It’s a Sad Day Here

ELS Mr. Sandman (Sandy)

ELS Mr. Sandman.

He was a beautiful tort English Angora.

He was a Grand Champion with 4 legs.

2007 MSRBA Fall Show - BOS

He was the sweetest boy.

He was only a little over 3 years old.

Sandman looking for a treat.

He was one of the first two English Angora’s I brought home.

Stan called me on my way home last night to tell me that he had died. This was totally unexpected. I feel so bad that when I was out getting bunnies for the show yesterday morning, I didn’t take the time to give him a pat on the head. I never dreamed he wouldn’t be there when I got home.

There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with him outwardly. He had been cut down a few weeks ago, and had been snarfing down his food like normal.

Sandy had recently sired a litter with Hunneshagen’s Salome. This was her first litter and they did not make it. This makes me even more sad to know that I have no offspring of Sandy.

Oh, Sandy.  I hope there wasn’t something I could have done.  I miss you.

Pictures of Abby from 2009 Hoosier Science & Engineering Fair

As mentioned in an earlier post, Abby won Top Elementary Life Science Project at the Northern Indiana Regional Science and Engineering Fair held at Notre Dame this past February. This allowed her to go onto “State” where she won 1st place Jr. Division in Indy (WOW!).

I finally found pictures on the HSEF site (state level science fair) from the 2009 Science Fair held in April.  The website is HERE. The pictures of Abby are  HSEF_2009-0314.jpg then again 0785 through 0794 (there are a ton of pictures).

Abby has a project for this year that she has been working on since April.  More info on her project later (she doesn’t want to give any ideas away!).

Babies!

Finally!  We have some little ones in the nestbox.

GBF’s Tess came through with flying colors on November 6th – 4 kits in the box.  I bred her to GBF’s Tsunami (Sable Point).  Both Tsunami and Tess have Tallie as their dam, so I was hoping for something good with this mating.  Also, with Tsunami being a Sable Point, I was hoping some recessive genes might pair up, if Tess is carrying any.  But, it doesn’t appear so.  Looks like 3 solid torts and 1 broken tort.   One breeding isn’t enough to base that on though.  Their eyes are opening now.  This is the 2nd try for Tess, and she did just great.

This is the very first litter for Tsunami (he was a year old in April).  He is a normal, so I was leery about who to put him with.   I also bred him to Tasia’s Trinette, a beautiful broken Siamese Sable, who is due December 10th.  I’ll be working him into the breeding plan for Sable Points and Siamese Sables.

The evening of November 12th,  GBF’s Antionette (English Angora) came through with 7 fat “snausages”, as I like to refer to them.  But holy cow, was she ever crabby.  Ouchy mama.  I took them immediately into the house, as she didn’t pull much wool (it was a COLD night).  They are back out with her now.  So far it looks like there are 2 Chocolates, 4 REWs/Pointeds and maybe a Lilac.  I have been trying to get a Lilac for a long time – maybe I finally have one.  It definitely is NOT chocolate and it is NOT blue.  Time will tell.

GBF’s Bridgette and GBF’s Pistol Pete have 2 in the box.  Talk about another grumpy guss!  I’ve been using Pistol more lately.  He is a normal, so I have to be careful who I breed him to.  (A “Normal” or “False Dwarf” is a rabbit that does not have the dwarf gene.  It takes 1 dwarf gene and 1 ‘normal’ gene to create a dwarf rabbit.  When two dwarf genes pair up, you get a Peanut – they almost always die within days.  If you get two ‘normal’ genes paired up, you get a non-dwarf rabbit.  They are most always over the 4# max and typically have longer ears, bigger feet, snipier face, longer in the shoulder).  He is a little over a year old now and has a huge head!  His 3 kits out of Shmadzu sure are looking cute so far (2 in particular).  Bridgette is out of ELS Elden x ELS Felisa and Pistol is out of ELS Elden x ELS Lucy.  So, did some line-breeding to Elden.  Pistol also has babies coming out of GBF’s Petals and GBF’s Tahlia.

