Yesterday a fellow Silver Fox Breeder came over for a trade breeding. However, GC Leon was rather tired out quickly and there were no fall-offs with either of her two does. She opted for Starry Knight, which was his first time, and he had the energy and stamina that his grandfather no longer had.  I have noticed that Leon has been becoming weaker in his back legs, and it may be close to the time he has outlived his ability to breed, but I plan to try him with another doe in a few days. I have considered using carpet or a rubber mat to help him have the traction he needs. I have been noticing this weakness for some time, but he was able to breed about six weeks ago when he won BOB at the Southern Pride show. So, I think he still has some good days, but yesterday was a bad one. I truly have fallen in love with that old buck. Even though I have had him only since August, he is like the patriarch grandfather of my rabbitry. I am still hoping to get a few more breedings out...

Last Sunday I spent the entire day in the rabbitry. I set up my grooming table and my scale, lined up brushes and nail clippers, and put on my kevlar sleeves. I was organized and ready! Ladies First The first to come out was Canyon . She was in molt, but not particularly matted. However, she was more underweight than I had hoped. It is not uncommon for rabbits to eat less during the summer heat, but she ended up being the one most under the senior weight requirements. She is also the one I hope to breed first when the temperatures drop just a bit more, but I would like to see an improvement in her condition now as well. Second out was Twilight . She was still quite shy of me, but she accepted the grooming well. She is 6½ months old, but already over senior weight at 10 lbs. 4 oz. That was a surprise with the heat. I am happy of course, but I was hoping to show her as an 6/8 intermediate for her first show over a month away. However, she can be bumped up to the second in lin...

We had plans this past weekend to get caught up with things in the rabbitry, but something came up that required us to put it off again. It had been like that for about three weeks, so Independence Day was the day we finally were able to get things done. I discussed my plans in  Thinking Out Summer Culls  about which of my breeding stock would be culled.  I offered Lancelot to a meat breeder who not only thought he was pretty, but loved his temperament.  I tried to offer Comet, because he was so sweet and smaller, but we had only one person who responded and then she did not pursue it. I knew it would be long shot for him.  Misty Blue was too old to offer as a brood doe. Her pelt is huge and the meat will be ground, because it is likely to be tougher. Black Ivy...I just could not in good conscious ever try to offer her to anyone. She just had too poor of a body type with her hips being as they were. Her kits were naturally weaned since we were delaye...

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...