All Rabbit Business

I was finally able to get some information and pictures from my parents about my rabbits :)

I had been asking for pictures on the black from Easy Summer Breeze and Stitch. She is a solid black who got nest box eye, but is perfectly fine for a breeding doe. Priced to sell, she actually has a pretty nice body!

Zeus, Hera and Hades were weighed, none of them are overweight or even close to it, so my 5 1/2 ounces strict feeding ration helped them out! (they have BIG parents!). They may mature later, but right now they are holding out almost 7 months old and 5 3/4 and 6 1/4 lbs. They are not molting, and my dad said they are in good flesh. They have been on Fibre 3 long enough for it to effect them, and it has not! The pictures I recieved show they are in good show condition, but they are not posed. I can somewhat gather that they look just like they did Jan 1st, only with a bit more weight on them. I want to thank Karyn for taking them to Myrtle Point and thanks to Vanessa who's going to show them in the Quad show that weekend. I'm sending out my entry in the morning.

My parents also sent pictures of Dignified's litter. The sable chinchilla is doe, then there is a bkn chinchilla and a bkn chestnut and those are bucks. They are almost 4 lbs at 2 months old!!! Two of these will be available. Price is likely to go up with age, so reserve them early ;)

Ex. Getaway's two chestnuts are pretty good lookin at 4 1/2 lbs each, and they are a month older than the litter above. The buck will be available for/at Mini Lop Nationals

Summer has 8 babies that are about 3 - 3 1/2 lbs each. I wont know any ideas of these guys until March 20th or later.

I am purchasing two rabbits around Mini Lop Nationals. One doe, sometime this spring, from Nicole. And the other I will post more later on, will come home from Mini Lop Nationals. Summer will be leaving on the way back from Mini Lop Nationals. I would still like to sell Ex. Getaway and Mozzerella for Nationals.... I need to work on advertising them.

I've decided since I probably won't get the internship, to plan big for this summer. I will be needing some more cages. I'm really regreting selling all my cages this last summer but I thought it would prevent me from getting over my max number of rabbits. I will have over 11 does to breed this summer, so I can replace them and get some juniors for Convention. I'll work on that over spring break.

3 more weeks :) I'm getting pretty excited to go home and see my bunnies :)

Holiday Ranch and Critter Romp

Monday morning we headed over to Terrebonne, Oregon for the Performance Plus Bull Sale at Holiday Ranch, a part of 44 Ankony (1 of 4 Ankony farms in the Nation). It wasn't a bad drive over, ODOT kept most of the snow off the passes so it was an easier drive. The scenery was amazing :) When we got there, we had some time to look at the bulls in the pens. All black, with some Sim-Angus in a back pen. It was good to see quality bulls in such a mass quantity. (Rabbit breeders would be amazed with this concept). Some pens were embryo transfer, such as the 6o's lot, which came out of one sire and dam, placed into other less quality cows. It's pretty common among beef cattle, and more recgonizable in Angus. Holiday is such a nice setup, big clean pens, good hay and beautifully trimmed bulls not overfed and ready for new owners :) We then got lunch, and took too long with that and didn't get good seats for the auction, but that's alright since we weren't buying. I got a pretty good place to stand and didn't mind. The first two bulls out spun the buyers at over 5,000 a piece. The top bull went for $16, 000 and if I remember correctly he was out of a deceased, famous bull which semen went for over $500 a straw. At any rate, prices were up... I saw some great stock, and had a great time. I can't wait for next year!

Tuesday night I had a math exam. I finished in less than an hour and headed upstairs to catch the tail end of Purebred Cattle Management and Steer A Year. A good presentation was given on our Expenses for Steer A Year and what we need to make to break even. We're going to charge $3.50-3.75 for quality beef, so if you are interested, shoot me an e-mail!

I fed Friday night and got to bed rather early as I had to be up at 6 am to head to Critter Romp! I left at 7 am for McMinnville. I got there, checked in with the superintendant and relaxed for a bit. I chatted with some breeders and my 4-H'er that came with me. I started off with a table of Seniors, and four tables of Intermediates. I called back 7 of the Intermediates to make my decsion. I also got to do Champion/Reserves as well. :) I ate lunch, and then it was conformation. I doubt I can tell you all the breeds I judged, but I felt that I did a pretty good job and made good BIS/RIS decisons.

My ambassador application has been looked at it. I will have an interview next week hopefully and should find out shortly after that. I don't mind if I don't get in, I'm only a sophomore. Waiting to hear back from Columbia Dairy and various scholarships.

