Kritter Korner's Blog

Long time no blog!

2012-01-29T11:12:00.000-04:00

It’s been way too long since my last post! So much has happened in the rabbit world since the spring, it’s crazy.

The rabbits are doing well. They’re surviving the winter, which hasn’t been nearly as bad as last winter…so far! The temperatures haven’t been too bad, but we do heat the barn to keep it above freezing. We have a few litters on the go: 4 litters of Dutch (one just born this morning) and 2 litters of Mini Rex. Lucky for us, our does are still willing to breed, despite the winter bringing shorter daylight hours. We had a few does miss last week, and we lost 2 litters to first time moms but we’re in the process of rebreeding and all in all we’re not complaining. We’re very excited to be producing some promising babies with some new stock mixed into our herd.

Since my last post we attended many shows. We had quite a bit of success with our rabbits, winning several BOBs and BOSBs in all breeds, as well as some RISs and Runner-up in shows. There’s too much to get into detail here but overall it was a good show season.

We also attended ARBA convention in Indy this fall. What an experience it was! We met so many wonderful people, and got to put some faces to names. Best of all, we had the privilege of purchasing some stock from some amazing breeders. Mini Rex from Joey Martin (Martins Mini Rex), Dutch from Kevin Hooper and Barb & Dennis Kline (Megan’s Dutch Hutch), and Holland Lops from Jenna Buchenauer (THF Saynora). At the convention I also wrote my Registrar’s test, which I passed! I’m really excited to start working under judges this spring, it will be a great experience, I’m sure!

Well, I better get going! We have rabbits to tattoo and breed today. I’ll try to update more often this year but in the meantime have a great winter and may your nestboxes be full!

May 9

2011-05-09T11:22:00.004-03:00

The grass is green and it looks like the warmer spring weather is here to stay! The rabbits will soon be moving back out to the rabbitry and show season is starting up.

We’re breeding into the warmer weather this year, a little more than we usually do. I got a bright Idea to breed several Hollands to my older bucks so I could replace them with some younger ones, but it didn’t exactly go as planned. We had several misses, but I guess that’s what can happen when you breed older bucks. I re-bred some does over the weekend and there are a few more I have to work on getting bred ASAP. I have a few nice-ish Holland juniors, particularly a broken junior buck, but I think the best are yet to come. Better late than never though!

We have some adorable mini rexes in the nestboxes, we’re really looking forward to growing out some of these babies. We have chocolates, lilacs, REWs & Blacks, and we’re waiting on 2 more litters. We kept 3 junior mini rex from our winter breedings, a REW buck, a black doe and a chocolate doe.

In Dutch, we’re waiting on one last chocolate to have her babies, we have had problems with her before so we have our fingers crossed for her this time. Out of our 18 junior dutch we had this winter we kept a black doe and a chocolate doe. The black doe has gorgeous markings, the chocolate isn’t bad either but has unreal type, she’s so solid, probably the nicest type I’ve produced out of my Dutch breedings.

I love spring, there's so much to look forward to! Hope to see you all soon at the show tables!

March 23

2011-03-23T11:44:00.000-03:00

We have had a crazy March so far with lots of decisions that were made and more babies of course! I have to say that I’m really happy with where we’re at right now with our herd. Some of our current babies and juniors are looking better than ever.

The weather is changing and we’re seeing more sunshine and warmer temperatures, which is great! Most rabbits are not molting…yet! I’m waiting, knowing it will be anytime. Since the rabbits are in the garage, they’re not feeling the temperature changes much yet.

As far as decisions go, one of our major decisions was to part with our English Lops. This was a huge decision and an especially tough one for me because I definitely have a special soft spot for them. They’re a lot of care though and breeding them seems to have its ups and downs. They’re always going to be a breed I love but I’m ready to move on. Besides, I have a “secret” rabbit project in the works that I’m insanely excited to get started on, some of you know what it is, but I’m keeping it on the down low for a bit, for personal reasons.

