Good morning! :)

Charlotte kept me waiting all night, I checked her around midnight before I went to bed and she still didn't have any babies.  I was hoping she'd have them before I went to bed, just in case something went wrong....that way I could be there to help.  But she had other plans! lol  I woke up this morning to feed the basement bunnies, and found her nestbox full of fur!  I took it out and checked, she had 7 babies total.....but 2 of them were peanuts that were already dead.  So, we have 5 healthy babies.....not sure on colors yet, I'll check again later.  Looks like a few of them are pretty light in color, maybe we'll have some more Sable Points ♥

I'll keep ya posted  ;)

-Malena
Edited.....oopps!  looks like I must have counted wrong this morning! lol  Charlotte has 4 babies in the nestbox.  I took them out this afternoon to take a pic and found only 4, I checked around to make sure one didnt sneak out of the box or got lost somewhere in the nestbox-didnt find one anywhere  :/
It was early, so I'm guessing I just counted wrong! lol

The waiting game...

Well, both Janessa & Charlotte are due to have babies today.  So far, Janessa had hers....she had 4 babies, she did a great job for a first time mommy--I am so proud of her.  When I checked the babies, they were snuggled together in a nest full of fur and their tummies were full of milk!  Good job, Janessa!  :)  Looks like she had 3 solid torts & 1 broken tort.  I'll check again later, to make sure I guessed right.  lol

Still waiting on Charlotte, she's huge!  Poor girl has been laying around resting all day.  She's already hollowed out a nest so hopefully she's have them soon.  I'll update as soon as she has them.
It took awhile to get her started (she was 10 months old when she had her 1st live litter), but she did great last time.  *fingers & toes crossed*  hopefully things will go okay this time around too.

-Malena

Nestboxes are in!

Today I put nestboxes in for Janessa & Charlotte, they are both due on the 30th.  This will be Janessa's first litter, which is one reason I decided to breed Charlotte the same day since she is an experienced mom.....just in case something goes wrong and I need to foster babies.  Both girls dug right in and made good hollowed out holes.  Keep your fingers crossed, I hope all goes well.  Janessa is bred to Lars, and Charlotte is bred to Top Hat.  I'm hoping for some nice brokens, I've been overflowing with solids lately so it'll be nice to have some brokens to choose from again. lol

-Malena

Crazy weather

We got a lot of snow & cold weather this winter, and now that its officially Spring I'm waiting for it to warm up and stop being so on & off all the time.  One day its cold and windy, and a few days later its nice and sunny, then it'll get cold again and start raining.....it never seems to stay nice for too long  :/

During the winter time, I put up a big tarp along the backside of the rabbitry.  If I dont put up the tarp, it gets very windy down there.  The wind always seems to blow in that same direction...I call it the wind tunnel.  lol
I cant wait for some kind of constant nice weather so I can take the tarp back down.

Update on the Yona babies.....I did end up loosing one baby yesterday, so we're down to 5.  Its hard to tell but it looked like it might have gotten smooshed  :(    Gidget's a bigger girl so I'm not surprised, things like that happen from time to time.  Hopefully we wont lose any others.

-Malena

Yona babies!!!

 Gotta love when a first time Doe does a good job, today Hamilton's Gidget-(a brood doe out of Camelot's Sweet Pea & Camelot's Gumby) had a litter of 6, sired by Yona!!!  Sometimes you never know what to expect with first time Does, but Gidget did everything perfectly....she built a beautiful nest, plucked lots of fur and had all her babies in the nestbox....I am very proud of her.  Gidget is going to live with another breeder in WI in a couple months.  Since she just recently turned senior, I went ahead and bred her to get her started for her new owner.  Sometimes, if you don't breed a Doe soon after they turn Senior-(which is 6 months old) its harder to get babies out of them.

-Malena

The Boys...

I am so proud of my 2 boys, Tristan & Amor......I still cant believe how well they did at the NC State Convention! I think I'm still in shock! lol  They didnt win BOB, BOS or even Best In Show but I was really pleased with their placements.

Here are some new updated pics of them:

This is Tristan, my Broken Sable Point Jr. Buck.....he place 1st out of 6 in the first show-(he also won BOSV) & in the second show he placed 2nd out of 6.  I almost didn't even take this guy, he was sort of a last minute decision!  Tristan has a great background story....when he was about 10 weeks old, I moved him from the basement where he was born to outside, he was not happy at all--he refused to eat, I almost lost him.  Then, at one point I almost sold him as a pet but decided not to because I really needed a Broken Buck in my breeding program, boy am I glad I hung on to him! lol

And this is Amor, my Sable Point Jr. Buck....he placed 3rd out of 9 in the first show and 5th out of 9 in the second show.  I absolutely LOVE this guy! ♥  

I am very proud of them both  :)

Here's a cute pic of Amor, just for fun.....

