Hiccups

I grabbed all my babies today and sat them atop my belly as I lay basking in the sun. It's not that it's really warm enough to get a tan, or try to, but it's nice to feel the sun beaming down on your skin, occasionally interrupted by a sudden breeze.

It was nice.

The wind chime sounded like it was trying to play a song. Each chime singing it's own note, letting it ring out as long as possible. And as if the wind reached down to turn up the volume, a new chime would sing out louder and longer. Together, they took turns at the melody, letting the wind decide who would sing next.

The birds acted as if they liked the song, so they sang along. Each with their own interpretation of the tune. A twee! twee! here and there added to the amateur orchestra.

And then a new sound joined in. I could feel it on my stomach. *Hiccup!* One of the babies started hiccuping, as if keeping rhythm for the song. *Hiccup! Hiccup!* It increased, quickening with each bar. In almost a domino effect, the next one started going and the next. Three little bunnies, blissfully dreaming about whatever their little minds are capable of, hiccuping. One after the other. As the three slid down and into the sides of my jacket, I could feel the alternating beats. Left, right, left, right. Still keeping time.

Keeping time to the rhythm of the wind and the birds. The sun as the spotlight for the magnificent symphony.

That's okay...

....I didn't want babies anyways...

*Sigh* Brooklyn kindled 7 babies the day after due...all on the wire. I was really devasted and it effected me more than I thought it would. I guess on the bright side, she's now semi-proven and is bred again. At least I know I'll have a full nestbox next time she kindles!!

So she got bred back to Bristol and Carlie got bred to Jukebox who I haven't used since last summer. I also bred two Netherland Dwarf does. Praying that I get some babies here soon because I might just die of withdraw.

NCRBA Convention is next weekend and I'm super, duper excited. I have a large show string and hopefully I will do well. It's one of my favorite shows because it's so big and I love the people down there.

That's all for now!

Continuing on with my updates...

The temperatures have been fluxuating between 40 and 80. Day by day. It's a little annoying since one day I have to wear my winter coat and the next I grab my flip flops and fly out the door excited that I don't have to worry about staying warm. Since I don't enjoy the ever changing weather, I'm sure the bunnies don't either. One day the warm sun is shining in on their fur as they bask in its glory...next thing they know I'm shoving hay into their cages so they won't freeze over night. Ridiculous I tell ya.

BUT! The bi-polar conditions are also a sign that Spring is soon approaching which I hope to the almighty bunny god will mean my does will start giving me babies. I'm so sick of breeding an eager doe and then ending up with nothing. Let's take Fly Girl, my silver marten Netherland doe, for instance. This doe couldn't have wanted to be bred more. What does she do? Goes 3 days over and has 2 peanuts and 1 hippo...DOA. Grr!! Then Lenora, my black Netherland doe, could have sworn she was pregnant. Then, 2 days after her due date I palpate her to find no babies. It doesn't help that I've been playing this game since October. I just want babies! The only doe that's given me babies is a grumpy little Himi doe who has one fat baby in the nest. Yay? Yeah...yay.

At this point, the only doe I know is exploding with babies is a first-timer..Brooklyn. I think I might've blogged about being really excited that I was about to have my first litter by a Locket doe but turns out she didn't take. So now, a month later and one day until due, she's miserably full with babies. She started out grunting like crazy and franticly running around her cage like a mad woman but now she's actually letting me pet her. So I'm hoping that's a sign she's about to have them. She has, however, made no effort to prepare for her new babies.

*Sigh* Rabbits...can't live with them, can't live without them.

That's all for now.

Much needed update!

I've done something bad. Nothing along the lines of a felony or even something needing minor punishment. It's just that I haven't blogged in a long time. For over a month actually which sort of ruins my whole 2011 goal. I've actually been thinking about it for a while and there are so many things I need to tell you. Even though it looks like I have a grand total of 11 followers. Hopefully, fellow breeders come across this every once in a while. That would make me happy.

I realize that I had started a genetics series and I do plan on finishing it. I think the reason I stopped for a little bit was because I dread the C gene and I really didn't want to get into it. So, never fear, I will continue that series once I get everyone up to speed as to what's going on.