As far as babies go, we had 3 litters of Dutch, which gave us 18 babies (2 chocolates and 16 blacks) and a few litters of Mini Rex, we have REWS, blues, blacks, chocolates and a broken tort. No more Hollands born yet but I have a litter of due on the 2nd of April, and I also bred 3 does over the weekend. I have one more Dutch bred and a Lilac Mini Rex too, we’re also planning to do even more breeding in the next moth and we’ll take most of the summer off except for the odd litter here and there.

Another decision I made was to do some Holland lop buck-shifting. I parted with a great buck, Nutar’s F2 and have decided to sell another, Bunny Hop’s Landslide. It’s hard sometimes but I have a great doe out of “F2” and I have 2 does bred to Landslide, so I can justify it. Landslide is a great rabbit, awesome type and head and he’s a small little buck. His ears are short though and he has control over them most of the time, it may change with age but I can’t wait forever so I’m taking my chances with him. I only want to keep the best and if a buck is not being used for breeding or showing, than what’s the point? I bought an older buck from Bunny Hop Wabbitry, Bluestorm’s Milo. I’m really excited to have this guy and see what he can produce for me. I’m keeping back 2 junior Holland lop bucks to grow out, and will probably hold onto more once the next few litters arrive.

That’s all for today! I hope everyone is enjoying the nicer weather (at least here in Atlantic Canada) and best of luck with those spring litters!

Almost Spring!

2011-03-04T14:25:00.001-04:00

It’s already March and I’m hoping spring will be here before we know it! It has been a rough winter here weather-wise. Lots of snow, lots of wind, and all of that fun stuff that goes along with it. The rabbits are lucky this year, because they get to stay warm in the heated garage. They do get a little spoiled, maybe, but we have had great luck with our litters.

We have several litters on the go now, which is exciting. I don’t want to get too much into detail because there’s so many, and they’re all posted (along with pictures!) on our site www.kritterkorner.net.

We have two more litters of Mini Rex due in a few days and several other does bred including 3 Dutch and one more Holland lop. We also have 3 new rabbits arriving from Ontario next week, hopefully by Wednesday. 3 Mini Rex are coming from Kristen May of BKM Rabbitry. We’re super excited to be getting some new blood, while keeping with some of our current lines that we enjoy working with including McCabes and Cresthill’s.

We thought long and hard about our Mini Rex herd before eventually deciding to give up our Castors and really focus on self colors. We’re raising Blacks, Blues, Lilac, Chocolates, Brokens, as well as the occasional REW to give that fur an extra boost.

As far as our events go, for those of you wondering what the heck happened to our events page...We haven’t completely stopped doing events, and we still have booking for the next few months but our plans as of now are to slowly move away from it. Maybe someday we will get back into it, but right now we are just too busy with our lives and want to have to really enjoy our animals, especially our rabbits! I’m still available to help out with rescues in any way that I can and all of our critters will be staying with us! It has been a great few years and I would like to thank everyone for their support along the way!

I don’t have much other news! We do have our hotel booked for ARBA convention this fall, which is exciting! I also was able to line up a pair of black Dutch from Barb Kline of Megan’s Dutch Hutch. There’s a lot to look forward to this year! I plan to TRY blogging at least a little more often to keep everyone updated! I hope everyone is having a successful winter full of healthy babies!

Winter is Here!

2010-12-02T15:08:00.003-04:00

Well, I know it has been awhile! Things have been really busy for us lately, but it's been a great fall nonetheless. We had some awesome feedback from the judges at the fall shows and I think we definitely left the 2010 show season on a great note.

At our October show in Amherst we won reserve in show with Kritter Korner's Aero, a broken chocolate Mini Rex Sr. doe, as well as 1st runner-up in show with Kritter Korner's Risk, a black Dutch Sr. doe. We also got BOSB with Kritter Korner's Rufus, a Broken Jr. Holland Lop buck. Overall it was great show, and we were very pleased with how or rabbits did.

Our November show, also in Amherst, was another success for us. Kritter Korner's Rufus, a broken Sr. Holland Lop buck, won Best in Show! We also won BOB Dutch with Kritter Korner's Risk, and BOB Mini Rex with McCabe's 59M.

So enough about wins! As far as our nestboxes go, they have been pretty empty lately! We have one litter of Mini Rexes, just born yesterday, December 1st. J's Flo (Broken Blue) had 2 broken lilacs and a solid lilac. The sire....can you guess which color?....Was our lilac buck, McCabe's 59M. We have a few more does bred now, so I'll keep updating with our litter information.