LL Black Magic Woman and Erz’s Babe are due today.  I sat in the barn last night with Magic on my lap.  The girls and I took turns feeling the babies moving in her tummy, so I know they are in there.  Now, it’s just a matter of her actually delivering them.  She can be a difficult case when it comes to having babies.   She only had 1 kit this last time, so I purposely fostered 4 kits from another litter to her, hoping to instill the concept of motherhood into her.

Babe has a beautiful nest all set to receive her babies.  She lost her last litter (2 broken orange) to a type of Mucoid Enteropathy that went through my barn a month ago.  I repeated the breeding (to GBF’s Ritz Bitz) and so here we are are… waiting…

There are 15 does due between Saturday and the end of the month.  Yikes.  Six of them are ‘first timers’, so the odds are low with them of getting any live babies.  That leaves nine proven does.   So, lets do some math:  (9 does)  x (4 kits each) x  (.75 loss of 1 kit per litter, peanuts, etc) = potentially, 27 kits.  Have to see how close we come to that.  If we get any kits from the first-timers, then bonus.

This weekend the following does are due:

Nov 21st:  White River’s Troy* x ARR’s Supersymetry.  Suzy had 1 kit last month, but it was a victim of the Enteropathy. THF Saynora’s Zorion x White River’s Bella – I feel a kit of two.  GBF’s Tyraid x L&R Donna – I’m very hopeful about this litter.  Donna’s last litter with Tyraid produced GBF’s Taber (2 legs) and GBF’s Courtenay (1 leg), two beautiful youngsters.  I gave her a nestbox last night and she went straight to work collecting hay to put into it.

Nov 22nd:  ARR’s Angry Squirrel x GBF’s Andra.  FINALLY, it looks like we are going to get some kits out of Angry Squirrel.  (He is such an EXCITED boy.  He constantly paces in his cage.   When a doe comes to ‘visit’, he is so worked up that he tends to ‘misfire’.  It’s kind of funny actually.)  Andra is pulling wool and has made a nest in her box.  This breeding is primarily for Abby’s science project.  

I have someone coming on Saturday to look at pet options.  The girls are with their dad this weekend, so I’ll be going to the Rochester show on Sunday alone.  But, a new rabbit friend is planning to attend, and I’m sure all my ‘old’ rabbit pals will be their to yack with.  Now, I have to decide who to take to the show.  I have several young Juniors to put on the table and several For Sale juniors to take along.

FYI:  GBF’s Andra will be available after this litter.  Information about her can be found on the For Sale page of our website.   It’s time to move her on.  We have Ritz Bitz, sired by White River’s Arden, and Angie from her most recent litter, sired by Ritz Bitz,  to replace her with.

Bunnies Go To CampFire

A friend of mine is a CampFile Leader.  She asked me to bring some bunnies in today for the girls to look at.  These little girls are all Kindergarteners and they had so much fun with the bunnies:

Little Bit

 

Little Bit

Worst Week for Babies

This week has just been terrible for getting litters.  I’m so disgusted.  Ahhhhh.  October 20th was my last live litter.

1. ARR’s Angry Squirrel x RA’s Capsaicin due 24 Oct 2009 -  pulled some hair but no babies.  He was a little young yet on this breeding, so maybe he wasn’t up to ‘full power’ yet.
2. GBF’s Jessie x GBF’s Cadee due 28 Oct 2009. 1 giant that I ended up having to help pull.  First time mom.
3. Antonioni’s Julius x White River’s Kenya due 27 Oct 2009.   She was bred four times, but …. nothing.  First time mom as far as I know.
4. Freeman’s Cocoa was due October 31st.  Appears that she had a false pregnancy.  She made a beautiful nest a day or so after her due date, so I was hopeful…. but nothing.  She’s a proven doe.
5. Hunneshagen’s Salome was due the 1st.  This was her first breeding ever, so getting a live litter or any litter at all was questionable in the first place.   She went 2 days over and finally produced two dead kits on the wire.  She had worked and worked on that nest of hers.  Poor girl.
6. GBF’s Topeka was due yesterday.  A first time mom.  I found three ice-cold kits in the box this morning and they don’t appear to be revive-able.  She only pulled just a tiny bit of wool.  Nice fat kits though. 

