Babies, babies, and more babies!

Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

wendymac

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2011
Messages
2,122
Reaction score
162
Location
McVeytown, Pennsylvania, USA
Twila had her litter this morning. I started doing a head count, and had to rub my eyes. Her first litter, she had 5. One died at birth, the other one we had to put down because it had no use of its back legs.

Anyway, she had TEN babies this time. 10! That gives Kitty 21 BABY Cals. She only needed 6 really nice ones for her 2 meat pen entries. What in the world are we going to do with all those babies? LOL

All joking aside, I sent an e-mail to Kit's 4-H leader. If any of the 4-H kids didn't get their does pregnant in time, or didn't end up finding any to breed (there are a lot of first year members this year), I can sell or lend them some.
 
That's awesome! My daughter's two Cal does had 7 each when she was in FFA. We thought that was plenty to choose from, but we lost one early on and one was born gray and never completely turned white in time for the show. Out of the twelve remaining we were able to come up with 3 who were very close in size and weight. She got Reserve Grand Champion with them. I won't mention what happened to the ones we didn't need; however, we did give away one and kept two for her to show in Youth ARBA shows. When those two turned senior we sold them as breeding stock.
 
That's fabulous that she got Reserve Champ!! They shouldn't have deducted any points for the nest box chill coloring. We're only keeping 1 or 2 from each litter. We'll be selling off 2 of the does (who aren't pedigreed). Luckily she's not just raising them for meat pens every year, but to show. I'm just not sure where we're going to put 21 babies at weaning time. Hubby better start building something, that's all I have to say about that. LOL

Twila's babies we'll keep a few of, and then sell the rest. The rest of the unpedigreed babies will probably end up at the local livestock market, if they don't sell at the fair.

When we bred all three, we figured we'd get 4 or 5 from each of them. We had NO idea we'd get such large litters from Twila (who only had 5 last time) and Ruby (who never had a litter before). At no point did we imagine 21 babies at once. Plus Adeline's 8. And Rosa's upcoming litter...
 
you'll be drowning in babies, lol! I agree, you'll need some cages when you need to split them up. Good meat pen rabbits don't always make for very good show rabbits as they age. The two we kept were our backups for the winning meat pen. They were both very nice and the judges loved them as juniors and 6-8's, but when they turned senior they're shoulders were too long to be competitive. We knew they would make good breeding stock so one went to another FFA kid doing rabbits and one went back to the breeder we got the parents from.

We really regret not doing a rabbit project before my daughter's senior year. You can make good college money when you place well.
 
Lucky You :) I bred 3 does and ended up with ONE baby! lol 2 didnt take and my biggest brood doe who has had lots of big litters gave me ONE. Hoping for better luck next round!
 
Sorry that you one ended up with 1 baby. :( It must have been something in the air here, because we sure lucked out. At least I think it's luck...until they're weaned and eating me out of house and home. LOL Good luck with the next round!
 
That's a good question! We stay in touch with the breeder who sold us the Cals. She's been in the business for going on 40 years and has a very good reputation among the 4-H and FFA crowd. The kids who use stock from herplace high in meat penatcounty fairs and shows. I'll ask her and let you know.
 
Thanks! I can't wait to hear the answer. I just figured the nicer the stock (for shows), the better the meat pens will be. I might have figured wrong. haha
 
Yes, good show stock can make good meat pen rabbits. I know she has show stock but I also know she has good stock from meat pens. The advantage, I think, is that it keeps the cost down, and you don't need to mess with pedigrees (which aren't needed for a meat pen anyway). Many kids only show their meat pen rabbits for a limited time anyway. My daughter keeping two to show at ARBA shows as they grow is, I think, not the norm.
 
That makes sense. Two of Kit's does aren't pedigreed (which is why I'm selling them at the Fair) because they were only used for the person we got them from to get meat pens.

We did find the youth showing Cals is pretty low. Sometimes it's so low that a win doesn't mean a leg. She had talked about getting siamese Mini Satins, too. And that's only because there's usually quite a few in those classes in youth.

We were supposed to trade rabbits...she picked a Flop from my litter and I picked one from her Cal litter. But since there were only 3, I waited. Now that there's 21, I think I can find a good one in there. LOL Then she'll show her Cals in open (along with her French) and the Mini Satins in youth.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top