true bleu's

[polly]

I figured I would start a blog for my beverens as they really deserve to have their own space especially now we have a breeding pair. Actually hopefully Lady marmalade is actually due a litter today (though they tend to go late) so I have my fingers crossed that we may get babies she has been very busy building her nest since tuesday

Lady Marmalade

Sully

it hard to believe Sully is 9 months old already he is a total different character from Lady Marmalade who is very calm and easy going Sully is a total menace and into everything!! However he is very loving and enjoys getting cuddles inbetween his mad turns lol

 

[TinysMom]

Are you holding Sully or Lady Marmalade? Whoever it is - they're HUGE.

Now I need to get pics of someone holding Jenny for a comparison....

I am so glad you started this blog...

 

[polly]

I am holding Sully Peg, lady marmalade is a lot more narrow in head and finer boned. (the does always are) I will get better pictures of her once she has had her litter!!

Sully now weighs in at around 8 lbs and thats classed as to small!!! Lady Marmalade is a month younger than Sully but she was in pretty bad condition so itwill take a while to get her up to her correct weight

ps Peg I am 5ft 2" just so u have an idea of his size comapred to me lol

 

[SOOOSKA]

OMG, Lady Marmalade and Sully are BEAUTIFUL. Boy if I lived near you I'd be begging you for one of their babies.

Susan

 

[paul2641]

There so cute, Where did you get the Lady Marmalade, Why was she in bad condition?

 

[missyscove]

They're beautiful!

 

[TinysMom]

Two questions...

Can you post Sully's baby pictures in here (when you first got him) - for folks who are new to your breeding program w/ him...

and...

Did you have to rework your rabbitry cages when you made the decision to do this? I remember all of your customizing of the rabbitry- it was so impressive.....so I'm wondering how much work you had to go to in order to have big enough cages....

 

[polly]

paul2641 wrote:

There so cute, Where did you get the Lady Marmalade, Why was she in bad condition?

Hey Paul Lady Marmalade came from a breeder down in England and she was brought up to my friend Kenny who is the only other person in Scotland whois breeding beverens and is who I got Sully from. He had Lady Marmalade for for around 3 weeks before I got her and he actually helped her put on a bit of weight and mated her to Sully's dad for me.

We think the reason she was in such bad condition is because Beverens have a major problem with coccidosis and she was feeding her does on medicated pellets (which is like you getting an antibiotic every day of your life even when you aren't ill) and also that she wasn't feedign them enough. Beverens get 4 ounces of pelleted feed per day as well as lots of hay and vegetables. SO she is quite underweight however we have treated her for coccidosis and she will get retreated again we also have to keep an antibiotic on hand in case she does get ill because she will have a weak immune system because of the medicated pellets she was on. Neither myself or Kenny feed or believe in feeding the medicated pellets we are instead trying to wean them through it and so their immune sytems get a chance to strengthen up.

I hope that makes sense to you. SOmetimes breeding rabbits is very hard. I think what I will try to do is post a bit of the beverens history for anyone hwo is interested as they truly are a heritage breed in teh UK

 

[Flashy]

i just found this i love these pics and cant wait for the fday i have my own polly bev

any sign of babies yet?

 

[polly]

TinysMom wrote:

Two questions...

Can you post Sully's baby pictures in here (when you first got him) - for folks who are new to your breeding program w/ him...

and...

Did you have to rework your rabbitry cages when you made the decision to do this? I remember all of your customizing of the rabbitry- it was so impressive.....so I'm wondering how much work you had to go to in order to have big enough cages....

Hey Peg, I can post you some pics of Sully but he was already5 months when I got him so length wise he hasnt grown to much but he has filled out now He is now hitting 10 months. However Lady Marmalade has given us a litter of 4 this morning so I will get soem pictures of them growing up and will show u a comparison to my baby nethies which are nearly a week old (will do them later for you)



Here is him when he was around 7 months old (bruce is around 5ft 8")

and when he was 5 months when we had just got him

as for the rabbitry our first shed was made with dividers in the hutches so we could have 15 hutches or if we wanted we could have 3 massive hutches lol. The beverens have to have a 5 ft hutch for the boys that is 18" high and brood does are in 6ft hutches. Just now they have 2 hutches joined together which is around 5 ft long but not quite high enough.

Our plans are to get a 3rd shed which will be joined onto the oldest shed so our sheds lie in an L shape and the 3rd one will be equipped more for the beverens but I would guess Bruce will make them dividable incase the nethies encroach onto that space!! I will probably post in teh rabbitry as it gets done like i did with shed 2.

In this country beverens are usually kept outside because of the fact they are fur rabbits and you want to keep their coats nice and thick however with having a super electrician husband he will be making them air conditioned as you have to watch for their fur colour fading in the sun so being in a shed is probably better.

I thnk we are also lucky because our weather is colder than england so their coats are much nicer up here

 

[polly]

Flashy wrote:

i just found this i love these pics and cant wait for the fday i have my own polly bev

any sign of babies yet?

4 babies this morning Trace they are huuuuuge lol will try and get soem pics comapred to the baby nethies so you can see.

ANd you better believe you will have a polly bev at some point Trace

 

[paul2641]

polly wrote:

paul2641 wrote:

There so cute, Where did you get the Lady Marmalade, Why was she in bad condition?

