New Babies and Life Changes

Whew! I've been so busy lately that I've barely had time to do anything involving bunnies. To start off, it's the end of the year and we have 1.5 weeks until the last day of school! So this means I am quickly trying to finish up all of my work and finals for the year! And if this wasn't enough, we're also starting our new house next week! Yes, our new house we've been waiting 6 years to build!! Yay!! We will probably also be building the rabbit barn with the house so as soon as we move, we can put the bunnies out in their new barn instead of tucked away in the garage for a few months. Hehe!
Along with the new house, I've also been cleaning all of the houses my dad has been building. They have all sold along with a few families interested in having homes built. What a huge blessing! After years of not having any work with the bad economy, my dad is finally building many beautiful homes! We have families from Idaho, Wyoming, Texas, and Kansas moving to Utah within the next few months along with many families currently in Utah moving into homes my dad has built. So exciting!
We are also planting hay, raising calves, raising 30 chickens, and planting our 3 acre pasture behind our house which will have a small herd of Black Angus and Jersey cows on it. Maybe someday if I'm lucky, also a Quarter Horse or two.
Speaking of Quarter Horses, we are driving out to Aurora next weekend to look at a beautiful palomino mare. Her price is pretty high but from what I can see, I like her a lot! Who knows, maybe she'll be the one for me? We'll have to see next weekend!

Well, enough about life and my random, busy happenings. Let's talk BuNnIeS! I haven't talked about bunnies with anyone much in the past weeks. I miss talking about them! Lol!
Maybelle had a litter of 3 but the sport passed away leaving 2 banded. Mia had a litter of 4, she had 3 banded and 1 sport. What a perfect first time momma! I officially love that doe! And to top it off, the litter I was dying waiting for, Adaliene had 3 banded babies!!! Unfortunately, she almost trampled them and so I ended up fostering her first litter to her momma, Maybelliene. I expected Addy to act like this for her first litter though. I've rebred Adaliene and she is due on June 23rd.
I'm absolutely loving these babies!! We have 8 Hotot babies right now with 7 banded and 1 sport. They are all so small and compact like their dad, Buddy. So exciting! I will likely grow these babies out for a while as I'm so excited to see how they mature.
Unfortunately for the hollands, Katara didn't take when she was bred to the buck in Oregon with her previous owner. That leaves me with once again, no holland babies. :(
I've bred Manda for June 26th. I tried to rebreed Katara but she refused to lift so I will be supplementing her until the 29th and then trying again. Fingers crossed for some babies out of Gilroy and these two does. This is likely the last straw before I will be making some serious changes with the hollands. I've had almost a year dry spell with hollands so it is time for a serious change after this attempt. Only time will tell!
My camera broke a few weeks ago so I haven't had anything to take decent pictures with! I apologize for these poor quality pictures taken from my phone. Lol They will have do for now... ;-)

Mia- Wow! <3

Buddy- Double Wow!! Lol!

Beautiful!! (I apologize for the stained table. Lol)

Pistol Annie, This picture doesn't do her justice.
She has really filled out lately!!

Hehe... I had to sneak a picture of the Palomino mare in...
Feast your eyes... Lol!

Whoops! I don't know how another one got on here... XD

Taking a Break :'(

First, I'd like to say I am not taking this break by choice. I guess this was inevitable but my family threw a fit because I had a "population explosion" in my rabbitry. This so called 'explosion' was 13 rabbits including babies. What really irks me is my dad has 12 rabbits right now that I am stuck taking care of plus 10 more in a couple of days when his NZ doe, Peach kindles. I'm about to go all teenager here but this is very unfair and I'm so sick of it. Last night, after being yelled at for 2 hours straight about rabbit and chicken care, I'm being forced to stop breeding until we move and I have to move the rabbits out. I am so disappointed, angry, and heart broken.
I'm tired of fighting with my family about the rabbits when they aren't even a burden to any of them. The only reason everyone is acting like this is because I'm younger and running a whole 'business' on my own which somehow invites all of the adults in the house to try to run it for me.
Yes, I am very angry but should I mention terribly heart broken over this? If I breed another rabbit, I will be forced to sell every last one. This doesn't seem like a big deal right? Well then we have to consider that my holland herd buck is almost 4 years old and is struggling producing. If I really have to stop breeding, he will sit idle for another 4-5 months. Now this doesn't seem like a huge problem but what about all of the does?!  Every single doe I own could stop producing after sitting idle that long. And who knows what could happen any rabbit in my herd in that time period? Who knows, I could loose my best, my favorites, or dare I say, all of them to what ever causes may arise.
I'm feeling very put down and hurt right now, honestly.

So I guess after the next litters, Little Rascal's Rabbitry will be done for the year.

**tears**

Barn Changes and Mini-Rant

Oh, how I look forward to the day when we have a nice barn completely designed and dedicated to the rabbits! I'm getting tired of all these big changes I am having to make in order to accommodate more and more. We will be starting to let the 28 young pullets into the outdoor part of the rabbitry/chicken coop. We will probably hold off for another week or two but in order to do this, we'll have to put my rooster and hen in a cage where they won't be able to attack the chicks as they are exploring and growing to adult size. I'm expecting my grandma to throw a tantrum as she usually does when I change anything of mine out there. But of course, it's our barn, not my grandma's. So we may just have to put a lock on both doors and light curtains over the windows. The critters will live happily ever after as long as no one throws tantrums! Lol!! This gets me so excited to move this Summer!! I can see it now... A big bunny barn... with chickens ever so far away. Haha!!
So we will have the chicks on the floor of the outdoor and a small portion of the indoor part of the barn just in case this Utah weather goes bipolar again. The two older chickens that my Grandma has suddenly inherited are going to be in our cage that was used to separate our chickens back when we had a huge flock. We will eventually get 2 stacks outside as well. I will be purposely making them as tall as possible to keep all the chickens off of them and so there is more floor space for the chicks to explore. Luckily, I'm 5' 9" and can reach pretty high! Lol!
I'm just getting pretty tired of being not only being yelled at but threatened for moving around my animals in my barn. It's driving me out of my mind! So tempted to lock everyone out. It would make it a bit more fun and a lot more peaceful in the barn! Whew! Okay, rant over. Lol! Here's a quick design I threw together to give you an idea of what the barn will be like assuming I get to follow through with my plans.