On the rabbit side, it's been nearly impossible to get rabbit information out of my parents. I'm not going home this weekend as I originally planned so I'm not going to be home until March 20th where I will make my first National junior cuts. It makes it hard to pre-sell and make show selections 3 hours away from home, I don't suggest it !! My parents are supposed to be weighing and going over the three I plan to have shown in a couple of weeks. I'm worried as I have heard some negative comments about the feed I started in December. However, my parents tell me no rabbits are molting, and Roxy, who has been on this food for quite some time, looks and feels just fine! She has every reason to be out of condition as well and she still rocks the tables :)

For those of you who may be interested, I don't get the internship and stay home this summer, I will be breeding Roxy in June :) I am currently searching for a very nice broken buck to use at Oregon State Convention to complement her nice type. Roxy has made the college transition so much better. The first term was very hard to go without a rabbit! I used to have negative thoughts about Hollands (my first experience raising them wasn't good, they were poor quality rabbits) and none of them had the temperment she does.

that's all for now :)

Pictures!

I finally got my parents to get pictures of Mozzerella's litter :) Sorry for the quality of the pictures, this is their first time doing something like this... All chocolate chestnuts, I was a little dissapointed with no variety but I did get a milk tipped ear! I will only be keeping one of these babies, so feel free to contact me about these guys... colorful pedigree from great lines!

Onto week 7

Time flies when you are having fun :) On Monday the Steer A Year calves and Purebred Cattle Management bulls were weighed. Two of our SAY calves topped 1,000 lbs! Their average daily gain and feed conversion ratio is amazing! We have one outlier who throws our data off, but when you take him out we are busting numbers with an ADG of 5-6 lbs per day! (A good average is 3). Tuesday night we had our meetings. Our department head gave a presenation on an interesting lecture he attended at the NCBA convention last month. We also had a presenation on marketing beef, since that is our next step in our feedlot situation. We are now calling donors to see if they would like to buy their calf back first, and then will move on to previous buyers. We are working with the 3 yearling Angus bulls. They are getting halter trained and we'll clean them up and photograph them and start to adverstise them. However, first we will be semen testing them and getting them freeze branded with the ranch's logo. We'll probbably do that sometime this week.

I fed Friday night and last night. I also feed tonight :)

The deadline for the dairy internship I applied for is here. That was the longest two weeks ever of my life. And the best part... more waiting! I figure two weeks tops depending on the number of applicants they had. I have also finished my Agricultral Ambassador application and will be turning that in tomorrow morning or Tuesday.

Tommorrow bright and early I am headed to eastern oregon for Holiday Ranch, a part of 44 Ankony. They are holding their 8th annual "Performance Plus Bull Sale" 125 Yearling bulls and a number of seasoned, proven bulls will be auctioned off. I decided this was worth missing a whole day's of class... I can afford it. I will have pictures and a complete story tomorrow night :)

Bunny litter pictures coming soon :)

Rickreall Round Up

Today was my first show as a 4-H leader... It felt very weird not to compete and to watch my kids compete.

I leased my pet Holland Doe out to one of my 4-H'ers who has yet to find a showmanship rabbit. She used Roxy and won a blue in Showmanship and a Blue in Conformation and Reserve Champion (out of a good # of Hollands).

My other 4-H'ers all won Blues in Showmanship and in Conformation. One of my novice Juniors won Reserve Champion with her Polish!

One of my juniors bought a junior Polish because he can't handle his 7 lb Mini Lop very well.

There was also CAT showmanship there (and poultry and cavies of course) but it was interesting.

Onto Yamhill in two weeks! I'm judging there... I'm very nervous.... I've never been "officially" hired as a showmanship and conformation judge even though I've done it at various fair and pre-fairs before... I got a good idea though on what I'll ask and do...

I'm done feeding steers for the weekend. I fed Thursday morning (man that was hard!) and Friday night. Tomorrow we are going out to the two OSU owned ranches and look at the cows. On Monday we are weighing and photographing again. We're then going to recalculate and see average daily gains and much more information :)

Roxy relaxing after the show :)

Mozzerella kindles!

Mozzerella kindled 5 of 8 babies this morning to Keepsake. With this cross, I should have all chocolate varities in broken and solid -- which is what my dad said this morning (although he has no clue on colors yet).

Also, it sounds like Dignified's 3 babies are coming along VERY nicely. My parents say they are almost as big as Scidget's litter (that was born Nov. 19th). I may only have 6 to show out of Summer's litter, but that's plenty.

Hopefully I'll be home in a few weeks to check up on the rabbits. I have a friend hoping to lease out my mare and we have to come on down for a test ride.

:)