The sorting process

We are awash with babies right now. The scourge of a breeder is what to do with the extra babies. To make progress in our herd, we have to keep breeding. Our goal is to produce babies better than their parents.

We linebreed, which means we often get some very nice babies in a litter and some that need to be culled out of the breeding program now.

We do our first sort at about five weeks. We cull babies who are much bigger than their litter mates, those with obvious disqualifications, and those who already lack the head/ear shape or body that we want. They don't grow out of things like low headset or low shoulders. We also examine their feet. We want a short, wide foot and often compare a litter's feet.

We once kept a doe only based on her feet. She had lovely wide feet although her body seemed long and narrow. But at about 4 1/2 months, her body went schloomp! And we had a wide, short doe who granded early and has stayed home to produce several show-quality babies.

Another sort happens around 8-9 weeks of age. We continue to look for nice smooth hindquarters, good width at the shoulder, nicely balanced crown.

Then we ignore them. Well, not literally. We handle them a lot, putting them on a carpeted table and try to simulate how a judge would work with them. But we try not to look at head or body at this point.

They go through the familiar uglies until they're about 4-4 1/2 months old. That's when we do the next sort session. It's amazing how they change over the six weeks. (OK, it's hard not to notice bodies and heads when we're handling them in this time frame. But we try not to select who to keep.)

With our bucks, we find that another sort happens at 9-12 months, when we see if the promise of the baby has reappeared yet.

We believe that a sound culling program will strengthen our herd and we're trying to learn and grow in that area. So we're growing out several juniors now, knowing they have at least two more cuts to pass before we incorporate them into our breeding program.

State fair

Timothy had a good run at our State fair this year, picking up a BOB with his solid junior buck, Geo. What he thinks is cool is that this is not the solid junior buck he won BIS with a few weeks ago.

The two bucks are similar in age, color and size, but different in type. So Timothy now goes to shows with something that might appeal to different judges' eye.

Some judges are what we call "head" judges: they look for a nice head/ears/crown combo and pay much less attention to the body. Others seem to prefer smooth, balanced bodies and will forgive weaknesses in the ears and/or crown.

What we think are the best judges, of course, are those who look at the entire Holland and find the one who scores the most points according to the ARBA standards.

But it doesn't hurt to go to shows with more than one style of animal, just in case the one who's done well in the past doesn't excel in what a particular judge is looking forward. When we can, we try that approach to our selection of who to take to the show.

Linebreeding I

One of the basics of linebreeding, which we try to do a lot with our Hollands, is to breed a doe back to her father or a buck back to his mother. Although technically this is inbreeding, it's a valuable tool in our linebreeding program.

Right now I have a litter as a result of breeding a young buck back to his mother. The mother is a grand champion but the son has a tight crown although a nice short cobby body. We were curious to see if he'd pass that tight crown on to his offspring - and to see what other traits we'd find in the litter.

A mother/son combination will usually uncover both good and bad traits. It's not unusual to see a bunny with a truckload of bad traits. Although these make nice pets, they also help us to see what may be hidden in the genetics of the parents.

A baby with a low headset or narrow crown or rough hindquarters show us that those traits are hiding in the parents' genes. We then know to be careful in choosing who to breed the parents to next time.

We will continue to monitor this litter to see what traits develop, which will give us fresh information on the genetics of the parents. To limit it further, we will consider breeding a doe from this litter back to her father. We want to see common ancestors in the pedigree rather than 16 different ancestors.

Linebreeding is about narrowing the gene pool to isolate and strength those traits we want to see in our Hollands.

Comics and chores

I found out about a new tax in our state while loading rabbit trays. Timothy keeps up with his favorite comic that way, although it does slow down chores a little.

We use trays under all our rabbit cages and so have to empty and wash them at least once a week. We've discovered that using newspapers to line the bottom of the trays has reduced our bedding costs a bunch. We use shredded newspaper on top of the newspaper sheets.

But that step where the washed trays come to the newspaper station slows us up. As we unfold the old newspapers, we find articles we forgot to read. And so, if Timothy is replacing trays under cages, he comes back to the newspaper/bedding station to find me deeply engrossed in an article. When it's his turn, he reads the funnies.

I've yet to find much exciting in this tray-cleaning chore but catching up on the news at the same time helps make it a little more interesting.

