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 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. ...

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...

A few days before Christmas, I had contacted another Silver Fox breeder, who was recommended to us months before. I had tried to get with her in August when I was looking for a buck but she only had does. I had needed a doe then also, so I was hoping to have a look, although a SF buck was my priority at that time. Still, we scheduled a meeting that was canceled because she was called into work, and we just did not get back with each other. I did not pursue it then because I was a little hesitant about getting Silver Foxes that were white carriers, which usually is not a gene most Silver Fox breeders would want, and at that time, we were still planning to cross with New Zealand Whites, so I already had enough with whites. Since we decided to go with Silver Fox only, I began to think that I would not be completely opposed to a SF carrying white. At the very least, I would find out if either of the bucks were white carriers. Plus, having whites with that thick SF no-fly-back fur would ...

Since we then had some NZW bucks to breed, the pressure was off about trying to find breeding age bucks and I had some time to think over what we would need to start working toward breeding Silver Foxes only. In purebred Silver Foxes, I had one difficult-to-breed Blue SF doe, Misty Blue, who was turning four years old just before Thanksgiving Day, and one junior Black SF buck, Comet, that would not be ready to breed until the end of January at the earliest and that is being hopeful. Not a very good start!  For one, it was questionable that Misty Blue would even be able to get pregnant. She had more than a year off from breeding, which might have worked against her being ready to be bred, and then there was her age...perhaps she is too old to get pregnant? Then there was the common difficulty I had with her in accepting a breeding and this time with the inexperienced young buck Comet, when he was ready. The odds were not in my favor, but having offspring from Misty Blue w...

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...

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...