It seems like we wait so long

for the annual PaSRBA Convention show in February. We all anxiously await the final few days before we can finally pack up the bunnies and just go. It's a much needed break for many people, or at least my mom and I since we only make one show a month. Plus, who wouldn't enjoy thousands of rabbits all under one roof and the hundreds of people who own them. It's a great experience for the novice or even the most experienced breeder. Often, it's where those high and mighty breeders win

their breed with their most prized possession. It's the sort of show where you only hope to do well against some of the toughest competition on the East Coast. Never in a million years (okay, never in several years) would I believe that I would be one of the breeders to claim the Best of Breed title at this prestigious show.

That's right! I am very proud to announce that my very own Locket's Xora took Best of Breed in the Youth Saturday show! For those of you who don't really know all my rabbits by name I guess I'll have to introduce you. Xora, at the time, was only 3 months old. She is an orange jr. doe out of Roseart's Grizz and Naragon's Xena. When Xora was born, I was in the midst of a permanent sell down. I decided that the best decision at that time was to sell the entire litter as well as the dam. So Xora was sold at 8 weeks old. She wasn't going to be picked up or a few more months so she sat patiently in the barn, growing up and turning into a beautiful little doe. I'd pull her out once or twice a week and slowly I began to realize the mistake I had made in selling her. I kept thinking about whether or not I wanted to cancel the sale. It'd mean making the new owner very unhappy and me loosing a large sum of money that I'd planned to put towards my Netherland Dwarf Nationals fund. But after showing her to a friend I was told to keep her. So I reluctantly sucked up the courage to cancel the sale.

I felt completely relieved after I did. I felt like I had made a really good choice because for being an orange, she was a phenomenal doe and would benefit my herd significantly. Plus, PaSRBA Convention was that weekend so I'd really be able to test the waters and see how well she'd do against the notorious tort class. Right before the show I decided that she was too little to show, barely being over jr. weight

. So I decided to just take her to show my friends. On the way to the show, however, another friend told me that spending $5 wasn't going to hurt me and that I should just enter her anyways to get comments. Well, I need to personally thank this person because hadn't it been for them...I never would have had the opportunity to win my first Best of Breed at such a huge show. The morning of the show I started taking her around to my friends, like planned, to get comments. One who said "I'd like to see the doe that beats her for 1st place." I really didn't want to hear that to be honest because I didn't believe, personally, that she was nice enough to beat out an entire SJD class. And again, I was told that she would take her class. Then again, that people were talking about how this girl was going to win. Was she really that nice?

Well slowly but surely the judge moved through each jr. doe. Using her colorful eraser method to mark which rabbit would leave next. Of course, the code was not something an exhibitor could decipher so I anxiously awaited to see when she would be placed. There was somewhere around 25 does so it was going to take awhile. She made it past the "No Placement" part and into the "Honor Group" which meant the judge wanted to see her later. I remember what the judge said when she grabbed her out of the coop for the first time. "Whoa!". My friend kept giving me excited looks from behind the writer's table as she moved towards the top of the class. Back and forth, back and forth between two does. Mine and a tort doe. I wouldn't be all that surprised if the tort doe took the class. But when she finally made her decision and picked up the tort doe to be called for 2nd, my heart jumped. I heard h

er mumble something about the doe being "a beast" as she carried my doe over to the writer to be called for 1st. My stomach did something crazy and all of a sudden I realized I had achieved the biggest accomplishment for my rabbitry thus far. Taking 1st place with an orange jr. doe. A colored doe. It would be a while before she'd go up for variety so after being congratulated I put her back in her cage and happily skipped along my way to go tell my friends. You can only imagine the high I was on. And Facebook already knew! Maybe 2 hours later I ran into the youth room to find out if variety judging had started. Sure enough, they had been waiting on me to put her up. Oops!