Ups and downs

Last week,Timothy got a taste of the highs and lows of rabbit showing. It's an amazing hobby, isn't it?

I already reported about the Best in Show win but he went on to win a reserve Grand Champion at our county fair with a junior buck (and not the same buck as the BIS buck). He held back his four best animals from the county fair because we were going to an ARBA-sanctioned show the next day.

We didn't figure the show animals would like a long, full day at the county fair and then get toted home for another road trip and another long, full day at the next show.

But his ARBA show in Henderson turned out to be a bit of a dud. There were two youth exhibitors and, although he got several firsts, didn't get a leg. In fact, the Best of Breed bunny didn't earn a leg.

Showing rabbits means subjective judging and you-never-know disappointments like lack of youth exhibitors. That keeps us guessing when we go to shows - but probably keeps the zing in the hobby, too.

You just never know what's going to happen when you load the rabbits in the car and head out. It could be the rush of a BIS or the dull thud of last place. But it's always a surprise.

Denim had 5...no, 6....no, 7 babies yesterday. She's a grand champion broken black with a smooth body and we bred her to Kay Miller's Jason, who has a great head and nice bone. (He's a grand champion, too.) If we can get a bunch of babies from this cross, and if they're as nice as we're hoping....

Well, a lot of "if's" but that's the nature of breeding rabbits. The hope of the new match, the plans for the future matings.

We'd love to get a black out of this mating to use in our otter program. Of course, we'd love to get a batch of Best of Breed bunnies, too!

This is a nice linebreeding, with enough outcrossing to hopefully strength Denim's head while shortening her body. We'll see if the idea worked.

We're excited

We were at the Elbert County Show on Sunday where Timothy showed a junior buck, Pyro, for the first time. Pyro picked up two legs including a Best of Breed and a Best in Show.

The funny thing is that we have two junior bucks about the same age and similar in conformation. We've debated for two months which one is better but the judges were unanimous Sunday.

Feed experiment

We decided to try a feed-change experiment this week. I'm not big on changing feed a lot. I think most condition issues are genetic, which means when I see rough bodies, I need to address my breeding program.

But, this time, we found rough bodies across the board in our barn. We tried very hard to find genetic patterns. Was every offspring of a particular buck or doe rough? Did it take generations to develop?

We evaluated our top 5 animals in terms of body roughness and looked at what they genetically had in common.

In our case, we were finding the spine rough and bumpy while the hindquarters were flat, pinbones prominent.

The best animals had much less of that. So we studied their pedigrees. And couldn't find a common genetic issue.

Because we've had hard, smooth bodies on our Hollands in the past, we decided to explore the feed option. I'll let you know how it goes.

The big switcheroo

You may need a list of players for this story, but we need to talk about fostering. So here goes.

First, my does surprised me with one of the first 4 for 4 deliveries I've ever seen. Four does were due over the weekend,including a first timer. When working with Hollands, we've gotten used to all sorts of complications. New mamas sometimes have storms of the brain (as opposed to brainstorming) and have all their babies on the wire. Or the babies are born dead in the box. Or the mama stomps them in her in-and-out dance with the nest box.

But this time, we have four mothers and four litters. One mama had two but one was DOA (dead on arrival) and so we're back to the single litter. That makes no sense and I will foster that single baby into another litter. (In fact, that's why I like to kindle in groups, to make fostering at least a possibility.)

But here's where things get complicated. I have a buck on loan for a couple of weeks and, of the four does who just delivered, Ribbon is the one I'd most like to breed to this buck while he's here.

Ribbon has 3 babies in her litter. But I plan to foster those babies, one at a time, over to Tinsel, who only has one baby. So Tinsel will be raising 3 babies which are not her own. That will free up Ribbon for a breeding to Jazbo, the visiting buck.

Fostering isn't hard. I usually only transfer one baby a day into the new nest, but I've never had a doe even sniff twice. She usually hops into the nest box, feeds whoever is in there, and is then off duty for several hours. The reason I transfer one at a time is to give her a chance to increase her milk supply a little more slowly than going from one baby to four.

The other complication is keeping track of whose baby is whose. I prefer to foster where the color of the fostered baby is different from the original litter. And I keep good written records.

The challenge today is that Tinsel and Ribbon both have tort babies. So I may try to tattoo a little line into the ear of Tinsel's baby. At this size, that's a challenge.

