Final prep: Snickers is all ready to go

Snickers wool is trimmed and her nest box remade, with her wool cut into 1/2" pieces. It's all systems go now. Count down to Thursday.

Preparing Snickers for the big day

Everything I've read on breeding angora bunnies suggested putting the nest box into the cage on day 28. Yesterday, my gut told me to put it in a day early; it's just as well that I went with my gut. So yesterday I put between 1 and 2 inches of shavings in the bottom of the newly purchased kitty litter pan, covered it with a decent layer of hay and pushed a hole in the hay toward the back (the higher end) of the pan. Last evening, while feeding dinner, I put the nest box into what appeared to be the "clean" side of her hutch. As various breeders had warned, she immediately set to work removing the hay to re-arrange the nest to her liking.

I wondered if I would find that she had removed wool from her hindquarters to line the nest. If not, I would need to pull or brush out some wool myself to create the insulation needed to finish the nest. This is what I found when I fed breakfast this morning:

Yup. All hay removed and box pooped in, with pee in the corner in case I have any questions. Message received.

And on the opposite side of the hutch:

Loud and clear.

My work is cut out for me. Today, I will cut her wool back, and cut her nest wool into tiny pieces to ensure none can wrap around the babies necks and strangle them, clean the litter pan and slide it under her nest, and trim the wool around her nipples to ensure her babies can find them.

And to round out my morning, new pictures of Jake and Luna:

Jakey smiling...he doesn't often smile for the camera

but it's hot as hell and the fan is on!

Snickerdoodles and the Bunny Mustache

So when I built the bunnies hutch, it didn't seem worth adding a 2nd pair of grids separating the 2 halves. There was barely a 3" gap between the top of the barrier and the ceiling. Their first days in the hutch I watched carefully and it certainly seemed out of reach of either of them to get up the 14" barrier and squeeze through the gap.

Ooopsie! Earlier this month -- at 6pm on May 10 to be exact -- I was feeding dinner and found Oreo canoodling with Snickers. After much reading, I determined he hadn't finished the deed -- apparently the guys stiffen and keel over afterward, sometimes with a scream. But I had no way of knowing how long he'd been with her, other than everything had been normal a few hours earlier when I checked on them at lunchtime.

So after much reading, I marked my calendar for critical dates: May 12-14 palpate for possible grape-sized fetuses; week of May 23rd watch for the "Mustache;" May 28 trim wool, make sure nails are clipped and smooth, put in nesting box and start checking the nest to see if she's "kindled."

May 12th, I dutifully attempted to palpate. I thought I found a raisin. On the 13th, I found 2 raisins. On the 14th I found 6 raisins and realized I was finding her nipples. I gave up on palpating.

On May 19th, I found a hole dug in her playpen, and she'd dug up the dead grass as well. Was she trying to cool off on a hot day? Or nesting?  I moved the pen. On May 21st a new hole appeared. I moved the pen again. Yesterday, two holes. I was watching more closely now; she didn't appear to be lying in the holes, just digging them.

I was going to be running errands today, with t-storm possible I decided to keep the bunnies in. This evening, I fed Snickers her pellets and hay first as usual. When I returned to the hutch with Oreo's hay, I found the confirmatory Mustache:

 I headed up to the house to get the camera, returned and she was still "wearing" the mustache. Yes, Snickers is almost certainly preggers.

One week later, the ponies are in their new paddock, the bunnies their pen and the dogs been swimming...twice

The ponies in their new paddock waiting for the grass to grow enough to start grazing. It's not looking promising -- we're in a drought mode similar to last year. This time I started watering at the first sign of last year's pattern, where predicted rains petered out to nothing. The watering seemed to work some magic; as long as I watered right up to the day before or even day of the predicted rain, it came. I've slacked off twice and in both cases, the rains didn't come or were way under the predictions.

