Good Thing They Have Tattoos!
Not that we're millenials or new age or whoever the group is who likes getting tattoos all the time, but it a really good thing that the bunnies have tattoos, too. Which is especially a Good Thing when there's this many black girl bunnies running around. It turns out that the black girl bunny 'Gayle' who I had thought had been bred with Sydney is actually black girl bunny Ziggy!
This is Gayle getting a haircut. I'm giving the girl herd haircuts this week since we're finally beginning to get summer temperatures (above 80 Farenheit) and as I was grooming this one, I noticed her tattoo is '619'. Hey! It's a '6' number! That's not one of last year's Zee bunnies (who are the majority of black girls in the herd), last year's bunnies tatoos all start with a '7'. If it's a '6', then that's from the year befoe and that's Gayle! What's she doing in the girl herd? She's supposed to be in a nesting box having a litter. And then who's that over in the nesting box? And how did they get mixed up? It's sometimes hard to keep bunnies sorted properly, let along properly sorted and matched up with the database.
Turns out there had been two black girls in the nesting boxes, Gayle & Ziggy Stardust. Somehow they got switched so Ziggy went to visit Sydney. Which is okay, that wouldn't be an inbred litter. It doesn't look like the litter is going to show up, since it's two days late, so no matter either way. Ziggy is the mom of the older two bucks of this year's babies. They still don't have official names, but I've been calling them Spot & Blondie. Blondie is the gender changing bunny, if you've been keeping track of the bunny goings on around here.
Now that Gayle has been sorted out and sheared, she can go meet up with Phineus, which should be a better match up than Sydney. We need more white rabbits for the "Coconut Dream" color of Hula Bunny yarn and Syd doesn't have the recessive for albino so he won't ever have white offspring. Gayle's daddy was Joey who was a white rabbit so she definitely has the recessive for white. Matched up with Phin, there's a 25% chance of white babies. Plus I want more offspring from that genetic line.
We have a very limited genetic pool to work with here, so keeping track of which bunny is related to which bunny and keeping as many genetic lines as possible is always a good thing. Some are more prolific than others, though, which gives us a lot of the bunnies who can't be bred with a lot of the others. I try to keep the 'coefficient of inbreeding' (how closely they are related) at less than 25%. Fortunately, the pedigree program/bunny database we use, Kintracks, has a handy 'inbreeding' button to do the calculations for us. It's a lovely thing.
When there's multiple bunnies, keeping track of them can be done a variety of ways. One of our best bunny wranglers is planning on using tiny little ear tags (easier to read than tattoos) and using micro chips like dogs and cats get. There's apparently a database that can be used with the scan tool, so he's hoping to be able to scan the bunny, add the data and have it put on the bunnie's file. Medical treatments, weights, fiber production, matings, offspring, etc., etc. Here, we just have the ear tattoos (which are a Really Good Thing!) and the Kintracks database. I think maybe I should print out all the pedigrees and keep a paper copy as well, just in case something happens to the computer. The Kintracks database is backed up, but a lightening strike could cause trouble. There used to be handwritten journals kept by gardeners and livestock breeders to keep track of all these sorts of things. I suppose that old school method could also be done here and it would be a good handwriting exercise as well?
Suzie & Zorro's babies are six weeks old now. They're busy hopping around and have pretty much started eating pellets. They may nurse a bit from Suzie, but by the end of the week, she will have quit feeding them entirely. I've started building a new hutch so there will be room for all the babies to grow up. The hard part with hutch building has been to find a place to put it. We are kinda on a hillside so flat spots aren't all that common around here. Wuth the big hutches, though, they're assembled on a frame made of 2"x 4"s which can have legs of different lengths depending on the terrain.
The little chocolate one seems especially cute, although they all are at this stage. They're pretty curious about things and don't mind interacting with people, although they're not as absurdly friendly and outgoing as the two 'Snotty Nosed Gang' who were born in a rainstorm. I don't have any new pictures of Reepicheep and Goldie, though.
I was thinking maybe this year's names should be 'fiber quality' names. That would give us "Fluffy", "Powder Puff", maybe "Poof" instead? "Ewok" and "Wookie" would do. There's always "Tribble" although it's been decades since that Star Trek episode. Those names aren't color coded, though, so it would be harder to keep track of who is who. With the 'Zee' bunnies from last year, they were pretty much ALL black, so most of the black bunnies around here have names that start with Zee. The year before that, the 'atmospheric conditions' bunnies, they have names that kinda go with their color. Myste and Phineus Phogge are a foggy gray color, Sandy Storm is fawn which is sort of a sandy color, Sirocco (a desert wind) is chocolate agouti which is also a sandy color although not as sandy as a sand storm. At least, the way I think of them, I have no idea how they actually look. How to assign colors to "fiber quality" names? I suppose an Ewok is an agouti color? Not that we have any agouti baby bunnies to name at the moment. Wookies are dark colored, so a black one could be a Wookie. I'll have to make a list of possible names and see if any matching colors come to mind.
One of the original reasons we got these bunnies was that I wanted somebunny or something to help keep the Guinea grass in the back yard under control.
We have Guinea grass, Reznor grass, elephant grass and who knows how many other seriously tall grasses around here. The Guinea is especially vigorous. It was imported on purpose as grass for the cattle to eat, but it has escaped the pastures and is now the bane of gardners and folks with lawns.
The area of lawn in the picture was mowed the day before yesterday. You can see how much more the Guinea grass has grown since then. The usual lawn grasses aren't as fast growing, they're easier to keep under control. The Guinea grass, once it gets out of control, takes a scythe or weedwhacker with a blade on it to get it short again. Although yesterday we tried an electric hedge clipper, that made a bit of a dent. Maybe the bunnies will get a lot of grass clippings if I can find a long extension cord to reach the backyard. Too bad we can't just fence off the back yard and unleash the bunny herd on the Guinea grass! There isn't quite enough space for a sheep, especially since they like to be in groups, or a cow. That's the trouble with backyard farming, you need really small livestock and they can't keep up with really big grasses.