Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Saint Helens, OR Show: Before and After

Well, its been quite busy with the buns and critters lately. Here is the news:

1. Due to the cold weather and one of my stinky birds knocking down the heat lamp, all but one of Sophie's litter and Coconut's kit froze to death. So now all that is left is a chinchilla kit. How sad...all my silver martens died! Oh well, just have to do some more breedings to get silver martens.

2. I finally got around to doing some breedings after the last batch of buns kindling and before some of my bucks left at the Saint Helens show. So on January 24th I bred:

M an' M's Coconut X Leapin's Eclipse, in hopes of getting something other than a Frosted Pearl Marten!

M an' M's Daffodil X Leapin's Eclipse, a repeate breeding to produce another Ashlind ^_^

M an' M's Ashlind X WWR's Peewee, in hopes of getting some Otters!

Bunnies in the Box's Sophie X Sugar Creek's Pizza Roll, in hopes of getting some more Silver Martens.

3. Well, Friday the 25th, was an eventful day. Karli and I made our trip down to Astoria to pick up another 2 condos for her buns and eventually to the show room in Saint Helens to set up. On the way there we dropped off a pair of peruvian cavies, and a black otter jersey wooly junior buck. Once we had finally gotten to the showroom, not to mention it was pretty cold out, we unloaded as quick as possible and headed to my aunt's house for the night. But we weren't ready to hit the hay yet. We only had another 15 rabbits to tattoo. LOL. I think we have finally gotten a hang of the clamp tattooer that I bought about 5 months ago...all of the tattoos came out perfect! We were very delighted.

So the day of the show came. It was nice and warm in the show room. Yea Heat! As the show progressed the icicles on the bushes outside the building continued to get longer and longer, the weather was surely acting up. As for the show, it was a blast! I was so happy to meet so many new Jersey Wooly rabbit breeders. In show A there was 54 Jersey Woolies! WOW. There was enough woolies in each group so that the BOG animals each got a leg. It was great! In show B there was 59! The only thing that bummed me out was that there was no comment cards! And several of my juniors I brought to get comments on. So it was difficult trying to listen to everything and put animals on the table...Oh well.

As of what I know here are a few of my buns that got legs. I expect to get a few others in the mail that I didn't get to listen to on a few juniors. Anyways, here is what I know:

Show A:

M an' M's Bebop got BOG and BOSB

M an' M's Zane got BOG


Show B:

M an' M's Zane got BOG

Overall it was a wonderful show!

Here are some buns that left at the show:

WWR's Peewee and M an' M's Jambi went to Robin and Brandon (I hope you like them)

M an' M's Crazy Town went to Becky for her agouti project

M an' M's Common Sense went to Meadow for her agouti project

4. I almost forgot...Chins! Yep, I took a few chins to the show. Got some great comments and possibly a new partner in crime. It looks like Scott W., an Oregon Standard Chinchilla breeder and judge, loves my chins! Yea! I am pretty sure that we will be swapping some stock sooner than later. I got both BOB and BOSB in both shows...so hopefully some more legs for my critters. I will just have to wait and see what comes in the mail.

5. When I got home from the show I came home to a few surprises! Well snow was one of them....and cute babies were another. Today, in the snow, I took pictures of some of the cute buns, and some new pics of some buns. So here they are.


M an' M's Bebop with his BOSB Ribbon from the RCRF Show A January 26th, 2008

M an' M's Daffodil's new pic for the website

M an' M's Daffodil X RH's Grasshopper's Broken Blue Junior Buck (FOR SALE) He is sooooooo cute!

M an' M's Daffodil X RH's Grasshopper's Kit, I just hope that when she is done moulting her eye circles come back....I swear they were there a week ago...^_^....LOL. She is a keeper! Great Bod.

M an' M's Zane's new pic for the website. He is just so cute!

This is M an' M's Dinky...yeah I know stupid name, but he is just soooooooo cute! Can you tell who his daddy is? Its M an' M's Zane...its in the head ^_^.

This little guy is the perfect ratio! 1/3 head and 2/3 body! Thats just the way I like them!
Isn't he just too cute?

Gosh! That head! Wowza!

I just can't get enough of this little guy! He is gonna kick butt on those spring show tables!

