Lyle Creek Rabbitry

     My goal when I first started showing rabbits was to register all of them.  In fact I hoped to have a pedigree with all registered rabbits on it.

    When a rabbit is 6 months old you can take it to a registrar with a copy of its pedigree and your ARBA card.  The registrar will look the animal over and weigh it.  If it meets the standards of the breed the registrar will register the animal and tattoo its right ear.  The registrar sends the application into ARBA and within a couple weeks you will get the Registration certificate back. 

     Once a rabbit has earned three legs with at least one of those legs earned as a senior, you can send off to ARBA to receive a Grand Champion certificate. 

     This all sounds great!!  To have a herd of Registered and Grand championed rabbits.  The registration cost is $6.00 and the application for grand champion $4.00.  So that would be $10.00 for every rabbit granded.  This hobby already has a lot of costs involved such as cages, supplies, and feed.  Going to shows and entry fees.  Hotel and travel costs if the show is a distance.  ARBA membership fee, breed membership fee.  So while it would be neat to have everyone registered and granded the cost could really add up.  A lot of times you have bred these animals and have babies you would prefer to keep than the sire or dam.  It is difficult to tack on the cost of registering and getting a grand champion certificate to the sale price of the animal.

     So even though I have quite a few animals that have earned their 3 or more legs, I do not register my animals or send for their G.C. certificate.   I still feel that they are a Grand Champion if they have earned those 3 legs.  Competition is tough around here and every leg is something I am very proud of.  I am sad that they are not offically, through ARBA a Grand Champion, but they are Champions to me.

     The Spring show season is winding down.  This is always a sad time for me knowing there are no shows but one all summer.  Its really too hot to have shows but I still miss them.    This coming Saturday is the Taylorsville show.  The weather has been mild but it is promising to be quite warm on Saturday.  I guess I need to get out some fans.  Hopefully there will be a cool breeze blowing through the building.

     I am hoping to show Onyx's two babies this show.  They are young but it would be nice to get some comments on them.  They are maturing nicely and I know they will be hitting the uglies soon.  Snicker's four babies are weaned and although too young to be shown I need to name and tattoo them.  One will be sold as a pet leaving two bucks and a doe.  I don't need two more bucks but both look promising so I may have to hold them until the night show in July.   Elle's babies are out of the nestbox and looking like cute three week olds.  I'm pretty sure about the colors now.  A blue, a black tort, a blue tort and a broken black.  The broken has half nose marking but beautiful markings other than that.  Yea for a nicely colored broken.  Jagertee's litter is just a little younger than Elle's.  It looks like I have a broken sable point, a smoke pearl and then the black that is the foster from India.   All and all a nice group of Spring babies. 

     I keep looking at all the senior bucks I have and know I need to move more out.  Its so hard to decide which to move and which to keep.  This time of year is not good for selling show animals anyway so I guess I can put the decision off until Fall. 

    Tomorrow I need to go through the animals that can go to the show this Saturday and decide who is still in coat.  Pretty much everyone has decided to molt at one time.  Hopefully this will mean nice coats for Fall.  I don't think I will have much in show condition this week but I always have fun at a show.

     There are so many different breeds of rabbits how do you pick just one to breed and show.  Having a small rabbitry I like having just one breed.  I have tried two breeds and found it difficult to show them as it always seemed both were on the show table at the same time.  Shows are so much more relaxing with one breed.  So, why Woolies?

     I started out with Holland Lops and love the breed.  They are a smaller rabbit and baby Hollands are probably the cutest baby rabbits.  On the downside It is hard to get consistanly nice babies.  Even two of the nicest two Hollands could clash genetic wise and produce some very ugly babies.  They take a long long time to develop.  It is hard to compete against long time breeders as they have the type on Hollands that takes a long time to develop.