Hey Paul Lady Marmalade came from a breeder down in England and she was brought up to my friend Kenny who is the only other person in Scotland whois breeding beverens and is who I got Sully from. He had Lady Marmalade for for around 3 weeks before I got her and he actually helped her put on a bit of weight and mated her to Sully's dad for me.

We think the reason she was in such bad condition is because Beverens have a major problem with coccidosis and she was feeding her does on medicated pellets (which is like you getting an antibiotic every day of your life even when you aren't ill) and also that she wasn't feedign them enough. Beverens get 4 ounces of pelleted feed per day as well as lots of hay and vegetables. SO she is quite underweight however we have treated her for coccidosis and she will get retreated again we also have to keep an antibiotic on hand in case she does get ill because she will have a weak immune system because of the medicated pellets she was on. Neither myself or Kenny feed or believe in feeding the medicated pellets we are instead trying to wean them through it and so their immune sytems get a chance to strengthen up.

I hope that makes sense to you. SOmetimes breeding rabbits is very hard. I think what I will try to do is post a bit of the beverens history for anyone hwo is interested as they truly are a heritage breed in teh UK

I remember you mentioning Kenny before. What exactly is coccidosis? And was this medicated pellet used to fight coccidosis? Would you class the breeder who lady marmalade came from a good breeder?Will you keep some babies from this litter of baby beverens for your breeding programm?

 

[paul2641]

paul2641 wrote:

polly wrote:

paul2641 wrote:

There so cute, Where did you get the Lady Marmalade, Why was she in bad condition?

Hey Paul Lady Marmalade came from a breeder down in England and she was brought up to my friend Kenny who is the only other person in Scotland whois breeding beverens and is who I got Sully from. He had Lady Marmalade for for around 3 weeks before I got her and he actually helped her put on a bit of weight and mated her to Sully's dad for me.

We think the reason she was in such bad condition is because Beverens have a major problem with coccidosis and she was feeding her does on medicated pellets (which is like you getting an antibiotic every day of your life even when you aren't ill) and also that she wasn't feedign them enough. Beverens get 4 ounces of pelleted feed per day as well as lots of hay and vegetables. SO she is quite underweight however we have treated her for coccidosis and she will get retreated again we also have to keep an antibiotic on hand in case she does get ill because she will have a weak immune system because of the medicated pellets she was on. Neither myself or Kenny feed or believe in feeding the medicated pellets we are instead trying to wean them through it and so their immune sytems get a chance to strengthen up.

I hope that makes sense to you. SOmetimes breeding rabbits is very hard. I think what I will try to do is post a bit of the beverens history for anyone hwo is interested as they truly are a heritage breed in teh UK

I remember you mentioning Kenny before. What exactly is coccidosis? And was this medicated pellet used to fight coccidosis? Would you class the breeder who lady marmalade came from a good breeder?Will you keep some babies from this litter of baby beverens for your breeding program?

Oh cool you had the kits this morning how cool!!inkelepht:

 

[polly]

Paul, coccidosis is a digestive problem it can take a few different forms bloat is one muccoid enteritis is another there are some articles in the library here that explain them pretty well I wouldnt really comment on the breeder as I don't know her but I know Kenny wasnt happy with how the does came to him and especially after the one he got already pregnant died a few days after having her litter which is why we have to keep a close eye on Lady Marmalade!! The medicated pellet basically stops them from showing the symptoms but when you take them off it their immune system is really poor so you risk losing them. Ideally you should not have rabbits on medicated pellets at all! You want your rabbits to thrive and be healthy. If however say Lady Marmalade got cocci we would treat her and if she got through ti and survived then her immune system should be stronger as it should help give a natural immunity.

The reason Beverens have problems is because there are so few blood lines in the UK I think we now run off 3 or 4 bleu blood lines so inbreeding has not helped. unfortunately because small breeds came in such as nethies and mini lops and peopel preferred them so lots of people stopped breeding beverens (as well as many other beautiful breeds) which then left very limited stock for the people who did keep breeding them to work with.

I will try and do their history later which explains them pretty well but basically the beveren is teh only blue rabbit that is such a pale colour. and because of that we cant breed them through other rabbits because it will damage their colour!!

 

[tonyshuman]

Such big beauties! I never would have guessed at their size until I saw the pics of them with you guys!

 

[polly]

4 baby beverens born today sunday 22/3/09 3 good sized and 1 is a bit runty

the white one is a 5 day old nethie for comparison

size comparison to my hand

 

[polly]

Lady Marmalade saw grass for the first time today and she was so funny she kept coming up and when I sit down she can stretch and give me kisses. I have added a couple of JB pics so you can see the difference in size!

size comparison comapred to a normal sized football

 

[polly]

baby Bevs now 1 week old and boy have they grown lol!! have used the same white nethie who is a week older for comparison

 

[polly]

Well Lady Marmalade enjoyed the garden sooo much she now goes on nightly grass eating jaunts lol the other night I had to chase her round the garden for 10 mins before I could persuade her that her tea was out!!!

The babies are getting big and have turned into proper bunnies now 2 weeks and 1 day old the smallest one is a doe other 3 are bucks one seems very huge keeping fingers crossed more now that they dont get ill!

 

[naturestee]

Ooooh! I need to snuggle them! And then snuggle their parents! I like big bunnies. Lady Marmalade looks so happy on the grass. She must be having a great time with you.