Umbra moves on to a new home

Today was Umbra's last morning with us as he moves on to a new home, and in trade we are getting an unrelated American Blue male who is blue. We will miss his gigantic kits and experienced male production, but having an unrelated male that we know to be of quality will strengthen our lines. I brought him down to drop off at Michelle Chandler's Blessed Acre Farm this morning, and will be picking up his replacement from her soon.

Not all livestock and plants are created equal.

As the title says, the world of agriculture is not the world of Animal Farm. Not all are created equal, and that has been showing up all over the place in the last week or so. I'll get to the plants part later, but let's start with the group that has the most more equal individual, the Chickens.

The next round of breeding begins, and a visit from a bear?

As usual, we begin today's post with our required injection of cute baby pictures. There are more below the cut of course along with a few other interesting photos. Including one of the damage left by what we are guessing was a bear!

Baby rabbits and a barred owl visitor!

Spring is here! Snow is melting and we can see the ground in a number of places. Ignore the fact that there's still foot deep snow in plenty of places, we can see the ground! We can start getting frost hearty plants in the ground as soon as I can jam a shovel through it! And obviously with this warmer weather combined with their age, Twilight's babies are coming out of the nest on their own to harass her!

Twilight's fast growing brood, and financial reality.

Twilight's babies continue to be a positive thing in our life which is really nice since we had such a rough week last week. Their eyes have opened fully, they are fairly friendly, and Twilight no longer trying to take people's arms off means that we can let friends play with them for a few minutes before she gets upset. We still put the babies in a box and bring them inside to weigh them, but that won't work much longer as you can tell.

Two litters, and yet more snow.

We have babies on the ground from both Dawn and Twilight, both seem to be doing alright so far despite the cold weather yesterday, and the snow today. Above is the only baby pic we have at the moment of one of Dawn's litter. We didn't get pictures much this time because it was 10 degrees and we didn't want them to get cold. That ended up with me moving too fast to get good shots.

BOX FORT! Strange weather, and design fatigue.

 So over the weekend, we gave the babies some new toys. You can see one of them in the background, and the other is the box. So far 5 days later the nice new chew toy we get them is un-touched, and the box has been so thoroughly used and destroyed it is now on its way to being compost.

Reality Check: Time Commitments

Above is a nice photo of Umbra investigating my sleeve, rather thoroughly, with his teeth. There are a lot of truths about life, but one that is inescapable is that you can only do so much in a day. There are a couple of different levels to that, but all of them matter to homesteading. Especially if you also have, as the Lady of the House and I both do, a job. The thing is, unlike a hobby, you can't not do your homesteading chores.

Lots going on right now, including rat rescue.

Obviously, first and foremost the babies are doing well. The one small weak one did not make it, dying the night after I posted concerns about his health. The rest of them however are as you can see doing well. They didn't get weighed today due to the rain and cold weather, but their eyes are opening.

No Babies, and Blog Goals

Dawn still hasn't had babies yet. She should be popping soon, perhaps as soon as when we get home today. It is always tough to tell with her, and apparently with any rabbits. She is big, and has made her nice nest. She is also eating a lot, which is usually a good indication. That said, we will see. We are especially interested in seeing what comes out of a breeding of Dorado Right and Dawn Below. Genetically we know what will happen, Creme babies. But what will they look like as babies, and will they grow more slowly than the cross breeds between Dawn and Umbra?

I am expecting them to grow more slowly, and not be quite as robust. Umbra is a particularly good buck from what we can tell from his production, and talking to Michelle Chandler. He is an incredible starting point for us. I will be very curious how this breeding program goes, and tracking their growth. The closeness of relation between Dorado and Dawn is obviously a concern for us, but not such a big one for just meat and fur production. I will also be very curious about the temperament of the babies with Dawn so gregarious and Dorado so shy.

Tomatoes and New Hutch

 A lovely morning, and a very pleasant change from the rain and grossness of the past few days gave me an opportunity to get some photos of our rapidly expanding tomato plants. As you can see, this Cherokee Purple is thriving. In fact I had to re stake it because it was sprawling all over the place on us.

