MMA Training Routine : January 2012

Pedigrees and programs to make them

There's the old stand by of doing them by hand.

Do you know what a pain that is?   and reading the writing of some folks is a bit of a challenge!

There are free ones : sit/stay has one.   Each pedigree has to be manually entered but you can email it to yourself. Useful only if you have a few rabbits that you need pedigrees for OR are waiting to get a paid system and don't want to handwrite out a litter as you can print off more than one copy of a given pedigree.

and there are ones that you can purchase

Kintraks is what I use. LOVE this program. It's affordable. Does what I want it to. The owner is quick to respond.   It changes and grows. ONE program handles all my livestock needs. I have it for rabbits and guinea pigs and if I wanted to add cattle, sheep, goats, spiders and what have you I could do that!   All for one measly $20!   It has on-line storage and such like as well.

Global Pedigree. This is a new program to me. I haven't really looked at it a whole lot.

Breeders's assistant. Tried it, was unimpressed. Removed it from the computer since it was a pain to work with.   I know other breeders love it though so.. depends on your needs.   It may have changed in the last four years though.

Evans. This one is highly popular among the rabbit folk.   Too pricey for my blood though.   A lot of people swear by it though.   Has a genetics component for extra dollars as well.

Cunitec. I actually have this on my computer.   I can't recall what my thoughts were on it. I just love kintraks though so I haven't really needed to use it. :)

Homestead Apps   Homestead Apps released an app to help hobby and urban farmers manage their animals - My Animal Manager.   Here is a post that talks about this program as I've never seen/heard of it before.

So am I missing any?   If so let me know please.

Okay are some that I found that I know nothing about

the breeders program. seems oriented to cats. dogs. horses.
various genealogy apps work as well. :)

Rambling on a bit

So tonight I had a couple people in who wanted to buy a bunny. A gal came with a friend. I thought she was coming for one, but she came for two.

She had a bunny that died recently from ovarian cancer. I learned that this rabbit had been spayed, but it still got ovarian cancer. It seems there are a couple of ways to do surgery... one that is risky but more complete, and one that is less risky but leaves a wee bit of tissue behind. THAT tissue can get hormonal and grow into cancer. Weird huh?

So sad for the gal though as she'd gotten her spayed in order to avoid some of that rotten disease.

Anyways it was kinda cute.

I had the four young boy bunnies out on the floor. Guarding them from the cats.

This young fellow was being a real charmer. He kept hopping up into the lap of the young man. He was so into him, it was really fun to see. BUT that young charmer didn't go home with them. He reminded the gal too much of the doe that she lost. As well as the face that the gal really liked the look of the broken black boy, and then the broken orange was such a laid back baby that it ended up going along with. Two brothers, but quite different in their personalities.

This lad a quite laid back kit for the most part.

This lad into EVERYTHING in life. Busy busy busy.

Anyways, it's always nice letting bunnies go into homes that are experienced with raising rabbits. And being able to chat bunnies with people. Always a good thing.

Blossom - kindles, January 27, 2012

Blossom gave me seven kits this morning.

She made a lovely nest and the babies are big and they are warm.

nice to see that she did a good job.

dad is Shade.

Breed is Harlequin.

Meggie - December 7, 2011, litter pics

Female, pending MC

Female, private sale

Male, pet store sale

Female, private sale

Probable female - pending private sale

Male - pending private sale

Minx's Kits - December 18, 2011 - girls

here are her girls

gold tipped steel - black

solid black

Broken black

Broken Orange

Minx's Kits - December 18, 2011 - boys

Eight kits in this litter, four boys, four girls

the boys

broken orange

Broken black private sale

Broken fawn - sold

Three Temporary Residents

Peter: a mixed breed meat mutt. My guess is New Zealand crossed with something as that's a fairly common mix. he's a big enough boy.. 8 lbs.

Marco - booted Chocolate Mini rex Buck. Awaiting a pedigree on this lad.

Kayvin - Flemish Giant buck. This lad is apparently about 8 months old and is proven. I'm hopefully going to use him with Biscuit. I don't have a picture of him yet.

All will be for sale. I have a minimum price in mind, so if you are interested contact me for details.

Shar - Kindles, January 21, 2012

eight kits born to Shar, She's a harlequin doe. I was wondering if something wasn't quite right with her kindling as it was taking a fair bit of time. When I checked after breakfast she'd had eight kits, one was born DOA (it was a larger than average kit).

Some of the kits look to be well marked. hopefully this litter will do better than her first litter.

Dad is Shade.

Betty - kindles, January 16, 2012

One stuck kit.

Dead on arrival.

sadness.

that's all I can say.

Dusty - Kindles, January 15, 2012

Dusty came into the house yesterday, gave me four kits this afternoon. Three alive, all look to be brokens. One teeny tiny kit born DOA.

YIPPEE!!!! I have wee polish babies! :)

dad is popper.

Kylee - January 14, 2012

five kits, found them all dead.

One looks to have been stomped, another was big and looked to have been pulled out via teeth.
The poor nest building skills made for the three remaining to be scattered.

Disappointing to say the least.

A Switch

Due to homeschooling needs I've made a bit of a switch in how I feed the rabbits.

I used to give them their hay/apple branch/hay cube (in rotation) in the mornings, and a small treat at night.

NOW I will be only giving them their pellets in the mornings, all treats/extras will be given in the evenings. This saves me about 1/2 hr in the morning which I can easily do at night since I'm out there anyways.

Biscuit is unimpressed with the change...she rather dislikes it.... and Bandit was doing this? BUT BUT BUT>>> don't I get hay today??? look at me this morning.

They will adjust. :)

Biscuit - November 27, 2011 litter pics

the girls

the boys

Bella - January 7, 2012 kindles

Bella had five kits.

She's such a sweet gal she let me poke in around her to steal one to give to Nicky before she was done and she didn't care.

She had five kits... three chestnuts, one chin/blue?, one harlequn/mapgie.. not sure yet on all the colours.

Dad is AeroBar.

Nicky - Kindles, January 7, 2012

three kits, one doa.

Two chocolate kits, fostering one from Bella so everyone stays nice and warm.

Rustic has proven himself a daddy. hopefully these kits will be nice ones. Time will tell.

Sadness

The guinea pig babies I had worked hard on saving didn't make it through. :(

I had expected the small one to die as it simply didn't have a lot of 'oomph' to it. But the biggest one had been eating and pooping and being all guinea pig-ish so it was coming along nicely. So I was very sad and very disappointed to see that it didn't make it.

Total bummers.

The boys are weaned

last night I rearranged some rabbits.

I took half of biscuit's litter away...all the boys.

They ranged in weight from 2 - 2.75 lbs. They should all start doing better now that they are out of the mob. :)

Makes it easier for Biscuit to get around as well. As soon as I can I'll be getting the girls away from her as well.

These are Biscuits boys.

Chattering a bit

So looks like we finally have some snow again. :)
Nice to have snow, it helps to hold down the tarps over the winter.

Jets' pups are currently looking good. Both are female. hopefully they will continue to do well.

Biscuits' kits will soon to need to get out of the cage. 11 kits and one big momma make for a very crowded cage.

I'll be posting Janice's kits up on Kijiji soon. Not sure as there has been lots of interest expressed in them without posting them up. I have someone interested in purchasing the kit I was planning to hold back so I need to make a decision on that.