So the judge carefully looked over all the solids and all the brokens. All the class winners waited at the table with the rest of the exhibitors waiting behind them. I stood by with my camera just sitting quietly. The judge said "Surprisingly, I really do not know who is going to win this time. I really don't." Well that's good right? At least she hadn't already picked something out in her head. I was happy to hear that I might have a chance. When the judge announced that her best solid was the Jr. Doe I almost flipped. I mean, my jaw dropped. My doe beat the Sr. class? It took maybe 2 seconds for it to click before I was absolutely speechless. My friend looked at me and said "Told you!" and I just sat there in disbelief. As the clapping faded for the solid variety winners so then announced the broken winners. And as soon as the clapping subsided for a second time the judge began to tear up as she thanked everyone for allowing her to judge her favorite breed. I'd never seen a judge get emotional about judging before. It made the moment even more heart warming when she announced the solid doe as the breed winner. I thought to myself "Well, good try!" as the first thing that popped into my head was a tort solid sr. doe. When my friend realized that I hadn't realized what the judge said she called out my name and said "That's your doe, Laura!" I immediately jumped to my feet and said "Wait...MY doe?!" I had no idea what to think as my jaw dropped for a second time and I thew my hand over it in astonishment. I don't even think I heard the clapping as I floated through the crowd to where my doe sat on the table. The judge looked at me and said "Congratulations! She's a beast!"

The next 10 minutes were filled with pictures and a constant return of thank you's for all the congratulations I kept getting. The area cleared and I congratulated the Best Opposite of Breed winner who was also a colored jr., an opal! I'm sure she was just as thrilled as I was.

The whole day I just replayed that moment over and over. Still not believing that my little doe won the whole darn thing. I mean...a colored. junior. doe. Out of over 150 animals! It doesn't get any better than that. Nothing could ruin my day. For only wanting to show her for comments, I sure ended up with more than I could ever ask for. And just to think that I had this girl sold.

So without further ado, I present to you Locket's Xora.

If she is never remembered by anyone else, she will go down in history in my book for being my first Best of Breed with a homegrown rabbit and for being a huge milestone in my colored project. I never imagined having this nice of a colored rabbit within my first few generations. I will by no means let this lead me to believe that I have achieved the best of the best. But I believe that everyone deserves to share such a wonderful experience especially if it's the first.

She now lives in the biggest hole in the barn and is just as spoiled as ever. Her next show in NCRBA Convention where she'll be shown as a now 4 month old jr. I'm hoping she'll continue to do well. I would love to grand her!

I want to thank everyone that supported me that day in helping me believe in myself. I remember telling someone after they complimented me that I wasn't ready to hear that my doe would win. And honestly, I'm still not comfortable with it. I've always looked up to all the big breeders out there and envied them when they took home the BOB rabbit. I never imagined it would be me.

Well this blog turned into more than I had expected so I guess I'll save the rest of the updates for another day. That's all for now!

B Series- Chocolate anyone?

Yesterday I started a small series on genetics beginning with the A series. Tonight I want to cover the next on the list, the B series. This gene series is what controls whether a rabbit is black or blue, chocolate or lilac.

Every rabbit, no matter what color, is either black, blue, chocolate, or lilac based. This is because the rabbit has to have either the black gene or the chocolate gene making it either Black and Chocolate. Even though blue and lilac are affected by this gene, for less confusion, lets only work with Black and Chocolate.

As we learned with the A series, the capital letters represent the most dominant and the lower case letters represent recessive. Never will you have a recessive gene depicted with a capital letter. Therefore:

(B)-Black

(b)- Chocolate

Black is always dominant over chocolate and chocolate is always recessive to black.

Since we learned how to make charts in the last lesson, let's do a quick one for this gene series and then incorporate what we learned with the A series. Let's begin with a Black rabbit carrying chocolate B(b) and a Chocolate rabbit (remember because chocolate is at the bottom of the dominance list, you write any chocolate rabbit with two (b) genes.)

___B_ b

b Bb bb

b Bb bb

We can conclude that we have a 50% chance of getting black offspring and 50% chance of getting chocolate offspring. Because the chocolate parent can only give a (b) gene, all the offspring will carry a second (b) gene making the blacks a carrier of chocolate.