The Antici . . . . . . . . . . .

Pation!

Of waiting for new babies. It can get a little frustrating. We are actually starting to wonder if Umbra ended up with being heat sterile this summer.

Tomatoes, Pallets, and Babies on the Way!

Among the many things going on as we prepare for winter, we have been hoping for our poor tomato plants to give us a harvest before the first frost that seems to be very close given our 40 degree nights. While we haven't gotten a lot out of the tomato plants they are growing well, and have produced a few tomatoes that the Lady of the House has eaten. As you can see Above Right the one that the Lady of the House planted in a Dirt Bag has grown spectacularly well, and needs yet a new stake. We are considering digging up and potting some of our favorite tomato plants if they haven't produced by first frost so we can bring them inside.

Updates on the Rabbits

Lately we've mostly been talking about other things, so I figured today would be a good day to touch on the rabbits and how things have been going with them.

Final Breeding for 2012

Today the Lady of the House and I are finishing our last round of breeding for the season. This morning we bred Sunny to Umbra, and we will be doing so again when we get home this evening. Sunny is the last to get bred this round of breedings with Dawn having gone first on Monday, and Twilight having been bred yesterday.

We really need to get some new photos of Umbra.

Dawn's 2nd Litter Born

And as you can see they look a lot like Dawn's first litter in terms of basic appearance. There are five living kits. There were two unformed kits that were stillborn, likely due to the heat and stress from the repeated bear visits. There was also one large baby that was outside the nest on the wire in the main area of the hutch when we got home already dead. We tried to warm it up, but unfortunately it didn't come around. On the up side, all five of Dawn's babies are nice, big, and healthy. They are also very active and hard to photograph.

The State of the Garden

Michelle in today, Coureton's putting in long hours and couldn't write the post.

We're still waiting on the next two litters of bunnies to be born, both Sunny and Dawn are very large.

In the meantime, the first litters are ever larger by the day (except when the bear visits, which stopped last week out of the blue...hopefully for good?)  here the Himi demonstrates how not to do weight checks.  She actually turned out to be our most out-going and friendly baby so far, surprising as she's out of Sunny's litter who otherwise are quite skittish. She loves to be the center of attention, even over food.

Does this make my butt look big?

We've had our first fight--very minor injuries and some fur fluffs only.  Coureton and I treated them with hydrogen peroxide and neosporin-one rabbit had a bite to the ear which started healing within hours.  Both babies involved were from Sunny's litter, which is a week younger than Dawn's so unexpected.  One was licking the wounds of the other in what seemed to be a gesture of friendship--I'm not sure what happened.

Genetics Part 1: A Primer and a Quiz

Rabbit Genetics, Part 1:

Genes control everything in an animal, from temperament  to maximum size and growth potential.  It is why peanuts are born to dwarf rabbits and not in normal lines, and why some rabbits are lops or wooly. The easiest type of genes to see and study are the color genes, because it produces an obvious result that is only rarely affected by outside factors.  For this reason, I’m focusing on color so that you can get the idea.  

I’m going to assume you have the basics of genetics down, and can understand words like dominant and recessive.  I’m happy to answer questions in the comments!

You can find some well-written and enjoyable primers at these links:
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/rabbit-genetics/
http://www.threelittleladiesrabbitry.com/rabbitcolorgeneticsindex.php

Why do some litters look like a rainbow and others look nothing like mom?

General Update

Well, looks like I forgot today was Thursday. I have no new photos for you today, and nothing at all even vaguely planned too write. So instead I'll do a quick run down of where we are and our plans for the near future.

Moving The Litters

The growing out hutch is complete, and all of the babies are in the hutch giving their mothers some much needed peace before their next litter is born, which should be around the 16th or so for both Dawn and Sunny. As you can see, the babies are no longer so small, and are very actively curious about everything going on in and around their new home.