Well, I have to run! I hope everyone has had a great show season like we have and post our new litters once they're born!

Thursday's News

2010-09-23T13:06:00.002-03:00

Fall is definitely here! After our heat wave at the beginning of this month, things really started to cool off. I'm happy in a way that the cooler weather is here, I'm sure the rabbits are too. Many of the animals are just finishing up their molts right now. I'm looking forward to feeling some new winter Mini Rex coats!

The litters in the nextboxes are doing very well, we had 2 more litters yesterday. 5 Castor Mini Rex out of Justine, and 2 Tort Hollands out of J's Tabitha and Frank's F2.

I'm glad the heat didn't stick around long enough to effect those nice litte ears on our Blue Mini Rexes. There is a really sweet little buck in that litter he's a Broken Blue, I called him Blueberry. He had a rough start for awhile, he had a really infected eye so I took him in and babied him. He's all better now but is just the sweetest little bunny we've had around in a long time. He looks like he could be a keeper, I sure hope so.

Lickity Split's litter of Hollands is looking great. 3 really nice bunnies in that litter and I'm very proud of them. I made a big decision with the Hollands, I've decided to get out of Saynora lines. I have already found homes for most of my stock carrying those lines. In a way it will be very sad to see them go, at one point I think I produced some pretty nice nice using those lines. But things change, and some lines just don't cross well. Right now, I'm having a bit of luck and a lot of fun with some of my newer additions.

I actually have Lickity Split and her litter indoors too. Sadly, I had to part with one of my favorite rabbits last weekend and I brought Lickity and her litter in to cheer myself up. Harmony, was a Brokan Opal English Lop, and was such a sweetie. She was a bit of a house pet, so I'm really going to miss her. Since we weaned her litter, it was just one thing after another with her and eventually she just got too sick, so we had to put her down. I'm hoping to have another litter of English Lops soon, I bred Miley, my Solid Blue Tort doe last night.

This weekend is the Spencerville show in Ontario. Although I'm not going to be getting there myself this time, I'm looking forward to having some rabbits brought back. We have a nice pair of Lilac Mini Rexes bred by Adam McCabe, and a Holland Lop Buck Bred by Donna Williams of Snowberry Rabbitry, arriving next week. I want to say a big Thank you to Julie Hartford from Bunny Hollow Rabbitry for selling us these rabbits! I can't wait to get them here!

Well, I guess that's all that's new for now. I'm looking forward to having a nice QUIET weekend for once! I know I'm a day early but, have a great weekend everyone!

Finally Some News!

2010-09-02T14:00:00.003-03:00

It`s been awhile since I`ve had the chance to blog! Talk about busy... school as been taking over my life, BUT only 4 more courses until I`m done. There is so much to say about the rabbits but I`ll start with the most exciting news first!

BLUE DUTCH. Yes that`s right, BLUE. Checkers had 7 babies on Tuesday and one those babies, is a Blue. Not only is it Blue but it`s also decently marked so I will definitely be keeping him or her. I was definitely not expecting this, since there is very little Blue in Checker`s pedigree but it was a great surprise.

We also have other new babies in the nest box, all born within the past week. 2 Blue and 1 Broken Blue Mini Rex, which is almost as exciting as the Blue Dutch (haha). Our Broken Red Mini Rex had 3 Broken Castors (there was one lovely broken red but it was a peanut). We also had a litter of Hollands, Lickity Split had 3 Broken Blue Torts.

There are so many young rabbits I`m looking forward to growing out, it a way I`m glad the shows are happening late this year.

It`s so hot here, 39 with the humidity today, yesterday was over 40. We`re lucky the rabbit barn gets a bit of a breeze. I feel guilty sitting in my air conditioned classroom, hoping they are not too hot. I actually lost one of my older hedgehogs today and I`m wondering if it isn`t the heat. We definitely have to keep a close eye on all of the critters when it`s this warm. Luckily the heat isn`t supposed to stick around for much longer.

