Sunday, December 6, 2009

Baby Time Again

Two litters were born this week to Spang's Natalya and Spang's Kimba:). Juno's breeding did not take which wasn't a surprise given her age, and Althea (my Black 'plucking' doe:)) was not pregnant either, which will earn her a trip to the 'retirement' home of my local friend who has a fiber business and uses angora in her products exhaustively:). Given the fact that Althea is young and could not conceive twice under normal conditions means that she will not be fertile/ dependable enough to stick around here, especially if she is not a show rabbit and cannot earn her keep some other way. She will now live the rest of her life at a 'luxury' bunny house where her new owner will use her wool and happily keep an FA who molts on a regular basis:).

Margaux will be due in approx. a week and half and is definitely prego (carrying hay around like there's no tomorrow:))----and Yvonne is due around the same time, though it is harder to tell what is happening with her because she never carries hay or begins building nests until the Day Of, LOL.

Below are two pics of the new litters snapped earlier today (at 2 days of age). The first is of Natalya's litter with 3 REWs and 2 Blacks, and the second is of Kimba's bunch consisting of Black, REW, Tort, and Sable. Kimba is a Sable F4 FA/NZ cross and this was her first litter. She kindled a day early with 11 kits so all her Sable babies (the little Blue looking things in the first picture:)) were promptly moved to Natalya's box because Natalya had only 5 and I wanted to be extra sure that the Sables survived. Kimba was bred to Giacomo (a Tort) since he was the best choice at the time to produce more Sables, but next Spring she will be bred to Anton (a Sable Pearl buck) which will definitely produce more Sables and Pearls to get my Sable/Pearl line off the ground:).







Other than this not a whole lot is happening at this time of year with cold weather and the holidays:). Since there are no shows at the moment there is nothing to do but breed and gear up for the PA Convention in Feb, along with growing out coats for the 2010 Spring Season, which looks as though it is going to be nice with a great selection of buns.


Btw, for those of you who don't know (and I will be posting about it again in a few weeks:)) the United Angora Club (UARC) will be hosting TWO Specialties at the PA Convention this year on Feb. 6 & 7---a Saturday and Sunday. This year's PaSRBA show is expected to bring in over 12,000 rabbits, which is only 1,000 shy of the entry at this year's ARBA Convention in San Diego! The official catalog for the PA Convention is not available yet, but it will be posted mid-December on the PaSRBA Website at http://www.pasrba.org/.

More again next week, and hopefully everyone is fully winterized and holed up for the coming winter!:-)

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