There are not a lot of satins up this way either. I think there is a breeder over in Helena possibly. I have Charlie the broken and Blue..but no satin buck yet. Where are you located?
Western NC. By Helena do you mean in Montana or North Carolina?
We sold our property a long time ago in NC.I'm not really familiar with the state. My daughter had NC and Tenn on her list.
Are your New Zealand reds pedigreed? Light belly or darker red? American Blues... so pretty! Palominos are lovely as well. Just so many choices! I was looking at Palominos and the cinnamons. But my numbers are already high.
Your reds sound beautiful. We are looking for pedigreed darker red. I know there are some up in Michigan. I might make a run up there in August (blueberry picking season lol) if I can get a trio or pair. Say hi to my favorite cousin, go rock hounding, buy a gallon of maple syrup at the farmer's market ..a mini vacation . It's a 2 day drive .My New Zealand red trio has one pedigreed doe, the other doe and the buck are not, but they are from the same rabbitry and are all unrelated. I got them from the second party owner. They all look pretty nice. The does are the darker red and the buck has the lighter belly. At some point I might replace him but right now he is getting the job done and the kits look good. The doe who just recently had kits had two REW, two darker red, two lighter red.
I have a line on a different American Blue buck that should be a better quality than the one I have. My doe has been a great first time mother. They were the only rabbits I was able to find locally and are colony raised, so I wanted outside blood that isn't related to my doe or her kits.
The crosses are gorgeous and I bought them to breed them, so haven't eaten any yet. The blues I've eaten have been meaty so I'm happy to continue with them.
My rabbitry is a converted dog run, 16' x 5' built up against the garage side of the house, so that we can go out the man door right into it. We have a lot of predators and I wanted my elderly dog to be safe at night. Then it was a greenhouse, and then it was a second quail run, now it is rabbits. I can pop it out to make it longer if necessary, but right now I can fit 15 cages, including two KW 30"x36" triple stacks.
It sounds like you have some amazingly gorgeous colors!
Smokey Joe is beautiful! I would love to see some of the other colors!
I am not going to be showing these rabbits, though I might get show quality a year or two down the line. I am on a Palomino waiting list, and hope to get on a list for American Blue kits. But I wouldn't mind having other colors. I do have a black New Zealand doe, and she is my sweetest rabbit. Why do you not favor the blacks, just curious? Two of my three crosses are more like black agouti or tipped. One is Flemish colored and might only be half New Zealand. He is a sweetheart!
I'm doing my best to learn what to select for excellent meat conformation, but the American Blues are the older mandolin shape, not the standard meat chunk. I bought a couple of culls from the breeder I got these from, and they had plenty of meat on them when I butchered. I found that I would really like to have my meat rabbits, and then separately my heritage rabbits. Right now I am just learning and enjoying them.
When I got my Coturnix quail I figured that I would be happy with just brown and didn't care about colors. Until I saw the colors! So of course I had to order the special color varieties! Now my aviary is a riot of color.
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