     I started with just a couple woolies and they slowly grew to overtake my rabbitry until all I have is woolies.  So why Woolies?  They are a small breed so in a small rabbitry that is nice not to have huge cages.  Colors!  I love colors and woolies come in so many different colors.  With Hollands you almost had to do Tort and Broken tort to compete.  Not that others don't do well with colors but it is diffecult.  With Woolies colors are expected on the show table.  I don't think one color does that much better than another.  A lot of people cringe at the long wool coat, but I feel my Hollands when they molted were harder to keep a clean cage on than my woolies.  I'm not saying Woolies don't molt because they do and wool can be everywhere, I just don't feel it is any worse than short furred breeds.  I do have to brush out my junior woolies and they can mat up some when they are going from junior to senior coat, but once that senior coat is in the wool is very easy care.  I usually only brush my senior woolies on the morning of a show.  Thats it no daily or weekly brushing just a quick touch up before a show.

    Woolies are not huge eaters so feed bills will not overwhelm you.  Temperments on woolies are sweet and calm.  I tell people woolies are like little couch potatoes.  They are happy to sit in your lap and watch TV with you.  My Does tend to be good mothers with lots of milk.  The bucks are good breeders but not so bucky that they want to hump your arm when you put it in the cage.  

     I love this breed and do not wish for another.  For me Woolies have everything I am looking for.  If there is any downfall I would say the pet market is almost non-exsistant.  People do not want to deal with the wool.  Since it is diffecult to find good pet homes I do not see that as a huge downfall.  Dealing with pet people can prove to be more of a pain.  I'm not saying there are no good pet homes, just few and far between.

    So woolies it is for me.  Fuzz has taken my heart and is here to stay!

    I have had to run the air conditioner this past week.  Temperatures have been in the mid to high 80s.  This week we are back in the 70s so back to fresh air for the rabbits.  I am still hoping to have rabbits still in coat for the last show of spring.  Elijah has already decided to molt so I am brushing him every couple days trying to get the dead coat out and the new coat in.  He usually does not eat much food but since molting he has been finishing his pellets.  I increased his feed hoping he is eating more to finish out his coat.

     In baby news, Onyx's litter will be weaned tomorrow.  They are 7 weeks old and have been the stars of my new "Growing up Wooly" on my nursery page.  Snickers babies were a little wild as I was on vacation the week they first came out of the nestbox.  I have been handling them and they are calming down.  A very promising looking litter.  Elle's litter is looking good.  It looks like she has two black torts, a broken black and a blue.   Jagertee's litter is also growing well.  I thought she had two REWs but it is now looking like one of the babies is a broken smoke pearl or sable point.  Its body is such a clean white that I doubt it will have enough color to be showable.  The other baby has turned into a smokey grey color.  I am guessing at this point  that it is a smoke pearl or smutty sable point.  India's litter is down to one baby.  Her other baby was a peanut and it passed away.  The other baby is being raised with Jagertee's litter and is a black.

     I am really trying to get nice broken's in my herd.  It is hard to find rabbits that throw good markings though.  Cracker Jack almost always sired good markings but I am trying to have others also give me lots of color.  I am thinking about trying a broken to broken breeding although I want to ask a few people who have tried it how it worked out.  The thought would be a lot of poorly marked babies but I have seen nice marked babies.  I wonder if it amplifies the broken gene color instead of reducing it.  I have done broken to broken breedings in Hollands so am tempted.

     This round of breeding has been great concidering I bred three does with no experience.  Yesterday Elle had four babies.  This is her second litter but she had a lot of trouble her first litter with a stuck baby.  None of that litter survived birth.  I was thrilled that she had four and with what seemed very little trouble.  This morning I went out to see a fur filled nestbox in Jagertee's cage.  She had been very uninterested in her nestbox so I figured she did not take.  Inside were three little babies.  One is a peanut but the other two look great.  That just leaves India who also has shown no interest in building a nest.  I was cleaning all the cages this morning when all of a sudden India became frantic building a nest.  I gave her a little more hay to use and the whole time I was cleaning she was building.  When I left the rabbit shed she was sprawled out exhausted.  I will have to go out a check on her later, as I feel sure I will find babies in her box as well.

     I checked the sex on Snicker's litter and found that I have three bucks and one doe.  I've got a few rabbits that I am concidering selling at the next show.  I am keeping way to many bucks.  I love them with there fun personalitites.  It makes it difficult to put them up for sale.  I have few does right now although my line is proving to be good mothers so my selling a lot of my senior does for some younger does was a good decision.  I did get word yesterday from the owner of Lyle Creek's Kenya, who went to Indonesia,  had had a litter of babies and was being a good mother.  Another first timer doing good.  I was thrilled to hear that.

