 Kicking off this 2016 with a new layout for the website! Followed by our first show of the year on the 23rd in Missoula! I am excited to see what this year has in store and hopefull to start seeing some great improvements, expecially with my Harlequins! Over the past couple months, I have dabbled in the idea of adding a new breed....however I opted to hold back until I can make some better progress with Harlequins first.
I am excited to start out the new year with being able to place some Juniors on the table! Hardly ever have I been able to show any juniors in the first part of the year. Typically I have had only seniors. This year I have held back a good fair amount of Mini Lops, so I am eager to find out how they do. I am also just as equally excited to watch my fall Juniors now show as a senior! The Harlequins on the other hand have given me nothing but frustration! Over the winter I have lost a nice blue doe due to a broken back and my litters have not given me anything really promising marking wise! One Jr mag doe that I did hold back had decent enough markings to show, and then something ate half her ear! Other does refused to take care of litters...and the list goes on. I had honestly thought about given in, and finding something else....but then...what would I learn? Nothing. I suppose when I think about it, this is most likely the same reasons why hardly anyone raises this beautiful breed...therefore, challenge accepted! I have devoted myself to improve on this breed and I will stick with it...through thick and thin! What's New? I will be adding new pages after every show. These pages will include all show information...wins, losses, judges, and entries. I feel as nice as it is to share all my wins, it's equally as important to share my losses as well and the competition level. A Best of Breed win is great....but not fanstastic if it's a Best of Breed out of 10 as it would be out of 50. How can a person display the true caliber of their program if only what is displayed is positive? I have also once again have brought back the waiting list page. If you are looking for something specific or see a breeding line up that you would be interested in a kit from, just fill it out. This brings me to a new page also published with the prospective breeding plans for the new year. Please keep in mind that plans change, so be sure to check back often enough! Every year around the same time, this time, late January, I start suffering from the Winter Blues. I sit here eagerly awaiting the nice warm temperatures of Spring and Summer and most importantly, awaiting the Montana Show Season to start! Due to severe road conditions in the winter time, Montana goes dormant between Fall and Spring as far as shows go.
So to get me through these past few months of no shows, no babies, a rabbit dormancy if you will, I spend my time going over my hopefuls that I have kept, making sure they still meet my standards to stay. I carefully plan out each and every litter, and figure out who is going to be in my Spring Show string. Shortly after Christmas I begin working on my chore list of what needs to be addressed for the bi-annual barn cleaning (a super deep clean done in spring and fall). I also start compiling a list of supplies I need, such as new trays, feeders, etc. Right about now, the end of January, our weather bounces back and forth from warm in the mid 40s to freezing, below zero. This drives me insane! Not only does this throw me off schedule for cleaning and other barn chores, it seriously effects the molting schedules! Of course on the days where I have the extra spare time to go outside and groom, trim nails and what not, it decides its going to freeze. Pretty soon our snow season will turn into the mud and flood season. Hopeing that this year is the year that I can get the new barn put up at the higher part of the property so we dont get all the run off from the mountain in the barn again. Well here is to hoping for spring to come soon! May your molts be quick and your nestboxes full!!! have not written much in a while...but here goes.
Nothing much has been happening in our neck of the woods to report really. Winters here are long and cold. This year we were faced with record snowfall of 2 feet in one day. This left us snowed in for approximately 4 days! Shoveling off the roof of the barn seemed to have been at the top of our to do list weekly. Toting out water by hand several times a day has been time consuming, but in the end we have happy, healthy bunnies and that is what is important! The spring show season in Montana is going to be here before I know it! And, I cannot wait! I am anxious to get a few of these juniors, now seniors on the show table to strut their stuff. On the warmer days, I take a bit of extra time working with the buns on posing and doing a few self evals. There are a few that probably wont make the spring cut, and several that I just look on in amazement of how far I have come in this hobby. I look forward to visiting with my fellow rabbit enthusists this year. It seems like forever since I last attended a show. I am hoping to be able to branch out and show a bit out of state and of course, with 2015 ARBA Convention being on the west coast finally, I cannot not be more stoked to attend my first ever convention!! Lets just hope that my keepers hold up and I have something to show in October! We have added some English Lops to the barn as a small side project. I have always loved this breed, being my second favorite to the Mini Lops. In addition I have been gathering up a few new additions to work on developing a whole new breed, but as of right now that is all top seceret information. More info will be available as we work on developing and advancing through this project. Well it's that time of the morning to fill up my thawed out water bottles and carry them all out to the eagerly awaiting crew! My your spring nest boxes be full of fat, healthy little ones and may your coats be primed and ready for the first show! 2014 has been, what I would call, my best production year ever since my return to the rabbit hobby in 2010. I have been faced with tough choices when keeping jrs out of my litters. That's not a bad thing! I have looked back and seen how my breeding has progressed and improved, and I cant be more than pleased to take this next step forward.
