The heat is still brutal. There's now only 6 working does in the shed and only 3 have litters. The other 3 are due next week. They seem to be handling it ok. They lay against the front of the cage to catch the fan breeze. I'm just running one oscillating fan. The does are all in adjoining holes so it hits them all. This is definitely a breed that can take the heat better. I can't imagine trying keep a larger breed safe in this heat.
Got a few new litters this week. Nothing exciting in the broken department. 2 litters (3 kits) are by Rhapsody's Burt and I'm looking forward to how they turn out. Did they get his big fat head? I want that!
One of his kits isn't identified for color yet. Dreamer's 1st time (good girl!). Anything could come out of this buck. I talked about Burt's colorful heritage in a previous blog. It started out pink and had an orange cast that made me think tort. By afternoon, faint spots had appeared so it is broken. Maybe dilute, but I don't know. Blue usually has color at birth. I haven't seen opal in the box yet so don't know what that looks like. Non-extension broken (sable pt, tort) is often colorless at birth, especially with 10% pattern. I'll have to wait for fur to make a better guess.
I have a bit of a dilemma. I should really back off breeding for the rest of the summer. Predictions say this heat is here to stay. That's not a big problem for the well-proven does. They can take the summer off after their current litters, and some of them will go up for sale after this anyways. It's the younger ones that I need to prove or keep producing. And then there's the Smith's black on loan. I need litters from him before I have to return him, and he's a new option for does I thought I was done with. These two bucks are the MVPs in the barn right now. I guess I'll use them on whichever does are open for them. I better get to that this morning. It was a bit cooler and less humid last night.
In guinea news:
Have I got guineas! All the 18 eggs in the incubator hatched. One died the 2nd day. I think it was the one that had difficulty coming out of the egg. I helped open the shell, but maybe it was just weak to begin with. With the 7 older NC pieds and the 3 week old singleton, that's 25 keets! I think I'll sell some. I only need maybe 10 or 12 to maintain a working population.
The 4 I left with the hen also hatched. They left the nest yesterday morning and that was so cute. Both parents showed them around the garden. I knew I should have cut the grass before they hatched. They're so tiny they can barely see over it and I have to look for movement in the grass to see where they are. The parents seem very protective of them, whistling and chuckling to keep them in line. Unfortunately, it's not likely that they'll survive. I see the parents in the garden this morning but it's too overgrown to see if the keets are there.
tnt
