Getting cleaned up for winter

Here we are coming up on another winter. Can't believe that tomorrow is November. The snow will be flying before long. We are closing up the barn, hanging plastic and putting in the heat lamps. We have several does bred and due in the next few weeks including blue Dutch and French/German angoras.

On a side note, we have started using paper bedding in our rabbit trays as well as in our cavy cages. I can't believe the difference it is. We have tried pine shavings and wood pellets but the paper shavings are much better. They are made from shredded phone books and then blown through a fan to eliminate dust.

New Focus

Well after much discussion we have decided to adjust our focus. We are scaling the Dutch back to 2 varieties to include Blue and Gray. Samantha's main focus has become raising her silver fox rabbits. Alli and I are in love with the wool given by the German and French angoras that we raise. So... we are focusing more on a fiber farm since we are also raising Shetland Sheep and an Angora Goat.
Dutch are in no way taking a backseat to the others but we will be selling the chocolate Dutch to narrow the focus a bit.

We are very excited that we added 3 new rabbits to our barn this weekend. Two blue Dutch does (Taylor's Azure and Taylor's Blue Bell) and a blue French Angora buck. The Dutch does will be added to our breeding program right away. They are both very nice typed animals. The French Angora is a baby and it will be some time before we can harvest that luxurious blue wool.

On a side note, Alli washed her Shetland fleece from her ewe named Lily. It is really gorgeous. It has several colors in it. She is waiting impatiently for it to dry so that she can spin it with some angora mixed into it.

Well that is all from the homefront for today. We will try to add updates on a more frequent schedule from here on. Thanks for reading.
Sheri

Etsy Store

Well we are finally up and running. WE just opened our Etsy store. Alli will be busy listing things as she has time in the next couple days. We plan to not only have angora fiber but also other crafts including candles and tye dye shirts. Check us out here http://www.etsy.com/shop/allisbunnystuff?ref=si_shop

This is a video made this winter at a press conference for the Great Lakes Fair. My girls were featured in it. So proud!

Spring

Here we are and it is Spring finally. Although it doesn't seem like it today with the cold rain. It has been some time since we have been to a rabbit show. We are all looking forward to our next show. We miss our friends that we see there. We finally have some juniors to show. Alli will be bringing her broken blue satin doe and blue satin buck to the next show. Sammy has a really nice silver fox doe to show as well. Thanks to Henry Carpenter Sammy also has 4 chocolate Dutch thanks to show.

My little entrepreneurs are trying their hand at selling under the name of Bellairs Critters and More in the new Stockbridge Open Air Market. Samantha is in charge of marketing her homegrown eggs and her composting worms. Alli brings along her Angora wool, handspun angora yarn and knitted and crocheted craft items. Here is a picture of our first week. Alli made a lot of improvements since our first week but we haven't taken an updated photo.

I contribute the Crocheted Market Bags to the booth. They are crocheted using yarn made from the Bellairs Fiber Farm sheep. They are a natural color gray and very pretty with a lacy pattern. They sell for $20 unlined and $25 lined.

Stop by and see us at the market or give us a call and set up an appt to come to the house.

Long wait

Hey everybody that reads this blog. We have not been keeping up with this blog so I thought I would finely start posting on this again. Well to fill you in we are raising Blue, Chocolate, and Gray Dutch this is our main breed. We also have Blue and Broken Blue Satins. We have Black Silver Fox, a few diffrent colors in the Angoras, We are raiseing Giant/Germans and English/Germans. The last breed is Giant Chinchillas. I think that fills up what breeds we are currently raising. We also have Cavies they are Americans, Peruvians, and a couple Abbysinians. We will try to post more. So keep watching the blog. We always like your comments please leave some.