So if every rabbit is either black or chocolate based, what about colors like Orange where you can't see any black? Well, we assume that colors like Orange and Siamese Sable are black based unless noted otherwise. If it is known that the orange is b(b) and not (B) then it is called a Chocolate based or Chocolate factor Orange. Because phenotypically (the appearance of the rabbit) you can't see all that much difference in a black based or chocolate based Orange, they are not recognized as two separate colors. However, in some breeds black and chocolate based colors are recognized separately because of the drastic differences in the phenotype. For instance, we do not refer to a Chestnut expressing b(b) as a chocolate factored/based Chestnut, we refer to it as a Chocolate Chestnut (and a lilac Chestnut is often called a lynx). It's a little confusing but the basic point is to know that every rabbit is either black or chocolate based even if they do not appear so phenotypically.

So let's say we have a Black Chestnut carrying chocolate and tan pattern and breed it to a Chocolate Otter carrying self. That may sound a little confusing but let's list what we know about these colors first!

We know that the A series comes first and then the B series. So the Chestnut is A(at)-B(b). The Chocolate Otter is at(a)-bb. That makes it a little less confusing doesn't it? So how do we figure out what colors we can get from this cross? We'll start with a chart for the A genes and then make a chart for the B gene.

___A___at

at A(at) at(at)

a A(a) at(a)

50% Agouti, 50% Tan Pattern

___B__b

b Bb bb

b

B

b

bb

50% Black, 50% Chocolate

So now that we've discovered our chance of getting each combination of either gene we now have to "add" it up. Basically, you match up all the A series combinations with the B series combinations. Starting with the first box in the A chart and matching it with all the boxes in the B chart and then continuing on.

A(at)-B(b)- Chestnut (carrying tan pattern and chocolate)

A(at)-b(b)- Chocolate Chestnut (carrying tan pattern)

at(at)-B(b)- Black Otter (carrying chocolate)

at(at)-b(b)- Chocolate Otter

A(a)-B(b)- Chestnut (carrying self and chocolate)

A(a)-b(b)- Chocolate Chestnut (chestnut carrying self)

at(a)-B(b)- Black otter (carrying self and chocolate)

at(a)-b(b)- Chocolate Otter (carrying self)

After writing it out we can see that we will either get Chestnut, Chocolate Chestnut, Black Otter or Chocolate Otter. Even though we only have four color possibilities out of this breeding, what each rabbit might carry varies significantly. When they are born, we only know what they are by looking at them. This leaves a blank on their genotype. For example, a black otter would appear as at_-B_. We can only know which genes they are carrying by breeding the offspring to the color they could produce if they carried that gene. So if we wanted to see if one of the kits carried chocolate, we would breed it to a chocolate. If a chocolate is produced we can fill in the second (missing) gene and label the rabbit as a chocolate carrier. This concept works with all the gene series so remember it!

And there you have it. The B-series gene is a very simple one because it is only comprised of two genes. However, the more gene series you know the more complicated the process becomes to figure out color possibilities. So try it out! Pick a breeding like above and make a chart. See what colors are possible and the likelihood of them! The more you practice, the easier it will become!

The Joy of Genetics

Ahh, genetics. The mystery game that people either have the ability to solve or live their life completely oblivious to. I prefer those who don't choose the latter. It makes breeding so much easier not having to guess at colors. If you know whats possible and likely it'll be more fun planning for certain colors! I figured I'd do a series post on the basics of genetics and maybe eventually turn them into articles to put on my website. Once you learn the ins and outs of it, you can figure just about any genetic problem out. Its a lot of fun! So lets begin!

All rabbits have a genetic code called a genotype. The physical appearance of the rabbit is called the phenotype. Of course, the genotype directly controls the phenotype.

The 5 genes that I will cover and the genes most commonly used to define a rabbit are as followed:

A series- Determines whether a rabbit is agouti, tan pattern, or self
B series- Determines whether a rabbit is black or chocolate

C series- Determines where and how much color will be on the hair shaft

D series- Determines whether a rabbit is dense or dilute (

E series- Determines how far the color is extended on the hair shaft

A rabbit's genotype is listed in a-b-c-d-e order. There are several other genes including the vienna gene, pattern gene, steel gene, harlequin gene, and modifiers gene.

Let's begin with the A series.