Or I may (hang onto your hat here) foster Tinsel's tort single into Knock Out's litter, which is totally otter and blacks. Tinsel's tort would be easy to find in that litter but it does seem odd to make Tinsel raise somebody else's babies while forcing another mama to raise hers.

Welcome to the world of fostering.

Heat

Summer heat has hit Colorado and I am grateful again for my husband's wonderful construction skills. When he built the bunny room inside our barn, he insulated all four walls plus the ceiling and poured a concrete floor. I have three windows into the room that I can open for ventilation. And two doors on opposite corners of the room. He also plumbed in a water hydrant in a corner of the room, making watering sweet.

Then he installed a swamp cooler. If you're not familiar with a swamp cooler, follow this link. They work in dry climates like ours. Because the cooling happens through evaporation, a lot of moisture is pumped into the air. This is fine in June and July when it's been so dry but by August, we often open the doors just to dry the place out a bit.

But we've done all right with the extra moisture because we keep our feed and supplements in sealed plastic containers. The feed sacks are opened and poured into a trash can with lid. The supplements go in plastic ice cream buckets.

Even the hottest days, when the temperatures get over 102 degrees, we don't see our bunny-room temperatures go over 80. Admittedly, the bunnies still think they are suffering but we've never lost one to heat and they are able to breed all summer.

This year, for the first time in a while, we've placed a hutch outside. It's in the shade all day long and we like to put frozen bottles of water in the cages when the temperatures get into the 90's. Because of the shade, and often there's a slight breeze, those bunnies are doing pretty well, also.

I know other places have to use other systems for dealing with the summer heat, but that's our way and it's worked so far.

Our latest experiment

Timothy's favorite doe, Skittles - a broken black otter, delivered four babies recently but only one survived. However (and if you breed black otters, you'll understand the joy), the survivor is a black otter. And, even better, out of Bart, our young senior black buck who is very promising.

However, raising a single baby presents a problem. The last time we tried this, we ended up with a FAT baby that never could get its legs under it. That big belly on overweight babies presses the legs out of shape and they don't come back.

So we're trying an experiment. After leaving the nest box with Skittles 24/7 for 3 days, we are now removing the nest box and returning the box with baby to Skittles once a day. We'll be monitoring the baby's condition (Specifically, how's that belly looking? We don't want a wrinkled starving belly but we don't want a sumo-wrestler look, either.) and hope that by the time the baby is ready to come out of the nest box, it is healthy and sort of slim.

We've put the nest box inside an empty 24x24 cage and placed a reflector lamp with 75-watt bulb on top the cage. Because I wasn't sure how warm the baby needed to be in the current summer heat (we can hold our barn at between 70-80 degrees), I placed the lamp at the front edge of the cage top so the baby (I hoped) could wiggle under the lamp or away from it, depending on his warmth needs.

I learned something interesting in this experiment. It is the baby that forms the lovely fur cloud in the nest box. When I put the baby in its own cage, its bed of fur was pressed down from Skittle's last feeding trip.

But today, when I went to return the baby to Skittles' pen, there was a lovely airy puff of fur. The baby had moved from the back of the nest box to the front.

I'll keep you posted on our experiment.

The escapee

This is the story of a little black doe that doesn't even yet have a name, although she's secured a place in the barn for a while.

Our saga begins when we took her mother and sister from her cage for an overnight visit to a friend's house. We hoped to breed the doe to a wonderful buck there and show off the sister. Somehow, we didn't latch the cage door completely.

On our return, the door was hanging open and the cage was empty. We frantically searched our rabbit room. But we'd left a side door open while we were gone to let in the cool evening air and we were afraid she'd jumped out the door into the jungle.

I felt very guilty. Because I hadn't double-checked that door latch, a little doe had fallen pray to some horrible demise.

The following day, when I went out to do chores, I saw a flash of black on the floor. Yep, the doe had not left the building. So I grabbed Timothy and we corralled her. She's safe and sound.

Moral of this story? Several:

• Double-check your cage doors.
• Don't give up too soon. Black juniors apparently hide in the shadows well.
• Teach your young ones to stay inside the barn. There's a dangerous world out there!

Too much

We were pleased a couple of weeks ago to rescue a newborn Holland and return him to his nestbox. Sadly, he was the only one of his litter who survived.... and that didn't turn out so well.

