Rabbit & Cavy News

Wow, I just finally scanned over our current Holland Lop pages in our website and realized that over summer I had intended to update the pictures of our own Holland Lop stock…..and never did.

I guess we’ll have to spend some time this week taking pictures!  Our foundation stock pages are pretty current, but I think I was going to try to take replacement pictures of a few of our foundation Hollands, to replace the current poor pictures.

Thinking back, when I decided to take new pics, I believe all our bunnies were in a horrid molt from this crazy Wisconsin weather this summer - you know……90 degrees one day and 50 degrees the next - just been a hard year to keep nice coats going!

Well I’ll post here when we get some nice new pics put in, several of our current rabbits are even missing from our website and I am sure they’d all want to be movie stars if given the chance..you know those Hollands!

Cathy

Today I finally installed our new Rabbit Care booklet on our website.  You can find it here:

http://www.lopsandcavies.com/pdf/Rabbit_Care_Breeding_Book.pdf

This is the same booklet we hand out to new pet rabbit owners and new breeders who buy our stock, and it covers basic rabbit care for both pet owners and breeders.

We cover basic cages requirements and best places to keep your rabbit, along with tips for keeping bunny comfortable in a variety of weather conditions.

We also cover feeding, with info on rabbit pellets, hay and supplements, plus we discuss the importance of water.

We touch on rabbit behavior and habits and how to keep your rabbit happy with toys, excercise and play.

Several pages cover rabbit health and illness, and how to check your rabbit for health problems.

For new rabbit breeders, we have information on basic rabbit breeding and kindling plus tips for making pedigrees, culling rabbits and tattooing.

Lastly we offer descriptions of rabbit club types, how to join and how to show your rabbit at both 4-H fairs and ARBA rabbit shows.

We hope this booklet is helpful to you - our other book was downloaded a lot, despite it not being well-optimized (and very slow-loading) so we hope this recent improvement will make this booklet easier to download for those rabbit owners who want to use it!

Have a happy Turkey Day! 

Cathy

Finally, I’ve taken the time to run acrobat distiller and optimize the currently super large file of the Rabbit Care Booklet located on our website.

Initially I made this booklet to hand out to all new rabbit breeders and rabbit owners that buy from us.  Our booklet contains a lot of basic rabbit care information, health and illness info, feeding and grooming tips, plus how-to’s for beginning rabbit breeders. 

Soon after I made this booklet, I decided to put it on our website so others could use it too. 

In my haste to get it installed in my website, I neglected to optimize it for use on the web, making this booklet a very slow downloading file for users, and I am sure, frustrating….

The new file will load much much faster for you, plus I’ve added some info and modified a bit too. 

I’ll be putting this new file into my website either late tonight or tomorrow morning, providing I don’t have some other crazy task come ahead of it.

The old large file was downloaded an aweful lot, so I am hoping the new optimized Rabbit Care handout will be even more useful!

Visit our website tomorrow to see our new file! 

Kelly still has a few quality French Lops for sale here in southern Wisconsin.  Since we didn’t go to the last few shows in our area, we didn’t have the chance to market these nice rabbits……

If you are looking for a nice show quality buck, Kelly has LaReau’s Fudge for sale.  At his last show he won his first leg by winning his 6/8 class, then winning BOSV against a lot of nice French Lops - he even beat out his brother, Talon, who has been sweeping his classes lately! 

Fudge is a solid agouti but does carry a dilute gene.  He’s got nice heavy bone and a wonderful body type to him.  He’s be sure to add some nice qualities to your current line!

To see Fudge or any of our other sale French Lops, please visit our website. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Kelly does have one French Lop for sale as a pet rabbit.  This male broken agouti (brown and white) is about 8 months old now, so he is just now considered an adult but has a lot more growing to do!

He will probably attain his final adult weight at right around 12-13 lbs.

He is a sweet bunny, with a funny personality - and he absolutely loves his morning banana slice!  He is ready to go to a new pet home so contact us by email ( cathy@lopsandcavies.com ) if you are interested in him.

He is not litter trained right now, but all our French Lops sold as pets have been easily and successfully litter trained by their new owners!

Kelly will only sell pet rabbits to good homes - you must be prepared to prove you live in a home where this rabbit can remain permanently as your pet, and we do ask that you provide us with information as to your experience or knowledge about pet rabbits. 

Owning a pet rabbit is a long term commitment - and they do require a fair amount of daily care in order to maintain their health.  We have a lot more pet rabbit care info on our website - please read through some of our pet rabbit articles to see if a pet rabbit is the right pet choice for you!

Cathy   LaReau Lops & Cavies

We decided not to go to De Witt, Iowa today for the River Bend Rabbit Club show.  I guess we just couldn’t get our act together yesterday and get everything ready.  We would have had to leave around 3:30 or 4:00 am today to get there early enough to get a spot inside the building and due to some unforseen circumstances yesterday - we just couldn’t finish all our chores in time.

Driving without enough sleep seems to be getting harder and harder for me.  When I was younger it seemed I could ‘party till the birds were singing’ and still function all the next day at work if I needed to.  Now….if I don’t get at least 5-6 hours of sleep, I become toast by 3 pm the next afternoon!