This weekend is the Evangeline Exhibition, I`ll be going down tomorrow (Friday) to judge 4-H rabbits and then Saturday is the open show. We`re expecting 35-45mm or rain Saturday, hopefully it won`t affect our show, or the rest of the Exhibition too much!

Well, I have to get back to work. I hope everyone has a great long weekend and hopefully some of you will make it out to the Exhibition this weekend! I`ll try to update again soon!

Friday's News

2010-08-06T10:29:00.003-03:00

I have to say I'm happy it's finally Friday, it has been a long week and I worked really hard school-wise! The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend and I plan to enjoy it as much as possible.

As I mentioned earlier this week, we were expecting a litter. Cammack's GH, one of my favorite does, ended up losing her litter. There was just one baby and it was too big. This isn't the first time this has happened to her, it's actually pretty normal for her, and I try not to get my hopes up when we're expecting a litter from her. I will give her a few weeks to recover and then I plan to breed her again, I haven't decided if I want to breed her to Cowan's Riptide or Frank's F2. Her and Riptide produced another one of my favorite does, KK's Lickity Split and the thought of more rabbits like Lickity excites me, but at the same time, I want to see what we could get from GH and F2.

On a brighter note, we were able to free up a few cages this week by selling some older stock. I ended up selling J's Journey, which....was a hard thing to do, but hanging onto 4 Jr bucks would be ridiculous. I also found a good home for KK's Allie, my last BEW carrier Holland. She was another one that was hard to let go but I'm happy they found great pet homes.

More good news is that we finally got Hunter, our Royal Python started on frozen rats! I know it might not sound like a huge deal, but to us it definitely is. Before, he would only eat live rats and boy, what a challenge it has been trying to find a meal for him every week! It got to the point where we could only find the odd baby rat in the pet stores (way too small!), so I bought my own male and female babies that I was planning to grow and breed. I'm glad I won't have to do that anymore! Now we can go buy a dozen rats, stick them in the freezer, and know that he'll be content for a few months at a time.

Well, that's all that's new this week! I'm hoping to get some pictures of the baby rabbits this weekend. The litters are growing so fast, as usual. I also have to do more site updating soon, although I did get a Guestbook up and running this week (Check it out: www.kritterkorner.net) I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Monday Once Again

2010-08-02T11:00:00.002-03:00

The weekend is over and it flew by once again! Saturday was the Crapaud Exhibition and it was a good time. There were over 70 rabbits in the exhibition, which is the highest number we have ever seen. The weather was great, and it wasn't too hot, which was nice for both us and the rabbits.

Our rabbits did well enough, I had a couple of new juniors that I was happy to get some comments on. Best in Show went to Bunny Hop Wabbitry once again, however it went to a different rabbit than the one who won the IRBA show.

I bought a nice little doe from Bunny Hop over the weekend. I can't take her home with me yet because I need to move some older rabbits and make room. We usually end up selling a few bunnies at the exhibition, but we didn't sell one this year!

I'm waiting on some of our Mini Rex to hurry the heck up and finish their molts! We have some nice seniors that we really want to show at some exhibitions this year. A black buck in particular. Our only senior entered in the exhibition won best of breed, because the juniors just can't compete with baby coats. Especially since fur is on 30pts. Even the senior that won really needs to molt, he's the only one who hasn't started to yet but he's a broken chocolate and he's starting to get that orangy color in his coat!

It was nice to have nothing to do on Sunday after a long day in Crapaud. I took a bit of a day off. I slept in, which I rarely get to do anymore! Then I decided I was only going to do what I wanted to do all day. So, I went to Brookvale and hiked through the ski resort with a friend and our dogs. Climbing up those huge downhill ski hills was hard work in the heat, but we had a lot of fun, and so did the dogs. It's a great place to explore in the off season, there were no bugs and there was no one around, so the dogs could enjoy time off leash. We just had to be careful not to get lost, because it's surprisingly confusing, and there aren't any signs. My next free day with half decent weather, I plan to go back. We were even thinking of camping there, it's just so amazing!

Well, that's my weekend in a nutshell. We have some babies due soon so I'll post soon to let you know what we end up with! Have a great Monday!

Friday Already!