I've had some breeders tell me that it's impossible to save single babies because they don't have litter mates to keep them warm. Well, we haven't really had problems with that. If I put a reflector lamp (like the one pictured in this post) with a 75-watt light bulb on top of the cage, focusing the heat of the light bulb on the baby, it usually survives nicely.

(Please be very careful using a reflector lamp. It must be well secured or it could start a fire.)

And the little rescued Holland did fine under the light. However, another problem arose. We've had it before but not this bad and we decided this time to figure out how to handle it.

The mother of this little baby is a fine mama with lots of milk. Way too much milk for one baby. But the little baby, alternately known as Piggy and Tubbo, has engorged himself on milk.

That fat little tummy of his pressed his back legs to the side so that now, at 2 weeks of age, he has permanently splayed legs. Because it's warm enough in the rabbit barn, we took him out of his nestbox early and put a piece of carpet in his cage to help him get more exercise.

We hoped once he lost that big belly, the legs would pull back in line. They haven't.

After talking with some other breeders, here's what we'll do the next time we have a single:
1. Leave the nestbox with the mama for the first couple of days, until she gets used to caring fo the baby.
2. Then pull the nestbox out of the cage, placing it in a safe place (as from cats or other predators) with a light on it for heat.
3. Return the nestbox to the mother once a day. Watch until she's fed the baby, then pull the nestbox out again.

Hopefully, this will prevent another occurrence of moose-itis in a single baby.

Eeny, meeny, miney, moe....

My friend, Patty, and I got together Sunday afternoon to compare bunnies. Having friends who also show and love Hollands makes it so much easier to continue this hobby. Two hours flew by as we evaluated litters and compared bucks.

An issue we discussed for a little while was how to choose between bunnies. For example, one of my litters has two broken does. They're similar in composition but one has better width/bone while the other has better headset/shoulders. I opted for the second one but sent the first to Patty. We figure we can't lose either way.

But it does raise a good question: how do you choose which traits to prefer? In my case, I chose the better headset/shoulders because that's an area that I'm trying to improve in my herd. I have several animals with good width/bone but not so many with good headsets.

I hedged my bets, though, by sending the second one with Patty, knowing that if she turns out better (the doe, not Patty! Patty is turning out just fine.), I can probably get something back.

We also tried to select between two senior bucks. Both were torts. One is very typey, nice balance, nice pose, nice head and ears and crown. But he's rougher over the topline and hindquarters. We even poured over his pedigree to figure that out, because his father has a phenomenal hindquarter and his mother was decent in that department.

But we compared him to a second buck with a smooth, short body and good depth of shoulder, although his ears are narrow (OK, his crown is narrow from front to back) and his crown is slipped. His body is far superior to the first buck but his type and head aren't. For now, we sidestepped this decision, too.

Patty took the first buck home to breed to some of her does with great hindquarters. Maybe we can get it worked out in his offspring. (See why it's good to work together?)

So how do you choose between animals when their traits are different? How do you choose which traits to give higher value to? You could go purely by the ARBA Standards - rating the animal as a judge would and keeping the highest score. You could choose the animal that may bring a trait you need in your herd. I'd like to hear your program.

Feed decisions

I belong to several internet rabbit lists, which are really helpful in getting advice and ideas for raising bunnies. One of the questions that comes up frequently is which feed is the best to use.

I often get asked that from my customers. Whether 4-H youth or pet owners, they want to know what to feed.

I feed Penpals 16% feed. We've used it for nearly four years now, partly because we've had good consistent feed and partly because the feed store has two very helpful, friendly employees. I make sure those employees know how much we appreciate the consistent feed, because it seems like one of the biggest problems with pelleted feed is weird stuff that got dumped into the bag.

I've heard that breeders tend to breed for their feed, meaning they cull those rabbits who don't do well on the feed and keep those who do. Frankly, I'm afraid to jump from feed to feed to find out.

