We had the grandchildren stay for most of the week so not much time spent in the shed as i had hoped, which meant all the cleaning and show prep was done on the Saturday :( i did get to look at the youngsters who have all opened their eyes and have come out of the nests and with the sun finally coming out and warming everything...finally...we could put the heat lamps away :).
Princess lost one of her youngsters which I'm not sure why as they all seemed OK but i know there are not always answers to why things happen :( luckily the rest are ok and we still have 4 oranges which is good. Charlies kits are looking good...very plump lol and the silvering looks great already though they are still to young to assess yet (i will put photos up next week).
Saturday as i said was cleaning out which was a little easier with some of our rabbits having moved on to new homes....bramble and the little agouti doe were going to Harlow the next day so that helped again but the hutches in the shed are still pretty full after splitting some of the litters up....but thats a problem for another week lol.
Sunday meant show time and Kim and myself actually went to separate shows; Kim also shows guinea pigs along with her mum, so she went to Canterbury. Because it was just myself going I only took my rabbits 'Cedric' my adult Golden Glavcot who did well at his other show, 2 x Hulstlanders 'Nij' and 'Dillon' and also 2 new rabbits out for their 1st time 'Edward' a 14 week old Glavcot and 'Alfie' our first Lilac Siberian.
The Hall before the judging starts
One of the Dutch judges judging
Mr Daren Morris judging the lop rabbits
It was a lovely day at the show as i love taking pictures as well as chatting and socialising :) and if we get any cards for our rabbits, its always a bonus lol. At this show Cedric got a CC in a class of 6 rabbits which considering what breed he is was very good and Dillon beat his step brother Nij and got his 1st CC :) the little u/5 glavcot beat the u/5 Siberian which was expected as Edward was the better in my eyes lol.
The rest of the day was spent watching the rest of the rabbits being judged my favourite was the continental giants :)
Our next show which we are both looking forward to is next week and is the Essex Championship Show, we have 9 rabbits entered (the most we have entered lol) but to be honest its the social side that's the biggest part of it. One of the FB pages we belong to (Mini Lops GB) are having a sort of picnic day so every ones making something and getting to know each other...i'll be there with the camera of course and again put a few pic's up lol.
Before this weeks blog finishes we had one of our friends who visits with their rabbit suggest that they would like to know more about our rabbits and if we could put it on the blog which sounds a good idea....it allows you to meet our stock, their history, the reasons why we have them etc. so Sam :) here is the first of the rabbits.
This is Borage
Borage is from our original line from which we started back in 1998, the line originated from Daren Morris and Anne Jones and started with a fantastic black otter trio. Borage came about from a black otter mating to a lilac tort mating and was by far the best of 4 in the nest, she is not an old doe being born 11/8/11 but has produced a varied amount of kits in the past 2 years.
Looking back on her litters she produced 17 kits in total of those because of the dwarfing gene 4 of those unfortunately were peanuts and died. 1 other died out of the nest but of the 12 that survived to leave the nest we certainly had a selection of colours lol
4 Black Otters
1Sooty Fawn
1 Lilac Tort
1 Lilac Self
2 Black Self
1 Choc Otter
1 Orange
1 Beige
She has been mated up to a black self this week so looking forward to seeing what she produces, especially as the buck is so very typey himself (related to her and a fantastic black otter from Mr Morris). Personality wise she is a very laid back doe, she loves being a mum in fact she does seem to sulk when there are no youngsters in the hutch with her lol, she does pass this trait on to the litters which is always good if any of the young are sold as pets. So that's the first of our rabbits :) next week we will introduce you to another of our breeds but i will let you guess which it will be :)
When i suggested to Kim that we would write something up about each of our rabbits she suggested why don't i also put something up about the various items we use within the shed how to save money etc....(great more writing and photos lol) so lastly here is one of the items we use in our shed....when we had a visitor today they actually asked about this so i thought i may as well start with it lol.
Yes its a bird feeder...it holds the fat blocks in it....you can get them from pound shops and they cost about....a pound lol. Anyway when you have a lot of rabbits you end up needing a lot of items,
So the first thing you have to do is remove the chain from the top, and then cut the lid off which as its hinged is quite easy to do.
Once that has been taken off, use wire cutters to snip a piece off the front at the bottom allowing access to it (i cut 3 squares wide).I do cut a piece from the bottom as well :)
Once that is done you need 3 small wood screws, 3 stainless steel washers and with 2 screws at the top and one at the bottom in the middle you fasten it to the inside of the hutch...i normally make it slightly higher than head height so to make the rabbit work for it...but either way you now have a strong easily fillable and very cheap...hay rack :)
So that's it for this week people, next week we have some more news on some new litters in the shed, the big Essex show and more notes within the shed on our rabbits and the equipment we use so we hope you enjoyed this weeks blog and until then l8trs everyone :)
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