[pic to come]


The bunnies eat so little grass that my dream of them being my lawn mowers has faded. However, the drought is severe enough that I expect to be able to keep up with the scythe. For the time being, the bunnies mobile hutch remains in the barn. I won't leave them outside overnight until it's warm enough that my windows are open so the pups and I can keep an ear on them.

Today was the second time the boys got to go swimming. The water was already considerably warmer than last Thursday. I wanted to get a pic of them together, but Luna wouldn't cooperate. Maybe next time...

Spring Cleaning Part 2

None of the indoor clearing and cleaning is anything compared to the outdoor transformation of the last few weeks. I unfortunately failed to take "before" pictures, so imagination will have to do. 5 years of neglect while I was in school, and then working more or less full time, made it impossible to keep up. My yard and half my pasture were overrun mostly with brambles, but also with runaway staghorn sumac.

Weeks of cleanup, aided by drought, have left me a wide open side yard with 2 patches of naturalized daylilies and room to start a couple of 12 x 15 or so beds between the daylilies:

 Late afternoon view from the house:

Clearing the path from my yard to the back end of the pasture revealed a 3rd patch of daylilies in a secret rock garden at the base of my backyard wooded slope:

And behind and below the garage I was able to clear a 20 x 100 foot area that will give me a new rotation paddock for the horses. With 2x4 non-climb fencing and hand built pipe gates lined with leftover chicken fencing at either end, it will enable me to move the horses to a lunging ring (to be built) without damaging pasture during mud season, and also be suitable for a goat pen down the road.

Spring Cleaning Part 1

My spring cleaning actually started back in February, when I sifted through my closets and emptied out the last of my "professional" clothes, plus a number of other items from my better-off days when I thought I would sooner or later get a social life.  A carload or so to Goodwill later, and I finally have some closet space and extra hangers. And mental space to move forward. Include in the pile was an old, old coat. 45 years old to be exact. A Saks 5th Avenue coat that was a Christmas gift from my mother. A gift, that is, until I tried it on and gushed my thanks, at which point her face turned dark and angry, and she ordered me to take it off and give it back to her. Yes, my mother gave me a needed coat -- my only other coat was a corduroy jacket that I'd outgrown years before and was near totally useless against 20 below winters (40 below including wind chill) in upstate New York where I was attending college to get her degree. And then when she saw how happy it made me, she demanded that I give it back. She and my father fought loudly over that coat from morning until literally sometime in the middle of the night. They spent the rest of the Christmas holiday week in stony silence, at the end of which my father and I returned to school, me wearing my thin corduroy jacket. Merry Christmas.

Some 7 years later, I headed to my aunts' and uncles' house, where the family was gathering to celebrate Christmas. My mother greeted me at the door and immediately started screaming angrily. Now on my own and living in frigid Massachusetts I had dared to buy myself a winter coat, once again ruining her Christmas because after years of feeling guilty, she had decided to return the Christmas present of 7 years ago. Yes, there was "my" coat, stretched out of shape and buttonless. Gee, thanks mom. Merry Christmas again. Well, ding-dong, the witch has been dead for a few years now and good by and good riddance Saks 5th Avenue coat because I have no place to wear such a coat any more, anyway.

Next came papers, set 1. That would be the papers that don't require burning or shredding, and that sat in stacks mostly in my storage room with the bunnies. All of my school papers, including my prized sets of ultra-refined notes that carried me through final Med Lab Tech exams and my boards.  Next to go will be the textbooks that were outdated and un-resellable, which I'll donate to the school.

The must destroy, shred or burn, papers reside inside the built in drawers in the storage room. They'll go when I burn the ever-growing brush pile mountain in the middle of my pasture, by the swale. Most likely in the fall when I will finally, one way or another, rid myself of the remains of the maple tree -- 3-4 cord of nicely dried firewood that I can't seem to give away! Around that time I will also drag to the end of the driveway a tv, vcr and "entertainment center" furniture for giveaway, making room for my antique singer sewing machine.

Mr. Goldfinch guarding his nest

Just behind my bedroom for plenty of springtime viewing!