2010-07-30T09:31:00.005-03:00

It's been another busy week! I had a lot of school work to get done and something to do every evening. The summers are always busy, but I'm ready for some quiet time. Hopefully I can make it to the beach at least once in the next week.

We did manage to get some cages put together this week, but it was much more time consuming than we thought it would be. Our English lop cages were easy but the cages we ordered this time around are doubles, so they have these metal dividers that are really a challenge to get in place! We were able to get the splash guards on no problem, but the dividers are something else. The wire on the floor of the cages is a lot smaller, that's where we ran into the most trouble.

Our 3 young litters are doing really well. There is one really nice dutch baby, it has nice cheek circles, which is what I was trying to obtain with this litter. I only have the two chocolate adults, one buck and one doe. Both are beautiful bunnies, their only downfall is their cheek circles so when I breed the two of them together I always get babies with hooked and uneven cheeks. So now I have a black who is a chocolate carrier that I can breed back to another chocolate and hopefully produce some chocolates with improved cheeks.

The other two litters are doing well, the Hollands are interesting and I think she has one solid tort, two broken torts, a broken sable point and a broken blue tort. The Mini Rex are...still black haha. They aren't too exciting yet, but once they get moving around we can start to pick and choose who we will hang onto and that part is always exciting.

Tomorrow is the Crapaud exhibition, so I will be there for the day showing rabbits. It's not a big show, it's only for fun, but I think there will be quite a few rabbits entered and I know it's going to be a lot of fun! I haven't decided what I'm taking to show yet, we always bring lots of rabbits so we can support the Island club. I won't bring anything that's molting bad and a lot of our juniors and young seniors are, but I'll be taking as many as possible.

Well, that's all my news! Here is a head shot of J' Challenger, this is my current favorite picture. He's one of my new Jr. Bucks from Lloyd Jenkins. I hope everyone has a great weekend and hopefully I'll see some of you in Crapaud tomorrow!

Another Busy Weekend!

2010-07-26T15:02:00.004-03:00

Well, it was another great weekend overall! I did manage to get lots of pictures done of the rabbits and we got to visit one of my favorite rabbit people. The weather was great most of the weekend and the rabbits seemed to enjoy picture time out on the new deck. I updated the site with a lot of new pictures. My plan is to get every rabbit we own up on the site soon. I still have to get some pictures of our new litters up too!

The litter of 5 Mini Rex are growing like weeds, they're all blacks but at least they will carry the blue genes. Unfortunately we lost all 3 Hollands of Allie's.

We had 2 more litters since Friday:
Grace, a chocolate Dutch doe bred to Twitch had 5 blacks yesterday morning (2 really nicely marked).
Casey, a tort Holland bred to Moe had 5 big healthy babies this morning, 4 brokens and one solid.

So as I mentioned, we got to visit one of my all time favorite rabbit people this weekend, our good friend Lloyd Jenkins. Unfortunately he isn't able to show anymore, but he still enjoys his rabbits as a hobby and is still breeding some nice show quality animals.

Sunday was rainy so we decided to take a little day trip to his rabbitry. He had a ton of juniors for us to help sort through and I managed to take 4 home with me, 3 Hollands and 1 Mini Rex, as well as 2 senior Mini Rex does and Holland lop senior doe. There were lots of nice looking rabbits to see.

He has this one in particular who is absolutely stunning. He's a holland lop buck named Peanut. I remember 2 years ago seeing him in the nest box at 6 weeks...I wish I would have taken a picture of him that day, because I've never seen anything like him before. He did show once, and at only 10 weeks got BOSB as well as an honorable mention from the judge at the end of the show. He's probably one of my favorite rabbits.

Our visit with Lloyd took all day yesterday so we didn't get a chance to get started on our new cages yet. We should have that done this weekend if not before! Well I have to run, class is almost over and I have to go pick up my critters at Mom's since I didn't have time to take them home before class (we had an event this morning). Don't forget to check out our site updates! www.kritterkorner.net

What's up with our rabbits

2010-07-23T09:44:00.004-03:00

Okay so, I've been so busy explaining my thoughts and plans that completely forgot to let you know about what's going on with our rabbits! We don't do a ton of breeding in the summer, but we do like to breed a few here and there. We usually always have a litter or two on the go.

