Tuesday 30 September 2008

4 Months Of Daily Post

Since June, I have been posting on a daily basis and at times, I felt that the quality of my post may have deteriorated. It has been fun writing on a daily basis but have to admit that I do find it hard posting great contents all the time. As I have mentioned many times, the number of daily visit serve as an indicator for me.

I am happy to have documented most of my journey raising these wonderful rabbits and I hope to share more experiences as I go through them in future.

I will not be posting on a daily basis anymore starting today and I hope that my faithful readers will go through older posts. Also visit my list of favorite websites as well.

Monday 29 September 2008

Anxiety?

Although I have been handling all my rabbits daily, I found that Eclipse and Luna has poor control over their bowels and bladder. They poop quite a lot while I handle them and on occasions, pees on me. LOL. I hope this do not turn into a habit. I do not want them to associate waste elimination with handling.

What about you? Have you experience the same with your rabbits? Would really appreciate it if you could share your side of story.

Sunday 28 September 2008

Tru-Luv Luna: Broken Siamese Sable or Broken Smoke Pearl Holland Lop?

Honestly, I did not know of such color in Holland Lop until now. I have seen Siamese Sable in Netherland Dwarfs mostly. I never imagine getting such a rare one emerging in my rabbitry. It would be really nice to see them grow into seniors with good body type. Eclipse was not in good shape for photos today. They have both over groomed each other through the cage partition. Here are some photos of Luna at her best:

UPDATE: It is still debatable if she is a Broken Siamese Sable or Broken Smoke Pearl

Saturday 27 September 2008

4 More Days & There Will Be Less Posts

It has been 3 months now that I have been posting on a daily basis. I will continue to post on a daily basis up to the end of this month and it will soon be occassional posts.

I will be having a busy schedule as the year end draws near. Furthermore, there isn't much happenings in Meadow Haven.

I will post if anything interesting crops up.

Friday 26 September 2008

Correction: BlueBerry's Litter Color

I am so sorry for the blunder made earlier. I forgot the fact that there are always possibilities of getting the most outrageous color when the genes of 2 rabbits come together. This is the first time that it has been proven that information on the pedigree by no means justify the genetic make up. The way I see it, in Skor's pedigree, he has got a lot of black & occassionally chocolate ancestors whereas Blueberry's pedigree showed mostly blacks and blues (broken too).

I was very much convinced when the kits were born, they looked very different. Sometimes they looked lilac, sometimes light blue. But lately, Luna and Eclipse has showed me none of my guesses were right. I stumbled across a similar color yesterday over at Golden Sunrise Rance. There is a Broken Siamese Sable Junior Doe that looked like Luna and her siblings called Fun Fur's Sprite. And thanks to Susie of Wooly World Rabbitry, she also thought they were Broken Siamese Sables.

I did mention that I am proud to own the first litter of broken blue bunnies in one of the newspaper interviews recently. I have to make that correction too. First litter of Broken Siamese Sable in Malaysia!

I hope I do not have to make another correction in the near future. We all learn through experience don't we?

Thursday 25 September 2008

Thoughts Of Revamping

Once again, my mind is playing tricks on me. I just got new ideas on how my next shelf units would be. This time around I will make sure that cages are easily removed. The waste system idea will be dropped as I have figure out better and more efficient ideas to handle the waste.

I shall be introducing new pee guards this time and with the removal of the pipes for the waste system, I hope to have more space to work around as I am fast gaining weight. I believe by Chinese New Year 2009, I will be too huge to fit into the little aisle to get Luna out for jump trainings. LOL...

We shall see if this will materialize by year end.

A Foreign Object, Successful Jumps & Perspiration

Every morning, I will give every Junior bunny a handful of Oxbow Alfafa. I am normally very sleepy and do not really go through every clutch of hay that I pick up. In the evening while I was cleaning up their quarters, I found a gruesome foreign object in Noobie's feeding bowl. When I scrutinize it further, guess what I found?

Locust!!! The upper half of a giant locust that is. This is not the first time I found locust in Alfafa Hay. I guess it is a sign that the hay are of good quality and therefore, having locust in every bag would mean that less pesticide were used. I hope it was half a locust that got into the feeding bowl and not a whole locus because if it was, then either Noobie or one of the kits had chewed the other half of it.

