GC GBF’s Topeka: My First Litter

Had a quick photo shoot today.  These are 3 of Topeka and Pistol Pete’s babes (there is a fourth solid tort, but he just refused to pose – he’s a leaner).  They are just shy of 3 months.  Do you notice a theme with the names??

GBF's Kimber (doe). Nice heavy bone.

GBF's Kimber.

My pick of the litter, GBF’s Beretta:

GBF's Beretta (doe). Short, compact.

GBF's Beretta

GBF's Beretta

And, her brother Wesson:

GBF's Wesson

Gbf's Wesson (buck). Heavy bone.

GBF's Wesson

Junior Pictures

Finally able to get some pictures taken… many still left to do, but here is a start on some of our young juniors that we have right now.  I seem to have a lot of does for a change!  Following pictures are all does:

GBF's Alameda (thf Saynora's Zorion x GBF's Quicksilver)

GBF's Brimstone (GBF's Indy x GBF's Simone)

GBF's Brimstone.

GBF's Surrey (Broo's Chase x L&R Sedalia)

GBF's Surrey.

GBF's Fernie (GBF's Pistol Pete x GBF's Petals)

GBF's Sydney (ARR's Angry Squirrel x Karrot Kreek's Quay)

GBF's Noir (SA's Magnum x GBF's Cadee)

GBF's Jello (GBF's Opie x Cox's Kinzee) - Cream doe. I call her Brooks, and Haley calls her Jello. What kind of name is "Jello"??

Kitimat’s New Buddy

One of the cutest stinkers I’ve bred yet, is GBF’s Kitimat (GBF’s Tyraid x GBF’s Triskit).  He went to his new home last weekend.  Dawn sent me these pictures of Kitimat with her little 2-year.  I just thought they were way too cute not to share:

"I love my new bunny."

"His tattoo is good mom."

Sharing secrets.

Squirtzee

On January 12th, Sedalia had a lovely litter of 4 kits.  They are now 26 days old.  One of them is particularly tiny.  Teeny tiny.   His siblings have been moved back out to the barn, but I was too afraid Squirtzee would not be able to make it out there in the cold, and so I kept him in the house and fostered him to Quicksilver’s litter.  They were born on January 21st, making them 9 days younger.

Squirtzee

Squirtzee with his foster sibling.

Squirtzee weighs 3.75 ounces. His foster sibling weighs 4.5 ounces.

Just Can’t Let Your Guard Down

I’ve been trotting out to that barn every night at 3:00 am to check for babies for some time now.  Last night, I made my last check at 11 pm before going to bed.  Set the alarm for 3:00 am, and fell asleep.  The alarm rang, and I thought, “too tired  zzzzz”.  I got out to the barn at 9:00 am, and dang it if L&R Cookie didn’t deliver 5 kits a day early.  Popsicles.  @#$%  Ahhhh.  Every single time.  Life cuts you no slack, I swear.  Poor Cookie.

On a brighter note though!

Sometime between my finding Cookie’s poor babies and 11:00 am, Quicksilver delivered her first ever litter, also a day early.  Five toasty kits.  It’s so nice to have a doe, bred for the first time, to have a live, healthy litter right off the bat.  Two light-colored, and 3 darker.  One is a peanut (top).  Quicksilver took over in my breeding program for her dam, Plank’s Aqualena.

Less then 2 hours old (thf Saynora's Zorion x GBF's Quicksilver).

So, now of course, I’m curious about what we have in this litter.  Zorion (tort) carries shaded and could carry dilute.  Quicksilver (black) carries shaded or REW and dilute.  Most likely outcome would be Blacks and Torts.   Possibly Siamese Sable, Seals, Sable Points, something dilute…

Three more does due tomorrow.  None of them are making any motions in that direction yet.  Although, each time I go out to check, Jonica is cuddled up in her nestbox.

2:30 pm

Well, I take that last comment back.  Two more does due tomorrow.  I walked out at 2:00 to check for babies again, and surprise, surprise…. Hughette had fur all over her cage and three fatty’s in the box.  What’s up with these does all going a day early?!  Today seems to be THE day.

Family of ARR's CV Soul x GBF's Hughette.