Showing rabbits can be a lot like riding a roller coaster.....one minute you're on top of the world, and next thing you know you're feeling down and bawling your eyes out!-(that was me at the last Mocksville show)  Right now, I'm feeling up but don't want to get my hopes up too much cuz you never know how things will go at the next show.  If I could hit some kind of plateau, I think I would be happy.

Some exciting news.....I have a really pretty LOV doe that will be joining us soon, more detail coming soon  ;)

-Malena

Wow, what a loooong day! lol

Just got back from the show a little while ago.  We left yesterday(Friday), and headed out to Greensboro for the big NC state convention.  It was a great seeing all my bunnies buddies again.  I took 2 Hollands for comments, Amor-a sable point jr. buck and Tristan-a broken sable point jr buck and to my surprise they did really well, way better than I had expected!  In the first show, Jay Hreiz was the judge....Amor placed 3rd out 9.  And Tristan placed 1st out of 6, earning him a leg! In the second show, Amor placed 5th out of 9 and Tristan placed 2nd out of 6.  Not too bad for a couple of young jr. bucks  :)

Brendan took 3 Netherland Dwarfs, in the first show his Black Otter senior doe-Audi won BOS.  In the second show, Yogi won BOB and went on to win Best In Show!!!  Audi won BOS in the second show also.

Oh yeah, can you believe.....the one time I actually remember to bring my camera, with all the excitement going on, I totally forgot about taking pics!  *rolls eyes* lol 

Its been a long day, but its been loads of fun!  :)

Congratulations to all the winners!

-Malena

Ready to go

This week is going by soooooo slow!  Tomorrow we will be heading out of here, I've got everything ready to go for the big NC convention....carriers are cleaned and all my supplies are ready and packed.  We plan on leaving after Brendan gets home.  We are only staying for the Saturday show.  Best of luck to everyone going.  I look forward to seeing all my bunny friends again.  Its great spending time with them, talking about my favorite thing to talk about....BUNNIES!  lol
I'll try to remember to bring my camera, so I can snap a couple pics from the showroom.

In other news, I have a couple Does due soon.....I took them out and tried to palpate, to see if I could feel any babies.  Looks like Jorja & Charlotte took.  Janessa, I'm not quite sure.....she's a fatty! lol  Her tummy didn't feel very firm & I didn't quite feel babies but when I put her back in with Lars to see if she would rebreed, she started grunting.  And from experience, that usually tends to mean there are babies in there....guess I'll have to wait and see, since I haven't quite mastered the whole palpating thing yet.  I checked Holly, and could definitely tell she didnt take so I went ahead and rebred her.  I decided to try her with Toro, I think that will be a good match.

-Malena

Busy day...

Today has been a busy day, I took pics of all the young Holland Lops that will be available soon.  For some reason, I ended up with mostly torts this time around--probably because I did mostly Tort to Tort breedings! LOL   To keep them organized, so we know who is who.....Brendan & I tattooed small dots in their ears.  One dot for #1, two dots for #2, and so on.  That way it will be easier to tell them apart.  I would have used a sharpie, which I have done in the past but it seems to wears off too quickly and you cant see what you wrote if you dont keep up with it, on almost a daily basis.

I've got 2 little bucks out of Dokie & Toro that cant seem to decide between, so as soon as I make a decision I will probably post another buck for sale.

I also took a new pic of Yona, he just recently turned senior so he needed a new picture for the bucks page:

Isn't he cute?? ♥

Only thing is, I'm sort of torn between keeping him or selling him.....since I am in the process of adding LOV lines into my herd, I've been using mostly LOV lined bucks.  Poor Yona, as cute as he is, he's kind of an oddball.....he's all THF Saynora lines, dont get me wrong--theres absolutely nothing wrong with that, Tracy & Jenna have gorgeous Holland Lops!  I love that line also, a lot of my stuff goes back to THF Saynora, along with some Camelot.  So far, I've got him bred to one doe.  As soon as I have another open Doe I'll try him again.  I'd hate to let him leave without keeping anything out of him.  I thought about selling him at the upcoming OH mini convention in May, but I had a lady from SC inquire about him a few days ago....so, we'll have to wait and see what happens. 

-Malena

Glad to be back!