This evening was my first attempt training Luna to jump over the DIY obstacle I made last night. I started off letting her roam around the kitchen area and she just did not stop urinating near my cabinets. After 3 puddles of pee, she got warmed up roaming around. Then I started putting her behind the obstacle and gave her a few nudges while saying the word "JUMP". I guess she has got more SHOW genes in her than JUMPING genes. First few minutes she just show posed:

Since she was show posing, I got distracted and started looking out for standard conformation instead. And I notice something very obvious. I am starting to doubt that she and the rest of BlueBerry's litter was pure Broken Blue. They have got darker markings on their faces, ears and root of their tails. I am now wondering if they are Broken Siamese Blue Point. I do not know if there is such a variety but I am quite sure they do not look pure blue to me. At times their lighter shade looks lilac to me. Skor's a chocolate carrier and he being broken black and crossing with BlueBerry which is a solid blue I wonder if this color was possible.

Alright, I suddenly realize that I have a mission this evening noticing the obstacle is still standing upright in front of me so I came back to earth.

After a few more tries putting her behind the obstacles and repeating myself, I finally got something going:

I made her go a few rounds and she started perspiring below her nose! I notice all my rabbits "sweat" below their noses when the temperature rises a little. Not to mention I was sweating all over myself. I need to find somewhere cooling to train next time (the living room perhaps if she stops urinating that much). I believe that a little bunny has got much shorter attention span compared to its owner (suspected with ADD) and I should extend training time gradually. 5 successful jumps is good enough to call it a day.

And while I put her back into her cage, she gave me a good scratch on the shoulder - I took it as a pat on the back well done! LOL.....

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Alternative Bunny Fun Activity

I submitted a post entitled "Rabbit Agility" 2 days ago and some of you may have taken special interest in it. Since we do not have rabbit shows in Malaysia, I thought maybe we can all enjoy our rabbits in a different way. I am sure even a mixed breed can go through those obstacles without needed to produce a pedigree.

But first, I need to get the measurements for the obstacles before I start constructing one to train one of my rabbits. I think Luna would be a great candidate for this because she has been acting really shy these days and I need more interaction with her.

Will start with one obstacle this evening (construction on the way). LOL! I shall post a photo of the DIY training obstacle once it is done.

For those interested please follow the following links:

1) http://www.rabbitagility.net/

2) http://www.rabbitagility.com/

If you understand German then:

3) http://kaninhop.com/

I am sure this new activity will bring more benefit to both rabbit and owner. Good exercise for rabbit, great bonding opportunity for owner. Time for some ALTERNATIVE BUNNY FUN!

My inspiration:


UPDATE: I just finish constructing the DIY obstacle/jump. Presenting the first DIY Bunny Jump in TLR (drum roll)....

Training starts tomorrow (I am too tired now). LOL...

Tuesday 23 September 2008

BlueBerry's on a rampage!

My sweet BlueBerry has transformed into a monster again. I guess she is ready to mate again and frustrated not being able to. I am putting her on hold first based on the result of the last litter. I know it is too soon to pass judgment but as I have mentioned many times, I have limited space for another litter so I am reserving it for Holly Hope.

BlueBerry was very mean last night. Although there were a few failed attempts to give me a nip, she did gave me some mean kung fu flying kicks...

I could almost imagine that panda that does the flying kick on the big screen recently just that she is a rabbit. Just imagine a big mean and long blue Holland Lop giving you a flying kick. To a certain extend, she reminds me of a fetal giant that survived. Huge head, short front limbs and a elongated body which gives me the impression of Slinky running out of the idiot box while I watch that "story about toys"

I know the Flemish Giants are comparative to the Great Danes of the Dog world, but BlueBerry is indeed my Great Dane! That little big blue monster that I love!

There is definitely good use for that long body (accommodate more kits perhaps). LOL...

I still believe she is able to give me her head and color on top of Skor's short ears and body type.

But for now, she will have loads of toys to take out the frustration! Aggression in unaltered rabbits is a common thing every rabbit owner must endure.

Monday 22 September 2008

Bunny Agility?

I found this very interesting video this morning. They have a dog agility competition equivalent for rabbits. Very interesting and I should try training one of my bunnies to do this sort of stuff. It is amazing how these bunny people can train their rabbits to be so focused. Total fun!

Sunday 21 September 2008

What else should I write?

Firstly, I am feeling a little too lazy this weekend to write or even do anything bunny. LOL. Yes, I am taking a little rest from all day bunny talk. It was a nice weekend with the family.

Secondly, I seriously have run out of things to write at the moment because all I am doing is just waiting for Charl & Mo to grow up. I am not expecting any litter until December.

