least a week in the ...

Today I have moved Misty Blue into the empty cage next to Lancelot so that they will get a bit acquainted before I breed them together on Sunday. Misty Blue is one who is difficult to accept a buck. Moving the does away from the bucks did calm down their spraying thankfully, but now I want this pair to get interested in each other, so there may be some spraying...again. The things we rabbit keepers have to put up with! Although I have Canyon bred and in the kindling suite due in just over a week, this pairing will be the first purebred Silver Fox breeding in house for two years and I cannot wait to see what the breeding of these two will produce! Lancelot carries Chocolate and Blue, but I do not know if Misty Blue carries chocolate. If she does, I could see our first Chocolate and maybe even a Lilac! 

On a wet, rainy, and a bit windy morning, I went to visit a local breeder to buy a two-year-old, proven, Blue doe. I brought everything with me, except my rabbit binder with all my pedigrees, but I recognized several names on Canyon's pedigree from Black Ivy's pedigree. That was because Black Ivy's mother was from High Rock's lines, which is why I had been trying to find that breeder. When I got home and looked at both pedigrees, I realized that Canyon and Black Ivy not only share ancestry but that Canyon is, in fact, Black Ivy's grandmother! Canyon definitely does not have a narrow frame, so I am very excited about the prospects of breeding her.  I was given the offer to breed her with one of her Grand Champion bucks, but Canyon was being difficult about it. Finally, we placed her in with another younger buck that also had good lines and was on his way earning legs. She will be sending his pedigree along to me so that I have it for the offsprings' pedigrees...

Lancelot is a very nice size and just looks like I think a Silver Fox should, although his silvering has not yet fully come in, and he looks a bit light in most areas yet. I have no plans to show him, but if I was going to show, I would pick him and take his half-sister, Denim, for comments. She has the most luscious fur. Even now, while she is molting, it is impressively thick, but I am wondering if it is so thick and wool-like that it would be a disqualification for showing— I still love it nonetheless . At this point, I plan to only have six or maybe seven breeders. I also had been looking for a rabbitry on Black Ivy's pedigree, but the name of the rabbitry had been changed. I found the new name and was trying to feel things out, but I was not ready to commit to buying another rabbit at the time, as I was still hopeful about Black Ivy. However, having another doe at breeding age and proven is probably the smarter move.I have to consider that Black Ivy may not be a keeper. Wh...

I have two SF purebred bucks that are three weeks apart in age. The breeder of Comet, SH, asked me about his weight, as his sister just won Best of Opposite Sex, but his brother was given comments of being small. She hoped that Comet was closer to his sister in size.  When we first compared the brothers that SH was offering, both born on August 22, 2017, they were about eight weeks old and close to the same size, but I felt Comet was just slightly larger. I also saw some signs of pinched hips, which are common at that age, but I was happy to take him. At the time, I was not as picky for SF buck and his hips still look a bit pinched to me, but I am happy with the purchase. Comet's cage is close to the gate, so he always comes over and follows me. I have handled him a lot, so he is kind of my little teddy bear. Lancelot was born on September 11, 2017. His cage was on the other end of our rabbitry as I had not moved him since we got him, even though he is out of quarantine, b...

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...

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...

I was cautiously hopeful about getting at least one SF purebred kindle from Misty Blue in a couple of months with one of the SF bucks as I wanted a Lilac that would be related to only one buck, but I bred Misty Blue twice and she did not take either time. The first one time was with an unproven NZW buck who might have been too young so it might not have been her fault, but the second was with another NZW buck that was still young but had been proven. Many rabbit breeders have a three strikes rule; bad mothering, not taking care of a kindle, an aggressive action, health issue, or whatever will add a strike for each disappointment. Any young or stressed out doe can make a mistake of not caring for her kits properly once, which is why breeders give a doe three strikes. However, Misty Blue already had some things that are adding up for me. She has always been difficult to accept a breeding and now she is four years old so fertility is a concern, seemingly justified at this point. ...

Our weather has been unusually cold for the Southeast, actually the entire country. Here it has been dipping into the teens at night and hung in the 20s to 30s during the day, so we placed various materials around the cages as wind breaks, which also reduced the available light in the rabbitry. That is why I did not see, until this week that BGG4 was not just black any more, but it seems she is beginning to show a color on the tips of her fur on her sides. I thought silvering that would be highly unlikely because most sources claim that two recessive "si" genes are required. Her father was a NZW that would hide all such genetic markers, however I have learned since that there is far more to the silvering gene concept that I might address later. Anyway, when I first saw it, I was thinking I was seeing steel. That did not make any sense to me, because I thought steel would show immediately, while silvering can begin to appear as early as four weeks and can take m...

I was very surprised when I saw a listing selling four-week-old bunnies this week on Craigslist, suggesting them as Christmas gifts with a few in a Christmas decorated box. They certainly are irresistibly cute at that age! There are many thoughts on when to wean young kits from their mother's milk, which means when to separate them from their mothers also. When it comes to rabbits, we often look how rabbits do things in the wild because those instincts still drive the domesticated rabbits of all breeds. Whether the mother leaves them or they leave on their own at three to five weeks, young wild rabbits can get what they need nutritionally on their own. However, the reality is that young wild bunnies are quite vulnerable to predators who also need to eat. Many breeders wean their bunnies at four weeks and there is nothing particularly wrong with that practice when the breeder's purpose is to keep or sell to other breeders the stronger and faster growing of the kin...