owlsfriend
Well-known member
Dear Rabbit Talk friends,
I am working 3rd shift at a crappy little factory and very tired. I apologize for the cut-and-paste email letter below, but I cannot keep my eyes open another millisecond, and shouldn't...so forgive the oddity of the form and just take in the news. I'll type you a real post later. Kim
Big show this weekend in KY. It was the American (breed) National show. The Americans (henceforth Am Blues) are a heritage breed that is just coming back from an endangered status. They pretty much kept the US population from starving during the Great Depression, especially in the cities and towns, where it was more difficult to raise a hog or steer. I've been on web-based forums with these folks and spoken on the phone with several of them. One of the two guys who salvaged the breed lives in IND but he's in his 70's or 80's and is not touching a computer or answering voice mail.....I suspect he still has a rotary dial phone. However, there is a pocket of American breeders here in IN thanks to Alan Schraeder. I got a little doe (12 weeks old) from a "big breeder" from OK. He'd gotten several rabbits from the 2010 Drift.
Because Ams are so rare, they organized a nation wide transport/trade twice now, called the Drift. You put three rabbits into the Drift and you got three rabbits (as unrelated as possible) from around the country. I have this vision of them sprinkling Ams from the window of their van all over the country. I'm sure the book keeping was from HELL. But I am very happy with my little Lazy Daisy. She's friendly and tries to come out of the cage into my arms whenever I open the door.
If that was all, I'd be in good stead. HOWEVER, two little 4-H girls, practically in tears, had been handed some rescue rabbits--pedigreed Angoras--the expensive English type, and told to "get what you can for them and give it to your club." One of the English Angora breeders at the show had spent quite a bit of time grooming them and was going to take a chance on taking them home with her (possibly contagious diseases, etc) and was irked that the 4-H girls had ended up with them. The breeder was very angry, not at me or the girls, but at the "rescuer" that dumped them, and at the condition of the rabbits themselves. Once the breeder heard that I was a wooler with multiple Satin and English angoras already, she was much calmer and even alright with the situation, begging me to never let them go to a rescue again. I was indecisive about taking them, not having cage space, etc and not wanting to expose my rabbits to whatever they might be carrying, etc. But I did end up getting them. They sat together in my picnic cooler with the lid open all the way home, too freaked out to raise their heads to look out of the "box."
I had some major rabbit rearranging to do to get the maternity/nursery cage out to the bunny shed, so I could put them in the pantry without exposing my good doe to them. (I knew the Am had come from a clean barn, not that bad things can't come from clean barns, they can, but it's less of a risk). I also had to find space for the AmB since the rabbit I traded her for had been sharing a cage with her brother and stranger bunnies are not good in close quarters....(Hell hath no fury like a crowded doe.) Did figure that out with my first litter buck going into a big travel cage with all the partitions removed for the time being.
So now, I have two hopping dust mops in my pantry that stamp a warning whenever I come into sight and run to hide under the parrot cage. But they are enjoying all the room to run around and did come out of hiding long enough to sniff my pant leg while I was feeding the parrot this morning (or was that night?) I dread starting to brush them out....even though the worst of it's been done.....(the poopy butts were pretty bad, I hear....the breeder who spent so much time cleaning them up was ashamed to say that she'd had to cut some of the rump hair....UHM, she doesn't want to see what I plan to do with their wool.) So my mother-in-law is coming over to help brush bunnies....little does she know what that means this time! KIM
I am working 3rd shift at a crappy little factory and very tired. I apologize for the cut-and-paste email letter below, but I cannot keep my eyes open another millisecond, and shouldn't...so forgive the oddity of the form and just take in the news. I'll type you a real post later. Kim
Big show this weekend in KY. It was the American (breed) National show. The Americans (henceforth Am Blues) are a heritage breed that is just coming back from an endangered status. They pretty much kept the US population from starving during the Great Depression, especially in the cities and towns, where it was more difficult to raise a hog or steer. I've been on web-based forums with these folks and spoken on the phone with several of them. One of the two guys who salvaged the breed lives in IND but he's in his 70's or 80's and is not touching a computer or answering voice mail.....I suspect he still has a rotary dial phone. However, there is a pocket of American breeders here in IN thanks to Alan Schraeder. I got a little doe (12 weeks old) from a "big breeder" from OK. He'd gotten several rabbits from the 2010 Drift.
Because Ams are so rare, they organized a nation wide transport/trade twice now, called the Drift. You put three rabbits into the Drift and you got three rabbits (as unrelated as possible) from around the country. I have this vision of them sprinkling Ams from the window of their van all over the country. I'm sure the book keeping was from HELL. But I am very happy with my little Lazy Daisy. She's friendly and tries to come out of the cage into my arms whenever I open the door.
If that was all, I'd be in good stead. HOWEVER, two little 4-H girls, practically in tears, had been handed some rescue rabbits--pedigreed Angoras--the expensive English type, and told to "get what you can for them and give it to your club." One of the English Angora breeders at the show had spent quite a bit of time grooming them and was going to take a chance on taking them home with her (possibly contagious diseases, etc) and was irked that the 4-H girls had ended up with them. The breeder was very angry, not at me or the girls, but at the "rescuer" that dumped them, and at the condition of the rabbits themselves. Once the breeder heard that I was a wooler with multiple Satin and English angoras already, she was much calmer and even alright with the situation, begging me to never let them go to a rescue again. I was indecisive about taking them, not having cage space, etc and not wanting to expose my rabbits to whatever they might be carrying, etc. But I did end up getting them. They sat together in my picnic cooler with the lid open all the way home, too freaked out to raise their heads to look out of the "box."
I had some major rabbit rearranging to do to get the maternity/nursery cage out to the bunny shed, so I could put them in the pantry without exposing my good doe to them. (I knew the Am had come from a clean barn, not that bad things can't come from clean barns, they can, but it's less of a risk). I also had to find space for the AmB since the rabbit I traded her for had been sharing a cage with her brother and stranger bunnies are not good in close quarters....(Hell hath no fury like a crowded doe.) Did figure that out with my first litter buck going into a big travel cage with all the partitions removed for the time being.
So now, I have two hopping dust mops in my pantry that stamp a warning whenever I come into sight and run to hide under the parrot cage. But they are enjoying all the room to run around and did come out of hiding long enough to sniff my pant leg while I was feeding the parrot this morning (or was that night?) I dread starting to brush them out....even though the worst of it's been done.....(the poopy butts were pretty bad, I hear....the breeder who spent so much time cleaning them up was ashamed to say that she'd had to cut some of the rump hair....UHM, she doesn't want to see what I plan to do with their wool.) So my mother-in-law is coming over to help brush bunnies....little does she know what that means this time! KIM