I guess that I will just write some random stuff for today.

The first topic that I would like write is pertaining to having gatherings with fellow rabbit enthusiasts. I normally avoid gatherings because my pets come first for me and people secondary. LOL. Yes, I hate politics. When people get together, most of the time hell will break loose. Therefore, I prefer having a small number of bunny friends and we do not really meet that often. Mostly in chatrooms. And did I mention my pets come first? Yes, I believe that people come from all walks of life and not many would keep their pets the way others do. Some emphasize a lot on cleanliness and others just couldn't be bothered. I shudder to the thought of getting my rabbits infected with disease and in a big group of rabbits, you wouldn't know what sort of bacteria/parasites you might get. So I usually avoid gatherings and if need be, I will go without my rabbits. And that is the reason why I have taken down my "SERVICES" page. I am afraid of introducing parasite/bacteria to my "stabilized" herd.

The second thing I would like to talk about since I just read in the forums that someone is experiencing buck spraying. Well, kinda dissappointed because this topic had been discussed and I thought that person should have known better. Spraying is a territorial behaviour inspired by sexual hormones. Buck sprays to mark things he is fond of. If a person gets sprayed, it would mean the buck is claiming him/her as his own possession. And why does the buck spray its owner after the owner spent time being with a doe? Simple, that's because the owner has got the doe's scent all over him/herself and the buck sprays to claim the "doe" as his own. These are all very basic bunny behavior and they are written all over the internet.

There you go, another point lost for TLR for being bluntly straight forward. I really need to cheer myself up, I believe my herd is feeling the heat coming from me sometimes when I post a new topic and that wouldn't be too good on their lifespan.

And by the way, I have swapped cages between BlueBerry & Holly Hope. Since BlueBerry's cage is better equipped for kindling, I made the switch to get Holly Hope ready for a litter. So she's on top of Skor's at the moment. Hope they get each other excited through scent. LOL...

Saturday 20 September 2008

Mugshot-ed!

Aren't they CUTE?

As days passed, Mo is looking a lot like Noobie. She has got really nice fur and big bum. Where is all my BIG HEADS??? LOL...

Kinda frustrating because Skor has not thrown me a single kit with big head so far. I really want those THF Saynora & Nature Trail big heads & short ears! LOL!!!

"I am tired too..."

Friday 19 September 2008

Sales Page Up!

I have just updated the sales page. Trying to get good good parent(s) for both Eclipse & Charlyz.

Click here for sales info. Thanks in advance.

Thursday 18 September 2008

Genetic Flukes

Can a rabbit he "genetically engineered" to die within a certain timeframe? I was told of such thing and since it is the first time I am hearing it, I am about to embark on a research on this subject.

Maybe it wasn't a deliberate or planned purpose. It may be accidentally introduced into certain breeding stocks. But can you imagine rabbits being like light bulbs? In the olden days, light bulbs are known to last longer but these days you need to get them replaced quite frequently. This is done for recurring/repeat businesses I believe.

What happen is that these rabbits and their offspring goes through premature deaths. Meaning to say, these rabbits cannot live past a year or cannot produce viable kits.

What has become of our world I wonder. It is just too sad. I have no concrete conclusion at the moment. Shall do some read up on this and post my conclusion.

But my early guesses would be that in order to produce quality rabbits consistently, many breeders practice line-breeding and sometimes, inevitably in-breeding. Breeding of closely related specimens that is to boost or increase the good traits. Since mother nature works in her mysterious ways, I could only guess that through these line-breeding/in-breeding, beside from increasing the good genes in the offspring, they have also resulted in the increase of bad genes. Therefore, when the balance is tipped, we may get many undesired traits in the herd.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

A candle for Follie

With my deepest condolences, I would like to light a candle for Follie owned by Lindsey of 4 Kings Rabbitry. We know Follie has been having bloody diarrhea, the after effect of stress due to the onslaught of Hurricane Ike.

Binky Free little one...

My Favourite Holland Lops

The internet has been the greatest place for me because I am able to get so much information out of it. If it was not for the Internet, I would not know about this wonderful breed.

Most of the websites that I visit are either Holland Lop blogs or rabbitry websites. And after so long, you would guess that I have visited tons of them. And today I realized that I ought to write a post about my favorite Holland Lops on cyberspace and why I fell in love with them. I have NOT asked permission to feature the rabbits on this blog so if you happen to find your rabbit photo link here and not please about it, please let me know and I will remove it/them with an apology.

