Hive Inspection :: March 2012

Two little snippets of video I took of Trevor doing his first hive inspection since closing it up for the winter. I'm missing the third part because the bees were very agitated after a 'powdered sugar treatment' for varroa mites. My daughter and I were not wearing appropriate beekeeper gear so we couldn't get too close.

Varroa mites can cause deformities and even death in a hive. We chose to treat them naturally and used powdered sugar in a shaker to sprinkle over the bees in the hive body. The sugar encourages the bees to clean each others hard to reach places on their backs where the mites hide. It also makes the bees too slippery for the mites to hold on.

Trevor checked back later and on the bottom board beneath the screen Trevor found many mites that fell off. Good sign! He will do another treatment and check the drone frame if the weather is nice and warm again later in the week.

Please excuse our neighbor's messy yard in the background... and the noisy and newly two-year old blabbering behind the camera.

Rabbit Genetics :: Clementine's litter

Luckily, through Clementine's three-generation pedigree, I know almost her complete color gene sequence. I am missing just one space:
aabbCcD_ee
aa means "self" colored or completely one color
bb means chocolate ('b' is brown 'B' would be black)
Cc means dominantly full color, recessively albino
D_ means dominantly dense colored (non-diluted color) which keeps her color chocolate as opposed to the diluted version of lilac. The '_' blank space is an unknown gene.
ee means non-extension giving her a tortoiseshell pattern where a 'Ee' or 'EE' would make her appear darker over her whole body.










Clementine's color genes in combination with Thistle's albino color genes gives their litter a fairly limited amount of color possibilities.

50% chance of:
aa b_ cc DD e_ (color gene sequence)
Ruby Eyed White

37.5% chance of:
aa b_ Cc DD e_ (color gene sequence)
Black, Chocolate, Tortoise Shell, Chocolate Tortoise Shell

12.5% chance of:
aa b_ Cc d_ e_ (color gene sequence)
Black, Blue, Chocolate, Lilac, Tortoise Shell, Blue Tortoise Shell, Chocolate Tortoise Shell, Lilac Tortoise Shell

Happy Weekend!

Hope you all are having a sunny weekend!

Round Two

If you've been following along, you would remember that I bred our French angora doe Dandelion to our buck Thistle last month. Obviously that didn't take because it is well past her "day 31" due date. Yesterday I tried to breed her with Thistle again with marginal success. For the best results, you want the pair to breed at least twice... third time's a charm. Dandelion is very much against this little arrangement and refused to try more than once. That was my problem last month. Poor thing just isn't ready yet.

Today I decided to try my luck with our other doe Clementine. Thank goodness one of the girls wanted to cooperate! Thank goodness Thistle wasn't the problem!




Sure, there is a chance that Dandelion's potential pregnancy took after just one breeding, but I'm not counting on it. **Knock on wood.** Clementine was willing to breed twice since noon today and I think I will try to squeeze in a third tomorrow morning. Clemmie will give me a great chance of having a litter of little ones by Easter morn'. This also means I will be needing a second nest box for Clementine incase each doe needs one. Since I did breed Dandelion once, I have to assume that she is also pregnant and care for her accordingly.

Here is the break down on the Rabbitry calendar:

March 2: bred Dandelion 1 time
March 3: bred Clementine 3 times

March 13: palpate Dandelion (day 11)
March 14: palpate Clementine (day 11)

March 16: palpate Dandelion/ double check (day 14)
March 17: palpate Clementine/ double check (day 14)

March 29: put in nest box for Dandelion (day 27)
March 30: put in nest box for Clementine (day 27)

April 2: Dandelion due (day 31)
April 3: Clementine due (day 31)

Mark your calendars!

Egg Count :: February 2012

Big Things Coming

Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit to those of you who are superstitious like me. If you aren't superstitious, disregard silly saying mentioned above.

We are working on upgrading our blog to official website status! Exciting, I know. The change over will hopefully be in effect by mid-March and will hopefully be a smooth transition for all of us.

Why the switch you ask? We finally feel like we have that magical trifecta of reasons: decent web traffic, substantial content to write about, and something to sell. In addition to our regular blog content of living the micro-farm life, we will be adding a "Rabbitry" page specifically to sell our pedigreed angora rabbit kits. We are now one of just two French Angora rabbitries registered with the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA is to rabbits what AKC is to dogs) for the whole state of California and one of eight in the nation.

Adding a Rabbitry page isn't the only reason we are upgrading. We would like to be more accessible and having a real life ".com" can do that for us. I promise we will be awesome. So keep an eye out for the thumbs up in a couple weeks and keep following our crazy journey in gardening, angora rabbits, beekeeping, and learning to be more self-sufficient.

Random Thoughts on a Rainy Day

Random goat butts picture from when we visited Harley Farms in Pescadero

I don't have any big news for you today. The exact opposite. I feel like I've done so much this week and really I kind of have, but a lot of my week has been about patience. That's exactly what my daughter's fortune cookie from lunch said today: "Be patient! The Great Wall didn't got build in one day." Fortune cookies aren't much for grammar (and the saying is originally about Rome), but it was still true.

We are still waiting for Dandelion's litter of baby kits. Nothing. The average litter is born on day 31 but can go until day 35. Today is day 32 for Dandelion. It makes me wonder if she's even pregnant. I hope she is... I've been waiting 32 days for goodness sake. It may be a case of 'a watched pot never boils' because we have been checking on her twice as much as usual. Hopefully she's just holding out for when no one is looking. Either way she is a fantastic nest builder.

I went shopping with my mom today and got a book on clearance that is just about making French macarons. I'm ecstatic! Now I just have to buy that $13 bag of almond meal to test out a couple macaron recipes. French macarons may be a little too pretentious for a farm (especially a German named farm), but I don't mind.

I also registered our Rabbitry with the American Rabbit Breeders Association, ARBA, today. As well as reserving the name "Frühlingskabine Rabbitry" --fancy 'u' and all-- I also became a member and bought a year long breeders listing on their site. For anyone unfamiliar with rabbityness, ARBA is the bigwig of the rabbit world and sponsors many rabbit shows. Look them up here! Check back in a few weeks and hopefully our listing will be there under French Angoras.

Other than those little bits of life it has been pretty boring around here. I blame the rain/brief snow. But be patient like the fortune cookie. It will be spring and then summer soon enough and then we can talk all manners of garden, and growing, and bees, and chicken antics, and baby bunnies. Soon enough my friends.