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 can hardly believe it has been a month, but it has. Canyon is still leery of me, but she is also pregnant so I did not bother her more than necessary. I had gotten about a week behind with everything because I was laid up with back pain and could not do much. Not exactly the kind of Spring Break I was looking forward to having, but the sharp muscle spasms have mercifully calmed down today and I am able to move around a bit better. Although I was having some back pain on Sunday, I was able to get Misty Blue and Lancelot weighed and nails clipped with my daughter's help, and they were bred as I stated in my last post.  I also weighed the BMB-5 kindle, but I did not get their photos updated on their page. Monday morning, the upper back pain was much worse and it stayed that way most of the week until today, even after a chiropractic adjustment on Monday. Just sitting at a computer to try to type was painful. Obviously, I was not up to handling the rabbits much this week...

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...

I was kind of concerned about Black Ivy. She came to me with ear mites and sore hocks. We saw the ear mites, although it was a mild case in deep inside of one ear, but we missed the sore hocks. Honestly, as a breeder, I will not sell any rabbit in this condition and I am rather trusting that other established breeders advertising a rabbit would also have that same policy. I should not be, obviously. Black Ivy's ear mites were treated and she was good on that point throughout her quarantine. Her sore hocks, also called pododermatitis, are healing slowly. They are not oozing or bleeding anymore. They are still raw and red but becoming more pink and they are smaller. Actually the sores were really not that large when we saw them later the day we got her and if they had been bigger, we probably would have noticed them at the time of pick up. It just takes so long for them heal once they have gotten that bad.  To get the pictures of how one looks now, I had to move ...

Thirty-two days ago, I acquired two rabbits, Lancelot - a double heterozygous black buck and Denim - a blue. They remained as healthy as they looked that day, so they are now out of quarantine. Since I got them from the same breeder, we had them in cages next to each other and they seem to prefer being close to each other. They are half-siblings born three weeks apart, but both seem to be highly interested in all goings-on with the other. Now I have only one left in quarantine! During quarantine, I keep all their things separate from the other rabbits. When we had to bring in their water bottles to thaw, we kept their water bottles separate or we washed them thoroughly. I like to try to handle my rabbits every day that I can, so my quarantined rabbits get handled last, and then I wash up. During this season, I have had seven rabbits in quarantine at differing times: three New Zealand White bucks, two Silver Fox bucks, and two Silver Fox does. I have never had to do that with so...