New Christmas Babies at SLR!

We had a litter born here on Christmas day out of SLR's Aiden a harlequin buck and a broken tort doe out of GC SLR's Tritan and GC SLR's Bailey. It sounds like she had one harli who didn't make it and has two remaining tri babies. These guys should be really nice chunky babies when they are grown up! We're going to be heading down to Calgary next weekend so will post some new photos of some of the bunnies as soon as we get there!

As a note too for anyone who is trying to reach me via e-mail please be aware that for some reason that I have not yet figured out my e-mail account has been sorting a lot of my incoming mail to the junk folder! So if you've sent me an e-mail and have not gotten a responce back please try again or leave a comment on here!

Here's photos of the two pround parents = )

Above is SLR's Aiden

It's beginning to look like Christmas!

Christmas is our favorite time of year here and it's quickly coming! We've been busy at the farm vaccinating the calves and just got them all weaned on Monday. We just have the cows to preg check and deworm and then things should be quiet until we start calving on March 31st.

Robin and I just got back from a flying trip down to Calgary for my sisters wedding. We were only able to stay down there for 24 hours because of our work schedules but was able to have a look through the bunnies and see how things are going! The little tri JR doe has really popped into herself and is looking like a beautiful showy little doe! Sadly none of the litters caught from the last breeding and we did end up loosing Tahiti Treat to a pregnancy complication. The gals are all re-bred though for Christmas babies! When I'm back down there around the 27th I will take some photos of the two old junior bucks that are available too so stay tuned for those photos!

Anyways I thought to share a photo of a good friend here who was really put off that we went away and did not take him to see what was happening down south! Even with being gone for just about three days including the driving he was SO excited when we got home that he had to tell us about it non-stop while I was out doing chores for everyone else! What a silly kid! We've also officially had this guy now for three years which makes him ten years old, he is now broke to both ride and drive so there is never a dull day which is spent outside!

Another new addition

Well here's a photo of another new gal that we picked up last weekend! Her name is Tahiti Treat and she's a black & orange tri doe. She's the mom of the junior doe that was posted a week or so ago and is fingers crossed, bred back to the same buck for  repeat litter. Many thanks to Sharin at Hoppy Acres for these gals!
We've had such a hard summer as far as getting live babies goes here that we're really helping that these new gals can give us a hand to jumpstart the breeding again.
We hope everyone is staying warm with the colder temperatures and the white stuff slowly falling!

Winter is coming!

I spent the evening cleaning the bunny barn for the last time before winter as all the bunnies have been moved back down to Calgary. This also marks the end of the sale season for 2012 minus a solid tort junior buck and a broken tort junior buck that are still available. We've also bred ALL of the girls over the last weekend here so if they all catch then there should be some really nice juniors and young seniors come spring time! That's a bit of an update for now and I will still be updating this blog over the winter to let everyone know what's going on here!

Below is a cute "old" photo of Reg SLR's Fraiser as a wee baby, what a cutie!

New additions to SLR

This is a little cutie that we picked up on the way down to Calgary this weekend! She's adorable and hopefully going to be a great brood doe! Here's her as a junior and I'll post a name after I find out if she has one! Thanks to Sharin of Hoppy Acres Rabbitry for this little doll plus her mom and another tri doe!

A little bit more about the folks that run SLR

Besides raising rabbits for the last twelve years we have some other hobbies that pretty much all involve animals. Our family runs a cow calf and backgrounding operation which involves about 200 head of cows, 200 calves and 200 steers/heifers. A cow calf operation is one that raises the calf and a backgrounding one takes the calf from weaning time until they weigh about 900 pounds in which they are ready to go to a feedlot and be fed for finish. This keeps us pretty busy chasing cows from pasture to pasture in the summer and feeding the herd in the winter!

Another passion of mine has always been horses. I was certified as a CHA riding instructor at age 17 in Texas and still have a strong passion for them 7 years later! We are the owners of one beautiful palomino gelding who gives pony rides to the wee neices and nephews in his spare time and helps us move cows from place to place as a real job. He's been broke to both ride & drive by myself and he's now giving lessons to the little ones around here. Putting kids up on horses has been my biggest joy in life for a long time now and to have a horse that loves doing it just as much as I do has been such a blessing!  Here's some photos gathered from around the farm over the last few years.

For Sale Tort Junior Buck

This adorable doll is looking for a new home as I'm keeping his broken brother instead. This guy is just a little too long in body and a little too big for show but he is out of GC SLR's Tritan! He's showing some very promising development in the head & crown area and has fantatic short bone! He'll be a nice looking dude when he's older. He's $40 to  pet home with no papers.

An update at SLR

Hhhmm well here goes to show how good I am at the keyboard, I just wrote a nice long update and then swiftly deleted it within two key strokes. Instead of re-writing the whole thing I will still make the same posts that were promised this week so stay tuned for updates!