Wednesday we had 2 litters born. Mom's chocolate Mini Rex had 5 blacks...at least they looked like blacks Wednesday(I haven't been over to see them again), she was bred to our last blue buck. We are trying to get blues right now and not having the best luck. We used to have a lot of blues and lilacs in our breeding program but now we're down to one old blue buck. When we got our new Chocolates from the states, we cleared out some of the mediocre quality Mini Rexes and a lot of them happened to be blues and lilacs. Now we're trying to get some more blues so we will be keeping at least a doe from this litter to breed back to her father. Hopefully the old blue buck hangs in there and keeps producing for us!

We also had a litter of Hollands, Allie a broken Chestnut (BEW carrier) had 3 babies. One looks like a blue tort and the others are Brokens (charlies) one has chestnut spots and the other is lighter, maybe lynx. I think this will be Allie's last litter with us. She is one sweet girl and I know I'm going to really miss her, but I have decided to focus on tort Hollands and get out of the Blue Eyed Whites. I've thought about this several times, but I made up my mind this time. I actually have a few Hollands for sale, not just the BEWs because I'm making room for some up coming juniors and new stock.

Here is what I have available:

Kritter Korner's Moe - Broken Tort Sr. Buck
Kritter Korner's Binky - Broken Tort Sr. Buck
West River's Ariel - BEW Sr. Doe

I will get pictures of them very soon! I plan to take pictures of a bunch of rabbits this weekend, if I have the chance. I want a lot more pictures up on our site and I have some nice looking juniors I want to put up there.

The other thing I have do do is put together some new cages, we just got 9 new double cages from Grandview Commercial Rabbitry. I'm looking forward to moving some rabbits into them soon. We plan to do a second order ASAP and gradually replace all of our old racks. Dad will be making wooden racks to hold these new cages. Our last ones were made from metal, they worked great, they're just old. Some of them are older than the barn, because I remember having some in the basement before they were in racks!

As you can see I have a lot to do this weekend so I probably won't be blogging. I also have an animal show (private party) on Saturday and I plan to enjoy some time outside with my dog, and maybe get to the beach with some friends if the weather stays nice. I hope everyone has a great weekend, see you all next week!

How to Produce A Perfect Rabbit.

2010-07-22T10:55:00.007-03:00

So I have been doing a lot of rabbit-related thinking lately, well I guess I always have rabbits on my brain but, more than usual. I'm not sure what sparked it but I think it has something to do with a comment the Island judge made about our rabbits here in the Maritimes being "good quality, but not quite at that level you find down in the states some places and at convention". Ever since then I've been thinking well, why can't we be at that level?

Over the past 12 years, I have learned an insane amount about rabbits. Even from the beginning I just couldn't get enough and would read every book I could get my hands on (this was before we had the internet). I used to spend countless hours in the barn or on my bedroom floor with a rabbit and a standard of perfection, studying it until I understood and could see for myself. The conformation side of things always fascinated me.

So if I can pick the perfect rabbit, I can surely breed the perfect rabbit myself, no problem right? Well... not even close. To breed the perfect rabbit you need several things. The first thing is knowledge, which is something that you can't obtain overnight. It takes months, even years of watching and listing to judges, and studding standards before you can truly understand the standard of a breed. If you aren't breeding two rabbits together in order to improve certain characteristics of the breed, than you are breeding without a purpose, which is useless. So basically you want to look at ...Let's say a holland lop buck, just for example. A buck with a beautiful head and a nice set of ears, the downfall is that he fails slightly in the hindquarters. So obviously you want to breed him to your doe that has the best hindquarters, with the goal of producing offspring with the same strong head and ears as the buck, but with the hindquarters of the doe.

The next thing you need is some money and some good friends. You need money to buy your starter rabbits, and you need some good breeder friends who are willing to sell you some quality animals to get you started. It sounds almost easy. Being in Canada, especially over here in PEI is what can complicate things. I love PEI but trying to get rabbits here from the states is something else. In the summer it absolutely cannot be done, the airlines refuse to ship. It is also very expensive and many breeders just don't want to ship for whatever reasons.

