Sable German Angoras

As far as I know I'm the only one in the country working on a sable german angora.  Lots of folks love the fawn/tort color and they are working on those.  I however love the color of a rich sable.  For years I've had siamese cats and love the rich sepia brown of their coats.  The most striking rabbit I ever saw was a sable with white boots, much like my snow shoe siamese.  So far I've not had a booted rabbit, but I'm am now on SWF generation 2 of some really nice sable germans.  I've been working on coat texture and color first.  My best buck has a white toe nail, but I think I can breed that out over time.  I don't breed often anymore.  My real day job takes up too much of my time to have a large rabbit herd so I try to keep it down to around 20 animals.  Here are pics of gen 1 of the sables.  I now have gen 2 in the nest box.  The nice thing about sables is that color is easy.  Because the sable gene in on the "c" locus you can breed sable "c chl" to a REW "cc" and you always get just REW and sable.  The babies in the nest I have two REW and two sables.  One of each sex in each color.  The father is my sable buck above and the mother is my 500 gram producing pure german doe.  These babies are now 99% pure german and should have very heavy production and excellent texture.  Not sure yet about toe nails.

First two lambs!

So far we have two new lambs.  Calico and Dolly had their lambs this week.  Calico on the 15th, a moorit ewe, just what I asked for.  Dolly our BFL/Shetland ewe had her lamb this morning, a black ewe lamb.  We have two shetlands left to go Clara and Brocade.  Wonder if I can get lucky and get more ewes?

Shearing

I did not take the time to take pics this weekend. But I did manage to get 6 of my sheep sheared. Yunan rooed so I had previously harvested her fleece and it is already washed and partially carded. The others I did across two days. After taking off the fleeces I can tell I have at least 3 ewes who are bred. UTS Brocade and UTS Clara are both registered shetlands and are bred to UTS Gunpowder a very nice ram that I leased from Theresa in December. Also obviously bred is my shetland/BFL mule ewe Dolly. I really like Dolly's fleece so I'm hoping she has a least one ewe lamb that I can keep. Next weekend I need to catch up on the bunny shearing!

The Flock

Friday was the day that I went to select my new flock of fiber girls. I got up early and drove to Under the Son Farm where Theresa helped me pick out a nice little group of girls. I've been buying wonderful shetland fleeces from her for several years so when I decided it was time for sheep I knew right where to go. She was extremely helpful, pointing out the positive and negatives of every girl. Finally I decided on a flock of 6 ewes who loaded into the trailer and came home with me. First and the oldest is Clara, a 5 year old fawn/mioget ewe. Then there is Yunan who is a yearling fawn katmoget ewe. Then there are 3 shetland ewe lambs a black (Calico), a shaela (Orchids) and a grey katmoget (Brocade). The sixth is a bfl/shetland white ewe lamb. I'm also getting a pure cormo white whether later this fall from my friend Jane. That should give me a wide aray of colors and some very soft silky fleeces to blend with my angora bunny. I'm really enjoying my small flock, Clara is very tame and all the lambs follow her around. That sure comes in handy when I want to bring the flock into the fold in the barn at night. Last night I went out and yelled for Clara and the whole group came a running. Stay tuned as I continue my adventure into shepherding

Changes

Life moves on, after a lot of thought I have found new homes for both of my arab horses. I've had them for many years and raised them on the farm, but as much as I loved them it was getting more apparent that I would not be riding them. My arm has continued to give me trouble since my fall 6 years ago (hard to believe it has been that long). It gives me pain and numbness if something yanks on it and as good as they both were we would have that situation every once in a while with a critter that is a flight animal and weighs 1,000 lbs. I am happy with my decision and they have both went to very good homes where they will be ridden and have excellent care.
The next question was what to do with the grass that grows on my 5 acres. Since I've been in the fiber business for 6 years now the obvious choice was a small spinner's flock of sheep. Hopefully that dream will start to materialize next month. I've got a little bit of fencing to do and then a bit of barn work, but not too much. I'll update the blog with pictures as things happen.

Keeping Warm

Some folks at work were wondering how I keep the bunnies warm in winter when their warm wool coats are sheared. They have to be shorn every 90 days or the coat gets too long for use and it also causes the rabbit to have issues. So I still follow the schedule and shear them, but then they get to live in a heated room in the barn for a while. I spent a lot of time this fall and the room stays toasty warm thanks to a small oil filled heater and 2 inch foam insulation on the walls and ceiling. They also get to wear their little fleece coats.

Satin Angoras For Sale

I've made my selections from this spring's litters. I have the following for sale at this time.

AE Sugar - 1 1/2 year old Choc Agouti Satin Doe 3/10/09 had a litter this spring and I'm keeping her daughter so she is for sale. She has 2 legs. $60

These juniors are all 87% Satin and 13% German, the next gerneration the German will be off the pedigree. These rabbits all have very nice wool. They are priced at $40 and I'll give a discount if you purchase more than one.

Litter 1 AE Hershey / May's Eclipse 5/8/10
SWF Galaxy - Tort buck
SWF Cosmos - Black doe

Litter 2 May's Diana / AE Mac 5/13/10
SWF Macgregor - Copper buck
SWF Macanna - Choc Agouti doe
SWF Macduff - Black buck

I also have 1 German 40%/French 60% cross tort buck for sale, born 3/17/10 $25 he is a bit small, would make an excellent wooler, priced accordingly.