Kits for Sale

After a seven-month hiatus from blogging, we are finally posting again, albeit probably not too frequently.  The girls breeding attempts in the early part of this year only met with failure, and that becomes a bit discouraging, especially when you are sharing it with the world.  After three separate ailed attempts at breeding two does, the girls decided to breed three does, hoping that at least one would take.

All three took.

Eleven surviving kits were the result of those three breedings.  Add those kits to three that Sage kindled one month previous to these, and we now have fourteen kits for sale.

Jack, chestnut agouti, junior buck, 3 months old, parents are Sage and Zorro, beautiful coat, show quality, SOLD

Peaches, junior doe, broken fawn, parents are Maybelline and Zorro, show quality, SOLD.

 

Calico, junior doe, broken tort, parents are Maybelline and Zorro, show quality, SOLD.

 

Argentium, junior buck, self-lilac, parents are Lily and Coal, show quality, SOLD.

 
If you have questions about any of these beautiful rabbits or you would like more pictures, please send us an email.

Lola and Remy 's Kits For Sale

Well, this litter wasn't planned at all. We currently have three junior rabbits for sale. They were kindled December 8, 2016. These rabbits are not part of our normal breeding program. Their mother was returned to us three days after she had an encounter with her brother, and these kits are the result. While it's acceptable in the rabbit world to breed siblings, it's not something we are comfortable with and so they are being sold at a far lower price than French angoras normally command.

We have one white buck, one fawn buck, and one chocolate doe. The bucks have typical baby wool that mats rather easily at this point, but their future coats should be just fine. And they have the sweetest personalities. The doe has a wonderful baby coat that does not mat at all.  All of them are still too young to provide a good assessment of their bodies.

"Cupid," junior buck, REW, 12 weeks old, ON HOLD FOR GDR--$60

"Valentine," junior buck, fawn, 12 weeks old, ON HOLD for GDR--$60

"Fudge," junior doe, chocolate, 12 weeks, ON HOLD for S.C.--$65

Surprises

Another one of those little surprises on the farm happened yesterday, between breakfast and lunch.

About three weeks ago some of our friends decided that they were done with their rabbits.  The rabbits were from the first litter we raised here, and they had had them for 2.5 years.  Our friends and enjoyed the experience, but they were done.  So we took back their rabbits--three total--two does and a buck.  Three days later, Lola, one of the does, started picking up hay in her mouth.  I then remembered what Karsynn had said only a week earlier:  "Oh, and by the way, Remy (Remington) has gotten onto Lola's side (of the hutch) a couple of times."

Great.  Kits whose parents are siblings.

But with every passing day, and no signs of pregnancy or kits, I hoped Lola only had a false pregnancy.  By the third week of having her, I was quite sure that all was going to be well.

And then she started to pull a ton of wool.  In the three weeks she had lived with us, she made one or two nests and pulled a little bit of wool, so I nervously tried to shrug this one off, too.  But she was pulling a lot of wool.  Maybe she was just a little hot in this 40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.

At 12:30 PM on Wednesday I decided to check on Lola.  I had peeked into the nesting box tons of times already in the last three weeks, and found nothing, so you can imagine my surprise when I found kits this time.  I had been dreading it for three weeks, but when it actually happened, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement, the excitement when you see an animal only minutes old and just starting to discover its new world.

All five in the nest box

Fawn

Chocolate

REW

Broken lilac

Lilac

There are five kits.  The broken is a little small and he just may not make it.  Because the parents are siblings I won't be selling these as show bunnies.  Some breeders are just fine doing that, and breeding siblings together is actually a great way to find out if you have any undesirable recessive genes in your breeding stock.  I'm just not comfortable selling them as show rabbits.  However, they will still be just fine to be sold as woolers.

On the Needles Today (6 December 2016)

I think far too many knit baby booties look like ridiculous clown shoes.  Maybe it's why some babies cry--they know how silly those booties make them look.  (My babies rarely cried--probably because I refused to humiliate them with ridiculous clothes and accessories.)  Anyway, when I was quite happy when saw the pattern for these booties--I had a pattern for a simple, quick, and yet very stylin' baby shower gift.  And I also sold my first pair of these booties on Etsy last week. 

