1st More Babies! M an' M's Coconut X Leapin's Eclipse Kindled March 28th, 1 Peanut, 1 REW, 2 Blacks, one which froze to death in the latest winter storm...more about that later...
M an' M's Coconut X Leapin's Eclipse
1 REW, 1 Black
Kindled March 28th, 2008
1 REW, 1 Black
Kindled March 28th, 2008
Kotton Tale's Misty X Leapin's Eclipse Also Kindled March 27th, 2008. 1 Pointed, 1 Black.
Kotton Tale's Misty X Leapin's Eclipse
1 Pointed 1 Black
Kindled March 27th, 2008
Congrats to my Beautiful does!
UPDATE: Bunnies in the Box's Sophie is in the process of kindling today April 1st at 10:30 am. So hopefully all goes well.
Weather. Well it was quite the Crazy weather this past weekend. From sun and rain to snow and sleat! We ended up getting a good 3-4 inches on Friday! Everyone was baffled since it was almost APRIL! The COLD weather brought on some hardships thats for sure. I ended up loosing 2 Standard Chinchilla kits out of Hutchin's 051's litter, and as I stated earlier, 1 Jersey Wooly out of M an' M's Coconut's litter. BUMMER! Oh well, it happens though!
SNOW!
So also, another huge topic! FEED! So I am not sure if you have heard about this, but there has been a huge discussion on the Northwest Reporter Yahoo Group about it. ....Its about Pfaus Feed. Particularly, lots 801102, and 081102. Numerous breeders have been loosing animals, while feeding these lots. The feed has been tested and came back with low levels of mold toxin. So Pfaus has finally begun to take action! Pfaus is trying as fast as it possibly can to get these feed lots out of the market and sent back to the mill. In the mean time, distributors of Pfaus are still selling it to the feed stores, thus that is how I ended up with some of it. (More about that later) Anyways, Pfaus believes that the root cause of the problem was due to some moldy grain that ended up in that batch. They are currently working on getting the feed out of stores and replacing it with good feed. So at least they are taking some action. Pfaus has sent samples of the feed in to be tested and it will be another 3 weeks before the results are in. In the mean time we wait...
OK, so heres the scoop about me getting some the this "bad feed". So when the whole thing started coming about, with this feed issue and these lot numbers, I checked the bags of my feed that I currently had. They were no where near the numbers affected. So I thought that I was clear. But when I went to the feed store, Laurel Farm and Western Supply, who sells Pfaus, I forgot to check those lot numbers. And of course I ended up with lot 801102 Rabbit Pellets. Not knowing that I had the "bad feed" I begun feeding it. Immediately after the Kennewick, WA show March 15th (a couple days after I started feeding the 801102 lot), I noticed that one of my rabbit would not eat any pellets. He became deathly skinny as with all of my other rabbits started to drop condition. My rabbits were only picking through the pellets and scratching most of it out, which is very unlike them....they love their Pfaus. So anyways, Karli was having the same problem. The only thing different was that her animals were out of condition before she started feeding the 801192 lot. Thus, her animals started only picking at their food and not eating hardly anything. Plus loosing mega condition. So Karli and I tried everything. We got everyone up to date on Ivomec, for parasites, we went through 2 whole rounds of coccidiosis treatment, thinking that it might have been that, then we tried treatments for enteritsis, still the animals were not gaining condition. Almost all of my jersey wooly juniors chewed off their coats, due to them having a lack of protein in their diet. Also most of my animals had stopped eating pellets entirely and the only reason why they were alive was because Karli and I were feeding mega supplements...since that was all they would eat. Each animal had its own dish of oats, in addition to pellets, and a bunch of other stuff. But still animals kept loosing condition. Some of my animals were so dealthy skinny that I almost puked every time I felt their spines to see if they had gained any body weight. It was really bad. During this time, one of Karli's favorite rabbits, a buck named Logan passed away, he had typical symptoms of mold toxicity, and it must have been the feed that put him over the edge.
So one night someone posts on the Northwest Reporter and says that those particular lots are still being sold at the feed stores. Then it finally clicks...I run out to the barn and check my the lot numbers on my feed...I got a sick feeling in my stomach...but I knew that I had to get that feed out of their cages as fast as possible, since the more toxin they got in them, the more sickly they would get. I immediately started ripping feeders out of the cages and dumping a good 20lbs of feed in the trash. That night everyone got just oats and butt loads of hay.
The next morning I notified everyone that I knew that fed Pfaus in the area. Alicia and Alivia Kennemer ended up loosing M an' M's Mystery due to the feed. And a few other breeders had noticed problems. Luckily when I called up Laurel Farm and Western Supply, they were more then willing to take back the bags and exchange them for the other lot number(not any of the ones in question). They were just as concerned about our animals as we were, and I really appreciated that. I have heard that some feed stores were willing to switch lots with people, but they just turned around and sold the bad feed to the next unlucky person. That is not a way to do business! Laurel Farm and Western Supply were even exchanging open bags of feed for new ones of a different lot number. They are truly good people with a business that cares about it's customers and their animals!
So far Pfaus's first priorities are to get the bad feed off the market and returned to the mill, and also to get the feed stores replacement good feed. Once the test results are in then they said that they would consider damages that have occurred to people's stock due to the bad feed. Anyways, it was a big mess, but even though it happened I will still continue to feed Pfaus since it is a great feed. Every feed has their problems once in a while, it just happens. Thus, I would highly recommend you stay with Pfaus even after this mistake, since the pellets are very high quality and are very reasonably priced.
Anyways, I got some new feed at Laurel yesterday and animals that had stopped eating completely began to nibble at the Pfaus, so that gives a big sigh of relief. But that still doesn't fix the problems of me having does abandon their litters due to them trying to insure their own survival because their are so skinny. And those does are now having issues with mastitis....oh well. It'll all work out eventually. Luckily my rabbits were smart enough to not eat the bad feed, or I am sure that I would have lost numerous animals, like many other breeders. But even so, many of my animals are in really poor condition, so we will see what happens.
I'll update you on the bun's condition as I hope it improves!
-Ashley
