Bunnies in the Sun

Just a photo day. Don't be surprised if these pictures end up elsewhere.

Here's Homer, our Silver Fox herd sire. Going through a bit of a molt, but his coat should clear up and even out soon enough. He's about a month off of senior.




Next up is Banya. She's out of her molt and I'm waiting for her last bit of silvering to come in. She also will be senior in a month; we'll be breeding her for the first time then.





Last up for the foxes is Squirt. She still has a touch of summer ear, but it looks like she is regaining some control in the bum ear. Hoping winter will clear everything up because she's gorgeous otherwise. She seniors in December.




Next Lola got her shot. Hmmm....I need to brush her out.





Finally Bacon got to run around a bit. What a handsome little buck!

Additional Interest

It looks like a lady from Delaware is looking to pick up one of the showable males. That leaves one for us, and 2 others we'll be offering up for sale. The one wooler, by the way, actually has a good coat and type. If his ear carriage improves, we might just include him in the showable group too.

Status update

So, here's what's new and exciting around the rabbitry:

• The litter from Hrothgar and Flour have produced 8 kits. All are still alive to date, and (if we haven't missexed them again) we have a total of 7 males, and 1 female. Of those, there were 2 top-choice males, 2 showable males, 1 showable female, and 3 male woolers. The faults for the woolers were limited to poor ear carriage.
  
• We've sold 1 male wooler as a pet, 1 male wooler for wool production, and 1 showable female to a 4H'er. That leaves all 4 of the top-choice and otherwise showable males, and 1 male wooler unsold. We're planning on taking the showable ones to our next show for judging and subsequent sale, though we're planning on keeping the best of the bunch (I'm guessing either F1H "Blue Dot" or F3H "Black X") for our breeding program.
• We mated Hrothgar to Freya, and also Bacon to Chili. They should be do around the same time--somewhere in the vacinity of 10/6/08. This will be exciting for us, because we'll get to really see the genetics of the parents for the first time. For instance, we will know whether or not Freya is an albino carrier if about 1/2 our litter is REW, or if they are all colored, then we'll know that she doesn't.

Hrothgar plucking and baby pictures

We've finally figured out the new camera and baby pictures are here. These were all taken at approximately 4 weeks of age. Today everyone is 7 weeks old and next week we'll begin selling them off. I'll miss them.





In the meantime we've also plucked Hrothgar back in preparation for his 2nd breeding. Freya will be plucked tomorrow just before we put her in. If it takes we'll soon have a better idea of what our herd sire is carrying color wise. It'll be an exciting day for all ;-P

Mill Hall Overview

It looks like the Mill Hall Open turned out pretty well for us. Freya apparently has a lot of potential, once her coat molts out; the judge specifically liked her color a lot. Lola and Bacon were both evaluated to be pretty good rabbits--Lola was the winner here (taking home the trophy), with superior density and color. Finally, we had Homer and Banya entered, and both won blue ribbons. Homer attracted lots of attention, being a good solid rabbit with even silvering and good length.

I'm glad to see the pleasant surprise on people's faces when we whip out our Silver Foxes. They're rare enough that some people only ever heard of them, and have never seen one in person. Hopefully our breeding program can help fix that.