Another week gone by :)

Welcome Tarax followers and as promised our 2nd instalment of the Tarax Stud blog :)
So whats happened since last week I hear 2 of you say....well not to much surprisingly though Sunday was brilliant but I'll get to that later.
Last week we lost 2 of India's babies to the cold weather admittedly they were very small almost peanuts to be honest...which left her with only 1 kit, we added a heat lamp which seemed to help especially as India kept diving into the nest and digging the poor thing out to feed. The surprise is that the kit is still with us even if we nearly lost it Friday (found upside down on its back...very plump but very cold) luckily with the help of Kim's ample assets :) the youngster warmed up and is still OK. Friday and Saturday were cleaning out days and we had so many visitors lol, started with Rosie and her mum picking some feed up then as they went we had the Tropical Wings Zoo asking about rabbits from us then when they left our guinea pig feed bloke dropt off Kim's feed then came down to ask for a baby Siberian when there old enough...then when it finally settled down we has 2 people asking for eggs lol.
When the cleaning was done we decided to assess our stock realising that we have a few rabbits in the shed and lots of projects on the go ( a new breed, a new colour, working on making 2 other colours better) as well as working on 2 colours in the guinea pig shed lol so Kim decided to let the chocolate Harlie programme go so we decided to put 4 of the rabbits up for sale.

 

This is Harmony 

 

 

Harmony was our original Harlie starter doe, she is one of the best mums we have had and produces good sized litters,we acquired her from a very good friend of ours and has terrific blood lines

 

This is Hilda.

 



 

Hilda is an agouti doe carrying chocolate and it was not until yesterday that we found out she is a Harlie as well . She went to a little boy who picked her up Sunday...though when ever i saw the mum it was mum carrying the rabbit every where saying 'she is so lovely' ...'she is such a darling'...i think her little boy better say good bye to that particular rabbit lol. One of our friends  who wanted her is going to have her litter sister :)

 

 

This is Helga

 

 

Helga is a mantle and is a stunning doe, our good friend Julie took her for a good friend of hers so we are very pleased that they have all gone to extremely good homes :)

 

Sunday was the two of us going to our first rabbit show in nearly 2 months (both having various bugs etc.) it was an hour away being in Colchester and had a couple of other stock shows including the East Anglian Lop which was being judged by our good friend Daren.

 

This is Emma Sargent judging the Netherland Dwarfs

 



 

 

Ray Smith judged the Fur & Rex (here judging one of my Glavcots)

 

Mr Woods judged the Fancy and Lops

 

Daren Morris judging the East Anglian Lop show



 

We had such a lovely day there...it was freezing cold....didn't stop snowing...and there weren't as many people there as usual but it we enjoyed it :) Kim made 30 homemade scones and shared them with our friends there including bringing butter and homemade red gooseberry jam...trouble is she has made a rod for her back as the next show everyone is expecting homemade bread pudding lol. Nearly forgot to mention we got the CC for our Hulstlander 'Nij' out of 3 then we got a CC with our Golden Glavcot 'Cedric' our other Glavcot 'Dan'got put at the bottom of the table for biting the backsides of the other rabbits lol...his never done that before in fact he is a real softy usually? anyway 'Cedric beat the other RV's on the day and then went on to 2nd best Fur rabbit on the day which was brilliant :) (one day we will get best Fur lol)

 

So that's it really for last week the lilac Siberian babies are running around now tormenting mum, our F1 'Charlie' started nesting which is not a good thing as she is to early so she may have to be mated again. 'Princess' the argente has also started making a nest including pulling fur but she is a lot closer to her actual birthing so she may of actually taken....obviously time will tell :) anyway busy week ahead so until next weekend l8trs :)









Something for the weekend sir?

I don't think we will have blog posts every day, so news will probably be limited to weekends as that's when the shed is at its most active :) door step visits for rabbits or guinea pigs (or eggs and feed lol) its also our cleaning out days, when we assess our stock, look at matings or of course go to shows. This weekend was no different except we were both a bit poorly but we cleaned out both sheds and the chickens even got a spring clean lol. Our outside area is where we quarantine, keep some of the for sale stock and where our F1's are housed.

 

Mr G our Perlfee has the run of the floor at the moment to help his weight

 

When we clean outside we always end up with an audience lol, the chickens are always watching whats going on but also to see if anything gets brushed off the table in the run as well :)

 

 

What is nice is that sometimes stock outside blooms because you don't think it will become part of the stock in the shed....one of our agouti does we had was up for sale but the person who was going to have her changed their mind (thank you for the donation lol) but when i cleaned her out Kim's had a change of mind as she is quite nice lol. The trouble is that we have 2 other does (a mantle and agouti with harli markings) as well but we can only keep 2 so we will assess them again in a couple of weeks to see whose staying (anyone need a very friendly doe nearly 4 months old let us know :) )

 

Anyway here she is...what do you guys think?

 

 

In the shed we had a round of matings to sort out, our chocolate lines had all missed (see previous post and pictures) so all 3 does mated up on Saturday. (Nicola tell Tom that Parsley's son was mated to Sandy and our other choc otter buck was mated to Parsley's daughter Bess...so fingers crossed he may get one of Parsley's grandchildren). On the other side of the shed we had one our Glavcot maiden does mated up which should produce some nice youngsters if she has taken.