There are other good feeds out there; I'm not endorsing Penpals. But here are some ideas on choosing your feed:

• Avoid 18% protein feed with Holland Lops.
• Plan to feed a pellet. Don't try to mix your own feed. That takes a complex understanding of feed ingredients.
• Check around and compare prices. But don't automatically choose the cheapest feed. Compare feed bag labels, especially on protein and fiber. But also notice additives like yucca and yeast, especially if you want a show herd.
• Try to maintain a working relationship with your feed dealer so that he or she knows what you need. If you're a regular (and not a chronic complaining) customer, your dealer is more likely to help if you have problems with feed.
• If you change feeds, do it gradually or you'll probably throw your herd into a molt. Try to mix 1/4 new feed with 3/4 old feed for four days, then go half and half for four days, then 3/4 new and 1/4 for four days. Then you're there.
• Train your rabbit to a treat so that if even if the rabbit goes off feed for some reason, it has another food it might try to eat. Some examples of good treats are sliced banana or apple, fresh parsley sprigs, dry (non-sugar) cereal like Cheerios or Chex.
• Avoid green vegetables as treats. Don't give your bunnies lettuce or spinach or similar dark green veggies.
• Protect your feed from bugs and mice. We put our feed in a trash can with a lid.

We feed our Hollands 1/2 cup (about 4 ounces) of pellets per day except the nursing mamas who get their pellets free choice.

Feeding a Holland can be pretty easy but it's an area that can go sour on you. Take care of your feed decisions and those Hollands will be happy little lops.

Choices

One of my favorite activites with the Hollands is the 6-week checkup. Although I have usually sexed the litter by then, I have tried hard not to make judgments on their type. Every 4-week-old baby looks great so I try to wait. I love the surprise when I find a special one.

I've been anxiously watching a litter of 5 because their head and ears and crowns were promising. The ears were short and wide, the crowns already nicely defined, the heads round. But when they came out for their photos and 6-week check, we discovered some disappointments.

They couldn't pose for their photos. Once I realized that they weren't just being nervous but actually couldn't, I saw that they had weak shoulders. They also had long bodies and rough toplines.

In the end, I didn't keep any of them. Here are some photos to show you what I mean:

Here's the best pose any in the litter could do.
I see a low headset and weak shoulders.

This was as good as this baby could do, with me holding his head. Once I moved my hand, his head dropped back to the table. He had length of shoulder, too.Here's a typical pose for the litter. Too flat, too long, too rough for my taste. But, oh, the ears were tempting.....

Missing on the agouti

Well, Kisses missed. She's a nice broken tort doe who has been bred (twice, but who's counting?) to a beautiful chestnut agouti buck.

Both times, she had to travel a long ways to meet the buck. I knew she had missed the first time but had felt babies when I palpated her on the second breeding. Or thought I felt babies. I don't know if she absorbed the babies after the palpation or if my fingers were very hopeful when I palpated.

So the agouti project is on hold for now. None in my barn, which is, by the way, getting taken over by Timothy's black otter project. But that's a whole 'nother issue.

How often do I give a doe before considering her failed? Although I'll tell you three times, really the answer depends on how badly I want babies from her. Kisses isn't vital to my agouti project (I have plenty of torts!), she has produced some nice babies in her day.

So she may not be down two strikes right now. She lifted well for Bosco, a broken tort buck who is a fine buck to linebreed with. We'll see how it goes without the travel time.

But I'm still hopeful to get an agouti in the barn!

When to move on

Yesterday I told the sad tale of Tippie, our wonderful foundation brood doe who is having trouble conceiving. Although we haven't yet given up on her, we are starting to discuss "what if...."

As I said yesterday, Tippie is behind most of our barn's pedigrees and we're just discovering the benefits of linebreeding her offspring. She's birthed several grand champions and we were greedy: we wanted more.

But if she is done, what next?

I suspect my good friend Patty would reserve a special cage for her and allow her to live out her natural life with honor and respect. Not a bad solution.

It creates a problem for us, since we are always struggling with cage space. Can we afford to give a cage to a non-producing doe when we have so many promising younger animals?

Some breeders who are past their prime make good pets and can be given or sold to someone looking for a pet. We're not sure if Tippie qualifies, although she has mellowed since the day she nipped my hand for handling her too many times. Her patience ran thin after being wormed, checked for fur mites, enduring a toenail trim, and finally weighed.

That was after assuring Timothy that Tippie only threatened to bite; she never did it. Uh-huh. Timothy refused to pull her out of her cage without leather gloves after that.
Although I think that's overkill, I'm not sure Tippie would make a good pet.

She's too big to be a show animal for youth.