1. GC The Nature Trail's Rio

Rio was in fact the first rabbit that caught my attention. I started this hobby because of this handsome buck. I was very attracted to its "bulldoggish" face.

2. GC The Nature Trail's Myrddin

Definitely the short ears!

3. GC Camelot's Merlin

Again, it was the head and of course the cute stumpy body

4. THF Saynora's Qwade

One-word, MASSIVE!

5. ELS's Royce

Cuteness unlimited! I was really sadden by the fact this little cute buck has since passed. I used to see rabbits from ELS on their website and I love most of their rabbits because of the varieties and soundness of type.

6. GC Sarah's Miriam

I love the coat on this one.

7. FRR Bravado

Muscles all over? LOL

8. Holland Haven's Merlot

I love the Lilac color on this one.

9. Rabbit Hill's Jasmine

Christina is famous for breeding colored Holland Lops and this is one of the finest I have seen her posting on her website.

10. Rabbit Hill's Marina

Another unique color in Christina's lineup.

Please note that the order of the rabbits mentioned does not in away way project their ranking in my opinion. They just happen to be my favorites that's all. The conclusion that I can achieve out of seeing all these rabbits from different rabbitries is that, every breeder have an objective to work on and by looking at their rabbits, there are distinctive "trademarks" on them. For example, Laurie of The Nature Trail as we all know love to have short ears in her lines coupled with very typey body and THF Saynora in my opinion breeds a lot of massiveness into their herd. As we can also see, the TORT variety has more type compared to Rabbit Hill's colored varieties.

I guess at the end of the day it is like life, you will never get a perfect 10 in this world. If you emphasize on colors, you may lose out in body type and if you're preferences are the body type, you may lose some on the color. Ultimately, I am sure when these 2 collides, we shall get great Holland Lops in both body type and colors!

As for Tru-Luv Rabbitry, I have got a lot of work to do! Even Skor in my opinion is only half way there. Slowly but surely, I shall achieve my dream...

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Final Cut

Since Eclipse & Luna are kept in separate cages side by side, they have been grooming each other through the cage partition. So much so that both of them have shorter fur around their faces. Hope they grow back nicely.

I have finally made up my decision which to keep from BlueBerry's litter. But before I state my decision and reason, here are some photos of them:

Tru-Luv Eclipse:

Tru-Luv Luna:

And the moment of truth. Both of them have a lot of similarities except for some differences in color pattern and body type. Overall, Eclipse has got a broader body. Unfortunately Eclipse does not make the cut to be my herd buck.

Therefore, I am offering Tru-Luv Eclipse up for sale. I am also offering Tru-Luv Charl up for sale. But she will not be ready until 6th October. For those who are interested, please email me at truluvrabbitry@gmail.com. Do include your experience in keeping rabbits and why have you chosen Holland Lop.

Thanks in advance.

What's after breeding?

I am very envious of many people that I have came across keeping bunnies in the living room. Free ranged bunnies that is.

You might be wondering why I am complaining not being able to have free ranged bunnies in my home. The main reason is because, all my rabbits are not neutered or spayed. Why not spay or neuter them?

You must have also noticed that I always encourage people to spay and neuter their rabbits except for myself? Am I being hypocritic here?

Let me first explain why my rabbits are not neutered/spayed first. The reason is simply because they are rabbits for breeding. What has neutering & spaying got to do with free range rabbit?

There are many issues as regards to neutering/spaying that can be attributed to hormones. Common issues such as spraying of a buck and stronger odour is part and parcel of keeping unaltered rabbits. But both doe and buck share the same problem. They mark their territory with their poops!

Therefore, the main reason I cannot free range most of my rabbits is because of the effectiveness of toilet training. Although Skor uses his litter tray, he still marks with his poo all over the place and worst still, if there is even a drop of pee (of another rabbit) in the area where he is, that area will be filled with poop pellets and pee.

As for why I do not get them neutered/spayed, I must first explain about my passion for these rabbits. Let's just put it as I caught the "show" bug although there is no show in Malaysia. I am sure most of you as a young child, has come across these vending machines that dispense some sort of toys in an egg-like container. I do not think the toys really matter but it was the suspense and curiosity that is addictive. Yes, breeding for quality is very exciting. It is like Forrest Gump saying "Life is like a box of chocolates, you will never know what you gonna get" or something like that.

