Clover Bloom Rabbitry

Wow. I didn’t realize how long it has been since we posted.

We showed at the county fair this summer and got two purples and a blue. The blue was a result of a molting rabbit.

Afterward, we dispersed the herd except for two pets. Our girls have gotten old enough that their school activities pretty much overwhelm their time. Saturdays include volleyball tournaments now, rather than rabbit shows.

We do plan to get back into the groove next spring though, but with our second grade son Eli and kindergarten daughter Ella. They’ll show in the youth division, rather than us showing in open as a family. We had our (short) time in the sun, now it’s time for the kids to learn the trade.

We’ll probably do Hollands and we’re thinking of adding a second breed too, probably a meat breed since they are so popular in Kansas. Just haven’t decided which one.

In the meantime, Ella brings “Sissy” a young black doe, into the house daily if we let her and she loves her very much.

So I hope all of our rabbit friends have fun during the fall show season and we’ll see you next year!

Just my luck. I didn’t realize Ruby was pregnant until yesterday when I picked her up and realized she was really fat. From my calculations, she would have been due on Friday, but my notes said I didn’t think the breeding was successful.

In case she was just really fat, I put a little hay in her cage to see what she’d do. She totally ignored it. Today I went out there and she had seven babies dead on the wire. Crud.

It’s like I’m not supposed to be in this hobby anymore.

I did breed two does yesterday, though, and they really seemed to be successful breedings.

Went to the rabbit show in Abilene this evening. I knew we wouldn’t be able to go tomorrow because of the girls’ basketball game, so I wanted to make it to tonight’s show.

We got fourth and seventh in the solid senior buck class, out of seven. Not great, but it was with two bucks that are eight months and six and a half months, so I’m fine with it.

It was nice to see some people again!

Eli, Ella and Noah hang out at the rabbit show.

Thinking about adding a second breed to our rabbitry, for various reasons. Maybe something smaller or a heritage breed.

Started another new family in 4-H rabbits. Down to nine Hollands left, but will probably breed two does for some spring babies.

While my Friday night show didn’t go too well, it sounds like a couple Clover Bloom Rabbits I sold on Friday did well in youth in Saturday’s two shows. And one was a doe I wasn’t planning on selling, but I got talked into it… darnit.

Oh well. I’m excited to see how X-Caliber rabbitry does in the coming year. Sounds like they have a good plan put together (and they’re not in my zone so that is good!)

No regrets. I like what my rabbits are like and I guess that is what I have to continue to shoot for.

Well, I pretty much stunk it up this evening at Seward. If nothing else, I contributed rabbit numbers for more points for other showers!!

I was worried when I found out who was judging. Todd Naragon is a good judge, but my style of rabbit is not his style I guess. He was the judge of the last show we did in the spring and we did so bad I was about ready to quit. Luckily with this show, we were basically planning on pulling back a bit on the rabbitry anyway, so the poor results tonight weren’t as frustrating. I actually like the direction our rabbits were going, so it would have been nice to be able to show in the two shows on Saturday, but our school was having a fundraiser auction that I had to go to, so I couldn’t make it.

I was able to sell some rabbits. Went up with 12 and came back with three. I even parted with one  that I wanted to keep. Oh well, she went to a new rabbitry that I think has a good future.

Met some new people this weekend and got to know a few other veterans, so that was nice. And the folks that run the Seward show are awesome. It is my favorite place to show.

Eli went with me and pretty much played the entire time with another little boy.

It was fun, despite our suckiness.

I’m looking forward to Friday’s show at Seward. I can’t go to Saturday’s shows because we have other events going on. So Friday will be our final show until Abilene in February.

We’re wanting to cut down our herd to two bucks and three does. Everything else will be for sale and even what we keep is somewhat negotiable. I think we’re keeping Remy and Wall•E as bucks and Sota, Twinkle and Ruby as does.

So that means even Harbor is for sale. He’d be a brood buck because he is probably 4.5 pounds. We’ll sell any for $20.

Bucks

CB’s Harbor – Sr. Broken Sable Point – 1 leg (BOB at Abilene open show on Feb. 14 out of 72 rabbits)

CB’s Shiner – Jr. Blue-tort

CB’s Twilight – Jr. Black

CB’s Eclipse – Jr. Broken black

CB’s Emile – Jr. Fawn

CB’s Evan – Jr. Sable point

Does

Hopping T’s Midnight – Sr. Black – 2 legs

We also have six Bullet x Cocoa juniors – Four blue-torts, two torts – five does, one buck.

The six bunnies that were born to Cocoa and Bullet on Aug. 27 have been named. Oddly, I think they’re all does, but I’m probably wrong on at least one of them. There are four blue-torts and two torts.

We’re going with 1950′s and 60′s female television personalities. So they are:

Clover Bloom’s Alice, Lucy, Carol, June, Genie and Samantha.

Said goodbye to Hopping T’s Carter today. We sold him and a couple other rabbits today. Carter was our first herd buck. We have lots of his genetics in the rabbits we’re keeping, so I was comfortable selling him, even though his head seemed to be growing every week over the last couple months.

We’re down to 19 rabbits left, though two others are already spoken for, so technically we have 17 rabbits left. Everything we have now is Clover Bloom’s except for Hopping T’s Midnight, a senior doe. We’re low on seniors overall, but I don’t think we’re going to breed until some of our juniors become seniors. Which means we’ll probably have no juniors to show at Abilene, but should have some by the spring Seward show.