Living in the southeast has its challenges with raising Silver Foxes. At the top of the list is keeping them cool and healthy during the hottest and most humid time of the year. As meat breeders, we would have our last breedings in April and no breedings until September. The only schedule I had to consider was my own and cage space.  As a show breeder, I still quite strongly believe in not breeding in the summer, particularly when I have invested so much in my rabbits. However, working around show schedules has been a new challenge for me this past year. For instance, I put off breeding Luna last fall until she earned three legs as she was my best doe to show at the time and I had other does that could be bred. Still, there were gaps I would like to avoid this coming breeding season, if the rabbits cooperate. This spring I was faced with another breeding schedule dilemma with Zinfandel. I bred her to GC Starry Knight after we returned from the Silver Fox National Show in Apr...

This week was busy! We butchered eleven rabbits, which are aging presently and should be ready for making dinner with vacuum sealing and freezing the rest. This freed up some cage space and lowered feed consumption, but only temporarily. Luna kindled three, but two were DOA fetal giants, so only one black survivor. Still, I am very hopeful this one will have the fur quality I got the first of this pairing, and a better type this time around would be nice also. Misty Blue Too surprised us with five out of Leon. I had not seen a fall off, but the old man is still quite fertile and even with his old weak legs, so apparently able to still impregnate a willing doe even when I cannot detect a fall off. Under all that blue fur are five healthy sleeping black kits, and she even pulled more fur! Misty's surprise newborns meant we urgently needed to prep a cage with baby wire yesterday evening because Luna was still in the kindling suite. None of our cages had b...

There may be those who disagree, but I have found that most responsible breeders do not breed their rabbits in the summer, particularly in the southern states. While it is true that some rabbit breeds are more heat hardy than others and those in the most northern areas of the United States have cooler summers, the Silver Fox is a breed that was developed to have unique, long, stand-up fur coat and it is best for the cooler climates or at least colder seasons. It is also a heavier, meaty rabbit therefore one that is not built for the heat that way either. In the wild, rabbits sleep in holes dug out in the ground where the temperatures are consistently in the 50's. Some rabbit breeders do the colony style method advocating it is a more natural way to raise rabbits and requires less work for the rabbit keeper. This method allows rabbits to create burrows like their wild cousins. However, the downside of the colony method outweighs the upside of it for those who have chosen cag...