I am a little addicted as to how well a litter of kits would turn out but of course and glad that it has not turn into an obsession. And working within a space constrained situation also helps because I can only afford to make the best decisions. It is similar as to the analogy that I so often use in the past, the earth has got a threshold as to how many people/living things it can hold and if the amount exceeds the threshold, earth will react.

I noticed that in a big rabbitry with 100 or more holes, things may get out of hand because since there is so much space to accomodate so many rabbits, not all decisions are made with careful planning. If given a choice to own a 100 holes rabbitry, I believe that it would be hard for me to cull as well. I will probably convince myself that all rabbits are up to standard and end up keeping every single one. I felt that most people with big rabbitry ends up having a rabbit "burnout" which is, after sometime of excitement they just blow up by selling out. It is like eating chocolates every single day of your life and it would come a point when you will just get so sick and tired of eating, it just backfires.

So what do I plan to do when my does are over producing age? Coming back to what I feel envious about, I hope to get them spayed and keep them as house rabbits to live out their retirement.

I do not mean that I am tired of keeping so many rabbits but it is very true when some people say that they prefer to enjoy just one pet at a time. I do spend time with each and everyone of the buns but it is very different having just one or two compared to having an entire herd.

Maybe the notion of having that only one passing on makes us feel that it is always better to have another just in case?

Well, I hope that's not the case because that has got no difference with wanting to breed our pets just to keep its offspring (hoping for similarities). We must always know that like humans, every individual pet is unique unless if you are talking about clones. And by the way, I am totally against cloning simply because every individual is intended to be different and God wants it that way. Differences are in fact a GIFT.

Monday 15 September 2008

Enjoying the Sunday Breeze

Sitting here on a rainy Sunday evening trying to figure out what else I could do to increase the entertainment value of my rabbit blog. LOL.

I am very happy to say that the HIT was all time high on Friday due to the newspaper feature. I hope more people drop by and the number of hits remain constant.

Realized that most people are not that keen of reading older posts. It is normal for the general public to read the most recent posts. Honestly, I miss reading Laurie Stroupe's blog. So many things has happened the past few months especially devastated to have read about so many sell outs.

Wonder how it really feels being a rabbit sometimes. Does the word finance means anything to them? Will they know if they are in a economic downturn besides through getting cheaper hay or pellets? LOL...

I really do hope there are Holland Lops in Heaven. Maybe in hell too in case I go there.

At this line that I am typing, I have yet to figure out the title for this post. LOL.

By the way, I have got a feeling that Mo and Charl's ears are growing longer. I may see hideously long ears next week. I have since turn on the fan full blast 24/7 hoping that their ears do not grow any longer. If not, I might get another repeatition of BlueBerry's litter. Hope that doesn't happen but if it does, then it would be very apparent and obvious that heat does contribute to the ear length.

Ms. D has informed that Tridus has 8.5 cm long ears while 10 weeks old Tinga's ears are at 9 cm already. It is not likely that Tridus' ears will grow any longer while I hope that Tinga's ears will stop growing all together.

I hope the fast ear growth has nothing to do with heat and solely controlled by genetics. The logic SB gave me was she thinks that heat does cause the speed of ear growth but the length should be govern by genetics. This means that there will always be a threshold and limit to the final ear length just that they get to the limit faster under warmer environment.

Sunday 14 September 2008

Prayers for Hurricane Ike survivors

I just heard from Lindsey and she is in distressed over her JW Follie which is having diarrhea and apparently a bloody one as well. Hurricane Ike has just hit her area and power has just got back on. All of her rabbits are fine except for Follie.

Please pray for all rabbits and owners affected.

I hope Follie bounces back!

For those having the same problem, please follow this link for an emergency diarrhea treatment http://www.thenaturetrail.com/Holland-Lops-and-Diarrhea.htm.

Oh No! All For The Wrong Reasons!

I am very sad to say that my blog seemed to have failed one of its objectives. Besides from sharing my life as a Holland Lop hobbyist, my main intention of this blog is to promote responsible and quality breeding.

I am rather shocked when someone told me that they are planning to breed their rabbits because of the irresistible photographs of my kits. The kits seemed to be very nice to "play" with. That is just so unacceptable for me.

It is not my intention to promote breeding out of cuteness. I know it all seemed to be like a perfect fairy tale but please DO NOT overlook the technicalities of breeding.

If every Tom, Dick & Harry breeds their rabbits without accessing the potential genetic problems or breeding just for the pleasure of having cute baby bunnies, this world would be DOOMED!

