Christmas

My days at the moment begin at 4am although I try to sneak more sleep till 5am when the cats begin their early morning chase scenes. Gypsy thinks it's funny to use me as a spring board so will leap up from one side of the bed onto my chest and then fly off the other side. She's the smallest cat but she can really pack some power into those rear legs and I ended up with a bruise the other day.

I am Queen of the Scum People according to the cats at the moment as their Christmas started with me spraying them for fleas. The dog being a total woose took his treatment without a sideways glance but the cats were terrified. I know it's the sound of the spray that scares them but I still have half a bottle of the stuff so they'll have to tolerate it. I'm going back to herbal prevention though once I work out how to apply it. I can't sneak garlic into their food like I can with my dog Mishka and don't trust collars as they're so easy to snag on a branch so may have to return to dabbing them with wormwood.

My little chick hatched the day Taffy died is doing well with her Mum in the hutch out front. I was so relieved to see she was a female. She is a mixture of browns, gold and there are some white feathers in her wings so hopefully she'll be a speckled hen. I would really love to develop more speckled ones if possible but think I may need to buy in more stock to do so.

Muggles my house rabbit is feeling the heat despite having the window open near him. I have been removing his coat to cool him down and prevent wool block. He gets on so well with the cats and dog it's unnatural.

Finally photos

I have been trying to scan photos from my last developed film (oh for a digital camera)for a while but only managed to find some time this morning. Although my last litter are now four months old these are their five week old photos.
This is Giselle and Sherbet who was the kit I had to revive in warm water when he managed to get out of the nestbox aged three days. Little guy has been outgoing and inquisitive right from the start and his sister is not far behind.
Harmony and Goblin are a bit more shy than the other two but quiet and easy to handle. It still amazes me that the white took five generations to pop out. Genetics!

I began the angoras on papaya tablets bought from the health food shop last week. The vet advised me to put one in each water bottle once monthly and this, along with their usual hay, should help prevent wool block. I also have them on apple cider vinegar once weekly which is a good tonic and is meant to prevent kidney problems.

The heat is bothering all the animals at the moment as it is quite muggy. I also haven't seen Angel the cat in a couple of weeks now as she's on one of her periodic hunting expeditions due to the current wild rabbit explosion. Even Piper cat brought a baby one in a couple of days ago and had to sleep the effects off all day. Fortunately Demelza is not too interested in hunting anything except cicadas and the youngest two, Peaches and Gypsy, are still at the fly catching stage. They are also now getting to sleep with me along with Dem so things get a bit fraught as I am contorted in all sorts of interesting positions. Sleeping With Cats is a lifestyle choice!

Taffy

Last week I lost Taffy my new angora buck. On Monday 21st November he wasn't drinking much and not as perky as usual. I thought it could be a touch of heat stress so dragged his hutch under the willow tree on the front lawn. The next day dawned cold and windy and he brightened up so I thought I'd solved the problem. However on Wednesday although he was still eating he wasn't his usual self and I noticed his droppings were a bit hard. I began him on pineapple juice thinking he had a touch of woolblock but by Thursday he was completely off his food. I rang the vet who drove out and after palpating his stomach diagnosed extreme wool block. David said that the mass was three inches by one inch thick and had been there for months and months. As I only had Taffy five weeks I emailed his previous owner who confirmed he had been off his food a couple of times in the past six months. The vet was concerned his temperature was now dropping so took him back to the clinic to heat him up, rehydrate him and syringe as much pineapple juice into him as he could. Unfortunately Taffy passed away during the night. David said there was a touch of pneumonia in his left lung as well, probably a result of stress from the blockage, and as there was another rabbit nearby he put her on antibiotics just in case. However a week later she is fine.

I was pretty hard hit with this loss. I spoke to his breeder the next day and she said his coat was pretty fine and that she has another doe that also goes off her feed periodically. She has a couple of bunnies she can send up to me later this month so I now I will save up to pay for their airfare from the South Island.

While he was up here on the farm the vet also vaccinated the four last babies against RHD. I then separated them into their new cages. Looks at this stage as if I have two boys and two girls. They seem happy and healthy so that's something.