So, ultimately, we may have to decide if we make her cage into a museum or if we get rid of her. In this case, I mean euthanizing. That is the stomach-churning side of Hollands because they're really too small to be a meal. If a meat rabbit, they'd have some purpose, but a 5 lb. Holland is more like a cornish game hen than a full-size chicken, as far as meals go.

I hope this a decision to be postponed but it's one of the decisions that face a rabbit breeder. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

When a doe thinks retirement

Tippie may be finished and we're not so happy about it.

Tippie is a 5 lb brood doe with a grumpy disposition. But if you shake out most of the pedigrees in our barn, Tippie's name falls out several times. She's helped our herd immensely with her nice pose and solid body.

But now she's three years old and not conceiving. Tippie loves pregnancy and is a wonderful mother, but her last litter is nearly 6 months old now and, although she lifts for the buck, she has not conceived.

If it were any other doe, we'd have given up on her before now. But we're still trying some tricks to see if we can get her started again.

Here are some things we've done to help:

• Artificial light in the barn. Even though it's spring, when does think, "time for babies..." we keep a light on in the barn.
• Wheat germ oil. After reviving a doe who refused to breed for several months, I always try this. I dribble a few drops on their treats about once a week.
• Apple cider vinegar in the drinking water. I use 1 teaspoon per gallon of water.
• Place the doe beside a buck's pen. Although I have not had problems with Tippie lifting for a buck, sometimes does refuse to lift. This can help get them in the mood.
• Swap cages. Putting the doe in the buck's pen and the buck in the doe's pen for a couple of days often helps. When the doe gets a good scent of the buck's special cologne, she is often more receptive to him.
• Cut back on feed. A fat doe doesn't conceive well and so we check the flesh condition. A diet may help a doe.
• Exercise. We sometimes wedge a 2x4 board from corner to corner in a cage, forcing the bunny to hop over the board to get to food and water.

I've probably forgotten something so feel free to add your comments and hints to the list.

Tomorrow I'll discuss what to do when it's over for a special doe.

Babies coming slowly

We're waiting out a first-time doe this evening. She was due to deliver today and had a single on the wire this morning, dead on arrival. Although the doe seemed pretty calm as though she were finished, we palpated her. Sure enough, there was at least one more undelivered.

So we waited.

Does can go late and we don't generally bother one until she's at least 3 days past her due date. (This assumes that I am very sure about the breeding date.) At 3-4 days, if nothing has happened, we palpate her again. Once in a while, she's re-absorbed babies.

If she is pregnant, we will then re-breed her to a buck. Often that stimulation from the breeding will induce labor. If that hasn't worked by the next day, we will try oxytocin. Now we're not veterinarians and we're not recommending this, because we can't. I'm just telling you what we do.

We give 0.2 cc oxytocin subcutaneously. Usually the first dose starts labor but we are willing to give a second dose a half hour after the first dose. We stay with the doe for at least an hour when we do this because she will invariably deliver babies on the wire. We have to be there to have any chance of saving babies born on the wire.

But we're not expecting live babies at this point. Our goal is to get the babies delivered. A retained baby can poison the mother or, if somehow mummified, prevent future pregnancies.

Others massage the mother's tummy to stimulate labor or use different herbs or natural treatments. Those are good ideas but we're not experts on those. If you use any, would you post those here? I'm always looking for new ideas.

Naming

I'm still at that stage of raising rabbits where I love naming the babies. I don't know if I'll ever get to calling them by their tattoo number. Somehow, cooing something like "you're a handsome young buck, Mr. TO12," just doesn't appeal to me.

I don't name the babies, however, until I've decided to keep them. The pets have to wait for their new owner to christen them. And I save the names I like best for the really good babies. It's harder to cull a baby with a cool name.

I like to line-name my babies. For example, my doe named Tippie has several daughters: Taylor, Tripod, Twilly, Tinsel. When I see a doe whose name starts with "T," I know she comes from Tippie. That works pretty well except Tippie is a good doe and I have a LOT of "T" names in my barn.

I also like to dig out the dictionary to find names. That's why I have names like "Tripod" and "Chambray" rather than real names. There aren't any Sarahs or Millies in my barn, although I did capitulate to Chloe once.

Timothy, being a somewhat normal 13-year-old, thinks my method of naming is weird. He prefers Bionicle names. If you don't have a 13-year-old boy, you may not know Bionicles but think of them as Lego action figures on steroids. They have their own names and storylines.

