In the midst of the summer

Summer is in full throttle.. unfortunately. A week ago we were battling 110+ degrees here in the Central Valley. I am so very thankful that is over. We had fans, misters, and frozen water bottles going full blast. Yesterday was a nice 80 degrees and slightly windy. It was perfect! The rabbits were loving the new weather. It's set to head back up to the high 90's again later this week. But we'll be prepared!

I have a doe named Starlite's Violet. She was out of one of my first fuzzy lop litters, and the first one that I actually kept from my own breeding. She has the chunkiest cheeks ever, and is the sweetest thing. No matter whether I could ever get her bred or not, she was going to live out her life with me. I tried breeding her for a looooong time, and the bucks would "get" her, but still nothing. I was pretty much settled that she would never "take". She had a top cage full of toys and lots of head rubs. Every once in a while I would try breeding her, if I was doing a round of breedings. By golly.. on her 2nd birthday she delivered a litter! And there was like 6 of them! Unfortunately, due to a first time mother syndrome, they were all DOA. The next time I would be prepared. A month ago, Violet was fat and plump. I brought her inside the house in a small solid bottom cavy cage. She birthed her litter inside my room, and there were 3 of them (1 DOA). Violet decided that being a spoiled pet was more important to her than rearing her own litter, so I fostered off the babies. I think part of the issue is that it took her 2 years to get bred, so she doesn't have the natural instinct that a 6-10 month old doe would have being bred the first time. Unfortunately, I lost one of the two to the heat in our horrible heat spell last week. Thankfully I do have one baby left, a really fat tort! (See photo above!)I think it's a little buck and he is totally adorable. He reminds me so much of Violet when she was still in the nestbox. Even though I have no clue what he will turn out like (besides his super big head!), he will probably live his life out here as well, since he is the only live Violet baby ever produced. Violet was bred again a couple weeks ago and we are hoping for another litter. Moral of the story? NEVER give up. This is something that I had to teach myself because I was definitely running out of patience. I think after the stress of trying to get her bred was over (since I decided whatever happens, happens) she decided to take.

No shows until the middle of September. We will be taking the brunt of the hot part of Summer off. I have a new show puppy coming at the end of the week, and I have some more dog events and school to take care of. Besides.. time to save money for Convention right? Only 3 months away!