Also just after the vet left with Taffy I went to put the hens to bed when I heard cheeping. Sure enough there was a little chick with ten eggs in a broken down bin that the hens used to lay in before one of the big hens sat on the top and broke it. I gathered the chick, the eggs and the little bantam mother into a cat carry cage where they stayed for a couple of days inside while we experienced an unseasonably cold and violent rainstorm for a couple of days. Unfortunately the hen abandoned her eggs a couple of days later as there was no sign of any of them hatching. I cleaned out one of the rabbit hutches on the lawn this week and mother and child are now safely ensconced in this much to the frustration of my dog Mishka who wants to lick them (he has a licking fetish!) It's the new life that keeps you going when things get rough.

Rising from the dust

It is six months since I last added an entry to this blog. It wasn't that I lost interest but that I lost hope. Within a few days of writing about Max and Adam (my two new angoras) they were dead. Firstly one began hiding in the sleeping compartment of the hutch and then he began having trouble keeping his balance. He ended up dragging himself around and died shortly afterwards. The vet said it sounded as if something had happened to affect his central nervous system and suggested poisoning from the hutch wire since it is new. When Adam began having the same symptoms a couple of days later my heart went through my stomach. His head waved from side to side and he ended up on his side dying quickly in great pain. My brother took his body to the vet for an autopsy which showed up bleeding in the brain (indicative of poisoning) although the rest of his organs were fine. At great expense ($172.00 NZ) we sent tissue away to be tested to ascertain what had poisoned him. Two weeks later the results came back- not poisoning but Calicivirus (RHD). Although I was through the quarantine period it must have still been in the area as my friends who had cared for Max and Adam for three months took it back to their property and lost their pet rabbit Ridge three weeks later.

I was in quarantine for another four months. Luckily for me none of my other bunnies died from the dreadful virus. In July my new vet (a Californian who is running practices in New Zealand and the Nappa Valley) drove out and vaccinated my remaining twelve rabbits against RHD. Only one rabbit had an adverse reaction to the vaccine and went off her food for a week but the others were fine and didn't even feel the jab (the difference between a professional doing it and me!).

Despite hearing how the vaccine causes temporary sterility I mated up my sooty fawn (chocolate torte) French angora Meadow in August. She had been mated before with no success but this time all went well and she had a kindle of six kits on September 1st 2005. Although she proved a competant first time Mum the babies were contrary and constantly got out of the nest box. Whent they were three days old I had to revive two in a container of warm water and two days later another got out during the night and died of cold. I began bringing the nest box inside at night and taking it back out to Meadow early morning so she could give them a feed. She managed to wean four babies and here they are aged three weeks

In March I was meant to take in another angora buck from someone in Rotorua who no longer had time for him. However due to being in quarantine Taffy didn't arrive here till last month. He is a cinnamon english angora who was originally bred in the South Island. A big sized rabbit he has apparently won a couple of shows and even beat the top angora breeder in New Zealand. Hopefully he will improve my bloodlines.

Adam and Max

I rarely get visitors out here and days pass quite quietly albeit busily. That was why I assumed that Sunday would be as uneventful as it usually is and was sitting at the computer replying to emails at 8.30 am. However that was tempting fate and a brown station wagon pulled into my driveway while I was trying to shut the back door so my small fat Sheltie Mishka didn't run out to bark at whoever was arriving. It turned out to be my friends Marg and John who had driven out to drop off Max and Adam, two angora rabbits they had been caring for on my behalf while I waited to come out of quarantine after the RCD hit here. These two boys had been bought aged six weeks from a pet shop by a lady who was obviously an animal lover. Unfortunately the shop had not bothered to tell the woman how much care these animals needed and as they grew, and so did their coats, she discovered they didn't like being brushed and would scratch her. As she is a diabetic these scratches became infected and she ended up having frequent trips to the doctor to get antibiotics. So it was as they reached six months she put an advert in the paper to ask for someone to take them on. John rang me and I went along to see them and realised the woman was terribly upset at having to give up her pets but that she couldn't manage. She was even prepared to put them to sleep rather than leave them in a bad way.

