Pepper and Muffin are pleased to announce the arrival their 7 new healthy kittens!! They were born late on Wednesday night. The total litter size was 9, but 2 didn't make it (Pepper was really stubborn and refused to build the nest where I kept telling her to...); but we still have 7 healthy babies to rejoice about! It's a bit early to state the colours accurately yet, but it looks like there is a Broken Black (black + white markings), Blue, a couple of broken Sooty Fawns (orange with black shading + white markings), Beige (fawn with blue shading ), Broken Siamese Sable (Siamese cat colour + white markings) and possibly an Iron Grey or 2 (creamy white with dark grey shading).
AND the best news is that there are 2 rex kittens in this litter!! Getting a rex is the reason I bred this litter, and it's great to have 2 to choose from, so I can select the best. They're also more in demand as pets, and consequently easier to sell. ;-)
I've decided to include a couple of photos of the newborn kittens, even though they look really ugly at this stage. For those of you who haven't seen a newborn rabbit before, yes, it is normal for them to look like this, and no, they won't be this ugly for long! In a week they will have tripled their weight and started growing fur, and in 2 weeks they will have opened their eyes and will be walking about! I'll try and post some photos when they've grown a bit, so you can see how not-ugly they actually are!
This one is [what looks like] a Broken Sooty Fawn with the rex coat. (You can tell if it is a rex coat because it has very short, curly whiskers.)
Another rex-coated kitten, that looks to be Broken Blue.
All 7 kittens in the nest (I dare you to find them all!). We had to lift up all the fur so you could actually see them, then quickly snap the photo before the wriggled out of sight again! By the way, all these photos were taken by Caitlyn, my loyal assistant.
Lol, they are cute, not ugly -.-
ReplyDeleteSo, would these be related to Rosemary & Basil.
Is the Rex the bread ppl said was impossible to get, or is that just one type of bread that tells you, you are getting closer to the bread you want {what’s the breed you want called again?}
Okay then, I can see, (1) Black and pink to the right. (2) Beside the black and pink one. (3) You can only see his tail. (4) Is pink and climbing over the black one. (5) The black one. (6) Under some hair beside the black one. (7) I'm going to guess is above the black one, under some hair.
K.C.
P.S. Nice Pics Kate.
Lol! You think that's cute? Just wait until they're 2 weeks old!!
ReplyDeleteRex (in the context I mentioned it) isn't actually a breed, but a coat type. There IS a breed called rex because of this coat, but when I use the word, I just mean the really short, soft, plush coat. The breed I'm aiming for has a long-haired rex coat, so every rex coated rabbit brings me closer to achieving that goal. In every even-numbered generation (F2, F4, F6, etc. - this one is F2), the only rabbits I have any interest in keeping are the ones with a rex coat. In the odd-numbered generations (F1, F3, F5, etc.), there won't be any rex coats at all, so that makes it even more exciting when I get rex coats like this, so I can see how the quality of the coat is improving (or otherwise) every generation. If that made any sense...
That little black and white one is so funny! Every time I go to the nest it squeaks and makes funny little noises, and it's also the most active of the litter. And Caitlyn's already got names for most of the litter... I'll let you know what they are when we've decided upon some for sure. ;-)
Matthew.
Hehehe, I think they are cute when they are all pink; they remind me of Rufus from Kim Possible. Which btw, I took a quiz to see which character I was like, and I got Rufus. I wanted KP though :P
ReplyDeleteRight so if I got this all right, then your new litter F2, is getting really close to a long hair Rex, which is what you want, Long Haired Rexes. What generation are you counting on getting the long haired Rex? F6??
Hey that reminds me, I saw some Hamsters at the show, they were soooooo cute. They looked a bit like Rabbits. One was a ginger colour; it looked just like Ginger :)
Lol, you should give the black and white one a Dalmatians name, you know from 101 Dalmatians ;)
K.C.
I actually already have an F2 long-haired rex - his name is Opus. I'm SOOO excited about him, as he has the most amazing coat EVER! It gets 10 times better every day, too. But getting him to consistently reproduce the l-h (long-haired) rex coat is going to take a while. It won't be until the 4'th generation that we will see more l-h rex coats, but by then ALL the rex coats we breed will be long-haired. Also by that time (hopefully) they should have at least some degree of ear lopping, and much better body type. I'm so excited! Silky Lops, here we come!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha, cool.
ReplyDeleteSo I think I get the picture now, you want long haired Rex Lops. Just curious, but what colour is Opus going to be??
Hey I just thought of something sad :(
I was never told what happened to Peach...I think I'm going to cry.
K.C.
That's right - a long-haired rex lop, aka Silky Lop. They will be the smallest of the lop breeds, and hopefully the most docile and friendly.
ReplyDeleteOpus is blue - it's the nicest looking blue colour I've ever seen on a rabbit, because the l-h rex coat brings out the colour really nicely. I shall add some photos of him soon if I get the time.
Who on earth is Peach?
Lol, a Silky Lop. Did you come up with the name because you are trying to create it, or has that name always been around :S I guess what I'm trying to ask is, since you are creating this new type of hair/breed, will you get to give it whatever name you want?
ReplyDeleteBlue!!! Rabbit's fur blue must not look like real blue, I can't imagine a rabbit with blue fur ;)
Ummm... Peach was Ginger's Sister... unless you where trying to fool me, cos you said one of Ginger's sisters was called Peach :S
I’ve always liked those two the best because they where names I liked.
K.C.
Aaaahhh... yes, I remember now! "Peach" (who turned out to be a boy) is now named Muffin, and he is Pepper's husband, and consequently the father of Opus and this litter. As you can see, he's very involved in this breeding program! ;-) If you look at the post I did ages ago of all my rabbits, you can see a fairly recent photo of him.
ReplyDeleteWell since I'm the one developing this breed, that basically means I get to write the Standard (the description of how this breed should ideally be - look at examples at , and name it. Although hopefully by the time the breed is this far advanced, there will be several other breeders of it, and I would like to counsel with them and discuss these things rather than make all the decisions myself. Keep in mind, though, that this breed is likely to never become recognised and accepted as a breed, because the organization that decides whether or not it gets accepted is based in the UK, and unless there are lots of breeders working on the same breed over there, it won't ever get accepted. The only way I can see it happening is if we have a revolution against the UK organization and establish our own national Australian governing body, in which case it will be significantly easier to get the breed accepted.
Having said that, I'm embarking on this project for purely recreational and educational purposes (for my own fun), and don't really mind if the rest of the world says it shouldn't exist. Though it WOULD be very nice if I could gain recognition for it... ;-)
WOW... I'm in shock...Peach was a guy...No wonder I never found out what happened to Peach, Peach no longer exists.... I'm a little sad now.
ReplyDeleteLol, good luck with the revolution, you are on your own there =P
I shall now go off and have another look at Muffin, which I have just found out, was once Peach.
K.C.