Thursday, April 30, 2015

New Baby Bunnies!

I have seven female rabbits who are all due tomorrow, the first of May.  But quite a few times I've had rabbits give birth the day before, so I went out and checked all my females early this morning. 
 
Dotty
 
Dotty, (who had been bred with Oreo) has a nice litter!  She's extremely protective, so I had a hard time getting a look to even count how many babies she had.  So from what I gather, she had 7 babies :)

 
By the time I got the camera out there, Dotty wouldn't even let me touch the fur covering the babies.  Which is fine and normal.  She's a first time mom who just wants to make sure her babies are safe.  So I couldn't get a picture of them, but they're underneath all that fur in the picture above! :)
 
Malaguena - who's from the same litter as Pocahontas
 
Then Malaguena also had her litter today.  She was bred with Chuck.  I'm really excited about the coloring the babies' fur will end up being!  It's always hard getting an exact number from any litter the first day they're born since the mothers are the most protective and the most tired.  But I do believe she had a litter of 6. :)

Malaguena's litter

 
Then here's Pocahontas, (she's Rhett and Angel's daughter and was raised by us inside after her mother died) she was bred with Dustin.  She also had her litter today!  I do believe she had a litter of 9 babies!!! :) 

Pocahontas' litter :)

 
Button's had her litter also!  She was bred with MJ (who's a single maned Lion Head) so it will be interested to see if any of the babies end up with manes :)  She had a nice sized litter of 9 babies, just like Pocahontas! One of her babies is SUPER small though.  I'm not sure if it's a runt or a peanut.  Either way, it probably won't live, but when the runts do live, they always end up my favorite :)

Button's litter :)

 
After going out about an hour later, I found that GG had her litter too :)  She was bred with Phantom, who's a double maned Lion Head.  GG is a single maned Lion Head, so all the babies should definitely carry on the markings of the Lion Heads, as they'll sport manes :)  I'm so excited!

 
She currently has her litter split into groups.  As you can tell by the photo below, she has some in the top right hand corner and others more in the bottom right hand corner.   In total, she has a nice sized litter of 8 babies! :)


Cottontail
 
As of right now, Cottontail and Pumpkin have not yet had their litters.  If they don't have them later today, they'll probably be having them tomorrow sometime :)  They both have built up their nests and so now it's just about waiting. 

Pumpkin
 
All the other babies from the last bunch of litters are doing great! They're three weeks old and super cute :)
 
I went to take a picture of Dotty and her litter only to see this peculiar sight!
 
 
First off, I find it funny that there's a baby hiding under the ramp :)

 
Then, all the babies are sleeping inside the food dish instead of their yellow box, which their mother is partially hanging out of. 

 
Dotty's doing a great job with them all :)  They're all fat, happy and healthy little bunnies who are absolutely adorable. The brown one with the white paw reminds me of a little hamster :)

 
Valentine is doing a great job with her babies as well.  They LOVE the cage they're all in!  The babies all go into the corners, stand on top of one another, then hang from the top of the cage.  It's so cute to watch :) 

 
I'm thinking of moving them into a different cage soon though, because with all the babies and the mother, it will get messy quickly since it's a solid bottom.  But currently it's working very well for them all :)

 
Here are a couple of Ruby's babies also hanging out in their food bowl. :)

 
I moved the bucket out of the way to find all the babies sleeping behind it...

 
Ruby's such a sweet rabbit.  One of her brown colored babies LOVES jumping up and sitting on her back.  It's really cute.  And she doesn't seem to mind one bit!

 
Kayla's two little Lion Heads are doing very well!

 
Kayla is really good about letting me hold her babies.  She'll come over to the side of the cage, watch for a moment to make sure they're okay, then go back to relaxing. 

 
I'm not sure if I'll keep the female or not.   This is the first female Lion Head that Kayla has ever had.  And Kayla's so sweet...I'll have to think about it. 

 
Lastly, LE's babies...

 
When I was out early this morning, all her babies were out and about running all over the cage.  But when I got to them with the camera, they were all sleeping in their hut :)  They're all so fat and cute!

 
Hopefully Pumpkin and Cottontail will have nice, healthy litters.  I'm sure they will though as both of them have had litters before and done well as mothers.  Anyway, that's what's going on in the rabbitry currently!
 
 

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Lots of Pictures!

Life has been very busy for us recently...and I completely lost track of how long ago it was that I did my last post.  Consequently, there are going to be lots of pictures in this posting :)
 
Our cherry tree on the way out to the rabbitry is blooming and looks lovely!

 
And all my original flowers are doing really well!

 
I bought a bunch of Marigolds and picked up some tins from the Dollar Store and some glass pots at a yards sale, plus a couple of hanging baskets.  It's looking great back there :)




 
And I'm still selling LOTS of rabbit manure.  This is a great time of the year for it, because so many people are beginning their gardens, both vegetables and flowers :)


 
AND, to top it all off....I have seven females who are all due this Friday!!!!