This sort of information really makes me feel like quiting this blog altogether! People are missing all the important points!

I am enjoying my baby rabbits and even more so with my adult rabbits because at the end of the day, it should not be how good the baby looks. I am trying to get adult rabbits looking like baby rabbits! Do you not see the point? Baby rabbits are cute regardless of the breed. Most people would abandon them once they grow out of their cuteness.

It is enjoyable to have baby bunnies around more so if you know that they are of good quality. Yes, I am really enjoying having good quality rabbits! Of course I want others to have this enjoyment too but not until if they know how to get there!

Well, what good can I make out of this sad information? It only gives me affirmation to hold steadfast in my principles. The more I get to know people's intentions the more I have decided that I should safeguard the genetic pool of my rabbits.

I am expecting a sharp drop on the hits statistic after this but I could not be bothered. I rather have a handful of good faithful readers than some that are in it for all the wrong reasons!

Sorry people, as of now, NO BUNNIES FOR SALE!

Saturday 13 September 2008

Chilling with BlueBerry


I realized today (took a little long to realize) that little has been written about BlueBerry. So what can I say about BlueBerry? To be very honest, the first time I saw BlueBerry, I was a little shocked to see her body length. Her mid section is a little too long for my fancy but her last litter of kits with Skor really proved to me that body length can be shorten. BlueBerry has got the most massive head among all the rabbits I have but she did not contribute this trait to her kits this time around.

What I hope to get from her in the future is throwing her massive head on top of Skor's short ears and body. BlueBerry will be my hope for Blue Holland Lops in Malaysia. I hope to get a show quality solid blue from her next.

Cecal?

Rabbits have a lot in common with men because there is a saying that goes, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". The same goes with rabbit. The way to a healthy rabbit is through a healthy digestive system.

Do you know that rabbits reingest their droppings? Yes, it means they eat their own poop! Don't feel disgusted just yet. They do this for a good reason. But before you let your imagination run wild, I must mention that they do not normally reingest those big round hard droppings.

Re ingestion normally happens during dawn and dusk. Those that they re ingest are called caecal/cecal/cecotropes/caecotrophes. These pellets are also known as "night faeces".

Now, why do they re ingest the cecals?

To cut the long story short, reingestion is part of a rabbit's digestive system and they do it because there are certain elements or nutrients in their diet that could not be "processed" or absorbed fully. The cecal pellets are filled with extra nutrients and therefore, reingesting these would help them strike a balance in their diet.

So how does cecal pellets look like? If I really need to describe without any real cecal to show as an example, I would show those interested this picture:

What's this?!

Take another look:

Yes! These are PAPAYA seeds. Don't they look like CECALS?

LOL!!! Bet I gotcha there!

Actually papaya is known to provide good enzyme for rabbits and although unproven, it is said to help lower the risk of fur blockage.

Saturdays are normally papaya day for everyone at Meadow Haven!

The Brother & Sister Team Of Havoc

Luna and Eclipse has since grown up quite a bit and as usual, I decided to let them out for a little run today.

I love their color! They are light blue in color. Really amazing! When I snap a photo of them against a white background, they seemed to be a little blur but that's just their color playing tricks on the camera.

They run all over the place and I could see them binky non stop!

After a while, they got tired and cuddled each other:

Friday 12 September 2008

Happy To Be Cyberspotted By The Malay Mail!

I am happy and excited to announce that Tru-Luv rabbitry was featured on another major newspaper today. Grab a copy of Malay Mail to know what's up!

Special thanks goes out to Gabey and Sheila of Malay Mail for a full page article dedicated to RABBITS!

Long live the rabbit community!!!

Another great news! Just got permission from Ms. Sheila to include the article on this blog. Gabey even gave me the softcopy of the article! Click here to read.

*thanks Nicky for sending me an SMS on this!

Photograph Updates

Here are some photos taken of Charlyz & Mo before I went to bed. I just had to pat each and every bun goodnight before I sleep! Goodnight everyone!







Thursday 11 September 2008

The mane gene

I notice that most of the lop ear rabbits in Malaysia has the mane gene. It is possible that their ancestors has got lionhead or anggora crosses. My original TLR linenage has got the mane gene too. If you have seen Bandie, Floppie & Lumix, you would notice the obvious mane gene that manifested. It is very difficult to get rid of this mane gene. It is one of the reason why I was very reluctant to breed my previous TLR rabbits because there were too many faults and I particularly hated the mane gene.

