I have quite a few new babies. It's been pretty scarce around here for that. There are 3 litters on the ground (4-6 wks old), but they were each the only live litter out of their round of breedings. So this week looked like a baby boom.
The 2 Zimmerman sable pt does kindled large litters. Bigger than last time. These were both repeat breedings. Of their last litters, only a sable pt doe from each one survived. That's 2 out of the 5 that were born between them. The rest were faders. Those 2 girls are roommates and about 8 wks old now. So I tried the same bucks again.
Z. Suzie had 5 sable pts with Jacob, but she put 2 on the wire and they were dead when I got out there. The other 3 fat and healthy in the box. She only had 3 last time.
Z. Lita had 6! 2 were DOA peanuts. She only had 2 last time. This is an interesting litter. Sire is Sugardaddy so I knew I'd get sable pts. This time there's 3 brokens and a sable pt. 2 of the brokens are black, the other is a sable pt. Lita is smutty, and the daughter from the last litter is also kind of smutty, so I can see the pattern on this broken sable pt kit. Yesterday, it looked like the other sable pt might be broken too. Hard to tell when it's not as smutty. It will be interesting to see how a broken sable pt shows (if it's showable). I didn't set out for sable pt brokens, but there it is. I think a broken sable pt would have to be smutty to show at all.
Then Baroquen x Smith's BL4 had 5. She drives me crazy about the nestbox and I don't trust her to put the kits in it. She did, but she had pulled almost all the nest material out so the kits only had some fur. It got cold that night and they were near death. I saved the only broken and fostered it to Lita. I gave one of Lita's broken blacks to Suzie to even out the numbers. Lita is the better mother, and her litter is a day younger so her kits are closer to the fosterling's size.
Yesterday, Chevette x Bruin kindled. She had one large kit with fur! And a mangled mess of a peanut. She was barely a day late so I don't know what to think about the large furred kit. This is the first time I've got a furred kit that was alive. I've seen it before and it looked like they were older than the rest of the litter so I assumed they were conceived earlier. Maybe it took a few days of attempts to get the doe bred, I can't remember, and she was actually caught in the 1st try. This kit could be 2 days old going by the size and furring. Anyways, fostered it to Lita as well. She's the bigger of those 2 does and should be able to handle 5 kits.
One of the things that decides who gets which fosterlings is color. I need to be able to tell them apart. Chevette's is a himi so that's easy to keep track of in a broken/sable pt litter. Same for Lita's broken black in Suzie's sable pt litter. Baroquen's broken black is a spot pattern so I can tell it from Lita's blankets.
The other doe that was due this week dropped 3 DOAs. She's a 1st timer so failure was somewhat expected.
Not only is spring evident in the successful litters, the bucks and does are eagerly breeding, too! Got 2 bred yesterday, and will be working on getting the rest bred right behind them. Gotta get it while the gettins good.
Happy Spring!
tnt