At the launch of our new website, many of you, whom have frequented our old site, will notice a huge change in our current herd. The biggest change would be easy for anyone to notice. Simply put, its mostly juniors in our current herd. Not to mention, most of the herd is all GML bred. Exciting! Right? Yes & No. Letting go of many of my foundation stock has been a difficult choice. Knowing my goals, and what I want to accomplish with this breed, I had to do it if I was going to get anywhere near those goals and move forward. It left me with their offspring along with both hope and fear that their kids mature into just as nice, if not better animals than their parents. For the most part, these kids are first generation GML animals, however, there are a handful that are 3rd and even 4th generations. Most have at least one Grand Champion parent. Progress that is for sure. But am I ready to take this leap and bound ahead to build my own line? Show my only my own bred animals? Can I hold myself back from buying anything new? I guess only time will tell. I am definitely excited to get these kids on the show table, watch them mature, and for the first time ever attend the 2015 ARBA Nationals with animals I have bred! 2015 is going to hold many ups and downs for me as I face this change. Stay tuned and watch as GML advances to the next phase! Normally, my policy is to NOT sell any pets or to the general public what-so-ever. However this breeding season I seemed to have been lucky with an over abundance of litters and offspring, so I thought what the heck I will give it a whirl. I had posted an ad on Facebook offering not only pets for $15 each (without papers) but also rabbits for the use of RAW feeding for pets and snake food at a per pound price.  Given that we were blessed with large litters this breeding season, I thought "what the heck, lets share the wealth." Bad idea! (Because of the fact my website is VERY public I have blocked out the last names of those involved, other than my own) As all rabbit breeders should know culling is a very important practice. Terminal culling is necessary to remove unwanted traits in stock that could be detrimental to the breed. By terminal culling, you are preventing anyone ever breeding that animal and putting those traits out there, therefore giving others the wrong impression of what that breed should look like. An option I have considered, but found very difficult, was offering the sale or give away as pets, but the new owner would have to make an appointment for spay/neuter and can only pick up the animal from the vet after the procedure has been done. However, in our area, that did not work out. So I opted to stop all pet sales all together. I am not opposed to terminal culling and do so often. However, unless the animal is ill, I am a firm believer in not wasting. Healthy cull animals are raised just like my best show potential babies, and ultimately culled humanely and quickly and placed in our freezer. I had found it interesting that two sent messages at what seems to be the same time. I had provided one with a lengthy response, and the other with a short response. Both seemed to have viewed and seen my responded within minutes of each other. Sara was the only one whom responded to my response to her. I find it amusing that she made a large point to correct my grammatical error of using "your" instead of "you're or you are", when in her response, not only did it not make sense for the most part, her grammatical errors where more than plenty as well as several mis-spellings. I had originally blocked all three who had sent me the nasty IM's on FB, however, it was discovered by several fellow rabbit breeders that Sara went as far as taking a screenshot of my ad and posting it in the House Rabbit Society Group on FB. Upon doing this, the members of the group went crazy. Besides their normal, "oh how mean!" comments you would expect from a group like this, a group of people that in a nutshell are pretty much like PETA. A comment was made on the post about burning down my house! (At the time that I took the screen shot, many have already "liked the statement to burn down my house)  Additionally, there were other threats such as being shot, and feeding me to the Florida gators should I ever decide to visit the state. As well as an empty, pointless threat of "it's not the gators I would have to worry about."  