As promised, here are some photos of Pepper's new litter. All 7 kittens are growing healthy and strong, and are due to open their eyes and ears tomorrow or the day after. After that, it won't be long before they start leaving the nest to explore.
To give you an idea of how much they have grown in one week, here are 2 photos of the same kitten, taken only 1 week apart!!
This one has a rex coat, and also a very nice colour called Broken Sooty Fawn. As she does with all Sooty Fawns, Caitlyn has fallen in love with it and named it Francine. We have decided we are definitely going to keep this one, and probably sell all the rest.
This one looks like it has a normal coat, and is Blue. Sorry about the awful quality of the photo. I've re-discovered (as I do every time we have a new litter) that it is simply impossible to take a good quality photo of a baby rabbit sitting still. The only way to get one anywhere near satisfactory is to hold the rabbit still with your hand, take the photo, and jerk your hand away just before the photo is taken. Take your hand away 1 second too soon and the rabbit scrambles out of the way, and take it away too late and you get your hand in the photo. That's why you can see my hand in so many of these photos. In light of that, please excuse the terrible quality and try to focus on the bunnies. ;-)
Not sure about this colour yet... although we're fairly certain it has a long coat. We're praying it will turn out to be a doe (female) because someone has promised to give us a Plush Lop in exchange for a long-haired female rabbit. In case you're not aware, Plush Lops are the breed that we long after the most (besides Silky Lops!), and this one is LILAC! So I can't wait to determine the gender of this kitten (which, unfortunately, won't be for at least 4 weeks).
Caitlyn has adopted this one and named him Arthur. He has a normal coat, so we won't be able to keep him, but hopefully we will be able to find a friend or at least someone we know interested in taking him like we did with her last 2 adopted children (Dora & Winifred) so that we will be still able to visit him after he has left home.
Here's the same photo of my favourite kitten again. She deserves the double-photo. ;-)
♥They are so cute♥
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for putting them up.
You going to keep the rex "Francine" to breed....so, what will it's mate be?
And I just had a look through the rabbit pics I have, and weren’t Pepper and Muffin brother and sister ☺
Later
K.C.
It depends on whether "Francine" turns out to be male or female. If male, then his mate will probably be Coffee, otherwise a new unrelated Mini Cashmere Lop doe which I don't have at the moment. Opus has already been lined up with Toffee, Coffee's sister, and they all have a common ancestor (Rosemary, the matriarch), so I'd prefer to find an unrelated mate if possible.
ReplyDeleteIf, on the other hand, "Francine" is a female (which I hope) then Sam will be her mate.
You are correct; Pepper and Muffin are siblings. That means that the kittens from this litter have only 1 set of grandparents... confusing, huh?
Right...I think I got all that :S
ReplyDeleteWhat....isn't that, like, bad for breeding or something....I mean it just seems, well...weird. I always thought that having two sibs for breeding was, like, the worst thing a breeder could do :S Now I'm very confused.
*Sigh* I’ve had my crabs for about a month now, and they all still look the same, they haven't even gotten bigger. Though, one did shed its shell. Lol, when I first saw the shell I thought the others must have gotten hungry and eaten him.
K.C.
Lol, I'll give you a virtual medal if you reall DO understand all that!
ReplyDeleteThe belief that inbreeding in itself produces mutant or deformed offspring is a myth based on no truth at all. It IS true that if you happen to have a genetic defect lurking in your lines, then inbreeding increases the chances of that defect being expressed. However, in my case, there is no defect to worry about, so there is no problem breeding relatives together. In fact, this is how most of the best-quality show rabbits are produced. The only down-side is that repeated inbreeding can result in smaller litter sizes, which doesn't matter so much to me, anyway, since the average litter size for a dwarf is 3-4 and I'm getting 9-10!!
Maybe your crabs are adult size already - how big were you expecting them to grow? You should be thankful they're still alive! And lol! Aren't you feeding them enough?!
Right okay...still sounds weird to me. You sure the rabbits like the Idea of getting stuck with a sib? I change my mind, the ones you sell are luckier.
ReplyDeleteNo their not adult size yet, I was hopping for them to get twice their size, since I found some other crabs twice their size {they where dead though}
Lol, they are way to young to be dead yet. I just wish they would change like your rabbits, all I can do is one blog on my crabs, and that’s it :(
Well when Ging moulted, I hadn't feed them yet, so I thought they ate him :S