Spinning Milkweed

Well call me crazy but I like to work with different fibers. Samantha and I harvested the seed pods from the milk weed plants at a friends house. We brought home a full bucket full. Soon after we found out that Sam is allergic to milk weed. So the job of plucking the seeds from the fluff became mine alone. As the pods were still green it was easier to pull the seeds off then put the wet fluff into plastic freezer bags. Well this took several days to finish and I found that the first bag became moldy due to the bag getting closed and sealed. The rest however I left open and continued to rotate the fiber in the bag daily to get it to dry. Last night I took the drum carder outside and alternately carded wool and milkweed into bats. It is too short and too slippery to spin by itself. Tonight I hope to find time to spin some of the milkweed and wool. My plan is to dye it. I have read that the milkweed doesn't take the dye so it leaves shiny white streaks in the yarn. I will post photos when I get some yarn made. Sheri

3rd Generation Fiber farm

Alli, Samantha and I have been working on a fiber business for about a year now. We started by working with Angora rabbits. Angora is soft and beautiful. Both girls have learned to spin and make beautiful yarn. This summer Alli added an angora goat and a pair of Shetland Sheep to our fiber animals. This fall we took in Natalie's Romney sheep (Violet) until she can get her own place to keep her and then just last week we took in an angora goat wether (Darby) from Tina Cameron.

A phone call to Grandma Bellairs a couple months ago brought on the name change from Bellairs Rabbitry to Bellairs Fiber Farm and Rabbitry. The Bellairs have had a fiber farm for years but Grandma could no longer keep the business going after her stroke. She was excited when she found out that the girls wanted to take the name and put it together with their fiber endeavors. The girls have a lot to learn from Grandma and are eager to keep the fiber business going.

With the fiber from the animals we are making lots of beautiful items. The yarns are gorgeous, warm and soft. We have wool blends with angora, alpaca and mohair. Our Etsy store is up and running and doing good business. Another product we are unveiling is goats milk soap. This is a wonderful homemade blend that is all natural and so good for your skin. Check out our website and Etsy store for our products.

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.

MSRBA Fall show

The last show of the year is now over. It was wonderful to spend time with bunny friends. The girls had a good show. Saturday results (best I can remember) best variety Gray Dutch, Best opposite Variety Blue Dutch, Best Variety Broken Satin, and Best opposite Variety Broken Satin. Alli showed her Cavies Saturday as well and had good results and a lot of fun. We went back Sunday for the third show where Allison won Best Opposite Breed with her Satin doe and Sammy won Best and Best Opposite with her Silver Foxes. We also won Best opposite variety Gray Dutch and Best and best opposite variety blue.

We sold a few Dutch and acquired a new breed - Giant Chinchilla. Giant Chin's are a rare breed and we are excited to start raising them.

We have several rabbits expecting including 2 angoras. One is a purebred German angora and one is a german/english hybrid. We are really looking forward to seeing the new babies.

Fair Results

Well the fair is over for another year! We had a great week and the girls had a lot of fun. Alli is a 4-H ambassador this year so she was very busy during the fair. Not only did she have her own shows to do but she was assisting all over the fair grounds during the week.

So the final results are:

• Alli - Best in Show Pocket Pets (Cavy Project)
• Alli - Honors on her Angora wool
• Alli - Honors on her tye dye shirt
• Alli - Honors "Lead with Fiber"
• Sammy - 1st place Jr. Showmanship Poultry
• Sammy - Reserve Grand Champion Bantam Pair
• Sammy - 1st Place Jr. Showmanship Rabbits
• Sammy - Best and Best Opposite Breed Silver Fox
• Alli- Best of Breed Dutch and Best 4 Class
• Alli- Best of Breed Giant Angora and Best Opposite 6 Class
• Alli - 6th place Sr. Showmanship

Nice job girls! It was a lot of hard work but it was worth it.

Barn is full

Well here we are almost to June and our barn is bursting with new babies. We finally have a litter of Harliquin Dutch. Their momma didn't care for them so we fostered them with another Dutch doe that had a single kit. They are almost 2 weeks old now. They are all marked well with Dutch markings and with nice color.

The other litter we are excited about is a english/german angora hybrid litter. They are vienna marked, carrying the blue eyed white gene. They are chocolates with one chocolate chinchilla. The chocolate chin has the markings of a Dutch. They are all very pretty. We will get pictures of both litters soon.

Ann Arbor Rabbit Breeders

Today was our Ann Arbor Rabbit breeders meeting. It was fun to see everyone again. We put the final plans in place for the September show. This years show is back in Saline, yeah! Alli is taking pictures for the youth trophies and showing her buns. It will be a good time. The meeting was at Lone Star steak house. Ohhh my tummy............. we all ate too much and came home sleepy but content. Happy to support our local rabbit club.

