Mink Hollow Rabbitry Blog

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In an effort to move away from Facebook more, I am starting a blog. I will post things here that I would normally share on the farm page on FaceBook.

—- watch this space for more —–

I'll post some new pictures of the babies tomorrow.
For now, there's this.

This is Cancon enjoying her sprouts.
You can see her 2 week old babies (litter DCD) lounging around in their nestbox below her.
In case anyone's wondering about how Cancon got her name:
Her ear number is CBC2. “Cancon” is short for Canadian Content - Long live the CBC!

2020/03/28 21:04 · becker

breeding, litters

Everyone seems to be doing fine.

There were two new litters this morning. Cerebra has not yet kindled.
I suspect she isn't going to.
Still, 7 litters out of 8 bred is pretty good.
7 litters and 58(?) new babies!

Cebreez had hers. Only four, but they are big. (DCO). This time Chai is the dad. He has gorgeous colour. If she is carrying non-extension, there could be tris.

Cerise had hers too. (DCQ) I haven't been able to get in there and check them up close. When I get close, she goes in there and covers them. She built her nest BESIDE her nestbox. Her cage has a solid wood floor, so the babies will be fine. Looks like ten maybe? They will all be agouti or otter because Cersie is (Aat) and Comet is the dad. He's a chinchilla.

2020/03/27 18:11 · becker

litters, breeding

We've got 5 out of 8 litters born.
In addition to Cindy and Choir, Windy, Tink, and Conina have had theirs.

Windy had TWELVE! (DCM)
They all look dark. Andy is the dad. He's a sable, but it turns out he is also carrying the Steel gene. There are NO recognized Rex colours that allow for a steel gene. The tricky part is that the steel gene doesn't show itself in a self coloured rabbit. That means I have no way of making sure any of these babies are not carrying Steel.

Tink had TEN. (DCN)
Looks like she acquiesced and built a nice nest in the box I gave her.
Tink was bred to Atticus. He is ALSO a sable (a broken one). I don't think he is carrying steel, but I can't be sure just yet. I will need to do a test breeding to find out for sure.

Conina had 6 big babies (DCP)
She was bred to Buddy. Buddy is a blue/cream harlequin.
It looks like 3 are lighter and 3 darker. I didn't have a close look yet (mom's kind of protective), so I don't know yet if any are harlequinized.

That leaves Cerebra, Cebreez, and Cerise.
Tune in tomorrow to see what's in the nest box.

2020/03/26 23:56 · becker

breeding, litters

So far this morning we have TWO new litters:

Litter DCL Cindy had hers (DCL). She had 12 altogether, but only 7 are alive. The others look like they were “over-cleaned” - bruising, missing patches of skin, … I don't know what happened, but it could have been that they were coming faster than she could cope with?

Anyhow, there are 7 good looking babies. Looks like one or 2 harlequins, a couple of tris, and ???

I'll know more in a few days when their fur starts to come in.

Litter DCK The other litter is Choir's.

Litter DCK: 10 babies, looks like otters and selfs, possibly some chocolates!

Given that this litter ID is DCK, I think I'm going to have to come up with some DUCK names for these guys. Donald and Daffy, perhaps. Darkwing Duck? Feel free to offer suggestions.

All of the other does either have already made nests and are chilling - rather uncomfortably.

Tink decided to make her nest on the wire in the corner of her cage. (Litter DCN) Babies on the wire is NEVER a good idea, so I gave her clean nest box, which she immediately moved out of the way so she could continue nest-building in the corner.
I tried a different nestbox - still NOPE.
I'm now try a 3rd different nestbox, with a litter pan wedged beside it so she can't move things around.
She's been trying to get into the corner. We'll see. I'll go out and check again in a few hours.