Smokey attacks (Fiction)

It was a wet warm summer day, not everything in the neighborhood was well. There was a barn in a supposed to be deserted yard. Nobody except me knows what is in that barn. I will be telling you the story of Smokey Attacks!

One fabulous blue doe named Smokey kept working on opening the lock of her cage. She always said she would get out but in her mind she knew she probably wouldn't get out. Smokey kept trying, they had been locked up for a long time. When Smokey gave one last pull at the lock it came open. A black buck named Speedy started working on his lock. Smokey got a chocolate buck named Cocoa out of his cage. Then went to help her daughter Jasmine get out with her litter of six. At the same time Smokey got Jasmine out Speedy got out. They all were out pretty quickly. Copper a satin buck found straw that was warm and fresh. But nobody cared they where too hungry. A chocolate doe named Hershey said, "lets get the food cans open."

Smokey didn't like that Hershey was trying to tell everyone to get food but she didn't say anything. All the bunnies helped open the cans. When the can was opened Jasmine's babies started to hop to the can Jasmine skreeched, "behave your selves. " All the babies Skidded to a stop turned around and looked at there mother she said, "You should wait till I say it is okay." "I think you should have waited till your turn next time." "Okay mom, we will fulfill your wishes and wait for are turn" sighed the babies.

The food smelled so good that the babies started naghing there mom that they where so hungry and needed something to eat. Finally there mother said they could eat. She said "when your done ask grandmother Smokey to tell you stories. When they where done they listend to Smokey tell stories. Then they fell asleep in a bed of straw.

After two more days the rabbits ran out of water and it was pouring rain outside. Well when all looked lots Cocoa found a hole. He said he would go in and search. When he did he found it led right out of the barn. He told everybody but they didn't want to run away. So Cocoa went and found the hose and found a way to turn on the hose. Well he brought the hose next to the barn and the hole. He turned it on and got a nice refreshing gulp of water and went in and told everyone that there was water outside. So everyone went out and got a drink of water. when everyone had there fill he turned it off. Well three days have past and no people came.

When they thought they where abandoned the people walked in. All the bunnies hopped into there cages and the people went and fed and watered them. Smokey was releived to know they where not abandoned. And once again someone else was in charge.

Dog Daze of Summer

Well it is still getting hot during the afternoons and nobody feels like doing too much in the barn. We have several Juniors that need to be tatooed this week before we go to the show next weekend in Charlotte. We are going to put a few on the table including a couple out of Cashew. We are anxious to see how they do.
The rest we will be putting up for sale at the show. I am pretty proud of the girls for the way they culled out the herd. We ruthlessly critiqued the jrs and took a lot of them out and sent them to auction only keeping the best. Another great learning opportunity for the girls with thier bunnies.
The girls and I are really looking forward to spending a day at a show. It is always fun to see our bunny friends.
Sheri

Fair Time

Well it is great to have the fair over. The girls did excellent with thier bunnies. We go to the Ingham County Fair in Mason. They took Best and Best Opposite Dutch, Best Fur, Best poster exhibit (Allison), Best Satin fur, and Reserve Grand Champion meat pen (with Satins).

In the open show that follows the 4-H they kept up the good work with Best Dutch, Best Satin, Grand Champion meat pen, Best normal fur, Best Satin fur. Not to mention that Samantha is the reigning bread champion with a 1st place for her Sourdough bread 2 years in a row.

On the other hand Momma's Bunny didn't score so well. You see I own one rabbit in the whole barn and was so excited to show my little chocolate Polish doe. OOPS! The judge pointed out that my doe was actually a buck. HUH! Imagine that happening. I was pretty dissapointed with my DQ. That is ok though, there is always another show.

It seems the summer has flown by. Here we are in August and soon it will be back to school time. It is hard to believe. The weather has been hot the last few weeks and our rabbits are roasting. We need to work on more ventilation in the barn. We are going to cut big windows in the back of the shed this week. Of course we will cover them with heavy wire to keep the racoons out.

We have several nice juniors up for sale right now. We spent time in the barn sorting them out. Can 't wait for the next show to take some of them and see how they do on the table.

Well that is all for now,
Sheri

New litters a Success!

Well after having such a low conception rate in the bunny barn in early winter, we continued to breed several does at once thinking that we would have several miss. Hah, the joke is on us. We bred 4 does and all 4 had litters. Two weeks later the other 4 does that were bred also had litters. This should be a good thing, right. Well...... it is good but what about when they all need to be weaned. :) The other thing is we didn't have small litters this time. All but one litter is 6 bunnies or more. Any way you add them up, it is a lot of babies.
So what was different? Well we changed two things. We are running heat lamps in the back half of the barn and we also changed feed brands. Not sure which one had the most effect but either way we have bunnies. So who had babies? Glad you asked. As reported Jasmine was the first one. Then we had Issabel bred to Bubba, Domino bred to Cashew, Abbie bred to Caspian, and Smokey also bred to Bubba.
The second group was Olivia bred to Cocoa, Nellie bred to Bubba, and Banner bred to Caspian. It has been warm enough (above 0) so that the nest boxes were able to stay in the barn. And I am happy to report that Jasmine's babies have been in the barn for a week now and are doing super.
Oh yeah, and did I mention that we have a copper satin litter due any day? woohoo baby bunnies on the way. I will let everyone know when they come.

Sheri

Sooooo Cold

Well it has been extremely cold. We haven't had a very good winter for breeding but things are looking up. Most of our breedings earlier this winter were misses. We had one doe give birth but it was below zero that night and the babies froze. The last litter born were to Jasmine and Bubba. They are quite a pair. The babies were born during the day and were found shortly after birth. We felt we didn't have a choice so we brought the box into the house. We take them out twice a day to have momma feed them. This seems to be working out quite well. Hopefully the deepfreeze we are in will thaw before the next group of does get ready to kindle next Wednesday. We will keep you updated.

We are really excited about a couple of babies born about 10 weeks ago. They are out of Bellairs Bubba and Bergene's Alena. The doe is black and the buck is blue and we saved one of each, both does. Very nice babies! The girls can't wait to get these two on the show tables.

Bellairs Bubbles Bellairs Pixley

christmas in the bunny barn

On christmas day we had to go and feed are bunnys. When Allison and Samantha went to the barn they walked in and found three jumps and a A-frame for are agility there was a card on the A-frame that said from: Speedy and cocoa star are agility bunnys. The other present was carrots in the stocking we hang up in the barn.s

Last show of 2007

What a great show we had last weekend in E. Lansing. There were over 100 entries in the youth Dutch show. We entered a few more than normal because it was only a single show. Unfortunately a lot of our animals are molting. The chocolates seem to always be in the middle of a molt when it is showtime. Cashew our blue buck with multiple wins was left behind on show morning because of his coat. You just brush your hand over him and knew he should just stay home. I am afraid that if we took him we would of had to vaccuum the van afterward :) So off we went. We got there plenty early but couldn't believe how full the building was. It was hard to find a spot to unload the rabbits.
When all was said and done we had Best of Variety Blue and Best opposite Variety Blue and Chocolate. It was a fun show and it was great to see all of our friends again that we have made this year. I am sad that there are no shows for a few months.
Before we left we were able to sell Bellairs George. A real nice blue buck, and full brother to Bubba. Mike was excited to have an empty carrier spot until he realized that we were picking up a black doe. Oh well, you know how hard it is to say no.
We would like to take time to say thank you to all of the rabbit breeders that have helped us out this year. It has been great getting to know everyone and learning more about showing.
Thanks from Mike, Sheri, Allison, and Samantha Bellairs