11 days until Home!

My oh my am I exhausted! School has just ripped me apart these last few weeks, combined with work and all of my other activities when next Thursday evening rolls around there will be reason to celebrate! I am most definitely excited for a break, and not ready to start another 10 weeks, even though it will be a very good 10 weeks (I hope!). I am starting my new job (working at the university meat center) as a TA for 3 classes and working regularly the other 3 days of the week. I am done lambing, so no more waking up early!

Relating to rabbits.... first off, no I am not going to Myrtle Point next weekend; though many of my friends are, so I wish them good luck. I have 3 finals on Monday, so there is just no way I can afford to go.

I am fearing that I might have to re-home Sid, at least with one of my 4-H'ers. Potty training him has not been successful, with rising temps keeping him indoors is just no bueno! Plus I had to scrub off the walls as I don't think he sprays, but since he won't urinate in his box, he gets it on his feet and then flicks it off... Embarrassing I must say, but I don't know what else to do; I can't keep him outside. I am hoping I can convince the roommates to let Roxy have her litter here.... I will have to buy a bigger kennel, and figure out how this can work out!

Kristie has 8 of 9 babies. My parents sent me some pics, they look mostly like solid & broken chestnuts, though there might be some chins? That is the quality of phone pictures, but it does for now! I am so happy she is being a great mom, and I can't wait to see these little guys in person!

My dad picked up my remaining 4 of Maid Dignified & Dominic's babies. There are 2 blacks, a Chestnut and a Broken Black! I haven't had a Bkn Black in forever, so maybe this will just be the one! I don't know sexes, and I do have some pictures!! I am just so happy to see them home and in good hands now. They get oats and lots of hay, so hopefully even with the rough start they will start growing like weeds now.

Thats all I have... I am so excited for dead week and finals week to be over with. Wish me good luck on finals! I won't post till I get back home in Corvallis, as I will be far too busy at "home home" relaxing. :D

We have named him Sid!

"Lucky Lop's Abraham", now named "Sid" is here! We just picked him up... thanks to Tricia & Vanessa & mom for picking him up from the CA St. Convention show, and to Susie for letting me have him! :) He will be a great addition to our place.

Right now he is growing some wool back on him and going to let him settle in before I breed Roxy to him. Roxy will be headed home in a couple of weeks and will remain there probably until the later half of spring term... we'll see how things go. With my current living situation, we just can't have two bunnies, so Sid will stay here.

I did hear back from my parents that two of Maid Dignified's babies passed away. The foster mom wasn't producing enough milk for my piggish babies, but now the remaining are on KLH milk replacer and hopefully when they get on pellets they will just be going home and getting lots of oats and grass hay. It's been a long journey for them into this world.

Kristie's are still doing well. I can't wait to go home and see them!!

Week 9 has started... I am SO ready for this term to be over with! On the happy side of things, I am only taking 15 credits next term, so I will be a lot stressed out... and will have a lot more time on my hands. :)

The work does not end!

This morning, I woke up at 3am, to be to work by 3:50. At 3:57 an ewe had been in labor and and dropped her twin lambs (pictured above!!) Both are cute little wethers, and are oh so cute! This was my first actual solo lambing; I have missed quite a few give birth or had others alongside me.

The bigger boy, was up and nursing within minutes, but the second lamb was a slow starter. Mom was slow to clean her, but finally she got licked dry and stumbled around for a bit, but I held him up to nurse, got some IG's in him and he was good to go! Just an hour before I arrived, an ewe delivered triplets as well! One of our show lambs had a single and all 12 jugs were full of lambs, singles, twins & triplets! We have a handful (aka "several") ewes still to lamb.

At 7:45 I hurried to class. I park at the beef barn (a mile from my class) but was able to make it to class on-time. A 2 hour lab, an hour to study, and a midterm at 11. But, I am done with studying and exams for a week! (kind of!)

Tomorrow we begin the AQ contest. It starts at 5:30pm tomorrow and we are doing the written exam and group presentation part.
On Saturday is fully the Lab Practical and the Quiz-bowl, which should last from like 8am-6pm. We get fed dinner tomorrow and lunch on Saturday so not half bad right? Plus if we win here, we go to regionals in Utah!

Small Updates

Kristie has 5 Broken & 4 solid :) (Yes it takes me that long to get info from my parents!!)