All of which to explain why we have a Matau and a Nokoma in our barn. Don't ask me any more about those.

I once tattooed a baby "KO" because her parents were Kashi and Oreo. So Timothy named her "Knock Out." We're nothing if not inconsistent in our naming.

I have friends who name their lines based on cookie names: Oreo, Macaroon, etc. Another breeder used Beatles' names. Not just John and Ringo and Paul, but names from songs. So they'd have Eleanor Rigby or Strawberry Fields.

When my friend, Kay, gets a Holland from another breeder, she likes to name it after the breeder. So she has Ted and Jason and Kathy and Timothy caged up in her barn.

But my friend, Patty, is anxiously awaiting the day that I totally lose my marbles and name a baby "Frying Pan." And I'm thinking about it.

More on taking photos

After talking up the important of taking lots of photos of your babies, I thought I'd share some tidbits I've learned.

Now, you need to know that I have a nice Nikon camera and I've shot photos professionally on occasion. Not Holland photos, but few Holland people have enough money to pay for photos. And, after I show you my portfolio, you'll know another reason I haven't shot Holland photos professionally.

I'm into truth-in-advertising. No pretending here. Take a look at some of the photos I've gotten in baby photo sessions:

Doesn't my arm have a nice roundness over the topline?
Maybe a little flat at the wrist....

Yoohooo! The camera's this direction!

There is nothing behind that cloth but a wall.
Which apparently smells like alfalfa.

I think RR1 is really short for ARRRRRGGGGGHH!

Come to Mama.....

So why haven't I shot Holland photos professionally? I can't afford to pay somebody to let me.

Taking photos

My friend Kay wisely takes photos of her babies as they are growing, so she can see how her lines change and develop on their way to maturity. It's a great idea and one I highly recommend.

Try to take photos at about 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 9 weeks, 12 weeks, and about 16 weeks. Be sure to carefully label your photos. With digital photography, it's relatively easy to take too many photos and lose track of which tort baby is in that photo you took a few months ago.

So label carefully. Put a name or tattoo number plus date of photo on each photo, even if you just save the photos on your computer's hard drive. I have a folder in My Documents for Rabbits, then for Photos. In that folder, each rabbit gets its own folder so the photos are easy to compare.

Holland breeders love to see photos of Hollands, so take lots and display them somehow, whether on paper or on a website or via e-mail. Tomorrow, I'll show you some of the things I've learned while taking Holland photos.

Nest box management

The way does prepare their nest boxes for an incoming litter makes me laugh at times. In the photo above is a nest box that's been worked over while the doe is waiting out the last few days before babies come. We put a layer of wood chips and a nice bed of grass hay in the box but most does, like the one above, have to do their own nest-building.

Some does are a nervous wreck until they get the box in their cage. Then they build a nest immediately, burrowing into the hay and sometimes even pulling some fur. The burrow into the hay confirms that the doe is indeed bred. Sometimes they burrow in and then, a day later, tear it apart. You never know what pregnancy hormones do to the brain.

We had a doe once who, when the box was delivered to her cage, promptly tore the bedding to shreds. She threw out every bit of hay and wood chips. If we put more in, she tossed that, too. But the morning she was due, she pulled copious amounts of fur and then delivered immediately. See what I mean about hormones and brain activity?

So I don't pay much attention to the pre-birth nest. But the post-birth nest box interests me a lot. Here's the kind of nest I love to see when I check on the new mama and babies:

What I like to see is a nice fluffy pillow of fur with new babies nicely tucked in underneath. I've tried to duplicate that with newly-pulled fur but I can't do it. When a mama had healthy babies in the box and she's going to take good care of them, I see a nice fluffy nest.


Here's a nest after a doe lost her babies.

Instead of being light and fluffy, this nest is tromped down. Only rarely are there living babies in a nest like this, although I've sometimes found newborns alive in the fur. What usually happens is that the doe will, within 24 hours, build a nice fluffy nest like the first one pictured if there are living babies in the nest. If no babies survived, the nest is more like a shelled-out hollow of flat fur and grass.

Color projects

Once upon a time, I had some tri-colored Hollands. I was new to showing and thought for some reason I could figure out the color genetics overnight. Not. The tri's didn't show well and I didn't know what I was doing.