So, 3 misses and 3 lost litters.  Ugh.  I’m wandering if the virus, or whatever it was that went through my herd, affected the expecting does.  That’s a very likely scenario.  I was told that the sulfa medications should not have harmed the unborn kits, but the virus could have.

And people think it’s so easy to get babies.  Ha.

GBF’s Tess is my next doe to have babies.  She is due on the 6th.  I moved her into a ‘birthing suite’ last night and gave her a nest box.    She had one DOA kit on her last breeding, so hopefully she’ll get it figured out this time.   I actually bred her to Tsunami (Campo’s Hobie x ELS Tallie).   Tess is out of ELS Elden x ELS Tallie, so did a little line-breeding of sorts to Tallie.

I hope others are having better luck then me right now.

 

FaceBook Page for Green Barn Farm

Wanted to let you know, that I put together a Face Book Page for our farm today – “Friends of Green Barn Farm”.  Whenever I update the For-Sale page, I will post on FaceBook so you will be automatically updated when you check YOUR facebook.  Hope that you will become a Friend or Fan (I haven’t figured out what the difference between the two is!).

Open Does, Turkey for Dinner

Well, I just went through my list of Senior Does and I only have five that are open right now (of the ones I’m wanting to breed).  Now to figure out who their best matches might be:

White River’s Kenya (Black) – she’s gorgeous – just needs a more massive head.   She missed on my first try of breeding her.   Decided to breed her to White River’s Troy.

RA’s Capsaicin (Red) – was bred to ARR’s Angry Squirrel (REW) for Abby’s science project.  He was still on the young side when we did that breeding, so I’m not surprised things didn’t happen.  Will repeat the breeding.

GBF’s Tahlia (Tort) – I thought I bred her, but can’t find my notes!  Ahhh.  I hate it when that happens.  Now what to do…

White River’s Cora (SS) – thought I had bred her also to GBF’s Caden (carries REW or sable gene)…  where is that piece of paper!!!   Got one live kit from this same cross that I fostered to Triskit – and of course, it’s black (so far anyway).

GBF’s Cadee (Tort) – Poor Cadee.  Her first litter and she had a stuck kit.  She pushed all day and finally at 10:00 pm had delivered it enough that I could pull it.   She is out of White River’s Arden x THF Saynora’s Antigone.   She has a substantial body but lacks in the crown, so need to fix that.  The plan was to breed her back to Arden, but that can’t happen now.   So, Plan B.   I think we’ll go with WR Troy.

GBF’s Carmen (Black) – not quite senior yet, but want to get the ball rolling on her.  Breeding her back to her sire.

Have some does due:

Freeman’s Cocoa is due tomorrow.  I don’t know… she’s not acting like she’s gonna have babies.  Did see her in the nestbox this evening though.  I’m still not very good at palpating – I don’t feel any babies in her.  But, I’ve been wrong before.  She was bred to White River’s Dino.

Hunneshagen’s Salome (EA) is due Sunday.  She has been carrying hay around in her mouth for over a week now.  I gave her a nestbox early so she could start building her nest.  Oh, the hair is flying.  This is the first time I’ve bred her, so I hope all goes well.  ELS Mr. SandMan is the father-to-be.

GBF’s Topeka is due the 3rd.  She missed the first time I bred her.  She was bred to her littermate brother, Tobias, so we’ll see what happens – trash or treasure.  Man, she sure is grouchy!  And has a big ol’ belly going on.  Gave her a nest box today and she hopped right in.

Little Bit is the spunk-meister now.   He is still in the house with one of Baron’s kits and one of Charlee’s.  When I open the cage door, he is right there ready to hop out.  He is ALLL about his carrot at night, let me tell ya.  Cute little cuss.

