Just when you think you have about seen it all with rabbits, they show you something new. Zinfandel's kindle has been one of those experiences. It took some time to track down exactly what was going on, because it is rare to happen but not unknown to at the same time, but I finally found my answer. When I first looked in the nest box I found a couple, one worse than the other with this pinkish skin with dark areas on the heads. At first I thought they might be torts! And while I do have a desire to help with the Alaska Red Fox project (another breed that Walter Garland was developing after his Silver Fox), I have absolutely no space or desire to take on that project presently. However, when their fur began to grow in, it was black...well, sort of. The color was off but certainly not tort. All the fur was tipped with white more like a steel chinchilla would be, but they were not steels either (besides the fact that they just should not be) because the coats were too...

Like every rabbit, GC Funck's Zinfandel has her quirks. I had bred her with GC Carrot Garden's Starry Knight right after the Silver Fox National show. She lifted readily and two weeks after the breeding she began to make a nest and stopped eating much of anything. I put in a nesting box because and she made a nice nest that she kept clean to be used only as a nest even though she was making it so early. However, it was pretty obvious to me a week later that she was not pregnant. I waited to be sure past her due date, because I have had a doe fool me before, but no kits. Then I had a dilemma. I wanted to breed Zin before she turned a year old, which she would do in mid September and it would be too hot to breed her in the summer. It was already hot enough to be a concern to breed her again so late in May, but we decided to try and place her in a smaller buck cage to bring into the garage. Our garage is part of the basement and even though it is well insulated, it usually stay...

This is one of those posts that I hope I don't have to write and yet this is the reality of rabbit keeping...at least, sometimes. I had a difficult start this breeding season, partially because the heat of summer stayed well into the autumn season, which probably contributed to why the first breeding did not take—the bucks must have been heat sterile. Then there was the fact that I only had two does breeding age to start and I wanted to show them both, but especially Luna, who did not do as well as I hoped at first but when the cooler weather came, she finally went into prime condition, won her legs, and was ready to be bred. Finally, I had pregnant does, but.... Twilight, a first time mom, was clueless after she kindled and wanted to lie in the nest, but after separating her from her kits a few days until her milk came in, she was a great mother to her four kits and they are all looking healthy, fast growing, and quite wide. Canyon had three—one black, one blue, and one w...

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...

Canyon kindled my first purebred Silver Fox kindle in a couple of years! I found Canyon in the nesting box after I went to check on her. I thought she might be kindling, but when she emerged from the nest it still looked empty and she was still pulling fur, so I did not feel around in the nest. However, she might have kindled then, because when I checked the nest about an hour later, it still looked flat, but I felt one and then two and then three...and only three. All are black even though the sire carried blue and the dam is blue. Of course, I was hoping for 6-9, but she was not receptive to either buck to which we introduced her, so her breeding was assisted. Typically, assisted breedings result in smaller kindles, because even though does are induced ovulators, they do have cycles and apparently we caught Canyon on the off side of that cycle. However, I wanted to see her for myself before I committed to buying her, so that is just how it worked out. I was not surprised...

I have mentioned a few times that my does are not young. Whoops just turned four years old at the the beginning of the month. Her fertility has been in question, which is why we were having her kindle here (before the buyer backed out). Her first breeding with the young NZW-A buck did not take, so I had bred her again with the proven NZW-B.  I was certain she was pregnant this time and she was, but while I was gone all day yesterday doing errands, my husband texted me to say she only gave birth to a single kit. He reported that it was alive and regular sized. That made me think that she was not done, but he said she had been out of the nest for a long time. I could not wait to get home and palpate her, because having just one regular size did not sound likely to me. I was sure there was more to come and I was concerned it might just be one more, which would make it likely that it would be a fetal giant . I felt her abdomen and I was pretty sure I felt a large mass in her b...

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...