Sheri

Sad Day

This morning we found a whole litter of Harli Dutch that died. They were still newborns and not sure what happened. This is a new momma and she just didn't seem to take care of them. I am sorry for all that are waiting on the harli's we have a second doe bred and will rebreed this doe too. Hopefully the next litter will come through ok.

Sheri

2009 Dutch club awards

The girls were recognized for top sweepstakes awards for 2009 from the Michigan Dutch Rabbit Club. They had top points in Blue, Chocolate and Gray. They also won Rabbit of the year with M&M's Twizzler their gray SR. Doe.

This prompted them to come home and breed several does and they can't wait to have some new juniors to show.

New Bunnies

New Polish babies were born in our barn yesterday. Very excited when the broken blue doe had 4 and the broken chocolate doe has 4 with a broken in the litter. We have been waiting quite a while for the blue's to come.

We have a lot of litters expected here shortly, Dutch blues, chocolates and grays. I will get more pictures up asap.

Sheri

Dutch news

I have been elected as one of the directors of the Michigan Dutch Club. I am excited to be helping out with the running and decision making of the club. I figured this way I could stay up with the news and know what is going on. Being that the girls show in youth and since my surgery we haven't been hanging out on the open side of the show too much. I feel that we were kind of in the dark as far as the club.

Our barn is pretty well full since I have allowed Alli to do the Angoras. We have many to sell this spring and will be having more Dutch real soon. We have a few does due.

Sheri

Back to the Barn

Whew, I finally got a chance to go out to the barn. It felt wonderful to spend time looking through all the babies and sorting them. I couldn't stay out there too long as I can't keep my foot down. With Allison's help I was able to sort out or at least look over several litters. From Dutch to Polish and back to Dutch. It was wonderful and very exciting to run my hand over them. We have some very promising looking younguns coming up. We are looking forward to the December 5 show in E. Lansing. We will have a couple juniors that will be ready to go along. Hope to see you there.
Sheri

Beautiful Fall day

Today is a beautiful fall day with lots of sun and warm temperatures. As I am healing from foot surgery, I am unable to enjoy the weather other than through the window. However, it enabled Mike to get out and ride the motorcycle and that makes a happy husband.

So whats new in the bunny barn? Believe it or not, we have added angoras to our list of breeds. I have a spinning wheel and with Allison expressing interest in spinning and the angora rabbits we decided to give it a try. We are up to 10 angora rabbits but 2 are still up for sale. We don't plan to do a lot of breeding of these fuzzy critters and our main focus remains on the Dutch.

Dutch babies are popping out of the boxes. We have a couple of awesome looking grey babies, very cute chocolates and some wonderful blues. These little guys won't be ready to show until next year but we have high hopes that there are some winners in the bunch.

I want to add that Audra purchased 2 Blue Dutch Jr.s from us in the early Spring. She had a great time exhibiting her new Dutch rabbits this summer at several shows. Froot Loop and Glory did very well, winning every time she took them out. Congratulations on your wonderful summer!

Looking forward to the December show in E. Lansing. Join us there!

Show last weekend

Last weekend we attended the show in Ionia. It felt great to go to a show after not having any ARBA shows since spring. The girls won Best of Breed with thier Gray Sr. Buck named Wayne. We also took some best varieties. Had a great time and glad we went.

We were able to bring home some new rabbits. We added a broken blue Polish buck and a solid blue Polish doe. Allison also added several Angora rabbits to our barn. They are very nice bunnies. The broken black Angora came complete with 8 newborn babies. Wow a lot of new bunnies all at once.

Sheri

Full Moon (Fiction)

In the bunny barn on the night of the full moon strange things happen. Smokey and Jasmine are gone the only one of her line is Jasper.

Kelcie a little baby. Jaspers little girl. She is such a beutiful baby. So we start to show her.

When we went out to the bunny barn on the night of the full moon. There was a lot of racket coming from the barn. It was poring rain so we where drenched. Well when we had to pull Kelcie's water dish up to the front. the rabbit went to the back of the cage she just sat there and glared at us. That is somthing that she never has done. Well we knew her blood had smokey in it. So we were a little more careful. We weren't carefull enough. She started to growl and spit at us. Before we had the dish down she had me. You could hear the skin rip and feel muscle come off bone. I screamed bloody murder. She would not come off. My mom and dad came running out of the house. They where wondering what had happened. Well my dad grabbed the dangling bunny and my mom pried her off of my arm they put her in her cage. They ran me to the hospital. I had to have stiches! By now I am to tired to care.

Well know we are very careful when taking care of the bunnies. Kelcie grew to be a beutiful doe and raised several litters but never attacked again. We now no that Smokey's blood runs threw the veins of her children and there children. It only comes out on the night of the full moon.