The rabbits are quite small with broken brown markings on their faces and bodies. They both have brown eyes and one has floppy ears. This means there has been some cross-breeding in the background so I have a very good idea which breeder was responsible for them. I had taken on several of her rabbits in the past when people couldn't manage them and she had promised that she wouldn't sell her rabbits to pet shops (especially at such a young age) after she saw one come in to be clipped at the only rabbit show we held here in Hawkes Bay. Obviously she broke her word and was continuing with her outcrossing. Fortunately she's moved out of the district now so others will have to cope with the copius litters she produces for the "pet market". One thing I know- angoras do not make good pets except for spinners and those prepared to clip or pluck them.

So Max and Adam are currently in a quarantine hutch on the front lawn for a month before moving into the rabbitry. I don't know which one is Max and which one is Adam but as I am tempted to change their names to something more "rabbity" it makes no odds. Unfortunately they've discovered hormones much to the horror of my cats who seem severely traumatized at such uninhibited behaviour!

Four Seasons in One Day

I have a friend who loves the rain. She says that listening to it on her corrugated iron roof is comforting. I don't like rain. Or perhaps I should say I don't like heavy rain. When I hear it battering down on my roof it means it's going to leak and that in the morning I'll find the hen house and rabbitry have been flooded out where the water has run underneath the sheds.

Weather is the major concern to people living in the country. A pleasant sunny summer day can't be appreciated as it could mean there is a drought on the way and everything will begin to brown off and die and the animals will suffer. Wind means the elctricity can cut out and trees may block off the road. In October 2000 my hen house uprooted itself in the middle of the night and I discovered it next morning perched on the clothes line. The hens were running around as chickens do (soaked to the skin) while one gallant broody bantam (who had refused to desert her post) was sitting out in the open in a nestbox half full of water. This is why the hen house is now wired to warratahs (metal posts) dug into the ground so it looks like it's not going to do another Wizard of Oz in a hurry.

Then there is the winter. This is my least favourite season. Not only do you have wind and rain but you have frosts. These kill your garden and make your life a misery as you try to go out in the early hours to feed the animals bundled up in as many jerseys as possible wearing two pairs of gloves to try and prevent chilblains. The grass isn't growing so you have to make sure that grazing animals have enough hay to get them through the day. You also hope that you've done enough cleaning and essential chores in the Autumn so you don't have to spend hours out in the cold.

However now the seasons are changing. Summer begins later and lasts longer. August no longer seems to have warm balmy days reminding you that Spring is on its way but is a chilly wintry month. How to cope with all this seasonal dysfunction? I take each day as it comes. If it's a lovely sunny day I do chores (washing is a major concern) and catch up with extra work. I plan so I can catch up with inside work when it's raining. I'm always behind and there is always something crying out to be done but at least it's never boring.

Calicivirus

It is now three months since the outbreak of Calicivirus which killed five of my rabbits here so I am officially out of quarantine. I have disinfected all the outside hutches and left them in the sun and want to begin on the rabbitry cages before the cold weather hits. I am still pretty nervous whenever I go out there in the morning- those ten days watching the virus go through was pretty tough as an animal would look fine one minute and a couple of hours later would be found dead. The virus swept right up the country from the deep South towards Auckland killing vaccinated and unvaccinated animals alike. Of the five I lost three were old, one had been having antibiotic treatment and the last was sharing a hutch with his sister who was unaffected.

RCD is a nasty disease illegally introduced to New Zealand by a few red neck farmers who mixed it up in kitchen blenders after the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries had declined it's introduction. Now the Regional Councils are applying to import a "pure" form of the virus for release in July 2005. The Hawkes Bay Regional Council is not part of this move. The Pest Control officer informed me that they don't want to interfere with the strain currently here which they feel is doing a good job. The worst thing the government ever did was disbanding the Rabbit Board as it left farmers at the mercy of the rabbits and faced with huge bills for poisoning etc. I can understand why they celebrate the virus but it did finish rabbit farming in New Zealand. Unfortunately the vaccine costs $30 per animal as it must be administered by a vet unlike Australia where the owner can vaccinate for $3! I am pretty anti vaccinations usually (as it must depress the natural immune system) but in some cases you have no choice. In the meantime I give all my animals a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar once weekly to build up their systems. I am trying to find a garlic crusher now so I can add this to their drinking water as well. Anything to keep them healthy naturally as I feel this is the only way to go.