Turkey Business

We took 8 of our largest Bourbon Red turkeys into the butcher this week (but not Tom or his two ‘girls’).  I baked one tonight for dinner.  Yum.  Fresh turkey.  We had 24 total running around.  So, now we are down to 16.  I want to keep 2 toms (including “Tom”) and 3 hens over the winter (including the 2 hens from last spring).  That way each of the girls can take a pair to the fair next year.  I’m keeping an extra hen ‘just in case’.   So, that gets us to 11 birds that we will take in around Thanksgiving.

Turkeys are the oddest creatures.  Whenever anyone comes up the drive, they come rushing out to see who it is.  They seem to be particularly fond of the UPS man!  It’s like they are the Welcoming Committee.  People who are not used to turkeys are a bit frightened, as they do look and sound fairly imposing when all the tom’s are displaying and gobbling.  When I go out in the morning to do chores, they come tearing towards me, making all their funny noises… where’s our food… where’s the grain??  Have you ever seen a turkey run?  It’s kind of like watching Jurassic Park. 

Junior Photo’s

As I continued cleaning cages yesterday, I stopped occasionally to take a break and snap some pictures of my upcoming juniors.  The one I am most excited about is GBF’s Taber (GBF’s Tyraid x L&R Donna):

He has just an excellent head and thick, rounded SHORT ears.  His crown has really nice side to side width, and front to back width.  Hopefully, as he matures, he will gain some height to it.  He is naturally upright and has splendid short, heavy boned legs.  He also has the smoothest body.  He reminds me of how Caden and Cadee felt as young juniors – plush.

His littermate sister, Courtenay, also has a very nice head package.  She isn’t as nice in the body as he is, but still a very pretty doe:

GBF's Courtenay

 

"What's over there?"

"Ooh. A yummy leaf."

 

 

LL Avalanche has a cute doe also, GBF’s Apropos sired by GBF’s Tobias, 1/2 brother to GBF’s Tyraid.  She is molting out of her baby coat right now, so she’s got the scruffies going on.  She too has a nice thick, well-rounded, short ear that I really like.  I also like her depth of shoulder.

 

GBF's Apropos at 11 weeks.

This is Apropos’ littermate brother, Hinrik.  He is cute, but doesn’t ‘have it going on’ like Taber does.  He is still young, so I’m going to hold on to him for a bit to see how he fills out.  At 11 weeks, he could still be doing the teen-ager thing.

 

GBF's Hinrik

 

 

Golden Prairie RBA Show Results

Saturday was the show in Lafayette, IN hosted by the GPRBA.  They had a very nice turn out – close to 2900 rabbits is the number I heard floating around.

Abby and I were up at 4:00 am and on the road by 4:30.  Ugh.  Abby was my number one right-hand-gal.  She is such a good helper.  We only took 2 senior animals – both SSB’s.  The other 13 were all juniors.  All my senior does are bred or have litters.  We took two of Ki’s juniors with us since she wasn’t able to attend and Abby put them on the table for her.  Tony Cox was there – we don’t get to see him very often, so chatting with him was nice.  He is a well known and respected Holland breeder so I was hanging on his every word.

We didn’t do so hot in the HHLC Specialty show, winning only one class – BJD with KKR’s Izabelle.  That gave Iz her 2nd junior leg.

The show-proper went much better!  GBF’s Caden won the SSB class.   GBF’s Taber earned his 2nd leg by winning the SJB class.  And Karrot Kreek’s Quay won the SJD class for us and Taber’s littermate sister, Courtenay, took 2nd.  It’s so nice to have three of the four animals up for group!  Caden won BOG and Quay was BOSG.

In the brokens, we had no senior animals.  We took 2nd BJB with GBF’s Chip Shot.  And then 1st and 2nd in the BJD class with KKR’s Izabelle and Dowling’s Calla.  Izabelle was chosen as BOSG.  Slight tangent here…

It’s kinda nice…. I purchased Calla from Scott Dowling up at the Ann Arbor show.  Scott is a color breeder and just “doesn’t do” torts.  I kept thinking she was a pretty nice looking little doe and couldn’t believe he was going to sell her.  I snatched her up,  not only because she was nice, but because she also carries dilute and chocolate.   Fun, fun.  I was thinking I would show her until she was old enough to breed.  But, she has been consistently pulling 2nd places in the shows I’ve taken her to, so maybe the breeding will have to hold off for a bit!