The tan yarn is the most divinely soft alpaca fiber I have ever spun.  I got the entire fleece for about $4. (I bought something like 10-15 fleeces for $50 off Craigslist.  The fleeces came from a woman whose mother was neighbor to a woman who had alpaca ranches in Oregon, New York, and Nevada.  She was moving and for some reason still had these fleeces).  The rest of this fleece needs to be spun into yarn to make a most luxurious sweater.

I've got to figure out how to photograph these better.

The off-white yarn is one ply of very soft alpaca and one ply of white angora.  Super soft and super warm.  Makes me wish I were a baby again--almost.  I just wish booties made in my size would look as cute.  However, I don't think that is possible.

On the Needles Today (26 November 2016)

Today, and for the past week, I've been working on a sweater from a pattern in the winter 2010 issue of Interweave Knits, Ginevra's Pullover.

 

Here's the link to a Pinterest page for it:  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/56365432806718901/

Instead of using the yarn recommended in the pattern, I (of course) had to spin my own.  And because this is a blogpost on an angora blog, there had to be some angora fiber in it.  :)

The yarn for the body is three plies of white alpaca and one ply of broken blue angora.  The yarn for the laceweight neck insert is one ply of alpaca and one ply of angora.  And all the yarn is dyed using Dharma dye deep magenta.

Because this post is about what's on the needles today, I don't actually have a finished sweater to photograph.  Here is how it looks today:

It has been knitting up rather quickly, for which I am quite grateful, because I have to have this done for my husband's company Christmas party in three weeks.  I should make it with plenty of time to spare.

On the Needles Today (November 19, 2016)

Most of what I knit with our hand spun fiber here is sweaters for the family.  However, I'm in between sweaters right now and have been for the past week. I had to hurry and finish Charlotte's sweater for her birthday last week and that resulted in not enough time spent spinning yarn for the next project, a sweater for me.  But I need to have something to work on while I help the girls with their studies. 

So today's project is a pair of preemie-newborn booties with some incredibly soft angora/alpaca blend yarn.  As I contemplate the softness of this yarn, I am prompted to consider that I should spin a whole lot more of this yarn and make a sweater.

The pattern is "No Button Booties" from allfreeknitting.com.  But I am modifying it a bit so that I don't have to sew the sole to the sides of the booties.  I prefer to avoid seaming as much as possible.  

When the booties are finished I'll take more pictures and post them in our Etsy shop.  And I plan on writing my own pattern for them in the future.  I just have to work out what I perceive to be kinks in the original pattern as I modify and improve it.

How We Got into Sheep

One year ago, actually about 54 weeks ago to be exact, we were heading home after we had finished selling four rabbits.  Lydia and I were chatting about all the Legos we could buy, when an idea struck.  My mom noticed how I had stopped participating in the conversation of all the toys and clothes we could get.

I had been thinking about it for about five minutes when my mom asked, "So, Charlotte, what are you going to spend your money on?"

I immediately answered, "A lamb!  I want a lamb!"

I started researching right then and there, since we had brought a laptop and myfi with us.  I was able to research numerous breeds of sheep before we even reached home, a two-hour drive when I began the search. 

I knew I wanted a smaller sheep--after all, I'm only fourteen.  I was afraid I couldn't handle a one hundred-fifty pound sheep. 

So miniature was on the list of requirements.  I knew that just beginning in the livestock business I wanted a docile wool breed; no messy butchering.  But also one that could be used for meat should the need arise.  And lastly, I wanted an easy lamber and good mother.  I was beginning to think this sounded more like a dream sheep, a sheep breed that probably didn't exist.  And then I found it:  American Brecknock Hill sheep.  It satisfied all my requirements. 

And then just as suddenly, my hopes were dashed, because "American Brecknock Hill" did exist, but were no longer being bred.  However, with a little more research, I found it did exist still, but under different names--American miniature cheviot and border cheviot.

I continued the research and emailing a breeder on this breed from early fall until mid-spring, when I got my first two beautiful miniature cheviots.

Little did I know that such a perfect breed of sheep existed.  In fact, it has existed for more than two hundred years.  It is actually a descendant of the historical sheep that resided in Wales.

It is the perfect breed.