Current satin angora litter, 8 weeks this weekend.

f38 - doe SOLD

e38 - buck

d38 - doe

a38 - buck

c38 -doe

Today was ink day. Of the 10 in this brood I tattooed 6 of the kits who will be 8 weeks this weekend. 5 will be made available to sell and if I am looking correctly, all does. I don't know why but it seems when I want bucks I get does and vise versa.

The color all of them is fawn. Their junior coats are nice and full with lots of crimp. I don't know why I like to see the crimp, but I do. I will posts pics tomorrow.

Today I write about straw. The kind animals eat. Here is bale of orchard grass and the last bit from my last timothy bale at the top toward the back of the orchard grass. See all the brown in the timothy?

I normally feed timothy hay to my rabbits. It is the best of the best to feed your rabbits in my opinion. But, the feed store I use has been going up on the price everytime I buy it or the size of the bale seems smaller or both. Either way this stuff is getting expensive. And the last bale had way too much dead, brown, hay and chaff. Just too much waste.

Yesterday I discovered they also carry a baled hay called Cortez Mix. It is mostly orchard grass with a little timothy and a little alfalfa. Orchard grass is also good for rabbits to eat, but alfalfa is not. What I looked over was nice and green and healthy looking so I am bitting the bullet and bought a 3 string bale of the stuff. I have high hopes for it since it is a little cheaper than the timothy, but seems to good quality.

The ermine doe's litter has been weaned. They are now 5 1/2 weeks old. It is a bit earlier than I normally do this process, but it is her 3rd litter and I want her recovered for the coming spring warmup and summer heat. She is such a sweet thing.

I weaned a week earlier than normal and did it over a period of about a week. I am now giving her fresh peppermint to help dry her up. During the weaning period, the biggest 3 kits were removed and then over a period of days kits were gradually removed based on size. The kits are doing great. Strong and healthy. Even the runt has survived and thrived. Speaking of the runt. It is so small and yet so active and lively. It really is amazing to see it push its way to the feed bowl for it's turn.

The weather is very north Texas spring. Thundershowers and beautiful green plants everywhere. We even had fresh dandelion leaves with our evening meal last night. They were delicious. The rabbits really love them as well.

On the pet yarn front:
Warren has gone home to his owner. She was happy to see his yarn. I am glad I separated him into two levels of softness.

Currently, I am working on Reva and Toby, standard poodles. I am carding and spinning Toby as I go along. His hair is extremely short, less than 1/2 inch for the most part. His coat is fairly coarse. I thought I might have to put in wool , but he has enough undercoat to hold things together with a lot of twist. I am 3/4 through spinning him up. So I am pleased at that.

On the dyeing front:
I carded and spun 4 oz of my superwash Merino & Tencel blend for a friend. Then I dyed it a dark blue in my natural Indigo vat. It turned out really nice. She said she will knit into a small shoulder shawl. She has some of my sw Merino & Tencel (acid dyed) that she knit into socks and she says they are the best wearing socks she has. It is a great compliment coming from her since she once told me she thought a batch of my Christmas cookies weren't too good. She really is honest in her comments.

I have acid dyed a number of sw merino & Tencel batches. Still need to get a darker blue in the mix.