This is the little REW kit that is sibling to my adorable Sable Marten above. Doesn't this little REW remind you of a Netherland?

This is the last of Sophie's litter. A cute little chin kit.

Another pic of the cute little chin. It looks pretty funny right now because it's hair is so short.

These two Kotton Tales' Misty and B-mac's Royal Flush kits are just the opposite. Fuzzy Buns, that's for sure!


Anyways, thats all for now. New For Sale bun pics will be put up in the next few days on the website so check it out.

-Ashley

Monday, January 21, 2008

WOW Already 14 days since my last post

Well, a lot has happened in the rabbitry over the last two weeks. Heres the scoop!

1. Sophie kindled 3 kits, they are healthy and happy. I can't wait to see what colors they are...they are either martens or agoutis....pray for martens!

2. Coconut kindled, sadly only one of 5 kits is currently alive..the biggest bummer of them all is that the one kit that survived is a frosted pearl marten...Ashley e-mails Alicia "Do you want another frosted pearl marten?" LOL.

3. Wow, bun sales were going good until I got three e-mails back from people within a ten minute time period today saying that they weren't ready for the buns! Eeeeeek! Well, I guess those buns will need to find new homes!

4. So yes, plenty of buns for sale. Here is a quick list:

Leapin's Eclipse,
Leapin's Silverballs,
WWR's Cupcake Sterio,
WWR's Peewee,
M an' M's/WWR's Peachee,
M an' M's Bebop,
M an' M's Sophia,
Blue Otter Sr. Buck,
Blue Otter Sr. Doe,
+ a chin junior buck.


5. Well, Saint Helens entries went in...I am so excited for the show...there is going to be at least 35 woolies there! HOW EXCITING! So I decided to enter:
M an' M's Ashlind
M an' M's Zane
Black Junior Buck
Black Junior Doe
Blue Junior Doe
Leapin's Eclipse
M an' M's Bebop
M an' M's Sophia
B-mac's Royal Flush (who got a bath yesterday ^_^)
Yea! I just can't wait!

6. Babies: Misty's and Daffodil's babies are doing good. They are growing up super cute!

7. Oh yeah, speaking of chins....well, the one doe that was due to kindle...decided not to kindle, so that was quite the bummer...I think I might need another chin buck...what do you say? Mine might be getting a little bit old for the breeding thing.

8. I went over to Kay'z Rabbitry to help Karli take some pics of her new buns for her website the other day. Some of the shots turned out great...Her buns look gorgeous! Click on the following links to see some of the pictures I took:

Fuzzy Lop Bucks

Fuzzy Lop Does

Fuzzy Lop Juniors

9. Well, I need to get some does bred again in the next few days. I'll post again when some more serious news happens. Until then, toodles

-Ashley

Monday, January 7, 2008

To Astoria and Back + A little Bunny News

Well, the trip to Astoria, OR didn't go as well as we had planned. Karl and I left at 7:30 am to go drop off her Great Grandma at the airport, and then her Grand parents at her Aunts house. Once in Puyallup we stopped at Leslie Hobb's Rabbitry and checked out her buns for a few good hours. What fun, she had some mighty cute dwarfs and hollands, and lionheads and fuzzies! Oh my I could have gone home with some! Anyways, we finally made it into Longview, WA at about 3:30 or so. Thats when we started having a little car trouble. We made it to Astoria and loaded up at Woody's Wabbits and thats when it happened. The Ford Escape's transmission began to slip. So after about 2 hours of sitting at gas station, getting rained on, hailed on, and now soaking wet along with some friendly Oregonians, luckily one was a mechanic, we were finally in a position to head out, and see how far we could make it limping back to Washington state. We had to stop a few times to let the car cool down, but we made it back to Ferndale, WA with a failing transmission and all! It was quite a long trip and Karli and I were ready to crash when we got to her place at 1:30 am. Too bad we still had to feed and water all the buns! Overall, it was a fun trip and kind of crazy at the same time!