Coming home from this year’s WI State Convention proved to be one of those defining moments - having gone without much sleep that Friday night, then again Saturday night (we camped out of the van and my air mattress conveniently deflated at 3 am….) Sunday afternoon’s long drive home was almost treacherous.  I came very close to falling asleep while driving - what is scary is that it just creeps up on you without you being really aware of it - and all the sudden you ’snap’ awake and realize you can’t clearly remember driving for the past few seconds. 

So……I took this last warning seriously and now I am more inclined to skip a far-away rabbit show unless I can manage to get at least enough sleep so I can drive safely.  Yesterday was packed with so many errands and chores, I knew I couldn’t get everything done in time enough to get to sleep early, plus Kelly was invited to a large gaming party and wasn’t due to be home until 1 am Saturday night - so I knew Sunday would be a challenge for her too.

Oh well, I guess we’ll wait till February for the Elkhorn show - all our carriers and show equipment were already packed away for winter anyways.

Nice break for the bunnies too.

Good luck to you if you are going to this show - wish we were there too!

Cathy   LaReau Lops & Cavies

Kelly just came in and announced that she bred her nice agouti buck, Thunder, to her broken chinchilla Garrett doe, Star.  She also bred Talon to her other Garrett doe, Acorn.  these should be some very nice crosses - and we are very excited! 

Wow, I think we might have a lot of baby bunnies in December! 

Cathy  LaReau Lops & Cavies

Yesterday it was so mild, I was outside working on outdoor projects, all the while in just a T-shirt and lightweight pants: today the road is covered with icy sleet, it is now snowing and my van slid all over when I made a quick trip to the store….plus a bitter cold wind is just howling.  

And I like Wisconsin?

Hopefully this will clear out and melt before we decide to hike down to Iowa this Sunday for the rabbit show. 

At least it is Friday, I suppose I could just bundle up and watch TV all weekend if nothing else.   At least Badger Hockey is playing tonight-against Denver, I think.

Thankfully we don’t have a lot of baby bunnies to contend with.  Our lone kit is just about 2 weeks old now and has a nice fur coat started, plus his cage is in a warm part of the rabbit area.  Sure been an up and down year with the weather…..

Stay warm and enjoy the weekend!

Cathy

LaReau Lops & Cavies

Kelly and I are thinking of driving down to De Witt, Iowa for a rabbit show on Sunday - I think it was this same show last year at this time, that we couldn’t go to because of the weather, and it looks like we’ll be getting more of the same this year too.  My van is like a bobsled in the snow so I prefer not to risk life and limb just to travel for a rabbit show: I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the weather is like.

I can barely remember how to get to De Witt from here - I think it was a fairly straight-forward drive though.  The last time I went, the show was held in a pretty small building at the fairgrounds, so I am hoping to arrive early enough to get a spot inside!

Kelly is probably doing pretty well in the French Lop youth standings right now, although only one show has been reported to the Lop Rabbit Club of America as of yet.  She’s got some nice French Lops out of these last litters.

Hope to see you in De Witt on Sunday!  Let us know if you are going-

Cathy

LaReau Lops & Cavies

Last night I bred several of our does:  I bred three of my newer Polish does, two chocolates and one black.  I can’t tell you how excited I am about this breed.  Not only are they the perfect size for both our rabbitry and for me, but I find them to be quite funny little rabbits.  I am really looking forward to these litters and showing my own Polish rabbits in 2007!

We also bred some of Jody’s Holland does.  We bred Shorty to Candycane and the Narragon ’sweety’ doe, and bred Muggins to the doe that Tina Zabler gave us at the last show - this should be a nice cross, with Muggin’s exceptional crown, ears and bone! 

We also bred a doe to Kelly’s only Holland Lop, Zack - he’s not a showable color and he’s about a ounce over the top weight limit for Hollands, but he’s got just an awesome body, ears and head, plus an outstanding personality.  The doe we chose to breed to him produces tiny rabbits, so we are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping we don’t create a mess of strange Hollands with this cross.

Last month we went through all our Holland Lops.  We did need to step back and take a serious look at our Hollands and decide which ones can contribute exceptional qualities to our herd. 

It can be difficult to cull with the lines we have - almost all are very slow developers and many don’t mature until they are well into adulthood.  As an example - YRA Shorty;  we got him from Eric Henning when Shorty was just a little guy - probably 3-4 months old at the most.  Other than his obviously short body, he was quite an ugly Holland with major airplane ears and just a plain underdeveloped type to him.  Eric kept promising he’d turn out nice, “be patient” (there’s that evil word again - Patience, this word haunts many Holland breeders)

Well two years after we got Shorty, this rabbit placed 2nd senior broken buck at the 2005 ARBA Convention!  He deserved it too - he is an absolutely gorgeous Holland Lop, but he spent his earlier days as quite a strange looking creature. 

Well I am certain I’ll need another dose of patience for our youngsters and upcoming litters.

Back to work -

Cathy