At Last---!

Well, today was the day---rightly or not----that I finally got rid of those accursed water dishes and replaced them with the much neater and infinitely more practical water bottle, LOL. By some miracle the days are finally getting warmer here now, and while a few nights have still been in the high 20's, the majority of late have been above freezing, or at least close enough to 32 degrees that the water doesn't quite freeze at night. After watching my purebred Giant doe immerse her entire head (furnishings and all---!!) in her water dish last night, I decided that enough was enough and even if I had to haul 1000 water bottles into the house every morning to thaw if the temperature should drop back to zero, it is still better than hyperventilating every time I watch a rabbit in show coat standing, slurping, or snorkeling in it's water dish, LOL.

Anyway, so this is the first of several loads of bottles I brought outdoors today to replace. It was great to feel that spring is on it's way and I can soon get back to 'normal' life with a more efficient management schedule that allows watering just once a day instead of twice. Whew!:-)




Here also are two pictures I took several weeks ago of the last two bunnies in showcoat after the PA show---right before they were clipped and bred. This bun here is Elenita, a Sable doe who had one litter already and proved herself to be an excellent mother. She is currently bred to Anton, a Sable Pearl buck.




This is Spang's Diana right before her last haircut. I have posted several pictures of this girl already (beautiful as she is:-). She is bred to Anton now as well and is due on March 24.



What I am waiting to do now is begin breeding the first generation of Giant Cross does. All the babies from my initial F1 crosses are now approx. 8 months old, so in another month or so I will go ahead and start breeding them to see what comes up. My plan is to start with Cross does (bred to) Cross bucks to get litters that will be 25% GA, 25% FA, and 50% crossed. Any crosses I save from those litters will get bred to each other again to raise the chances of producing phenotypical GAs, and I will keep breeding and selecting for the best rabbits from there. In this last wave of breedings I have also bred two French does to two different purebred GA bucks (SFF's Rubicon--a REW and SFF's Simon---a Black) to produce an even larger pool of base offspring to work with. We will see how it all goes and I'll report my progress here as everything unfolds.

Anyway, more stuff again next week. Enjoy the nice (er!) weather in your area, and hopefully we will all be seeing green again real soon:-).

Happy St. Patrick's Day!