Pumpkin
 
I have them all in hutches and they've begun the process of building their nests.  Now that it's warming up out, they're happy to rip out generous amounts of fur to line their nests :)

Arrow

Malaguena

Pocahontas' nest...

...and Pocahontas :)

Buttons
 
I've been hard at work planting flowers, scooping poop, cleaning hutches, trying to make it look nice back there and not to mention all those adorable babies we've been holding now that their eyes are open! :) 

 
GG is really funny...she's more on the shy side of things (she was part of the free 16 bunnies I picked up off of craigslist) but she's sweet.  I'm hoping she's going to be a good mother...we'll see shortly!

GG

Cottontail

 
Valentine's still being an awesome foster mother! She's taken wonderful care of her own four, plus one of Dotty's that she had rejected. 

 
The other day I sexed all the babies from all the litters.  It's not definite with them all (as it can be EXTREMELY hard to tell at such a young age) but here's what I believe them all to be at this current time...
 
Brown - Male
Black/White - Female
Grey - Male
Brown/White - Female
Brown/White - Male
 
 
The one baby had his eye shut after they opened.  We opened it up with some warm water and a cloth and it's stayed open for the last few days, which is a very good sign :) 

 
Then Ruby still has all TEN of her babies!!!

 
They're running all over the place...it's so cute to watch :) 


 
From Ruby's litter...here's what I believe all of their sexes to be:
 
Brown - Male
Brown - Female
Black/white - Male
Black/white - Male
White - Male
White - Female
White - Female
White - Female
White - Male
White - Female



The one baby's trying to nurse :) You can see his little feet!


 
They LOVE that bucket...both being inside it, on it, and next to it :)


 
The more adventurous they're getting...the more hectic it is for Ruby, but she's doing a great job with them.



 
Then inside this yellow, old box is where Dotty's litter hangs out most of the day :)


Dotty's grey baby in the food dish :)

 
Dotty is very protective, but she's been very good about letting me hold her babies.


 
For this litter, Dotty has a nice mix of males and females :)
 
Light Grey/White - Female
Tan - Male
Black - Female
Black/White - Male
Black/White - Female
Brown/White - Female
Brown/White - Female



 
They're all so darling!


 
I love how he's all tan, except for his one paw, which is white :)


Dotty
 
Kayla's been doing an awesome job with her two little babies!

Kayla


 
The little white/black one looks JUST like Kayla :)  So adorable!

 
This little grey baby is a male :)

 
Then the Black/White is a female :)


 
LE, like all the others, has been an awesome mother!

LE

 
Her babies haven't been too adventurous yet, but they will be in the very near future :)


 
She has lots of spotted babies since the dad of this litter was Oreo :)


 
I must say, I almost always love spotted better than a solid color...but I really like the dark grey baby.  He's a real cuttie :)



In this litter we have...
 
Light Grey - Male
Dark Grey - Male
White - Female
Black/White - Male
Black/White - Male
Black/White - Male
Black/White - Female

 
NEXT big bit of news....MORE females are bred and ready to pop in a little less than 4 weeks :)

Peanuts was bred with Rhett

Dadooshka was bred with Achilles and Oreo (she wasn't really cooperating)

Calypso was bred with Dustin

Kizzy was bred with Piccolo

Cupcake is bred with Benjamin :)

 
Then while I LOVE Achilles' markings and the beautiful babies he makes...I have him up for sale because I have too many males. 

 
 Then the peeps are covered in beautiful feathers and our out from both our basement and garage and loving life in their new and HUGE space :) 

 
I think most of the Ameracauna peeps are males, unfortunately.  However there are definitely 2 females in there!

 
Then for a bit of sad news....
 
Sprinkles (AKA MudBug)
 
Sprinkles had been bred with Bruce and was in her own cage enjoying life.  I went out one day to take cage of them and her cage was on the ground and her spin was severed.  She was still alive.  When I picked her up to see if she was alright, I could feel her spin grinding into the other side of it.  You could tell she was in pain and so we put her down.  She was one of my favorites as she was the sweetest bunny ever. 
 
Mara
 
Then on a different note...I was going to breed Mara, but after thinking about it, I didn't want to have a line of bunnies as evil as her, so I found her a forever home along with the remaining bunnies from Peanut's litter. 
 
And so there you go!  That has been some of the things going on lately with my bunnies.  Oh, I also gave my brother Honey (a female I was going to keep from Peanut's last litter).  She's super sweet and he can bond with her while she's young.  Plus he named her.  Then when she's old enough he can breed her with my males and earn some cash when the babies are old enough to sell :)