Monday, March 22, 2010

Rabbits

It's now spring, and rabbits in our barn are being bought, being sold, and being born (yay!)
We’ve got someone coming to pick up some rabbits this week. 4 Mini Rex to be exact. We also sold our foundation herd buck to someone living in Canada on Friday. We’ll miss the little guy, but he’s done so much work in our barn over the years, practically everything I have comes from him. It’s bitter sweet to see him go, but I know he’ll be just fine in Ontario. 

Saturday I spend in the barn breeding a few brood does. I now have three castor does bred, and 2 black does bred. I've gout about 4 more does I want to get bred in about 3 weeks though. 

We also acquired some more New Zealand white's on Sunday. I’ve raised them before, but got out about 2 years ago, fall 2008 actually. It being my last year in 4H though I really wanted to raise a Pen of 3, and take some commercial singles to fair. These two does and one buck will be bred next month to produce three month old babies for my fairs Pen of 3.

I’ve shown commercial and fancy at the fair. For recent winnings we took Fancy and Commercial Grand Champion in 2008. We didn’t do a Pen of 3 that year. Then last year (2009) we took Reserve Grand Champion Fancy, and we didn’t take a Pen of 3 or commercial due to my selling out in the fall of 2008. 

Here are the new additions, although the pictures are not great because all three are still very fidgety being in the new barn.


Doe #1     

                                                            Doe #2
 
Buck



I already like them a fair amount, and once fair is over I think I will continue to use them to produce some meat and to sell the off spring. I know the buck looks long in the picture, he really isn’t though. He was having some issues with having his head held. His first time being on my show table, I think he wanted to have a look around! :P He’s a cute little (big) guy! I'd guess them each weighting about 12 pounds or so. Full grown New Zealands. Oh, how I missed having them in the barn. I found it strange last night walking into the barn to see them hoping around. Since the past two years my barn has only been filled with small black and castor rabbits.

Happy Spring!!! It's raining here, but still a lovely change from that dreadful winter we had here. 

-That girl being, me

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