For Sale SLR's Opal Jr Doe

This little gal is available to a pet home for $50.00 and was born on March 25 2012. Her parents are SLR's Aiden and SLR's Athena which should make her mature to around the 4 pound mark. She is a big sweetheart always coming up to the cage door when it's opened for some love! She also loves to get out of her cage and explore everything and anything! She's used to kids, dogs and other bunnies and will be dewormed and tattooed before leaving to a new home! Drop me a line at starlitrabbitry@hotmail.com for more information.

For Sale SLR's Tri SR buck

So this little guy is quite the character! He loves to explore and will push his head out of the cage door everytime for attention. He doesn't have a name right now but he is available to a pet home and will be a year old in fall. This guy does have one bad habbit right now and that is his spraying! So he would be perfect for an outside home or someone who is willing to try him out and see if he would stop it if not around other bunnies. He is not a bad buck type wise but does carry some length through his shoulder and his crown needs a little work. Gret head for a young buck and nice clean tri coloring! Anyways on to his photos!

If this little tyke interests you then feel free to drop me a line at starlitrabbitry@hotmail.com

Bunnies in Beaverlodge!

To start off spring we have moved 12 bunnies from Calgary up to our Beaverlodge location for the summer and fall. All the bunnies head back to Calgary come fall as we don't have a heated building to keep them in over the cold northern Alberta winters. We have been bringing all our sale animals up here and selling them but this year we don't have much to sell so we have brought our brood stock up to hopefully get a few litters up here. Here's a list of who is up here!

Boys are:
GC SLR's Tritan
SLR's Chambler
SLR's No name tri SR buck who is FOR SALE, photos to follow

Girls:
GC SLR's Bailey
GC SLR's Moxie
SLR's Sassy
SLR's Bumble
SLR's Honey
SLR's Jori

Plus there are the three little tykes that were previously posted. Stay tuned for some baby news in about a month as we have bred:
Tritan to Moxie
Chambler to Sassy
Chambler to Honey
Tritan to Jori

 GC SLR's Tritan

SLR's Chambler

 GC SLR's Moxie

 SLR's Sassy

 SLR's Bumble as a baby

SLR's Jori as a baby

Photographs

Photographs. That one simple word can strike fear into the lives of a lot of rabbit breeders across the nation. If done right it can help one to positively market their animals to the right audience but if done poorly can make a perspective buyer pass on to the next site. Everyone has a desire to have nice stock and to showcase their stock in a way that really shows them off, this is my opinion on the do's and don'ts of publishing your photos! I am not a photographer but I love taking photos so I've listed some helpful information that I've learned over the last 12 years in the bunny habit.

A quality photo starts with a camera that is able to take a picture with a fast shutter speed. This is how fast the time frame is from when you push the button to when the photo is actually taken. Most cameras have an action setting and though the rabbit should not be in motion when the photo is taken time is of the essence when dealing with animals, so this setting can be an advantage to you. Pixels is an important part of a camera if you are planning on produce an image in a large size; for photos to go on a website most all cameras will have a more than sufficient amount. In short I'm not saying that you have to go out and purchase a expensive camera but I am saying that you should get to know your current camera and it's settings. A digital camera is a must for posed photos. I generally take about ten different photos of the same animal that I think by my naked eye will have a good change of producing a good shot and go through them on the computer. Only then can you sometimes see he shadow that went unnoticed before or the bit of movement that made the photo blurry.

If you are working with an animal that is used to being handled and posed then I usually take a minute to see what mood they are in that day before turning the camera on, batteries last a lot longer when they are not used! If it's an animal that has not been worked with before then you can pretty much write the camera off for the next five minutes. Sure you can rush things and get them to half show themselves off but it may not be a positive experience for the animal and next time may be a lot worse. I'll go over some posing tips that I use in a different post but the animal has to be able to sit long enough for you to back away and take the photo before you should try. If you end up getting frustrated, then put the animal away(hopefully on a good note) and try again when you're calm. If it's one emotion that rabbits don't grasp from humans it's frustration!

Crop your photos before publishing them, ie putting them on the Internet. Cropping is the simplest photo editing you can do and it really makes your photos look more professional. No one wants to see that you tried to whip your hand out of the photo before it was taken or all your dirty dishes or cages in the corners of the photo. Background, background background! Choose a location with good lighting that won't cast shadows and is not windy or a busy spot. Your background can be something as simple as a bale of hay or some trees. Don't try to take a photo of a black rabbit on a black background or vice versa, kind of makes sense if you actually want to know something is there! Do not chose a dirty location and don't take pose photos in cages. Take the time it takes to give each rabbit an honest bit of your attention remembering that your photos not only reflect the quality of your stock but also a lot of your management practices. We are governed by a professional society so let's try to be professional with our public dealings.

