Starting to plan rabbit Colony: A Successful colony x2!

[samssimonsays]

This weekend is hopefully the weekend! Saturday evening I will be headed to town to pick up some building materials and a friend will be coming over to help me get started on my colony pens! I am hopeful to get them at least framed and enclosed and then if we run out of time or energy I can build in the levels for them Sunday. everything goes right!
I maaaay also be doing a trade soonish with a 4-Her for some new lines and bring in a different buck... He is a supposed broken opal but The photo was darker and he looked to have been a possible Blue gold tipped steel. It wouldn't be the first time I got an opal that turned out to be a blue gold tipped steel Either way, he is super nice looking and I am in love with the REW doe I got from this young girl last year. This will also help her out some in the new genetics department as she can only have a select few for her project. This little boy REW has both the lines AND the color behind him to really help her with both as well.

 

[samssimonsays]

My broken blue steel doe seemed to get along and was accepted by the least tolerating doe of the Sr. doe colony during some freee time in the yard yesterday. I am hopeful that since she has accepted her the other two more laid back does will as well and I will have plenty of room once the pens are done. (I didn't even so much as cut the wood for them this weekend) Sigh.... So goes life right? LOL.

 

[Hens and Roos]

that's great about your does! I hear you on getting projects worked on....school starts tomorrow here so I will lose my 3 helpers and will have to figure out how to get chores done!

 

[samssimonsays]

that's great about your does! I hear you on getting projects worked on....school starts tomorrow here so I will lose my 3 helpers and will have to figure out how to get chores done!

Yikes! That would be super hard.... Also why I am apprehensive to start milking goats before we have kids, and kids who are OLD ENOUGH to help out LOL.

 

[Hens and Roos]

well it kind of comes down to routine and how well it all fits!

 

[samssimonsays]

well it kind of comes down to routine and how well it all fits!

This is very very true.... My hopes are to be a stay at home mom... we will see. Kids are a ways off yet for us. At least planned anyways We do know anything can happen and will take whatever is in store. We just have things we want to do before kids. All of it could be done after as well... but yeah.

 

[samssimonsays]

Yesterday while doing chores I let the younger three girls out in the pen to enjoy some outside time even with the heat. In doing so I decided to try to introduce Eadda and Ophelia to the group to see if they would accept them as part of their colony. To my surprise, they did! So I now have Alchemy (the head of the colony), Iris, Margo, Eadda and Ophelia as members of Colony #1. As of this morning, 9/2, all 5 girls had settled back into their multi level condo nicely and had made it together through the night without any battle wounds. I am hoping that with the close relation of the younger two to Alchemy they will be accepted permanently into the colony and they will be able to be moved into their new pen together.

With this big new step, we are making excellent progress towards a colony raised rabbitry!

 

[samssimonsays]

 

[samssimonsays]

Upon starting up colony #3 we suffered a few set backs. Even after doing everything correct for introducing the females they were just not compatible for colony life together. Two of the girls remained together and were bonding well when I came home and one of the does had gone to sleep and hadn't woken up. The bonded doe was beside herself and didn't understand why she was not waking up. It crushed me to lose my girl, Phoebe, but it broken my heart to see the pain the other girl was in after losing her as well. Poplar has since become her normal self and hopefully will find another match for her colony. We are sitting at 2 successful colonies at the moment still so I am eager to see where it leads!

 

[Hens and Roos]

Sorry to hear about your loss