MtViking- A little piece of paradise.

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Mr. @MtViking, sir!

Haven't heard from you in a while and am wondering how you are doing.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[MtViking]

Mr. @MtViking, sir!

Haven't heard from you in a while and am wondering how you are doing.

Senile Texas Aggie

Just been busy haven’t been able to pop on. Things are going ok. I lost one of my breeding does last week. I don’t know what happened. She slowed up on eating and wasn’t her self but she didn’t have any goopy eyes or runny nose, I didn’t think too much of it since we had a cold spell and all the rabbits ate less that day. The next day she didn’t eat at all but was still drinking water her belly felt soft not hard anywhere or tender she didn’t seem in pain anywhere. Thought I give it another day since it took the other rabbits about four days to get over what ever they had, went and checked on her Friday morning and she had passed sometime that morning. Rigamortis hadn’t set in and she wasn’t frozen so she must have passed not too long before I woke up. Pretty sad she was a damn fine rabbit and a real sweetheart to be around but it’s part of it I guess. I’ve been keeping a close eye on everyone and nobody else has had any symptoms, the babies are getting big I’m giving them their own cages this weekend. The males and females will each have their own and mom will go back into the breeding program. February is half over now so if I can get her pregnant with one of my bucks this week she will have her babies when the warmer weather starts returning. I’m going to keep one of my new females to add to the breeders but they won’t be ready until the end of the summer more than likely but such is life.

 

[Baymule]

So glad to see you back on here! I'm really sorry that you lost your doe. I don't know why it always seems to be a favorite.

 

[MtViking]

Any tips on figuring out sex of young kits? I thought I could figure it out easy enough based on research and comparing with my adult rabbits. But they all but one look like females. One has a round hole down below but the rest seem to me to be slits. Which maybe I have all but one females but seems kind of abnormal. This is my first litter I figured I would have a mix of both not just one male. I don’t care either way what I have I just want to make sure I have them separated correctly. I thought I had three males because I thought I could feel testicles but then I checked em all again with my wife as a second opinion and they all seem like females except one. Any thoughts? Is it pretty normal to have mostly one sex or do they usually kind of split down the middle.

 

[Baymule]

It is possible to have off balanced litters. There is no hard and fast rule that says the sex of the kits is 50/50.

 

[MtViking]

We hopefully good news. I was able to get three fall offs with my two satin pure breeds. Wish my other doe wouldn’t have died a couple weeks ago or I might have two litters in the way. Now I have to wait months before I have another full breed satin to add to the breeders and she’s going to be directly related to the buck. Ugh. I’ve been looking for more satins in my area to pick up another doe but they don’t seem to be around.

 

[Baymule]

What color are your satins?

 

[MtViking]

What color are your satins?

I have a blue otter and a blue.

 

[MtViking]

Question. When do you guys process your rabbits. I’m pushing 14 weeks but they’re only 3.5 to 4 lbs

 

[MtViking]

Sorry I haven’t had updates very regularly. Just been a crazy couple months. I butchered my first littler today. I’m not a fan of the hopper popper. I botched half of the dispatching and it was horrible. It’s not near as easy to use as it looks like in the videos. Maybe I need to mount it differently I don’t know, I’ll I know is it wasn’t quick and easy and half of them suffered more than they should’ve. I think I’m using a gun next time with lots of treats to keep them distracted. Anyways it’s done. I weighed them last night and they were all around 3.5 lbs but I weighed them today before dispatch and they were all 5+ pounds so I must’ve had something wrong with my scale last night. After cleaning they were in between 3-4 pounds each so that’s a darn good return I think. My next litter is tomorrow I hope it goes well. I kept a doe from the batch today to keep for breeding so in another month or so I’ll have another doe to breed. I’m getting rid of the two rex bucks my friend gave me to breed my does with when I was having troubles with my rabbits not wanting to breed together. My buddy buster bunny is a breeding machine now and can’t wait to see the babies. He’s a blue otter satin and she’s a blue satin with different parents of various colors so it could be any combination of colors. All the roasters I processed today where blacks and blues I’ll be pickling those hides in a few months, after my next batch is butchered so I can do 12 or so hides at once. I’ve read and watched stuff on the process and have heard young hides are hard to do but I don’t want to waste anything if I can help it. They made the biggest sacrifice to feed me I think I owe it to them to tan the hides and use as much of the animal as possible. I kept the hearts,kidneys, and livers to smoke into dog and cat treats. I wanted to bury the rest of the remains to feed the land but the ground is still frozen about 2 inches below the surface so I’ll have to toss them in the trash this time.