In case you’ve never seen one, here are some pictures of what a young harlequin dutch rabbit looks like. The pattern contrasting with the white markings makes for a very pretty animal!
Tag: baby Page 1 of 2
Sammy and his group were “helping” me today as I was wiring in the new bird area. By helping I mean making sure all the tender grass in the sod I dumped was devoured, as well as reminding me they were there randomly.
When I sat down for half a second, Sammy came over giving me his opinion of my break time. Sp I scooped him up for some Sammy snuggles and reminded him that they take way more breaks than I do!
After a quick picture, it was back to yanking off all the grass pieces! And back to work for me….
My steel dutch doe Susie had a litter of 6 and did great!
However, my blue satin’s first litter wasn’t so good. She had 1 healthy and 2 peanut kits. The peanut kits were humanely culled and since 1 kit can be harder for a first time mom to raise, I decided to give it to Susie.
I took a black mismark out and added the satin kit in. The mismark went over to a chinchilla dutch doe who had a litter the same day. So far, everyone is doing well!
I’m excited to see how these progress, as I see several steels and that’s a color I want to do more of. Baby power!
Physical therapy for one gosling that was having a hard time standing. Warm water, deep enough for it to paddle in!
After therapy, drying off and getting some well deserved snuggles!
Same gosling right after getting in the water bowl (oops).
Testing complete!
Good news…it held temperature! So I carefully marked x and o and a number or letter on the eggs I’ve been saving and loaded them in.
Meet hopefully a future flock of mostly ducks!
27 blue runner eggs (left side), 2 Sermama chicken eggs in middle, and 15 duck eggs from a mixed flock of buff and roeuns.
Stay tuned, I will be candling them in a few days!
Just got done setting up a new incubator. It has been a long time since I hatched anything, although when I did I did hundreds between ducks and quail!
I’ll be putting blue runner duck eggs, one tiny serama chicken egg (that’s all they’ve given me so far) , and filling the rest of the space with buff/Rouen mixed eggs. 28 days of waiting ahead of me!
But for now, I watch the temperature attempt to stabilize itself….
After months of only 1 small rex litter…we finally got 2 litters! Both moms delivered 9 babies. One is a first timer and one is a first timer fir me (second for her). So far so good!
Baby rabbits are hard to take pictures of because as soon as you disturb the nest they pop up and start looking for mom…but I promise they are all in the picture.
It will be a few days before I can pull them to check colors..so for now they just get daily welfare checks (while mom is distracted with a tidbit or two).
Three more cute Happy Holiday messages featuring bunnies!
First up is a young grey dutch (didn’t look at the gender yet). I was taking pictures with it and a littermate (below) because by themselves they weren’t very cooperative. Out of all the individual pictures, this is the only nice one…I happened to catch it right when it was checking out the sound of a goose sneaking up behind me so I got a nice side profile. Good bunny!
Next we have the aforementioned littermate with the grey Dutch above. They both decided that the feather boa was a good hiding spot and buried their noses down in it long enough for me to get a picture! This is one of the cute ages for sure.
Last but not least we have a Harlequin Dutch doe that I’m keeping to be one of my harli breeders. She’s very laid back…when I rested the stocking on her for the picture she hunkered down and decided it was a good place for a nap. She (and the other two Dutch above) totally ignored the jingle bells while I was trying to take their picture, which worked out well.
Well, that’s it for the good Christmas/ Holiday rabbit pictures! Maybe soon I’ll do an outtake post :). Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate!
It rained…a lot ….6 inches in 3 days and still coming down. So the dogs can’t just stay outside and I end up letting them in and out a few times more than normal.
As I’m bringing them in, both of them looked next to the brooder and jump a foot back! Anything that startles the dogs is never a good thing!
So I carefulyyyyy check behind the brooder…and there in the shadows is a red and orange rope that suddenly coils up and tried to look fierce!
I don’t mind good snakes, aka nope ropes. I encourage then to hang out in the yard and am sad when one doesn’t win in a fight against a lawnmower.
BUT…..I draw the line when they go after my animals. There are enough mice and rats and even lizards, so when something eyes a baby quail I am not happy.
I managed to get the dogs inside and get help holding a flashlight to find the red rat snake.
Next thing Mr. Rat snake knows, it’s being grabbed up by a pair of rubber tipped grabbers and unceremoniously ushered out in the yard , rain or no rain.
A quick head count shows that I was right on time as the snake had not gotten into the brooder yet…whew. This snake was small enough that the wire on top would have let him get in for dinner.
It’s for these reason I try and keep some wire on hand…a grinder, tin snips, and 5 feet of 1/4″ hardware cloth later the quail had another layer of wire on their brooder. Then I did the same for the chick brooder to hopefully prevent any successful snake snacking!
Update: It’s been a month and no missing chicks of either type 🙂
I have been wanting geese for years. I had fond memories of my little goose, Goosey, who fell victim to a bobcat before he even got all his (or her) feathers. I remembered Goosey as following me around the yard and interacting with me. The little goose attitude was cute too!
I also had some not as fond memories of a Toulouse goose named Mooch. Mooch also had attitude but not quite so cute. It was many battles of will, a few goose bites, and a bunch of squawking (from me) before we reached an agreement about who could be where…as in no, we can’t both occupy the same space. We figured it out though and all was forgiven. I developed eyes in the back of my head pretty quickly though!
Last year I tried to order some Buff geese in March, only to discover that everyone was already sold out. This year, I decided that I was not going to miss out and placed my order in December for summer delivery.
After a very very long wait…they came in! They were ready to get out of the box even when I peeked in at the post office to do a quick head count. They’re so cute! I’m looking forward to raising these guys (and girls). I ordered 2 males and 4 females hoping they are accurately sexed so I can have 2 trios.
Isn’t he adorable?