It is a major fault and totally unacceptable on the show table.

An example of mane gene manifestation:

What if?

As I was on the way to work yesterday, I was just thinking to myself and I realized that it is very unfortunate for some countries in the world to be experiencing natural disasters due to geographical reasons. These natural disasters have caused unrest and turmoils to many people because they are living in affected areas.

Then my mind further wanders to countries without these disasters and I realized that most of the time it is the people that causes these unrest and turmoils. We have seen what happened in Myanmar and Thailand. They are mere political and social unrest. I would like to call these man made problems. Are they so complacent that they have to create such turmoils?

Mind you, this is not a social or political blog but why am I writing all these then? I have actually thought and tried putting myself in a difficult position. I sometimes imagine this sort of things just to run through some contingency plans because the world today is just so uncertain. I cannot help but to wonder what will happen to things that really matters to us in such unrests. Of course my family would be my first priority. Although my rabbits are also part of my family, they would be secondary if the situation is a grave one.

What will happen to this blog then?

As most of my faithful readers would notice, I have been blogging every single day for the past 3 months. So I guess if you do not see a new post one day, it would mean that I am caught in something very important. If you do not see me posting for 2 days, please pray for me, my family and my rabbits. If you do not see me posting for a week, please pray for my soul.

There is a reason to cherish ourselves and not to take things for granted because we do not know what will be given to us tomorrow. God bless all of you.

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Not forgettin' my roots

Time and time again, I remind myself not to grow too proud of all the blessings that has been bestowed upon me. So far, I have been blessed with the best rabbits I could ever imagine myself having. I realized that sometimes I may seem to be very arrogant towards certain people that shows interest in my rabbits. In fact, I rarely trust strangers these days.

Also, since quality is the utmost important trait that I hope to achieve in my rabbits, I tend to impose my standards upon others. I realize that I am not being sensitive to the circumstances or limitations someone else is in.

Take for example, I strongly believe that every rabbit on the face of this earth deserve the best. But my best and another person's best may not be similar. A local rabbit cost a little less than $40 in the petshops. A pack of 10 lbs Oxbow cost a little less than $60. A pack of 10 lbs local pellets (with sand) cost $9. That means Oxbow is 7 times the price of local pellets. Given this figure to someone without the budget, can he or she actually have a rabbit as pet?

So the question is, do we penalize or discriminate "poor" people from having pets?

Is it better not to have a pet at all if we cannot give them our best?

Coming back to the point of being arrogant. I am being arrogant by choice because I hated how some people being rude and inconsiderate. I do not mind entertaining questions but not to the point of spoon feeding. The information is scattered all around the cyberspace. Sometimes, I just do not understand why some people have to ask every question under the sun without having the initiatives to search out the answers on their own first.

By giving and providing all the answers, I realize that most come back with the same questions because the answers were given to them easily and most of the time they do not even try to remember the answers previously given.

And coming back to the title of this post. To be honest, having rabbits for me so far wasn't a smooth sailing experience. Having to cope with deaths, faults and genetic problems has taught me a lot about how tough life could be. Along the way, I met great and very generous people who are so willing to share (of course I would love to follow their lead).

Every now and then, I walk down memory lane to recall the wonderful rabbits that has long passed and looking at the present, I cannot help but to be grateful. It does remind me too that in the past, my rabbits were once eating $9 local pellets and the differences do I notice now that I am feeding them Oxbow.

Besides the sand, one major thing has changed. My rabbits are no longer local rabbits or mixes of both local and imports. Tru-Luv Rabbitry's herd is now fully imported bloodlines. And due to that reason, I cannot afford anymore deaths especially if the deaths were caused by diet which is now so readily available. So you might ask, can we still feed the local pellets? I dare not answer that question. For me, I would say that even the local rabbits should not be fed solely on local pellets. And that in itself makes up a small part of knowledge gained about rabbit diet. Rabbits should not be fed pellets alone.

I can go on and on writing about what I have learned throughout this entire Holland Lop experience thus far, but I choose to leave my sharing up to this point. Why? What fun would it be if I share every single thing I know? That is part of the human experience. We need to go through every single thing to learn if not, might as well, we have cyborgs walking the streets. We are not pre-programmed beings. We have a life and most importantly a brain to think uniquely. We have to exercise that brain of ours to be creative and to make a good decision on our own.

