Sunday, December 23, 2012

Rain rain go away.

So after my rant in the previous post, I finally received my shipment of supplies. But, I was missing the j-clip pliers I bought, and all the j-clips that came with the cage parts. Luckily, customer service on the company improved and they paid to Fedex the items to me on a rush. And of course, as nature would have it, the day they arrived a huge multi-day rain storm came too! Mark and I had only about 45 minutes outside of putting stuff together before the rain hit, but at least we have all our PVC cut. Yes, I said PVC. That's because we're putting together something different! Instead of going for the expensive units of metal stackers (like we're talking pretty much $500 for a 6 hole stack nowadays), I decided to build shelving with PVC pipe, attach just the wire cages, and put trays underneath. Doing it this way should (or at least what I figured on paper) save me about 50% of the costs of cages. And the plus side is not only will I be saving a lot of cash, but for the cost ALL of my cages will be 24 x 24 instead of 24 x 18. Very good news! I cannot wait for them all to be built and together. I have lots of hanging toys I have purchased (expensive bird toys I found on clearance at a bargain overstock type of store) that are just waiting to be put inside. The bunnies are just going to LOVE them!

For anyone who's interested, I found the overall plans and measurements (I adjusted the math to fit the size of cages I have), on this blog: http://fmicrofarm.blogspot.com/2012/02/diy-rabbit-cage-rack-tutorial.html

Hopefully pictures of my new setup will come soon! My office furloughs us for a week and a half during Christmas time, so I have all next week off to work on it!!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Business Disappointment

I've been dealing with an order from a well known rabbit cage maker for the last 3 weeks or so, and it's been an utter nightmare.

It first started off by the company not receiving my order, or at least claiming not to. That wasted a few days.

Then after they finally got my order and processed it, I called a week later to check on the order, since I hadn't heard anything. I was told it would ship a few days later, Monday or Tuesday. I called back on Wednesday, no answer. Called again and finally got ahold of someone. Who then told me my order would probably be processed and shipped the following Monday or Tuesday. Which I was told last week. Sigh.

So then I call again that next Wednesday, and no answer, again. So this time I leave a voicemail demanding to know where my order is and that it's been weeks and I have had not had much communication at all regarding my $500 order. So then I get an e-mail instead of a call back, telling me that my order shipped already.

Okay, that's great, except, I never got a quote on the shipping costs for heavy metal cages. And it was supposed to just be sent Fedex but they apparently send it on trasport from some random trucking company they hired to do it.

So I check my credit card statement and see I was charged an extra $160 over my quote/invoice. I'm assuming for shipping. And I was never given any number or contact information for this supposed semi truck delivering metal cage parts to my house. So I just wait until it comes.

Yesterday I get a note on my door that the company tried to deliver the cage stuff. So I called them back and arrange to have it delivered this morning at 7:30am. I'm thankful they left a note with their contact information, or I would have been plain out of luck.

Out of the approximate 8 or so phone calls placed to this company during my timespan, the phone was actually picked up 2 times.

I open up the pallet of supplies today and low and behold, there is no j clips, or j clip pliers to even put the darn thing together.

Ugh.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Woohoo collaboration!

YAY! I figured out how to import my old Starlite Rabbitry blog over to my new blog! So now you have access here to my old blog posts back to 2007! Such as show results, show pictures, insiders views to Convention, road trips, rabbitry happenings, and more! YAY! So glad I figured out how to do that. Enjoy the reading from the past!

Oh my.

I couldn't just stop at 4 little tri colors to work on, could I?

Nope.

My buddies Jenna and Tracy from THF Saynora heard I was back and the game and offered me a beautiful set of fuzzy hollands from probably my most favorite breeding program in the world. I could not pass it up. The day after Thanksgiving I found myself hanging out at the cargo center at the Sacramento airport, awaiting an arrival from Pennsylvania. Six beautiful new fuzzies have joined my herd and I am absolutely THRILLED with how they look! I ended up bringing home all juniors, tort buck, broken tort buck, orange buck, tort doe, and two broken tort does. They are looking just lovely and I can't wait to get them ready to hit the show tables. The THF Saynora breeding program is one of the best in the world in my opinion. Not many breeders have been able to achieve such consistency in a linebreeding program like Jenny and Tracy have. Their hollands can compete on any table anywhere and have a good chance of taking the show. I have always had loads of success with rabbits from them, and so I expect nothing less from this group. Below is a couple pictures (courtesy of Jenna) of some of the new guys. I will get my own updated pictures soon once this terrible weather stops (raining like, what, 4 days straight now?).


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Tri this on for size...

Well. I'm back. Sort of. Kind of.

I had to sell all my rabbits about 2 years ago.

Mark and I moved to a place where we could no longer have them. I was heartbroken, but so relieved at the same time.

I told myself I could do better. Next time. I would do things different. 

It's amazing how even after 2 years, coming back into the hobby I feel like I'm even more mature at my 27 years of age, and more knowledgable about genetics, colors, line-breeding, typing....   so here we are.

It happened rather fast. I actually was just scoping out the facebook pictures from convention, wishing I was there with all of my friends I missed so dearly.

Then the sale rabbit posts started popping up. Oh man, the gorgeous fuzzy photos that kept appearing on my feed. It was endless, and beautiful.

As Convention was drawing to a close, my friend Melanie from Lil'Bit Farm Hollands posted about some tri colored fuzzy lops she had and wanted to find homes for. Oh my. I have been friends with Melanie for quite a while and over the years have had numerous fuzzy hollands in my barn from her and have done quite well with them. They have awesome type, beautiful heads, and the pedigrees I love to linebreed on.

My friend Amber, who lives a few hours from my house, just happened to be driving back from the Kansas convention back to California. Hmmmm. Could I make this work somehow?

This past Friday night I met up with Amber in a random town in the southern valley that smelled quite a ton like cows... around 9pm at night. I scooped up my 4 beautiful tri colored fuzz babies and gave her a huge hug as I have missed her so much! After an almost 3 hour drive home, the babies were welcomed into my house. And thus Kagee Rabbitry was born again.

And PS.. here is one of my new babies. An Orange/Back Tri doe, Lil' Bit Farms Karma.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

The countdown begins...

It seems like only yesterday I was counting 40 something days until Convention. Now, it's 8 until I drop the dogs off at the sitters, load my stuff up and take it to Susie's, and 9 until we set off into the sunset... er... pre-sunrise is more like it. I'm sure it's going to be a VERY early morning for all of us.


The rabbits I entered are looking less than beautiful, for sure. Oh well, I go to Conventions for the education, learning, and seeing the friends I haven't got to see in a very long time!