     This week is promising to be hot.  Temperatures getting near 90 most of the week before cooling down again the end of the week.  I'm trying to keep coats good for the last show May 26th so today I turned on the airconditioner.  It will not be that bad temperature wise but I want to make sure it is running good before going to work tomorrow.

     I show against some great Jersey Wooly breeders in this area.  Any win is a great thing with such quality.  I have gone to shows with either new breeders or people I do not know and have seen animals put on the table matted with long nails.   Competition is tough and having a well groomed animal gives it the best chance possible to win.  I remember a show a couple years ago.  I was a little late getting to the show and had numerous people asking me about my for sale animals.  I got caught up in talking to them and ran out of time grooming my rabbits.  I pulled out the juniors for a quick touch up but did not even check my senior animals.  The first show the judge fell in love with Onyx.  He was down to picking BOB and BOS and flat out said that she would have won BOB except she had a mat above her tail,so gave her BOS.  He suggested I groom her before show B.  I was completly embarrassed and mad at myself for not making sure I had time to groom each animal.  I have never let that happen again.  First thing I do at every show is go over each animal and groom them if needed.  Why pay an entry fee to show an animal if you are not going to take the time to make it look its best.

     I'm back from a week's vacation at the beach.  My pet caregivers did a great job with all the animals but I did miss them.  I missed a week of the baby bunnies growing.  They change so much in a week.

    The weather is back from too hot to nice spring weather.  I have not had to turn on the air conditioner yet and have jst left the windows wide open.  We don't have another show near here until the end of March.  That one always makes me sad as it is the last show for the summer. 

     I have three litters of babies due next Wednesday.  Two of the three are first time mothers, the third has had one dead litter.  Not sure what I was thinking not breeding a dependable doe.   Woolies tend to be good mothers so it should work out.

     The breeder in Indonesia that purchased Lyle Creek's Jinx posted a picture of him the other day.  Seeing him looking good made me happy.  He is such a sweet rabbit and I hope he sires many nice babies for his new owner.

     After a time of warmer weather we are finally getting Spring weather.  40s at night with 70s during the day.  I love this kind of weather.  We did have one cold front come through that actually put frost on the car two nights in a row.  The poor bunnies don't know if they should molt or hold on to that wool.

     Yesterday was the Taylorsville show.  We were put in an open air barn like building.  It was very chilly in the morning but by afternoon it had warmed up to be very nice.  Our first show was a while getting started.  Lilac nationals was at the show and our judge had Lilacs first.  Jamie Green was the Show A judge for us and I did pretty well under him.  Minion and Lyric won the Broken jr buck and Doe class.  TB's Rebel came in second in the Self Sr. bucks.  Elle won shaded Sr. Doe and went on to BOSG.  Most other placings were mid class.

     Show B was very late in the day for us.  It was almost 4p.m. when we were finally called.  We were tired, the rabbits were tired and the judge had to be tired.  We still had fun.  Wooly people are such a great group.  The judge was Carla Wilson and I did well under her as well.  Minion and Lyric again won their classes in Broken Jr. buck and Doe.  Rebel won his class and was went on to BOG or BOSG.  (I forgot to write it down).  Elle was 2nd in Shaded Sr. Doe and Midas won his class in Shaded Jr. buck.

     It was a great show and even though it was very crowded with so many people in such a small area everyone seemed in a good mood.  It was fun visiting with my friends, although after such a long day I was ready to get home.  The rabbits were happy to see their cages and some sprawled out to relax as soon as they got in their cage. 

    I got my show results from the Greensboro quad show but have not had time to read it yet.  The results were handed out at the Show yesterday and I just put the envelope up in my folder until I can sit and read it.  Our next show is the end of May.  I do have three litters of babies due the end of this month.  I also have Onyx's two that are at the adorable four week age and Snicker's litter of four that are two weeks old. 