Here are some shots of the sheep I shot at 3 am!!! I am running out of energy doing this, and I can't imagine doing it full time next year... but I am getting used to it. Tomorrow I have an exam at 7:30pm, and as soon as I get home, it's bedtime... up at 3 am again!!! The first is a little wether that was born on the 19th and the second are two club lamb wethers out of our Club Lamb Show project. They are about 2.5 weeks old and very nice looking! I can't wait to show them this summer! We still have lots of ewe's to lamb. One of our ewes made the state newspaper (link here: Drama at the OSU Sheep Center) because she lambed in front of a HUGE crowd in the day (which is rare for sheep, they like to do it at night). Thankfully, she lambed healthy twins!

Back to the rabbits.... and something I am very excited about.... I am getting a Fuzzy Holland Buck from Susie Cederlof (Wooly World Rabbitry: link). He will be coming on March 1st. When I go to bring Roxy home for spring break, I will breed her to him. He will then continue to reside up with me at my house @ school, since my parents are very dead set against a wool rabbit. I've always wanted one though!

That's all I have for now. School wise, it's Week 8. Two big exams and three big papers due this week.... *sighs!* But, I have my next term's schedule planned out and I should have a relatively easy(ier) term! YAY!

Kristie kindles!

Kristie kindled yesterday to 9 babies! There are some brokens but that is all I know for now.


I have news on Maid Dignified's litter... my parents get updates every 3 days or so. There are 2 brokens, 2 steels and 2 blacks. They are starting to hop out of the box!

My non-rabbit related rant +

Roomates!

I've had my share since coming to college. The good and the bad.

Last year, I was supposed to move in with someone from Texas. She was a very nice gal, but her hometown, Houston, got wiped out by that Hurricane -- so she went home, like two days before school started. I moved in with friend since I've known since kindergarten. It wasn't a bad roomate situation, but she took the "being away from home" very hard and wasn't very sociable. So I moved in with a girl who I had met at the beginning of the year. She was in my major and we got along very well.

In May, us and another girl had decided to move in together. We wanted a 4th roomate so we searched all summer and our friend had found a girl who needed a place very bad; we were her only option.

So, that we did. And it was soon we discovered our friend was not exactly the best roomate. So, in less harsh words, we made her move out. It was a mutual decision and it was rough; but it was something that needed to happen. That was around winter break.

Now, in the meantime the girl we picked as our 4th roomate wasn't the best either, but we lived -- because she was doing a lot better than our friend. But now new things have been arising and I'm not so sure if I am willing to replace these two with two new roomates, people we wouldn't know that well....

So.... I'm going to announce it, with hopeful wishes that my roomate and I can become the Sheep Unit Herdsman for this next year! I have already talked with the current herdsman and the manager, so they know I want it, but they don't make any final deicsions until spring break or so. Wish me luck! It's a bittersweet job, but its something I'd rather have than what I have now! If that happens, I won't be going to Michigan State this fall... which makes me sad, but its something I could live with.

Pictures!

I'm always picture heavy, but these last couple of trips we were far to busy "going going going!" with little time for picture snapping!

The college-age folks at the Pacfic Northwest Young Cattlmen's Tour! There were 120 "young cattlemen" who went on the Industry tour, probably 80% of those were university students. At the cattlemen's college on Saturday, there were over 400 people present as that's how many seats they had and there were still people standing. Thanks to the OCA, WCA, Simplot, Beef Northwest, Northwest Farm Credit Services & the many others involved for making this trip happen! 1/21-24/2010
The Alamo, in San Antonio, Texas! We were in Texas for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Convention from 1/27-31/2010. It was a very informative convention, filled with lots of fun and city sightseeing. We also visited Dallas & Houston, so I got to see some of the biggest cities in the US all in one weekend! Thanks to the YCA for helping us with our expenses. Sadly, Oregon State lost to Kansas State in the Academic Quadrathon, but we tried our hardest. We had a rough first round about 'history & politics'! The cattle judging was also very unique, a lot of classes with breeds we don't see up in the northwest.

Another 4800 miles.... Texas trip!

On Wednesday, I and 10 others left for San Antonio, Texas. We went there for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Conference.


On a very short note, I had a GREAT time :D Really didn't want to come home -- especially since the stockshow was right around the corner!

Relating to rabbits:

Dominic & Tiffany left on Friday to go live with Emily Brown of WA. Thanks to Teri & Tricia for transporting them.

Rylee missed. I don't know if Stitch is sterile, because she "should have" taken. I will re-breed her soon, and hopefully he's not. At any rate, I lost my foster doe.
Maid Dignified kindled to 6 on the 28th. 5 steels & 1 Broken. They are living with a nearby breeder until they are 6 weeks old.
Maid Dignified and Money Maker left on Sunday with Teri. Money Maker is going to go live as a 4-H/Show rabbit in Gilroy, CA and Maid Dignified is on her way to live in Flagstaff, Arizona.