A rabbit is either
(A)- agouti
(at)- tan pattern or
(a)-self.

The dominance of these genes are in that order. A rabbit at the bottom of the dominance list cannot carry anything above it. Also, any gene is said to be recessive to the gene above it. Therefore, tan pattern is recessive to agouti and self is recessive to tan pattern and agouti. Agouti is dominant over tan pattern and self and tan pattern is dominant over self. Self is dominant to nothing and the most recessive gene.This concept works for all the genes.

Every rabbit has two genes from each series. So a rabbit can be:

A(A)- True agouti, does not carry a different -a- gene
A(at)- Agouti carrying tan pattern

A(a)- Agouti carrying self
at(at)- True tan patter, does not carry a different -a- gene

at(a)- Tan pattern carrying self

a(a)- Self carrying self

Because self (a) is the most recessive and cannot carry another -a- gene, a rabbit that is self always has two (a) genes. Therefore, it is always safe to list a self rabbit's genotype as a(a) because there is nothing else it can be.

Now lets talk percentages! You breed a Chestnut (agouti) to an Otter (tan pattern) and you want to know what the odds are for getting agouti or tan pattern. The easiest way to do this is to make a little chart. Let's say we breed a true Chestnut (not carrying any other -a- genes) to a true Otter. The chart would be as follows:

___A___A

at

at

At the top we have the chestnut's two -a- genes and on the side we have the otter's two a genes. Now we fill it in by pairing up the genes from the side and top. The top gene on the left will be paired with the top gene on the side and the bottom gene on the side. The top gene on the right will be matched the same way. Remember to always list the dominant gene first!

___A ___ A

at A(at) A(at)

at A(at) A(at)

Look at that! All of your offspring from this breeding will be agouti carrying tan pattern. So you'd have 100% Chestnuts that are capable of throwing tan pattern. Why? Because each parent had a 'double dose' of their gene so that's all they had to give. What if we took one of these babies and bred it back to their Otter parent. Let's make another chart!

___A ___ at <--- That's the offspring

at A(at) at(at)

at A(at) at(at)

So we can conclude that from this pairing that the odds are 50% of the offspring will be agouti carrying tan pattern and 50% will be true tan pattern.

STOP!

Just because the odds are 50/50 does not mean that if four kits are born that two will be Chestnut carrying tan pattern and two will be Otter. If you've come to this conclusion you need to back up! We are only finding the chance that a color will occur. Out of this breeding the chance that a self rabbit will pop up is zero. The chance that an otter will pop up is 50%. This means you only have two options: Otter or Chestnut. You could get a litter of four and all of them could be Otter. This is very important to remember! Let's make one more chart to wrap up this lesson.

An agouti carrying self and a tan pattern carrying self are bred together. What are the chances of getting each color? In other words, what is the percentage of chance for each color? Chart time!

___A ___ a

at A(at) at(a)

a A(a) a(a)

Wow! That's quite the variety! Let's break it down. In the first block we have agouti carrying tan pattern, the block next to that we have tan pattern carrying self. In box three we have agouti carrying self and in box for we have self. So, what does this mean? It means there is a 50% chance of getting agouti (with 25% being tan pattern carriers and 25% being self carriers), 25% chance of getting tan pattern, and 25% chance of getting self.

So now that you know how to make the charts, go ahead and try it yourself! Stick two -a- genes at the top (In order of dominance! Remember you cannot put a(at) because a self cant carry tan pattern) and two on the sides. Fill in the blanks and tally up the percentages.

"Hey there bunni-

-CARTER! WHY!" That's how it's been going the past few nights I've gone out to feed. For some reason, Carter, a young spunky little buck, insists on somehow removing the arms of the J-feeder from around the wire which causes it to fall from the three story stacker and spill whatever feed was left. Why.

I don't understand. I put it back and make sure both arms are snuggly hooked around the wire and within 2 minutes, it'll be on the floor again. I don't hear it happen, I don't see it happen, I don't even know how he's capable of doing it. He acts SO hungry but yet he's willing to knock his feeder off when he could've just ate the last few pellets like a good hungry bunny would do.

WHY.