The most important thing is to remember that you're in this because you love your animals, have fun!! Laugh. If you feel yourself getting frustrated then stop! You never get anywhere working with an animal when you are not in a good mindset. Always end on a positive note. I always end when the animal has sat nice for a period of time and my routine is to pick them up before they break the pose, give them a kiss on the head and some cuddle time. For the guys out there the kiss may be a bit too affectionate but I kid you not that my animals always look for it! After the cuddles they get to go be a rabbit and play! This is not something that will be mastered overnight but will take time dedication and most importantly patience! Have fun trying and I'll go over some posing techniques in a different post, which will significantly help to get great photos of your stock!

Here's some of my favorite photos that I have taken.

Until next time,
Shannon

Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork!

We've spent the day working on updating pedigree's here and cleaning out the fall debris from the shed to be able to move some bunnies up here. The pedigree's are pretty much all up to date and in order which was muchly needed but it did take a couple hours to do so! We updated our Evans software with help from Dave who has been fantastic - if you need a rabbit program they are the people, and moved all the files over. We are ready to go for the spring season paperwork wise!

Shed wise it still needs a bit of work but I'm hoping to clean out the lean to side to be able to make a large bunny run or two for exercise and also add some more cages as we only have seven right now. Hopefully we can get it set up a little better so it's nicer for the bunnies and to be set up nicely to breed a bunch this summer. Anyways I will post an article on photographs later once I do some editing on it!

Shannon

Meet the new little one's at SLR

Here's some photos of the three little jems that are working on growing up here at SLR. There's a broken tort buck and a broken tort doe out of GC SLR's Tritan and GC SLR's Bailey and an opal doe out of SLR's Aiden and SLR's Athena. At this point we will be holding the broken torts back for awhile to see how they grow up but the little opal doe will be available when she is weaned. She should either go to a pet home or a breeder who is working on blue/fawn tris as she carries both the dilute gene and the tri gene which you wouldn't want to introduce to just any program.

                                                  The above two are of the broken tort doe.

                                                      This is the little broken tort buck.

Last but not least is the little opal doe, cute eh?

Meet SLR's Aiden

Happy Spring! Or winter as it still appears to be out the frosted window here in Calgary! Robin and I have spent the last ten almost eleven days down in the Dominican for a friends wedding so I am just getting caught up on e-mails and such. If you haven't heard back from me yet don't fret as I will get around to answering all of those in the next day or so. We have a 18 hour layover in Calgary which is where this post is being wrote and we should be home in Grande Prairie after another flight later tonight. Being in Calgary means photos so here are some photos of SLR's Aiden a torted black/orange harli buck out of GC SLR's Tritan and Reg SLR's Kaylee, a beautiful tri doe. Aiden had a litter born a couple weeks ago however the mom was not very good to her babies this time around and there is only one surviving opal which was fostered to Bailey and her two. Bailey had four kits but two of which were peanuts so now she's down to a broken tort buck and a broken tort doe, photos will follow later this week of these three cuties!

Back to Aiden, well this guy look's and feels JUST like his daddy Tritan but in a cool color! I think we'll show him a bit and see what comments come out of it! Here's SLR's Aiden.

Such a handsome little guy that I'm really hoping to breed to SLR's Sassy a tri doe to get some tri babies! They may come out torted but the type in both Aiden and Sassy is awesome!

The first 2012 babies!

I just got off the phone after hearing some very exciting news from Mom - we have four new babies! GC SLR's Bailey had a litter and GC SLR's Tritan is the sire. We'll try to post some photos of these little cuties as soon as we can make a trip down to Calgary! In the mean time here's what the sire and dam look like - these should be some NICE bunnies!

GC SLR's Tritan

I thought I had a photo of Bailey on here but just have her mom GC SLR's Moxie so that's who is pictured above. Moxie and Bailey could really be twins they are so similar in looks!

Twelve Years

SLR begin twelve years ago now - isn't it funny how quickly time passes! It all started out with one homeless Holland Lop being found outside in the middle of a Calgary winter and of course we had to take him in and give him a home! A little while later we decided he was lonely and needed a friend so got another "male" to be friends with, thirty days later "he" had a litter of eight kits. In the process of finding new homes for these new little ones a lady had asked us if we could supply pedigrees for them which until then I did not even know was possible. I looked into it and found out you could not only purchase pedigreed Hollands but you could show them too!! We got in touch with a breeder in Lethbridge and took a road trip to come home with five new beautiful bunnies since then we haven't really looked back.

We started showing in 2002 and took our first BOB with a homebred animal, SLR's Jake at the Calgary show in 2003. A year later we came home with a BOB and our first RIS under Allan Ormond for SLR's Max a beautiful broken senior buck. Even though we haven't been very active in the show world these last two years the bunnies at home are still doing well. Most of the bunnies we have are solid SLR pedigree's and we haven't really purchased much for new stock in a couple of years.

The big plans for the future are to move have the herd up to Beaverlodge year round after we build a enclosed heated barn for them. After that we'll probably jump back into showing and travelling more with the bunnies again! We do have animas for sale in the spring summer fall months so feel free to contact us for something. If we don't have anything available we'll give you some contact information for someone who does!

Here's a photo of GC SLR's Max.