The dark broken kit, is a broken chestnut.  You can tell he is Chestnut and NOT black by looking at his ears.  See that they are light-colored on the inside?  That means Chestnut.  Dark on the inside of the ears would mean a Black kit.  The kit on the right must have had a rough delivery… his entire back leg is bruised and he is a bit scratched up.  Kit on upper left looks to be an Orange today (1-22-2010).

CV Soul is a Chocolate Agouti (A_bbC_DdE_) and Hugh is an Orange (AaB_C_D_ee).  I specifically did this breeding to create some Agouti chocolate carriers.  Why?  To work on Lynx on down the road.  Plus, Chocolate Agouti’s, in and of themselves, are very pretty.

Mama Sedalia

Sedalia is the dutiful mom.  Protective, but not nasty.  Just aggressive enough to remind you that she IS watching you!  Her babies are in the house where they are sure to stay warm – here until their eyes open and they start to venture out of the box.  I brought her in last night to feed her little ones and decided to take some pictures.

It sure is funny to watch them.  They KNOW when mom is near the box.  They must be able to smell her.  They go absolutely ape crazy – scrambling everywhere looking for her – tumbling over each other.  When she hops in the box, all you can see are wriggling feet and legs as they all jockey for position on a teat – little legs sticking out the front of Sedalia and out both her sides.  Then you need to listen closely…happy slurping and little baby noises of pleasure.

When Sedalia finishes feeding, she hops out of the box.  It is a completely new scene.  Babies are on their backs, feet in the air, barely able to move, passed out from over indulgence.  Stuffed bellies.  If human, they’d be asking for Rolaids and loosening their belts a notch.  Too cute.

Sedalia has 4 kits in this litter, sired by Broo’s Chase.  They are 4 days old.

Jockeying for position.

One VERY full kit, on his back, still nursing. You can just make out the back legs of his sibling to the right.

L&R Sedalia - such a pretty girl.

Time to Feed the Babies

Haley grabbed the camera and clicked off a bunch of pictures last night, as we were helping Topeka feed her kits (sired by GBF’s Pistol Pete).  Pistol is out of GC ELS Elden x GC ELS Lucy.  Topeka is also out of Elden, but bore by ELS Tallie.  Hopefully, the kits will develop as nice as their pedigree.

Her first litter was born early November; 3 kits that I could not revive.  I’m so happy that these are all fat and healthy.  Topeka is ‘my girl’ – my first and only 4-Class Winner to date.  Nothing worse then to have a great show rabbit and not be able to get kits.

Slurp, slurp!

Above is a good picture of the Charlie in the litter (bottom right) – nice stripe down his back.  This litter came out exactly as the odds should have when you do a Broken-to-Broken breeding:  25% Charlies, 25% Solids, and 50% Brokens.  The Brokens are still heavily blanketed though, which I personally like.

Help! I've tipped over and I can't get up!!

This kit was SO fat after nursing – like a toad.  The one kit I was able to revive from Celcius is still doing well.  He is on the upper left, next to Toad.  Not positive of his color yet, but suspect he is a Siamese Sable – dark but not black.  Bluish, but not blue.  Almost like an Opal, without the Agouti markings.

Would somebody help me already?!

"What does somebody have to do for help around here?!"

I finally had pity for Toad, and uprighted him.

Capsaicin x Angry Squirrel Family

Hello.

These are the only kits we have (so far anyway) out of ARR’s Angry Squirrel.  He was a cutsey REW with a very nice headset on him.  Unfortunately, we lost AS to the Entropathy (or whatever it is) that is going around.   We have a couple other does that were bred to him, so hopefully, we will get a couple other litters.  These guys have been in the house since they were born.  We just took them out to the barn yesterday, as they were starting to hop out of the box.  They all carry REW, obviously, and the wide-band gene.

Solid Orange/Red.

Broken Orange/Reds.

These two brokens are SO cute.  I’ve seen the term “booted” on other sites and wasn’t sure what that meant, but I believe these qualify as “booted”.  They are have very little white on them – their feet are white and there is some white around the neck and a tich on the face.   I think they are adorable!

And of course.... a tort.

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.

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