Ohio Holiday and Candy

DH is from Ohio so we spent our holiday with family there. I loved the abundance of evergreens. It was like every yard was a finely arranged Christmas tree lot. Once I see that in writing, it does not sound so nice, but it WAS beautiful...so beautiful that I actually forgot to take any pictures! What a shame.  I fell in love with a nearby quaint little town named Canal Winchester.  Even the boarded up old buildings looked precious. I don't know how they did it.

Anyhow, I got super lucky and was able to spend a couple of hours with English Angora breeder, Candy Haenszel.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! She was generous enough to let me visit with her and her rabbits.  We had a very nice conversation about angora rabbit wool and body type, genetics, fiber and rabbit raising best practices.  I originally contacted her because I was interested in her genetics booklet.  I picked up one while I was there and read it a number of times on the way home. Good, solid genetic stuff for Angora, and other, rabbit folks.  I particularly liked the section on gene linkage and also the handy chart that sorted out what all the breeds call different colors.  I found all those different color names so confusing when I was looking for my mystery kit...which by the way, might actually be a lilac pearl.  Geez...Just when I thought that problem was solved, I am reminded that those little shaded ones are tricky. Candy suggested waiting a bit more and reexamine the eye color...just to be sure.
Blue/gray = lilac pearl and brown = chocolate pearl.      
Here is Candy's website:  http://nexgenaccess.com/~cdh/ and yes, everything at Candy's is just as beautiful as it looks on her Web site.

Also, I just want to give a BIG THANK YOU to my son (and my eldest daughter as backup) for taking great care of all my rabbits when we were gone these 13 days. Good help is hard to find in the rabbit world. He had never watched rabbits before, nor even cared for them.  He was patient with my clipboard with miles of notes about each rabbit and annoying almost daily check-in phone calls.

AND even though my daughter prank-called me to say that my son had not been to my house in three days because she thought it would be the most hilarious thing ever....AND even though my son took pictures of himself holding the kits up like they were lunch, I appreciate them both.  My kids are rascally.  The apple...uh,  rabbit, doesn't fall far from the tree.  

Baby Pictures...with video

Just a couple pictures of Little Sun and the babies. We are enjoying them so much. They have begun nibbling on hay and oats. I have a cute video of Little Sun nursing the little ones, but can't seem to upload it now. Rats! I'll keep trying, but long overdue Christmas shopping and family visits outrank me playing on my blog :) SO..... It might have to wait. Hope everyone has a joyous holiday season. Be safe out there and enjoy what God has given us. Merry Christmas!

OK, I finally got that video uploaded. Here is Little Sun nursing her babies.

What color am I?

So I had this little mystery kit...

11 days old

3 days old

Cooperative bunny

Sorry...doing this one-handed.  

15 Days Old

 who has sable, smoke pearl, lilac pearl, REW, a variety of torts and an assortment of self colors in her pedigree.

Dam is lilac tort.
Sire is black.

I have asked my buddies, asked my FB friends (the English Angora ones), and posted on Rabbit_Genetics group.  I have one answer for almost every possibility so far...that pesky C locus!  I originally wanted to focus on blacks, but I am liking the puzzle (and the color) so far.

I'm not the best photographer so I've started over from scratch and took more pics with a black background and full spectrum lighting.

I thought it was a lilac pearl at first.  I had it on some mighty good authority that it looks like chocolate pearl (depending on camera lighting), but there were some pretty knowledgeable votes for lilac tort as well.  In real life, the kit's body was not really orangey-beige enough for lilac tort, though.  BUT, it does have chinchilla light in its background so pearl was a real possibility.  I thought the kit was one of the pearls (angora term for sable point)...I just was not sure which one.  Rats!  So I had to wait for it to grow a bit.
     
So...after Terri on the FB English Angora Breeders page passed along this great kit color ID site...
Northeast Lionhead Kit Color Guide Plus
and checking out this link about a similarly colored angora on another web site Wenut Angoras Kit Lilac Point/Cream, I think we've finally got it.

THE VERDICT:  
CHOCOLATE PEARL! ....OK, I was really a LILAC PEARL...go figure :)

Everyone Loves Chocolate

Our chocolate senior doe Hershey is once again growing wool like mad.  I'm a little worried that she will peak before mid-January when we head to Waxahatchie, but I'm not too terribly upset.  She's just so darn beautiful to me.  So just in case she blows her coat, we'll head to Cleburne to see about getting her pretty self registered.

There are eyes under there...

Hershey is a low maintenance girl.
Quick go-over with wide tooth comb and pet blower, once a week.
That's it...and she looks beautiful.  

All done.
I'm outta here!...Where's my parsley!

Kits!....and I have papers to write.

Cimmerian x Little Sun: Kits of Distraction

Hi there, Little Sun! How've ya been these
last say...3 minutes?!

This week has been a hectic week.  All my papers/presentations are due and finals have begun.  Two months ago when I decided that a litter of EAs were in order, I knew that this week would be a bit of a collision.  Back then I felt like I would be firmly in control.  However, I failed to take into account the lure of kits in a nestbox.  Little Sun and Cimmerian's breeding brought two new kits into our little world.  Those pesky little beings occupy much of my thinking this week...what colors are they? what sex are they? are they still OK? I'd better go check...the list goes on.  My Google-ing expeditions have reached a fever pitch.  Of course, I am OK with that ever expanding "quest for knowledge", but what about those other quests that I am usually equally fascinated with...like learning PHP for my spring semester special project, honing my web developing skills with a now dusty edition of Flux, finishing those two research papers and one presentation?  How those once loved pet projects pale against the sweet chirp of baby bunnies!  I try to regain focus, but really...those other things do not have a chance.

Hmmm...maybe this was NOT such a good idea...

My ever wonderful DH decided he would help me regain focus by setting up Facetime on my Mac and his iPhone so I could keep an eye on Little Sun without getting up from my computer.  How wonderful! I wish I had taken a pic of her when she was at the front of the pen trying to reach my voice.  She was sooo cute!  HOWEVER, I am not sure it had his intended effect of more productivity.    

         THE SCORE:

     Bunnies 1, Schoolwork 0                                                                                

      GO BUNNIES!!

                                                                                   Now seriously, I've got to go write those papers...