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| Nutmeg |
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| Day 1 (9 cm long) Notice that their eyes are closed and there is very little fur. |
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| Week 1 (February 1) The little pink bunny now has fur. |
Activity 1:
How long is the 1 day old black Angora rabbit?
How much does a rabbit grow is a week?
The other big thing that happens is that the eyes are getting ready to open. In this litter, they opened their eyes on day nine.
Week 1 length - Day 1 length = ____cm
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| Activity 2: Add up all the toes: How many toes does a bunny have? |
Activity 3: What do you think is the little black dot in the middle of the bunny's stomach? Hint: It's where the baby get's it's food from the Momma Bunny until it's born. Hint 2: You have one too! At about 10 days the black scab comes off and fur covers the area so you don't see it.
Activity 4: How many teeth does a baby bunny have? Even though they don't eat any solids until about week 3 or 4, they are born with a full set of tiny teeth.
Activity 5: This is that same little dark Angora that looked black in the first picture. It is now Feb 8 and the bunny is three weeks old. It is big enough to hop in and out of the nest box with no trouble but still eats Momma Milk from Nutmeg. It is 36 cm long. Make a chart to show how the bunnies grew from birth, one week and now three weeks. Using the chart, how long do you think the bunnies were at 2 weeks?
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When this Angora is full grown into an adult, it will have super long hair like the Momma and Daddy Bunny. This week is the first time we noticed that the fur is longer than the other breeds of the same age. So let the long hair begin!!
February 15, 2014: We named the twins Pepper and Roni. They are full of energy and it's fun to watch them binky around the living room. Momma shared a little cauliflower greens with them and boy did they think that was tasty! Yum Yum.
March 29, 2014: Happy two months. The babies are really growing up and they are weaned from the Momma. She is not interested in feeding them anymore, even though they would still like it. The Pepper-Roni twins play in the back yard and are digging up the little bit of grass they can find. They were nibbling on the apple tree bark until Mom covered it up. Pepper and Roni are hilarious when they are happy. They "bink" all over - kinda like a crazy hop and skip and leap at the same time. They went up to the neighbors fence and told the dog over there that they aren't afraid . Then they dug holes under the bush. Later I saw Roni licking the sugar maple tree. The sap was dripping out of the bark and it was licking up the sugar water. Woo-hoo was Roni hyper! HA!
April 17, 2014: Yes it snowed again. The bunnies are in the yard playing in the snowcover again. They scratch through to find the grass and were nibbling on the maple bark. It must not taste as good anymore because Roni was not interested. He is interested in sniffing the other bunnies and playing tag. He was a big hit at the Easter Egg hunt last weekend. We have some bunnies that like to sit still...and that is NOT either of our Pepper-Roni twins. They are always on the move.
April 18, 2014: The Sun Current did a front page article on the STEM Bunnies. We had over 100 hits on our website just today. That's so cool to see that people are checking out our program. We spent lots of time at the farm this week and I can't believe how many lambs and kids were born. I LOVE BEING A FARMER and LOVE going to the farm! I also sent out press releases and contacted some news stations to see if they might be interested in doing a story. We'll see.
April 19, 2014 Two egg hunts and a bunny birthday party for twin boys at Woodlake Nature Center. There were SO many kids today. I got my face painted and wore my bunny ears. Then off to the second hunt were they gave everyone an egg carton to decorate. This also helped make sure everyone only got 12 eggs. Genius. They were hid all over the church yard. And they made cookies and did crafts too. We always make sure we bring plenty of bunnies so that they can take a break. And we had GREAT volunteers today. Welcome to my new friend Greta (15) who is going to be a new apprentice. WCCO is interested in doing a story on the program, so I hope they come and do it.
It's Easter tomorrow. YEAH!
May 5, 2014: Lots of things have been happening as we get ready for several Bunny Boot Camp classes. One of our baby American rabbits that is black has stolen my heart, so I call it Bandit. Aww. Because it has a birth defect (only half a back right foot) it is had difficulty keeping up for feeding. It wobbles a lot and can't hop smoothly yet. I'm still hopeful that some therapy and practice will work. So I have been spending more time with this sweet bunny, bottle feeding it to ensure enough liquid, and giving lots of affection. We won't know the gender for a few weeks, when we normally name the rabbits. Loxy (Silver Fox) was bred this weekend, so we'll have our first litter right before school ends for the summer. Wyatt (English Angora) has really struggled this spring. He has been fighting an infection and is on the mends. Tonight at 4H is tattoo night to get ready for showing rabbits at the county fairs. Getting Captain Phil all ready to go to his new house where they are busy making a new hutch. And more rabbits are going out this week for fostering. The baby angoras are FLUFFY and very energetic. Paxton Peacebunny is enjoying our back yard and seems to tolerate the harness for potentially doing agility training. Hmmm. We'll see!
May 21, 2014 A litter of all white was born to Creampuff and Trey. Momma Bunny and babies are all doing fine. The warmer weather has allowed us to keep the nestbox outside in the sunshine. I love spring! And Ranger is learning to do agility drills. Hilarious!! Goes up and down a ramp, through a tube and comes running to me when I call.
Mom changed the barn from winter to spring setup so it's a lot easier to take care of everyone. I am so glad to see the green grass and its fun to see the sheep on the way to feed the bunnies. They are so bouncy! Almost each night this week we have at least one foster rabbit going out and the Thursday bootcamp class is now our Thursday night family thing. I'm glad that my plan is working. It's cool to see it come together.
It's not the end of May yet and I've been keeping track of Craigslist adds since Easter. There have been 28 rabbits local posted that were not posted by breeders...that's a lot of deserted rabbits. I think that if people could foster short term they would find out if they really want a rabbit and there wouldn't be so many at animal shelters or sold online or deserted. The Human Society gave me their stats for the past two years. Check back for some of the results...