Once again, it was nice to have 3 of the 4 rabbits up for BOB/BOS!  Caden won BOB and Quay took BOS.  That was nice!

I don’t think we were out of there until 6:30 pm since we had to stick around for 4-Class.  It sure made for a long day.  But, Abby and I had a good time.

Rabbit Illness

I talked with several breeders at the Nappanee show Saturday (October 17th).  One has lost about 200 rabbits since July/August.  Two hundred!  I have only been losing youngsters – those just hopping out of the box to about 8 weeks of age.  Others are losing all age ranges.  Some are saying the are dying from Bloat.  Others, severe diarrhea.  Some, sticky yellow, jelly looking excrement.

There were a variety of things people were trying, with a common theme of Sulfa type medications.  Ron Riddle has been talking with breeders states away, who say Corrid (amprolium) is the only thing that will work.  (Corrid is used to treat coccidiosis.)  Also, probiotics to get the flora in the gut back on track.  Many are saying OATS and HAY only!  No pellets.

What I am seeing here:

• So far, only affecting youngsters – 2 weeks to 8 weeks of age.  Although, I did lose one 3-month old English Angora after the South Bend show to diarrhea.  I’ve been losing probably 4-5 babies a week.  Lost 2 this past weekend, and the last one dying Tuesday.
• Some start out acting like they are “Faders”, then develop other symptoms later on.
• Sticky, yellowish, jelly type excrement that is terribly smelly.  Not just plain normal poop-smell.  This is rank.  I have to bring babies in and literally wash off their bottoms under the sink because this stuff seals off the anus and they can’t poop!
• Some have more mucoid enteritis type poo – mucus covered poop.
• Then, true watery diarrhea with very fast death following, within 24 hours or so.
• Have not seen any bloat

What I am now doing (I AM NOT A VET!!!):

• FPS:  Flaming, Power Washing and Sterilizing all cages with either bleach or Synergy (or Synergize – can’t remember the exact name of it).  It’s a produt used to disinfect dairy buildings/swine operations.  Kills just about anything including H1N1 and e. coli.  It’s pricey stuff.  This will take me a little while to do, as it’s hard for me to move those big stacks by myself.
• All nestboxes have been bleached (again)
• Worming the entire herd, which needs done anyway, including anything big enough to hop out of the nestbox.  I’m using the oral equine Ivermectin.
• Evening of October 17th I started the entire herd on Sulmet.  After talking to a gentleman at the Nappanee show, I talked to my vet who had given him another type of Sulfa medication.  So, after 3 days on Sulmet, I switched to this other Sulfa medication in the water and they have been on that since the evening of October 20th.
• All does & litters back on 1/2 oats & 1/2 pellets and hay.
• Entire herd getting 1/2 tsp of Fastrack top dressed on their oats at night.  This is my probiotic to help keep the good bacteria in their guts because of being on medicaiton.

Any Babies That Act the Least Bit Odd:

• an oral dose of Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim Oral Suspension (200 mg 40 g per 5 ml) for 5 days or so
• orally syringing a mixture of Fastrack and water into them.
• baby gas drops if they appear bloated
• Babies that I bring into the house – Orally syringing mixture of Fastrack and baby food into them and water

I thought things were on the upswing yesterday, since there didn’t appear to be any new sick babies.  But this morning, I noticed that Cookie’s other two babies (her third died earlier this week) are pooy again AND one of my ADULT angora’s had a poopy bottom.

I would be interested in hearing if you are having problems,  what you are doing and if it’s working.

The Merck Vet Manual explains several known intestinal diseases of rabbits including Enterotoxemia, Tyzzer’s Disease, Colibacillosis, Proliferative Enteropathy, and Muccoid Enteropathy.  Has anyone tried Cholestyramine for treatment?  Or 250 ppm Copper Sulfate? I know Copper is tricky stuff.  The Merck Manual mentions these two things as possible treatment for Enterotoxemia.   Merck Vet Manual