The Lazy Lop
Spring Newsletter 2010

Easter Crafts

Easter Crafts Click here >
 ____________________________

Breeding Color 

BEW Blue Eye White Fuzzy lops
Breeding Blue Eyed White Fuzzy lops >

REW Ruby Eye White Fuzzy lops
REW / Ruby Eyed White Fuzzy lops > 

  ____________________________

How to Build a Cage Rack
By Good Hair Daze rabbitry from Hitchcock, Oklahoma
Very clever cage rack and the photos of the family 
members building it are so cute.
http://goodharedaze.110mb.com/cagerack.html

Nest Box Pattern
http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/documents/RabbitNestingBox.pdf

How Fresh is your feed?
The general school of thought among breeders is that feed is only fresh for Approx. 3 months.

You can easily check the label on your feed bag to determine when it was made. Feed-mills use a type of coding called a Julian Date Code.
It looks like this A9123 which would mean the feed was bagged on  May 3, 2009.

A - is the feed-mill code where the food was made.
9 - the Year
123 - (The year starts on Jan 1st, 2009) therefore 123 means it was made on the 123th day of 2009. that  works out to May 3rd 2009.

Here is a calendar that helps figure the day for you:

http://www.fs.fed.us/raws/book/julian.shtml

Old feed will be yellow or oatmeal in color, and you'll find fillings (dust and bits of food) on the bottom of your rabbit's food dish. As the feed dries out it becomes crumbly and the rabbits will pick over it, leaving a lot behind. So it's important read the date on the bag before you bring it home.

I live in Canada but buy my rabbit feed in the USA. I open a bag of feed and check it for color and smell before I leave the feed-mill now. About a year ago I got all the way across the boarder and home only to find three bags of my freshly bagged Purina rabbit feed smelled a bit moldy. Most likely they'd used alfalfa with too high a moisture content. I had to throw three bags out. Luckily they had sold me 7 out of 10 bags that were from an earlier batch of feed.

In the Summer I also check the labels to make sure the feed isn't a bit too fresh. Usually around Late June and July is the start of haying season here in Ontario. Hay needs to Cure. We used to let it sit for 3-4 months in the hay loft before feeding it to our horses. Even after it's baled it will continue to dry out and lose moisture. We would feed the last years crop while allowing the new hay to dry out. This was to avoid colic in horses.
I've noticed that Feed-mills will often use very fresh hay in their pellets. When I buy a bag of pellets that's been bagged in June-Early August. I try to avoid feeding it until the bag is 3 weeks to a month old. I do this just to be on the safe side to avoid hay that is a bit too fresh. The pellets are small so hay in it would cure faster than 3-4 months I leave bales to cure. The rest of the year I don't worry about how soon the feed was bagged because the hay they use should have been cut back it June -August. 

Most importantly feed should always smell good. 
It should be free of clumps which might indicate the feed has gotten wet and may have mold. It should never smell musty or moldy. Mold is Toxic to rabbits even in small amounts. 
If you suspect the feed smells or looks off you should return it to the feed-mill. 

If I find even a tiny amount of wet or moldy feed I do not pick out the bits and attempt to feed the "good parts".
My rabbits would be better off being fed just hay for one night until I could go back the the feed-mill to replace the bag.

Every year the rabbit groups become full of breeders upset about their rabbits becoming ill from feed. But if you follow some simple common sense rules, you can avoid feed being one of the many possible causes of illness in you rabbitry.
_______________________________________________

Keeping Your Bunnies Cool This Summer >

4H Rabbit Pattern

4H Rabbit Pattern
This is a great Idea, the cloth rabbit has interchangeable parts such a tails and gender, etc.
Helps create a useful model for identifying parts, checking for disqualifications, practicing handling, trimming nails, showing and more.
http://www.4-hmall.org/

Or free copy of Rabbit Pattern
http://www.4-hcurriculum.org/documents/Rabbit_Patterns_11x17.pdf
and Instructions
http://www.4-hcurriculum.org/documents/Rabbit_Directions.pdf

4H offers books to encourage    children 
Youth will discover how to identify breeds, tattoo, handle, judge and show rabbits, identify rabbit parts, dentify diseases, administer medication and equipment, recognize a healthy rabbit, read a pedigree and kindle a litter.
http://www.4-hmall.org/

__________________________________________

Featured Favorite website:
Celebrating Rabbits
Celebrating Rabbits is a great website to send new pet owners.
I have a lot of articles on my own website for both Breeders and Pet Owners but this site is design for pet owners and is set up in a very user friendly way.
http://celebratingrabbits.com/