I am down to 9 rabbits :) I decided to put Matthew up for sale, I hope to breed him to a doe before he goes, but if not, oh well. Kristie is due to Money Maker on the 17th, so with two litters on the ground we need to keep it slow for now. I am hoping something in Kristie's litter will be worth keeping, I think it was a good cross.

School -- it's week 5 already. I have a make-up midterm tomorrow, other than that it's a week to catch up and prepare for my next two midterms next friday. Pretty soon it will already be time to be registering for next term's classes. :D

I don't know when my next rabbit update will be.... Perhaps when Kristie's litter is born or when MD's litter gets back home. :)

2010 rolls in nicely!

Just two weeks into the year and it's already started out nicely!

School! I'm taking 18 credits, and so far I like all of my classes... they are all lecture/exam types so not a lot of busy work but a lot of studying to do. I didn't have to buy any books this term so I was *super* excited! I have already had to move 3 exams and a lab due to travel, but hopefully it will all work out nicely. It's the first time I've had to do it!! At any rate, after two weeks I am exhausted, so I will be headed home tomorrow after my last class.

4-H! We had our first meeting of the year and it was pretty good, rather smooth. It's kinda nice having less kids this year, that way we can focus more and get a lot more accomplished. I've been very busy or on the road, so I've missed quite a bit of stuff, and I do feel bad. We are loosing our county extension agent, and it looks like they will not look to replace her until the Fall. I know this fair is smaller, but the agent is the glue to county fair, and I am interested in seeing how it will work without her.

Animals (non rabbit)! The steers and bulls have been doing well. The bulls arrived at the barn in December. We are just feeding them up until we have to sell them. The 25 steers are doing well. They are now on full-feed. We recently implanted them, so we are excited to see bumps in feed gains. I plan on signing up for Lambing crew, those little buggers should be hitting the ground soon and there are sooooo many of them to be born! Also, our meat lab should be opening back up soon, so I imagine there will be work to be done there. AND my family is getting a llama hopefully this weekend, so I might have news to post next week about him!

Rabbits! So basically the rabbits are back on the UP side of things! and I am rather pleased!

This weekend, Lila is leaving to go live with a 4-H'er. In two weeks, Dominic and Tiffany will leave to go live in Washington. Also, Maid Dignified will leave to go to Arizona. We will then be at 11 rabbits (-1 (Stitch = retired pet) so actually we will be at 10.

*Rylee is due on the 23rd to Stitch

*Maid Dignified is due on the 29th to Dominic.

We will be fostering Dignified's litter, so hopefully that works out well.

I will proably be breeding Kristie to Money Maker. I have been thinking about it, and I think they would match up very nicely, plus I want to move Money Maker on... He deserves to be in a good show home!

I am missing the St. Helens show because I will be in Texas, so the next show after that isn't until March, which is right before finals (and I have THREE finals on MONDAY...) so I won't be headed to the show, not that I have anything to enter anyways.... Skip! It's likely I won't get to a show until Pear Blossom, and that's in April :D So much time for "show withdrawl"!

At any rate, I'm going home -- fixing up some nestboxes & getting my rabbits ready for transport. I will also have to clean some trays and... hopefully I will get new/updated pics of most everyone (minus Dig & Rylee). If I get any good ones I'll update the website :)

until later.... Pictured above is ROXY -- my house pet up here in Corvallis... she has been the best pet rabbit I've ever owned and my roomates and I love her to bunches! She's headed home with me this weekend because no one will be at the house and it's easier to drag her home than to find someone to take care of her.... She's one traveling bun!

Goodbye 2009!

2009 was a rough year, I'm happy to say goodbye to it and have open arms for 2010!

I spent my last couple of days on my 'To Do' list. Of these, the biggest was fixing the auto-water. Simply enough, the tube came unhooked from the bucket, but the whole system needed cleaning anyways, so I scrubbed it all out nice and clean! Now I can remember when I did it last!!!

I moved the young seniors to bigger cages, with dividers. I am going to prime them up and hopefully show them in March! I also bred Maid Dignified to Dominic, she will be due on the 28th.

I had to do a feed run today. I got 3 bags, I used about 5 gallons for Roxy, as I have no clue when I'll get home next.

I hope to sell a trio for St. Helens. I will then be at 11 rabbits, and only 10 of those count since Stitch has his permanent place here in the barn.

10 rabbits... It sounds so nice... yet so sad!

At any rate, I'm saying goodbye to 2009 tonight, and headed up to Corvallis bright and early in the morning. I have soooooo much to do when I get up there and prepare for school and what not.

I don't know when my next update will be, most likely after the Industry tour & Texas trip :)