    It is so hard to believe it is April already!  The days are warm and nights cool.  Love this nice weather we are having.  I got out the air conditioner and have it hooked up but so far I have not had to use it. 

     We have a show in Taylorsville on the 14th and I need to think about who all I will be taking.  The two agouti babies are finally pulling themselves out of a nasty ugly stage and starting to look cute again.  They might go to get comments.  Coats are still looking good so I hope to have a good number of rabbits to take.

     Onyx's two babies are growing fast and they are the star of my new project on my Nursery page.  I'm bad about updating that page so I decided to have a picture show of a baby rabbit growing.  Its not complete yet as the babies are only 1 week old, but I will continue to add pictures to my Growing up Jersey wooly.  Snickers had four babies on the 2nd of April.  It is looking like three black torts and possibly a siamese sable. 

     I got news on Monday of the results of the first ARBA show in Indonesia.  I am thrilled to report that Lyle Creek's Kenya won BOSB in show B for her new owner, Rifki!  I am always proud when a rabbit I sell does well for someone.  It has been fun looking at pictures of a rabbit show in another country.  I kinda feel a part of the show with having Lyle Creek rabbits there.

    We are having a warm Spring.  Temperatures have been in the high 70s to low 80s.  I have not pulled out the air conditioner yet and am hoping not to have to. 

The rabbits are doing well.  Everyone is recovered from Nationals weekend.  Onyx had a huge litter of 6 babies.  3 were peanuts though and one born dead.  The two that are left are growing and looking great.  One lookes to be a blue and the other maybe a broken black.  I'm not sure the broken will have enough color but we will see as it gets older.

I sold six rabbits at Nationals and miss seeing them in their cages.  Two of my favorite bucks, Jinx and Panache loved to be given head rubs every morning.  They along with Hot Tamale and Kenya went to Indonesia.  They traveled to California and had a stay over with the agent there before making the final leg to their new homes.  I am so happy they made it there yesterday safe and sound.  It was so hard letting them go, but I hope their new owners are happy with them.  Indonesia is planning their first ARBA show on March 31. 

I have some breedings planned although need to work them around a vacation we will be taking.  I never like a rabbit due to have babies while I am gone.  Snickers is due April 1st. then the next set should be due the end of April to the first of May.  I am excited to try some new crosses.  Our next show is April 14 in Taylorsville.  Everyone still seems in good coat so hopefully I will have quite a few to take. 

Happy St Patrick's Day!

The rabbits are all recoved from the busy weekend show.  The new little smoke pearl buck is settling in good.  As soon as his wool cap comes in he will be ready for some pictures for the website.  I got two more 3-hole stackers pressure washed this morning.  I'm not sure how I cleaned cages without the pressure washer.  It makes the job SO much easier. 

I thought I would talk a little bit about buying rabbits.  Not that I'm an expert but this is what I feel is important.  I love looking at for Sale pages of websites.  Young junior rabbits are usually going through some very gawky ugly times when they are for sale.  So I like to look at the quality of the rabbits the owner of the website owns.  This helps me decide the type of rabbits they own.  I very rarely buy a rabbit by picture alone.  With a wooly, they really are a hands on breed.  When I look at an animal for sale.  I like to look at the animal before looking at the pedigree.  The pedigree does not really matter if the animal is not something that will work in your herd.  I like a good solid body and a nice head shape.  Ears can look long in a junior but I measure them to make sure the rabbit will grow into them.  If the rabbit is something I like and will work with what I have, I then look at the pedigree. 

When I look at a pedigree I'm mostly looking at the age of the animal, the colors in the pedigree and the lines in the pedigree.   I hear of a lot of people saying how many legs are in a pedigree but just because there are a lot of rabbits with multiple legs in a pedigree does not make the animal you are looking at a winner.  I judge the rabbit on its own merit not its parents and grandparents.  If the rabbit is something I like and the pedigee is lines and colors that I think will work in my herd then I feel fine with purchasing the animal.

I like purchasing young juniors.  Sometimes the animal turns out great and other times its not something you can work with.  Its a gamble but I enjoy knowing that if the rabbit turns out well, that even though I did not breed it, I picked it to purchase.