That ended the color projects until we got a broken black buck in the barn. Most of Mallo's (you can see his photo in the sidebar) offspring were black until it looked like we were going to have nothing but blacks. So we started a new color project: torts.

OK, that's a dumb joke because it wasn't long before we had a lot of torts in the barn. Along with lots of blacks.

But we decided to jump into black otters, because my genetic calculations hinted that good blacks would improve black otters. And we had some nice blacks (thanks, Mallo).

So our first Best in Show was a broken black otter junior doe. We've made some progress with the otters. But they are exclusively Timothy's project.

Now, I'm anxiously awaiting the hopeful birth of another color project as a broken tort doe, Kisses, is due soon with babies from a chestnut agouti buck, Grizzwald. I hope to get some chestnuts and add yet more color to our barn.

When tort is our color project of the year, we may not be all that adventurous... but it's a start!

Evaluating new litters

In our area, as litters approach 5-6 weeks of age, they are eligible to go to pet markets. So we try to go through each litter at about 6 weeks.

Here's what we do (and record):

• Weigh each baby
• Tattoo each baby (although sometimes we don't tattoo obvious pets)
• Check teeth for malocclusions and eyes for eyespots
• Determine sex (although some seem to change back and forth for a while...)
• Evaluate type: body structure, shape of head, crown, width and length of ears, etc.
• Establish rank of each baby in the litter
• Check feet. In Hollands, the proportion of the feet (width to length) in a baby gives good clues into the body type of the animal. Babies with wide, short feet will often have wide, short bodies and also wide heads.
• Take photos of each baby to compare to later. Sometimes a nice 6-week-old baby will go through an ugly stage so it's nice to be able to look back at those baby photos to remember what we liked. Photos help us evaluate the stages of development.

Anything you'd add to this evaluation list?

Inner ear infection

Recently I noticed that a junior doe (about 3 months old) had one ear straight up in the air. Not that this is unusual in my barn, but she also seemed to have a slight tilt to her head. It was a "maybe...maybe not...." situation.

In treating wry neck, which I am thankful I rarely deal with, I've had great success dripping some Pen-G into the ear and massaging the antibiotic until it's absorbed. So that's what I did with this doe. Four day later, she was worse. So I switched to dripping LA-200 into the ear. That didn't work either, so I switched back to Pen-G. After two weeks of this, the doe looked miserable (her fur was pretty oily looking from the antibiotics) and maybe getting worse.

In a moment of crazy inspiration, I pulled a little bottle of tea tree oil out of my cupboard. That stuff is a natural antibiotic made from the Australian tea tree. When I Googled its use for inner ear infections, I found that it is mixed with olive oil and dropped into the ear of a child with an ear infection.

If it's safe for a child, it's safe for my bunny. Or so I reasoned.

It worked. Within a day, her head was more upright. I kept up the treatments for five days and she's fine. Her appetite is better and her head is fully straight. Even the ear has now come down.

I wasn't very exact on the proportions. I used about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 5-8 drops of tea tree oil. Using a syringe to draw the oils, I then dribbled about .3 cc into each ear and massaged. Keep it in mind.

The magic of warm weather

Yesterday, I went to our bunny barn to check on Carousel, a Holland doe due in the morning. She'd already had one baby on the wire - dead and chewed on. I took it out, bummed that she hadn't delivered more.

Four hours later, I went out to do some breeding and found a baby on the floor four stackers away from her cage. It was still alive so I scooped it up and, on my way back to her cage, discovered another baby on the floor. It was alive, too, so I put both into the nest box. I had a 70-watt light bulb inside a reflector on above the box, so figured that was their best chance to get warmed up.

An hour later, as I pulled her tray out to empty it, I discovered yet another baby in the litter. It had been kept warm by the light bulb above so into the nest box it went. You'd think it was a skinny little peanut to get to through the floor wire, but it wasn't. Soon after, the doe fed the three babies and settled the fur into that beautiful fluffy pattern I love to see in a nest.

So, at this point, the doe who seemed to have blown a pregnancy is feeding three babies. Who'd figure?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Zao Hollands blog, where we'll put up bunny news, tips and opinions as they come to us. We raise Holland Lop rabbits on the plains of Northeast Colorado. My son, Timothy, and I work together on this project, although lately he's been whipping me at the shows.