Free to a good home

This little boy needs a new home. He's only 14 weeks old, and exceptionally docile and good natured, but I can't afford to keep him as he isn't up to breeding standard. Free with a week's worth of food and rabbit care information sheets.

Of brothers and bunnies

Here are a few photos I took the other day of Joseph and Caleb playing with our newest rabbit. He is the only rabbit we kept from the last 2 litters, but I'm very pleased with how he's turning out. He's part of my Silky Lop development project and judging from him the overall progress has been excellent. I'm really excited about the progress and I hope to do a blog post about the whole project when I have more time and photos.

For now, photos alone will have to suffice:

The 'marbled' effect of the colours on his coat comes as a result of his coat growing back in patches after being shorn (I shaved his coat off a couple of weeks ago to keep him more comfortable in the summer weather and to make his long, soft coat more manageable and matt-free.) I think the marbling effect looks quite nice, but it is inclined to look a little untidy at times.

Rabbit photos

So I finally got around to posting those photos I mentioned a while ago. Unfortunately not many turned out well, so I only have 3 to show you. Anyway, 3 is better than nothing, and nothing is what I've done on here over the past 2 weeks.

The first 2 photos are from Coffee's litter. Last time I posted photos of rabbits they were from Toffee's litter. As you might imagine, Toffee & Coffee are twin sisters, so you'll find these kittens look very similar to Toffee's kittens. Of the Coffee's 4 kittens, only 2 behaved for the camera, so as well as the ones you see there is also a nice Blue kitten as well as an amazing Lynx. As rabbits tend to do, the nicest ones wouldn't behave for the camera. Anyway, these 2 don't have names yet, so if you can come up with anything that you think suits them, let me know! ;)

This one is from Toffee's litter. If I remember correctly, her name was Patricia (?) - I get so confused when I'm not always the one naming them... As you can see, the coat has grown very long, almost like an angora at the same age. All of Toffee's and Coffee's kittens have the exact same coat, because both parents had a long coat. At this age there is more hair than rabbit and you wouldn't believe how small the rabbit actually is under all that fluff. Fortunately for her, she lost most of this hair in her first moult, otherwise she would be a tad uncomfortable in this heat!

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Happy weekend!

Spring has come...

 ...and brought with it the new life and fresh energy that makes it my favourite season. Here are a couple of photos I took today. 

These first 4 are photos of an ornamental cherry tree we have that has just begun to blossom. As usual, my photography is, at best, poor, but these photos were the best that I could do in a strong wind with a camera that had no manual focus (not that I would have been capable of using a camera that had). Ever tried photographing closeups of blossoms in the wind? Take my word for it when I tell you it's not easy...

Melinda, who is nearly 4 weeks old, with her littermate Buster in the background. 

 

Tristan, also known as Eloise. (Sorry, Bethany, I've forgotten what you named the other two.)

Buster.

Tristan aka Eloise again. This is my favourite of the litter. I know it doesn't seem right, but I just can't help having favourites!

 Tristan again. He's THAT special.  

Kittens - for the last time.

Don't worry, it's not as serious as it sounds. Only next time they'll be so grown up they can hardly be called kittens anymore. Juveniles would be more accurate. Even now they're pretty much independent already. Physically independent, that is, but they're still very young emotionally. They still need a "mother" to look up to and learn from, and someone in leadership that will keep them all "in line." Since they're being weaned, we're trying to keep them separate from their biological mother (Pepper), but they now have a new "foster mother." Cinnamon, the new Plush Lop, was very keen to take on the job of raising them to adulthood and teaching them how to live, so she now lives in the shed with them instead of Pepper. Fortunately the kittens idolise her and she adores them, so everything is working out fantastic at the moment. Cinnamon is no longer lonely and longing to be bred, and the kittens have a new 'mother' that can they can look up to as a mentor. At least that's the way I like to think of things. ;-)

Here are some photos of the kittens and Cinnamon playing together 1 day after being introduced to each other:

Cinnamon with Cookie:

(Left to right) Isabella & Frensky.

Arthur, Isabella, Cinnamon & Queensland.

Frensky - I love the colour in this photo.

Cinnamon & Victoria - these 2 seem to get along especially well together.

Cinnamon and Queensland.

Group huddle...

Arthur, Isabella, Cinnamon, NSW, Frensky & Cookie.

Kittens again!!

I bet you're amazed at how much they're grown! They are now 3 weeks old, but the first 3 photos were taken while they were 2 weeks old. They've reached the stage when they're well developed, and all they do now is just grow bigger! They've all started leaving the nest regularly to explore the shed and bother Pepper for more milk...

This one is Arthur, Caitlyn's favourite. I love this photo because he looks so relaxed. ;-)

We brought the rabbits inside last week and they all had a ball! In this photo they were playing hide and seek and they're all looking for hiding places...

Working together to make a sneaky escape...

At 3 weeks old: Isabella, one of the most adventurous of the litter.

Top to bottom: Cookie, Victoria & Frensky (we renamed Francine). As well as Victoria, we have 2 other kittens called New South Wales & Queensland... Bradley's idea, of course!

Cookie again: everyone agrees that this is by far the cutest of the litter, and we've decided to give her to a very nice lady who wants one of the kits and just gave us a Plush Lop.

Yes, you heard right! A PLUSH LOP!!! YIPPEE!! It's the most exciting thing that's happened to me all year! Not to mention she's just fantastic as a brood doe, has the perfect coat (for what we need), AND has the most perfect colour in the universe! I couldn't have wished for a better rabbit, and I'm super excited about breeding her and adding her awesome colour into our lines. I'm hoping to breed her sometime in the next couple of weeks, if all goes well. Her name's Cinnamon, by the way. We've always wanted to name a rabbit Cinnamon, but before now we've never been able to because every rabbit we breed bears the stud prefix 'Cimarosa' (we're registered as Cimarosa Rabbit Stud, you see), and 'Cimarosa Cinnamon' is a bit of a mouthful. Since this rabbit bears no stud prefix, Cinnamon is the perfect name for her, and is just another reason why she is our dream rabbit! ;-) Thank you, God, for sending her to us, and thank you, Ms. Dee, for your touching generosity!!

P.S. Who's excited about the current political situation? ME! Australia made history today, and I watched it live =P! Everything was so totally unexpected, and I'm so thankful we happened to notice it this morning!! 

P.P.S. Can you tell I'm in a very excitable mood today? :P 

1 week old kittens

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. ;-)

She's done it again!

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.