Although, this doesn't really have a whole lot to do with M an' M Rabbitry...it sure has a lot to do with me! After sleeping over at Karlis, we got to work at about 10:00 am tearing down her chicken coop. It was a big job and took us over 6 hours. But we weren't done there. We moved her hay into a taller stack, and finally got to set up her new condos and clean up our huge mess in the barn. She now has 17 holes for her fuzzy lops. A step up from her 6 that she had before we made the trip to Astoria. Anyways, it was a fun day of work and it really showed when it was all said and done. Now I need to get doing the same clean up in my barn....Eeeeeek!

Finally for some bunny news. Jersey Wooly Rolling Hill's MacKay decided not to kindle, so she is going to be rebred. I haven't decided who to breed her to again at this point, but soon enough I'll know. I need to rebreed M an' M's Ashlind and then also two Standard Chinchilla does who weren't cooperating earlier this month. Also, M an' M's Frida is going to be bred and I'll have to check to see if anyone else is ready.

Well, that's it for the bun news. Hopefully I will get some of those new For Sale animals up on the website today and also put up some new pics of the new FT's Canadian Mist babies.

Friday, January 4, 2008

WOW I didn't think I would have a topic to post about this quick!

So here is the scoop. I signed up and designed the M an' M Rabbitry Blog last night. I wanted to break the ice and write up the first post, but I just couldn't think of anything that was happening in the rabbitry. Well that didn't last long! I actually have a few things so we will start with the most exciting and deadly!

1. Kindling Days: Three Jersey Wooly does are due January 4th, 2008. As usual, none of the does end up kindling exactly on the 4th! M an' M's Ashlind, a Blue Otter Jersey Wooly started kindling yesterday at about 5:00 pm. She was having a lot of trouble pushing the kit out...and my was it big! Sadly that kit was not alive by the time she birthed it. Around 5:40 pm she birthed another smaller kit with great ease, too bad that it was not alive either. I then left the barn for a while to go hang out with family for a few hours. At my return at about 9:00 pm I found that FT's Canadian Mist had kindled. She had one pointed kit and one sable marten kit. YEAH!

Now back to M an' M's Ashlind's drama. After checking on Candian Mist's kits, I checked on Ashlind. She was still continuing to have contractions. I went out to the barn every 30 minutes checking on her and still no kit. I stayed up until 4:00 am checking on her to see if she was going to push the kit out. No such luck, I woke up again at 6:30 am to check and again at 11:30 am. Still no signs of the kit, yet she continued to have contractions. I called up a few friends and got some ideas. One of the suggestions was to give her a gentle belly rub to try to push the kit back up into the abdominal cavity in order to allow her to rebirth it. So I gave her a belly rub for about 5 minutes and then checked her again in 20 minutes and sure enough, feet! The kit had finally gotten into a position were the contractions could push it out. Over the next 2 hours I worked with Ashlind, gently pulling on the kit until it finally came out. YEAH! The placenta was soon to follow and luckily the contractions stopped and Ashlind was finally in the clear. WOW that was a very intense 22 hours! Ashlind being one of my favorite Jersey Woolies and being named after myself, it was very stressful to have this happen to her.



Anyways, now that everyone is back to normal and is healthy and happy, the only Jersey Wooly left to kindle is Rolling Hill's MacKay. Hopefully she will have a healthy litter.

2. M an' M Rabbitry HAS TONS OF ANIMALS FOR SALE. I went through the barn today and counted for sale signs on animals. WOW what a number! A whopping 17 animals! Eeeeek! We are running out of cage space fast...these juniors need to go! Check out the FOR SALE page to see buns that need to go. We have both Jersey Woolies and Standard Chinchillas currently available.

3. Karli and I have decided to go down to Woody's Wabbits a rabbit equipment dealer. They are located in Astoria, OR, so we have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow. On the way Karli and I will be picking up some fuzzy lops for Karli from Leslie Hobbs and hopefully dropping off M an' M's Crazy Town, a chestnut junior buck Jersey Wooly and another broken opal Jersey Wooly buck to Becky McCall in Silverton, OR. Plus picking up a few condos for Karli at Woody's and some E-Z Crocks for me! Its gonna be a long day tomorrow. Its a 5 hour drive down to Astoria and another 5 hours back.!

Anyways, everyone is holding on here at M an' M Rabbitry. Hopefully there will be an upcomming post about Rolling Hill's MacKay's litter.