Hotot Talk

Allow me to ramble aimlessly about my banded bunnies and their quite complex lives for a moment. ;-)
First of all, my lovely new does whom I acquired from a friend of mine in Iowa all aborted their litters when they arrived home from convention! Touche bunnehs, touche... I was so excited for those 3 litters but unfortunately, they never happened. Oh well! Welcome to my life as a rabbit fancier. Lol!
 Two of the does, Paramore and Telsa have been rebred to my lovely old man, Teddy who I am on a quest to get as many litters out of as possible before he's retired. I have 4 does bred to him right now that are due over the course of November 24th to December 22nd. That leaves me with two more stubborn does to get bred to Teddy. Miss Adaliene and Mirror Mirror. Stubborn creatures.
Now, lets discuss my interesting findings with Teddy. I've come to realize that this buck crosses fantastically with almost every doe, outcross or linebred, that I try with him! I'm very impressed with his current offspring! I have an upcoming jr buck named Tucker who I am in loooove with! And to top it off, Tucker is out of Mia so Tucker's grand sire is Buddy Holly, my deceased herd buck who I lost tragically this Summer. I'm so excited to be getting keepers out of Teddy now. I hadn't really been using him much because I was using Buddy heavily and was super limited on does. I would like to keep more from Teddy because he is the base of my line and crosses so well with everything I have. I want those genetics to live on in my barn. I currently have Adaliene and Tucker as keepers from Teddy and I'm praying for many more keepers out of him. I would love one or two more bucks and many does from him.
I also have Valentina who is a 3 month old hotot junior doe. She is beautiful and develops more and more type every time I pose her. She is a linebred daughter of Buddy Holly and Mia. I can't wait to add her to my breeding program. She would absolutely excel on the show table but I'm working toward  the 2014 Convention so I won't be showing locally much this year, if at all. This will allow me to continue to improve with no set backs or wasted time. Although I miss Buddy so much, I'm happy that his legacy can live on in my line. One thing I don't miss about Buddy is my litters of half blue, half black banded babies. Buddy was heavily blue bred. Normally color doesn't bother me until it comes to producing unshowable colors or colors I don't particularly like. I got about 8 blue babies out of Buddy is 3 litters. Wowza! I hope that will be bred out in a few generations. Lol! I'm just not impressed with blue hotots like I am with black hotots.
Hmmm... What else...?
I can mention my plans for the Spring! I'm hoping to work with my current animals to get some foundation out of my own animals and my new Thunderhills animals throughout the Winter. In the Spring, I plan to bring in some gorgeous stock from Texas. These new hotots in the Spring will be here just in time for the final convention breedings in April and May. They will perfect the type in my current animals and add that extra "UMPH" to my convention hopefuls. Sigh, but anyone who has raised rabbits knows that game plans completely change courses in a few weeks time so we'll see how that differs in the Spring.
I'm really excited to be seeing my hotots finally getting back on track! That will be all for now. I apologize once again for the lack of photos. Someday, I'll find my camera in a box and I'll start taking pictures again. But until then, enjoy my photo-less posts!

A Happier Beginning!

Since yesterday's post, I have been thinking and I really don't want to leave my blog on that ranting note for a few weeks. I've pinpointed the problem and I'm fixing it! Here's to a happier, new beginning for my attitude towards rabbits! I want to regain the fun and excitement I used to have for improvement. I think I got too involved with other breeders and competition and it really sucked the fun out of rabbits for me. No more! I'm staying pretty secluded now in order to keep the peace and joy in my rabbitry. Of course, I'll still be babbling aimlessly about my bunnehs to my closest friends. I'd just like to keep the noses of people with questionable intentions out of my rabbitry. I will not be getting that involved in my competition ever again. Rabbits are fun for me to raise and I'm keeping it that way. Nobody is permitted to ruin the fun for me.
Anyways, lets talk about the little lovelies here at LRR at the moment! I don't think I've been doing a good job at updating lately because if you only follow my blog, you probably don't know about half the animals I work with! Lol! Let's catch up on current breedings! Here's a list of everyone and their due dates:

Holland Lops:Little Rascal's Diesel x TF Pistol Annie - Due: 11/22/13

TF Tyrade x LuvLops' Manda - Due: 11/24/13

TF Tyrade x TF Shoshone - Due: 11/24/13

TF Tyrade x Huckleberry's Cosette - Due: 11/24/13


Dwarf Hotots:4King's Martin x Percy's Paramore - Due: 11/16/13

Thunderhill's Bronson x Thunderhill's Mirror Mirror - Due: 11/16/13

Thunderhill's Bruno Mars x Thunderhill's Telsa - Due: 11/16/13

Little Rascal's Teddy x SC Laddie Go - Due: 11/24/13

Little Rascal's Teddy x Little Rascal's Mia - Due: 11/31/13

Hehe! Allow me to defend myself. The first Holland breeding, yes, is a mutt breeding. Diesel jumped into Annie's carrier while I was deep cleaning their cages!! Oh well! I'll rebreeding her to Tyrade as soon as I can.
Remember how I said I was going to be breeding everyone in August? Ha. Funny. That was put off until October! I officially have 9 does due in November. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep for that entire month. I also have 5 does that I still need to breed! Wowza!! Maybe I'll put off breeding them for a few weeks? ;-) My cages will be stuffed to maximum capacity at weaning time.
That is all for now!
I hope to be posting again soon.

The Incomplete Post and Perspective

Hehe I couldn't think of a better title for this post. Unfortunately, this could be my last post for a few weeks. We're canceling our Internet at our old house and probably will not have Internet at our new home for a few weeks. Or at least until we are somewhat settled in. I'll still be checking Facebook, emails, etc via iPhone but I can't post on my blog until Internet is set up again.
My reason for calling this the incomplete post is I have an obsession with posts that include pictures. I really hate making (and reading) posts that don't have pictures. Lol! But I've spent nearly 6 hours every night this week setting up the new rabbitry. By then it's too dark to take decent pictures. I'm hoping to take some very nice formal pictures this weekend or sometime early this week before it starts snowing. Winter is back... Lovely. :-P
Now, let's talk about something serious. I'm going to give a slight rant and pour my feelings out a bit here. Lately, I have been feeling like rabbits are a huge competition and fight. Everyone wants to beat somebody else and make them feel bad about their animals. I can't believe the back-stabbing going on in rabbits right now! When I started rabbits, I vowed to myself that I would never take part in that. I've really noticed, this past month especially, that I'm getting sucked into the competitive, awful, ugly side of competition. Maybe I'm hanging around the wrong people that have the wrong intentions and I need to let them go and stick with my sweet friends that are in this for the rabbits. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I'm positive it'll take some thinking to pinpoint the actual cause.
I just want to say that every rabbitry is different and each has their own goals. As long as you're honest in what you do and kind, I will be friends with you! But I will no longer be tolerating any constant gossip, back-stabbing, and extremely prideful behavior to the point where everyone is hurt after talking to them, from anybody. It's ridiculous and really no fun to be around people when that's all that I ever hear out of their mouths.
I would rather keep my bunnies home in their clean, cozy room, munching on hay, raising beautiful babies, and being allowed to molt as much as their little hearts desire than I would like to go to a show and risk their health, put off improvement, condition for months, and to top it off, listen to breeders smack-talk each other all day. Where's the fun in that? I've just really been evaluating myself, my friends, and my rabbitry from another perspective and I came to the conclusion that this has to stop.

Okay, rant over.

I borrowed a picture from my friend, Lindsey, because I felt it fit this situation perfectly.