Happy Birthday, America.
It's been dry and hot, but not as uncomfortable as the last couple weeks. The dry probably helped a lot there. Rain has missed this area lately, and humidity is much lower. When I went out to close up the rabbitry last night, it was actually cool out there. I imagine the bunnies going "aaah". Maybe I'll breed a couple does this morning since the bucks should feel pretty good after a cooler day and night.
Down to just 4 does on litters in the shed. 3 litters are about 3 weeks old. The other almost 2 weeks. When I checked litters last night I missed the black in the youngest litter. Ok where the heck is it? I have baby saver around the brood holes but it doesn't cover the cage door and I've had kits get out before. I found the kit in the gutter! Glad it didn't make it to the floor, or into the bucket at the end of the gutter. I had cleaned recently, and the bucket was empty so it might not have been a disaster. Well, the bucket was mostly empty. There was still some stuff stuck in the bottom so the kit would have been real dirty. But before that, it might have been hard to find if it had even occurred to me to look in the bucket. I had cleaned out nestboxes and it was full of fur and shavings.
There's not much exciting in the litters. Too many 5-8% brokens and blacks. I probably would have culled the charlies at birth, but some of them are out of the newest opal buck and I wanted to see the type he throws. And there were 1st timers that needed to raise a litter. I guess I'll be doing the Knoxville Fair in a couple months. I was debating because the meat judges piss me off, but it's a great place to unload pet culls.
So what do I like in the litters? There's the himi and black from RR Taleah x Back In Black. I'm hoping BB shortened them up. Taleah is a bit long in the midsection and a short buck works best with her.
There's an interesting black from Infinite Detail x Back In Black as well. It looks like it could be a throwback to I.Detail's dam that came out of the Darkside line. Fur seems longer and that's a trait from that grand dam.
And then there's this damn otter that came out of Foxy Lady x Rhapsody's Burt. I was expecting agouti, dilute, broken, and got a black otter. The DOAs were all those other things. Grrr. After going on about how I don't do or want otter, it's the cutest kit in all the litters. I mean seriously cute! I think it got the stuff I wanted from Burt...head, width. Now what am I gonna do? Oh and worse, I'm pretty sure it's a buck. This is gonna put a big wrench in my program. Oh well, at least I know that pair meshed. Foxy is already rebred to Burt since I fostered the otter to Taleah.
I'm heading over to the Dickson show tomorrow. Not looking forward to that long drive (5 hrs) but I hope to sell buns that need selling. Especially since I bought another buck. Yeah, I did. I'm not getting him till later this month so I'll keep it under my hat for now. I decided to just enter the first 2 shows instead of staying for all 3. The sooner I can get on the road for home the better. I don't have much to show anyways. I only entered 3.
In guinea news:
The adults still have 2 "wild" keets. I'm amazed they are still out there. I'm sure the heat had a lot to do with their survival after hatching. After losing 1 to the cat and then another disappeared, the adults are very protective of them. I've seen the male run the cat away when she came too close, and he also fends off Cogburn. Yesterday, the hen brought them to the "feeding station" for the first time. I have to remember to take the camera out with me when I feed this morning. She hasn't come into the fence much since they hatched, although the keets can and do walk right through the chainlink. She will pace and fret outside the fence when they do. You'd think she would just fly over the fence to be with them, but sometimes they are birdbrains that way.
I turned the oldest keets out into the yard this week. They were too annoying in the Summer House. Even though I clipped a wing before turning them loose in there, they can hop pretty high. Had to run netting to keep them from roosting on the lowest rabbit cages. When I put the youngest keets out there in the "brood" cage, they were immediately on top of it. Out they went. So now I'm tossing cracked corn/birdseed mix out for them, which also makes the adults and Cogburn come running.
Cogburn adopted the older keets as his flock. So there's now 3 flocks in residence and they bicker. Cog and the adults go at it pretty seriously so I have to toss the seed in 2 separate places so they aren't so close to each other. It will be interesting to see if all of them eventually integrate into one flock. I'm going to sell most of the youngest keets. I have a couple tentative orders for them, and will take them to Taylorsville in a couple weeks. Of course the orders were for more hens but I don't think I can fill the orders that way. I'm just now hearing the female call from the oldest ones so I doubt I'll be able to sex the youngest ones in time. Probably have to settle for straight run. Including me.
More bird news:
My canary hen is setting on 2 eggs. After I sold the finches, I moved the canaries out of the big aviary cage into smaller, more easily maintained cages. The pair that were together in the aviary went into the larger of the 2 cages, and the single male into a slightly smaller one. I put a small dish of grit in for them and the hen decided this made a fine nest. Even though I hadn't given her anything to make a nest with. She laid them on the grit. When I cleaned out the big cage, I found more eggs in the tray. She had been laying all along. I tried to get her to use a better nest, but she wasn't having it. So fine, the dish it is. I lined it with some tissue and noticed she had pulled in some string I had given her after the fact. I'll give her a handful of hay today. The tissue alone isn't a very good nest. Sooo...we'll see how this goes.
tnt