 

Our Glavcots Dan with Fanny :)

 

 

Our next mating is our 1st brown Siberian to a lilac Siberian, this mating should help us establish the browns in the shed as we only have the lilacs at the moment.

 

The lilac is Lillian here she is pestering Sibs to start with the loving :)

 





 

10 minutes later and ...wait for it...7 matings later.... Sibs  has had enough lol

 

 

 

So some positive matings so far...until we got to the Hulstlanders...we only needed 1 doe to mate up.....and did we get one....no! 3 does and not one raise or show of interest in the bucks Katrina i think to be honest is a little on the curvy side so may explain why she would not mate....(looks like the Atkins for her) the other 2 does were more interested in what food there was in the bucks hutches and to be honest looked as though they were....whats the expression...oh yes... just thinking of England lol so we gave up with the Hulstlanders until later in the week. The only other bits of news to pass on until next week is that 2 of India's kits died Saturday night :( but as we left the shed tonight our other little choc tort doe Saffron had pulled a ton of fur so we may wake up to to Wrigley's :) we will let you all know next week ....until then have a good week everyone.











Welcome

Welcome to the Tarax Stud blog page :) we decided to do this as an easier way for the followers of our FB page and our web site page to be kept up to date with daily news within the rabbitry :) The web page is limited to the amount of photos we can put up and FB means you have to look through albums to find relevant info and pictures each time....plus we like playing lol. Our web site https://sites.google.com/site/taraxstud/ has our history and other short and relevant info about the stud but the blog will let people know whats happening on a daily basis...(if I get the chance to sit down each day lol) Our Face Book page https://www.facebook.com/TaraxStud  still is relevant though so still do visit :)
March 10th -
So here is our 1st week on 'The Blog' we were due a few litters this week, on the mini lop side of things there have been some ups and downs. Three of our choc lines were mated up and all missed

 

This is Sandy a real laid back doe

 

This is Symphony very small choc doe

 

and this is Bess a bit special as she is Parsley's one and only daughter



 

 

So it looks as though some more matings will be in the pipe line this month (fingers crossed for you Tom :)  ) on the plus side there have been some nice litters born in the last few days, one to a Cinnamon the other to a Choc tort unfortunately with the cold winds and change in weather we lost one litter but our other litter (touch wood has got through last 2 nights).

 

This is India

 

and this is her feeding :)  (heat lamp from J. Bramley)

 



The only other litters were 2 of our Hulstlanders which both missed and one of our Siberian does which did take, she was a doe we got from Trevor Rawlings in Eire and we have been looking forward to this mating for a long time; with 6 babies in the nest all with their eyes open we are hoping for at least 1 of our own home bred for London lol. We did have a previous mating with another doe which we acquired from Laurel Benson and she did produce two very nice kits...one in particular stood out

 

This was Sampson

 

Unfortunately we lost him within 12 hours of noticing he was ill :( we quarantined him and his brother even though his brother Alfie showed no signs of problems. Alfie is still ok but the pressure is now on him lol...his a nice looking buck ears are slightly long and his coat does not have as much flecking...yet but we will see how he gets on.

 

This is Alfie

 

Other news in the shed is much the same, the torts are sprouting up all over the place lol, India a lovely little doe from a lovely friend of ours (Stephanie Chambers) had already produced a lovely litter of choc torts (one of which went to a new home last weekend) the 2 that are left are typical of the colour that is seen on the show table today...lovely rich colour and good shadings looking forward to running these 2 on....even if they are both does lol.

 

India's first kits :)

 





The other piece of news in the shed are our projects :) Kim loves a challenge....(under-statement lol) a few years back she and a very good friend were instrumental in making the choc tort a recognised colour in the mini lops. When we started up again after a 6 year gap, she of course wanted to get her teeth in to a new project so decided to look at working on chocolate harlequins....which is hard enough till she decided that one of our rare breeds need looking at and to look at bringing an extinct breed back.....which was why we ended up with some extra rabbits back in the shed lol. My favourite so far in the F1's is a lovely doe called Charlie (yes named after you Charlie) who has a lovely coat and shape and will help us brilliantly with our breeding programme.

 

Charlie who has mated up :)

 



Our next project which was mentioned in passing by the way....(though they knew it was going to get her thinking about it lol....you know who you are) involves a new colour and some hard work i should think. To help with this we need to acquire a doe...no easy job but luckily our friend Laurel stepped in again and we ended up with   

 

'Princess'



 

A pretty apt name for her, she moans all the time (you only have to look at her and she starts), nothings good enough for her, she constantly throws everything around in her hutch (bedding, toys and food bowls) and when we took her to our best buck in the shed, he wasn't good enough for her!  though she relented in the end...turns out she is a bit of a tart on the quite really.....and i do mean a tart....poor boy took him hours to get his strength back lol :)

 

Anyway that's it for our 1st blog there's other things happening all the time, new people to the shed (nice to meet Alan & his wife) as well as old (lovely to see you Becky again...and as soon as there is a lilac we will let you know, if you have the room of course ;) .....Paul hopefully that little buck has settled with his new companion....Tom fingers crossed for that choc doe soon, Alex let us know how Biff is getting on). We will advertise stock for sale on here as well as the FB page so do visit when you can....please also comment on the blogs as you are all family on here and family always keep in touch :)