You will also need plenty of time and patience to breed the perfect rabbit. Don't expect to buy two quality rabbits and for those two to automatically click and produce beautiful quality babies on your first try (especially if you're raising a marked breed like Dutch!). Some lines and genetics simply do not mix well and having two beautiful animals does in no way guarantee beautiful offspring.

Taking all of these things into consideration, I have come up with a plan. Since my biggest obstacle always seems to be how to get the rabbits here, why don't I go to the rabbits? So, I'm planning on making the 25 hour drive across Canada and the States to Indiana in fall of 2011 for the week long American Rabbit Breeders Convention. Now, sure, it's a long wait until fall of 2011, but that just means I have roughly 16 months to get things in place. While I'm there I would like to pick up a nice English Lop and some Dutch. I'm so excited to start planning for the trip!

So that's my recipe for producing a perfect rabbit, maybe after I'm done getting my ingredients...er starter rabbits, I'll go back another year and be able to compete with my own home bred bunnies at convention level, who knows?!

2010-07-21T10:47:00.004-03:00

The summer is just flying by, it's hard to believe the annual Island summer show is all over and done with. I think overall, the show it was huge success. It was definitely a lot of work for everyone involved in putting the show together but we're getting pretty good at it now, and I think it gets easier every year...well, sort of! Still, I think we can all agree that it was well worth the work we put into it.

It was really good to see some of our good bunny friends from Bunny Hop Wabbitry win their first best in show with a beautiful little holland lop. There were lots of nice rabbits there, I felt that the quality of the Holland lops being shown on the island was at an all time high for the Maritimes, there were a lot of nice Hollands on the show table that day. I also noticed the quality of the Netherlands and American Fuzzy Lops being shown seemed to be higher than I remember it being before.

I had a great day, and we got some good comments on our rabbits. I didn't go in expecting any big wins, most of our senior rabbits are molting and had to stay behind anyways. Mom got Best Opposite Mini Rex with a buck who was just starting to blow his coat. Best of breed went to a Castor Mini Rex, that was purchased from us by a 4-H member. I got Best of Breed Dutch with my Black Jr. Doe, this is her second BOB win as a Junior and I have high hopes for her! We also got best of breed English Lop, which isn't really a big accomplishment seeing as he was the only one in his class. I was still happy though because he got some great comments and when the judge passed him back to me he said "not a bad animal at all". Now that might not sound very exciting but if you've been in rabbits long enough, you know that hearing those words from a judge is a huge compliment, and for me any rabbit who gets a remark like that is a definite keeper and a fine representation of it's breed.
I made a lot of rabbit decisions that day, I decide to sell of many "mediocre" hollands, which was a difficult decision for me, but I'm glad I made it. I also bought a new herd buck. With the judges help, I made my decision which baby english lop I should keep from my litter. I chose the broken fawn doe. She's been a favorite since day one so I'm really pleased with my decision.

When the show was over a small group of us went out for supper with the judge. It's something I look forward to at the Island show, since we have no need to rush home. I always like hearing what a judge has to say about the show, the Island and the overall quality of our rabbits here. I was a little surprised when the judge told me he had been watching me throughout the day. At first I was worried, thinking I had done something wrong but it turns out he thinks I know my stuff and he thinks I should apply to become a registrar. It's definitely something I considered before but now I'm thinking I might actually go through with it. I'm supposed to write to ARBA, telling them I want to apply and they send me a study book. We're planning on attending a Spencerville ON show in September, I could probably learn a a lot of that book in the 30 hours driving there and back!

Hello and Welcome!

2010-07-21T10:04:00.000-03:00

Hey there, welcome to Kritter Korner’s first online blog. I decided to try something different, and keep everyone updated on what’s going on with our rabbitry and critters through this blog. Things just happen so quickly, the bunnies grow like little weeds and there just isn’t enough time in a day or space on our site (www.kritterkorner.net) to let everyone know what’s going on! I plan to post pictures of any new critters, pictures of litters, rabbit show information and results, upcoming critter shows, thoughts related to rabbits/critters and more! Of course we will continue to update our website, but don’t forget to bookmark our blog so you get any news and updates fast!