We had no internet for almost 1 week....I swear, I thought I was going to die! lol
Thank goodness we're back up & running again, I spent most of the day responding to emails that I missed-Whew! that was a lot of work!  But, I think I've pretty much gotten things caught up now.

This weekend is the NC State convention, we will be leaving Friday after Brendan gets home from school...he's going to show a couple Nethies, and I'm taking a couple Jr bucks-mostly to get comments on.  We clipped nails, tattooed, groomed and checked over each bunny to make sure there were no DQ's.  Tomorrow, I need to clean out the carriers and make sure I have everything ready.
Wish us luck, there is going to be some stiff competition!

-Malena

Updated....finally!

Well, I finally got around to updating Brendan's website.....I think it's been about 4 months since I last updated, and it got to the point where his Juniors that were pictured are now Seniors and producing litters of their own & he has a new batch of Juniors that need to be added.  I've been doing some thinking, and I think I need to look around for a new piece of fabric to use as a background for taking pictures of his bunnies....what I use for my website doesn't look good with his website theme.

Anyhow, if you'd like to check out his website.....here's the link:
Brendan's Netherland Dwarfs

Thanks Sarah, for motivating me to update his site  :)

-Malena

Oh my gosh!

Poor Yona almost killed himself!  I went out to fill up water bottles this morning, and while I was watering....I guess Yona didnt see or hear me coming-(even though I watered 4 rabbits before I got t o him).  Apparently, I scared him......he freaked out and bounced off the walls of his cage then fell straight on his back!  It all happened so quickly!  I reached in and picked him up and held him until he calmed down.   He seems to be okay now, but I'll keep an eye on him just in case.

When I enter the rabbitry, I always make sure to say "Hey guys!" so they know I'm coming.  I guess poor Yona didn't hear me, I'll have to make sure I say it a little louder when I get near him.  He's such a cute little buck, I'd hate to lose him  :(

-Malena

First impressions...

I try my best to make a good impression, when it comes to new visitors that come to the rabbitry.  I tend to keep the rabbitry clean anyhow but when I know someone is coming over, I take extra time to make sure I change pans and clean.  Rabbits can make a mess very quickly and if you dont keep up with it, it can get out of hand.  Some times my husband thinks I clean the rabbitry more than I do the house! LOL
I take great pride in having a nice, clean rabbitry with beautiful, healthy bunnies  :)

Today was a beautiful day, I cant wait until Spring comes so I can take all the stacking cages out and spray them down again. I could have done it today but my main helper, Brendan wasnt here....the kids had Saturday school today--one of the many snow day make up days!
I also need to put down a new layer of mulch in the outside rabbitry and clean out the manure beds-(I guess I'll post an ad on Craigslist or IWANNA and try to sell some) And what doesnt sell I'll have the kids help me put it on the garden, and around trees.....Rabbit manure is great fertilizer!

Update on Willow Walker Pepper....I was able to get her bred to Lars today!!!  Hopefully she'll take and about a month from now we'll have a litter of cute little baby Hollands.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some Broken Blacks!-(one of my favorite colors) ♥

-Malena

Warmer weather ahead....

This weekend is supposed to be really nice, I cant wait!  I was looking through my Evans Software program and saw that Willow Walker Pepper-a really pretty broken black doe that I got from Janice just turned senior, which means she is now old enough to breed.  So, I'm hoping maybe she'll cooperate this weekend.....now I just need to decide which buck I want to breed her to.  Since Lars is getting older, I might give him first dibs.....he's such a sweet guy and he's produced some of the nicest bunnies in my rabbitry. 

I'll keep you posted on how things go with Pepper.  Have a great weekend everyone!  :)

-Malena

Snow Bunny!

Today was another snowy day, but it wasn't too cold or windy so I decided to let Laicey-one of our Holland Lop bunnies have some fun in the snow.  Here are some pics I took, enjoy!  :)

 

Laicey says....Hi guys!  :)

Look, I found a leaf! lol

 

Hmmm, I wonder whats over there....

Hope you enjoyed the pics, I had a lot of fun playing in the snow with Laicey!

-Malena

Making room for Juniors....

The bad thing about having a small rabbitry is that every once in a while I have to rotate out bunnies, in order to keep and grow out some of their offspring to move forward with my breeding program.  Today I sold 2 rabbits, that gives me 2 empty cages.....which wont stay empty for long, cuz I've got my eye on quite a few youngsters that are looking super cute!  One day I hope to be able to expand and add more cages to the rabbitry, but right now I have to make do with what I have  :/

-Malena