Psycho – haircut & a new do!

Thought you all might enjoy this…. Meet Psycho, a 5-month old black Satin Angora buck.

Psycho was molting his baby coat, so he got the needed clip done.  He looked so small, even more so as he seemed to tighten up close and just looked “chilly” to me.

I remembered reading another breeder’s story about how she takes an old sweatshirt, whacks off a sleeve and then cuts holes for the front legs and puts that on a newly clipped bunny if they seem to need a little jacket for the first few days after a haircut.

Fortunately, Psycho’s jet black shiny coat looks just MAHVELOUS with hot pink, and he was definately photograph-quality outfitted.  So here’s Psycho in his bright hot pink sweater.  This lasted about 2 days, at which time he squirmed out of his little jacket, I found it in a heap in his cage just about the time I was headed down to see if he’d like to get it off.

He did it for me.  What a cutie….

UARC Secretary – Update for November 25, 2008

Happy Tuesday all!  In support of the new UARC Web page, let me welcome you to my new blog!  You can grow along with me on this, as blogging is not a practice I do much of, but I’m determined to get better at it!

Blogging can be a fabulous tool, a place to vent, or a journal to write up & publish for all to commisserate or enjoy with you – I see the value in it. 

My foremost intent is to keep our members up to date on anything I can as pertains to the responsibilities of the secretary of the club.  Please keep me in mind as a point of contact anything documentary-natured for our club.  Have an idea? Chirp up.  Have a complaint, chirp louder! 

I became the secretary in September 2008.  The UARC outgoing secretary was Angie Kolifrath, and she encountered (and embraced, I understand!) some significant life changes.  Last I heard, Angie traded in all her rabbits for a settled domestic life and a whole new set of experiences and a different life path.  Angie, if you read this, I hope all is doing well, and I know I’m filling some shoes that were spit-shined by you.  I’m still finding my polish, but I hope I will keep the secretary responsibilities up to snuff.

We are all members because we love our fuzzy buds – and we all need help from time to time.  Trust me, I’m the queen PITA when it comes to questions on my rabbits!  The longer I have these gentle animals the more engaging I find them to be.  Before I had my first rabbit, I would have NEVER believed you could detect a personality in a rabbit!  Right now I have 13 angoras, and they are all different and special in their own way.  I have ONE pearl angora who, by most breeders yardstick, would have been a wonderful stew rabbit a long time ago, but alas, my other half (hereinafter shall be referred to as “MDH”) – he being big on heart and short on practicality when arguing with his heart, rescued that buck from my culling plans. 

That buck bites me (or tries) at any opportunity, but MDH is the only one he can be trusted with! 

ANYWAY – (see how great a blog is to vent?) for those of you who don’t know me, I’ll go into a little bit about myself:

I have this loosely-formed rabbit habit called “Spoiled Rotten Rabbits” in Manassas VA.  Yes they are spoiled, and along with being dear friends provide me with regular bagsful of lovely wool to make into yarn.  Now that it’s November and just about all have been growing their wonderful coats pretty steady since September, this upcoming long weekend should give me the time I need to clip a few down.  I hope to get a couple of pounds of fiber by Sunday night, except for the 2 I’m grooming (what a pun) for the PA State convention in February.  I’m going to bring 2 new juniors up to the show this year.  The rabbits that attended last year have been retired into breeding activity for the most part. 

I’m finally about ready to start Gen 3 of the bunnies, why is there never enough hutches for all my breeding dreams?

… back to the original topic, which was one of the main reasons a rabbit lover/fancier will join a club like ours is for help – with feed issues, breeding questions, care, grooming – the list is long.  I was determined I wanted some angora rabbits for my fiber spinning obsession hobby, but didn’t have a CLUE how to proceed!  I thought on it long and hard, MDH was jazzed to build a hutch, and after about  a zillion emails to Lisa Rodenfels out in Ohio who had 2 bunnies for sale, the deal was struck and I was picking up rabbits from a “rabbit run” driver in Frederick MD on the 4th of July 2003.

Two bunnies turned into 1, then 3, then 7, and now we’re up to 13 five years later.  I feel truly blessed to be owned by all these fuzzy sweethearts, and it’s nice to belong to a club of like-minded folks. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 

Julie