The whole thread in this group carried on about how cruel I am to my rabbits by offering pets and meat in the same ad. As well as the cruelty of having my rabbits live in cages with wire bottoms (Please see my other Blog post: Housing Rabbits: Solid Bottom Vs. Wire Bottom Cages.) They continued by commenting that I should be turned in to Animal Control or the Humane Society for cruelty, and even asked if anyone was in my area that can come up to my home and save my poor rabbits from my cruel intentions. And to Franki, I truely am not desperate for cash. After all if they dont find homes, its okay. We will eat them! My FB profile link was added to this thread so that all can stalk me and see what I am all about. Unless you are friends with my, my FB profile is pretty much private. I would post public photos of my rabbits for those who Follow me to see. After this, everything is now private unless you are on my friends list. And, in order to be on my friends list, I have to know you. One guy, had gone as far as posting how I have numerous "companies" and several other fake profile accounts and followed with posting a link to one. Please give me a moment to clarify these so called numerous companies and profile accounts: Since I have been on Facebook, I have only had ONE personal profile account. At one time I did have an account for Glacier Mini Lops, as well as an account for my dogs (under two names as I changed names: Krazydanes Harlequinz & Immortal Great Danes). Finding it difficult to upkeep these accounts, I changed them over to a fan or like page. These accounts have since been deleted to the best of my knowledge. I ran the fan pages of Glacier Mini Lops and Immortal Great Danes for at least a couple years. Today, these pages are no longer. I deleted them because I still did most of my posting and sharing on my own personal page, all the other important things were basically posted on my website. Other than those pages, I had at one time a page for my shop, again this page is no more as it was difficult to maintain. I have also had a few other, no longer in existence for one reason or another, trying something new. But it all boiled down to having numerous FB pages too up to upkeep, so I kept my own personal page, and that is it. Now to reference the link this person posted in the HRS FB group, that is/was my daughter's page, for her rabbitry. In my home, there are four of us that raise and show rabbits. Each of us have our own breed(s) and ARBA Registered Rabbitry names. Kassie who raises Mini Rex, uses Bunnicula. At one time she did have cavies, but does not any longer. My twin girls raise Polish and use Polish World Rabbitry. Polish World Rabbitry does have a FB page, run by my girls, but also monitored by me. So here they are, the HRS group, posting on this thread, about how fake I am, and they dont even have the correct information. These so called pages and companies I have belong to my daughters. Thankfully, no hateful messages were sent to my children.  I was also accused of breeding my rabbits for the purpose of making a profit. As all true to heart rabbit breeders who breed for show quality standard rabbits know, there is no money making in this hobby. And that is what it is, a hobby. Not a business. (Please see my other blog post: Breeding Rabbits, the difference between a Hobby & a Business)
As a final attempt, I sent a message to one of the admins of this group explaining how this thread has gotten way out of control. This message has gone unanswered. In closing I would like to offer a warning to all: Be careful of what you post online and who your friends are. Be extremely careful when it comes to groups such as the House Rabbit Society, PETA and the like. Know your state, city, county and Federal laws. Be careful of who you invite to your barn, and your home. Know that everything you say online and publicly throughout the internet can be held against you in a court of law should it ever go to that. You can also be held accountable to libel (written slander). Also, know your state laws for "cyber-bullying" of minors, should you ever come across such a situation. Protect yourself at all times. The lesson I have learned by this mistake is, I will never offer up pets again to anyone. Never in any groups, or local adverts. Nor will I attempt to outsource and seek additional parties that I do not know for those interested in rabbits intended to feed another animal. All culls will be placed in our own freezer, or only out sourced to those we know on a personal level. It was a bittersweet goodbye as today I said goodbye to my Tri Color Mini Lop project. As much as I love the fun color, and looking forward to each litter as if it was Christmas, I found it was taking up too much space in my barn. A breeder would have to dedicate a large amount of space to their barn to work on this wonderful color. I found it extremely difficult to find that balance of color and type in one package. I found myself keeping lesser quality animals, because they were the only ones with color, and vise versa. Perhaps a few years from now, when the type of the Tri Colored Mini Lop is more up to the standard I will venture back in. But for now, I am going to turn my focus on the selfs and shaded Mini Lops, along with the few chins and chestnuts I have. I might pop out a Tri color every now and then, as the gene is in a few lines. Oh that would be the sweetest surprise, and yet the most difficult kit to get rid of! However, I also have my new project of the Magpie Harlequins, hoping that would curb my desire for the unusual color and markings I adored so much in Tris!  |
Helpful InfoHere you will find lots of informational articles on how to care for your rabbits, about showing, and just news about our rabbitry in general. Archives
June 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
|
|