I would just like to end on this note. Tru-Luv Rabbitry has not forgotten its root or have grown proud. Every single step I take, is for the betterment of both rabbits and human alike.

This is True Love indeed.

Tuesday 9 September 2008

It always backfire!

I am been writing a lot about Holland Lops and I really mean A LOT!

But somehow I am so surprised that many locals are still going for second best. It seemed as if the more I write, the poorer the quality of rabbits in the local market becomes. They have seen photos, they have seen videos, and most of all, they should have also seen the numerous websites which I have linked to.

Do they not know how a Holland Lop should look like? Do they not know how to demand for quality?

I have many silent readers and I am sure some people in the pet industry are also reading this. Are they passing off sub standard rabbits as Holland Lops in order to "mimmick" the ones on my blog?

This whole world is filled with fakes and even our local music industry emphasizes on buying the original.

But then again, many people love fake stuff and the best part is, they would love to be treated as people buying the originals i.e. demand for an exchange for the little fault they get. LOL!

Do not patronize fakes and the unoriginal. Demand for only 8 weeks old rabbit with quality. Quality can be very visible unless you are blind!

Sunday 7 September 2008

Delayed Gathering Photos

On the eve of Malaysia Independence Day, a few of us got together to celebrate Tinga's graduation. Everyone brought really nice food and drinks. We chat about almost everything bunny throughout the nite. SB brought her nice DSLR camera to snap some photos. Unfortunately, none of them turn out clear and she was only able to salvage these from the entire collection:

Lastly, this is Tinga safe in mummy's arms:

Special thanks goes out to SB for these wonderful photos!

Dreams Do Come True

Thinking back, I never thought I could own a pure bred rabbit in this lifetime let alone a Show Quality rabbit. When I first got Skor I was ecstatic. Then when Holly Hope came along, I was speechless. The latest addition to the excitement is Moesha. She is stunning for a four weeks old. Sadly, Charlyz is losing some stockiness.

WoW! I know I should not praise my own rabbit but I thought this kind of look can only be seen on other rabbitry websites! I just hope the ears do not grow any longer.

Her ears are getting longer and her head is slimming down. Hope she fills up soon and fast!

I am very grateful to all those people that has helped me in a way or another bringing in my foundation rabbits especially Christina for sharing her wonderful rabbits with me. A dream come true indeed!

Saturday 6 September 2008

Just felt like being sarcastic today

I do not know if I have written anything similar to this in the past but I just find it hilarious to be sarcastic sometimes.

While cleaning up the rabbitry today, I just felt a little tickle and that gave me an idea to post this sarcastic post. I know many may get offended but many more would find it interesting and ticklish to the mind and heart. I rather make someone laugh in their chair laughing than to bother with those with a narrow mind and heart taking offense on just a blog post.

In order for me to proceed, please allow me to first write about a craze or fad that swiped our entire nation not too long ago. I believe it was at least 2 to 3 years ago. There was this hybrid fish produced out of a few Cichlids crosses (genetic engineering they called, but I call it utter rubbish). The locals called these fishes Flower Horn (what a stupid name to begin with). I guess it was given this name because these poor fishes grow humps on their heads and the bigger the hump is, the better it would be priced. That's where the Horn came from and as for the flower, these fishes are known to have very nice and colorful patterns on their bodies. And it is this patterns that has caused this crazed.

Most of the Chinese in this country are still very much primitive and animistic (rolling me eyes!). Alright, before I stray further away. So coming back to the patterns, as the pattern emerges, there were a few coincidences that they turned out to be numbers (or so claimed by owners - maybe they have high level of hallucination!). And so coincidently, some of these numbers were used in the purchase of lottery tickets and amazingly, some lotteries hit the jackpot.

Soon word spread like wildfire and every household (mostly Chinese) had an aquarium with at least one of these FlowerHorns. Of course, some had horns and other are just plain nature flukes. I am not sure that has also given the reason for ornamental fisheries to "inject" colors into another Cichlid breed that was almost white - oh yah, the Red Giant Gourami. Young Red Giant Gourami came with NUMBERS! Can you imagine?

In Malaysia, we have 3 main lottery outlets selling 4 digits lottery numbers. They are collectively known to many as the Unholy Trinity. My story above relates to the Unholy Trinity because anyone can make a living by associating their product to the Unholy Trinity. That is how majority of the Malaysian mentality is. Please do not deny that if you are one of them and accuse me of sedition. LOL! That is who we are and many of us are very proud of, except me of course!

Alright, this is the part which is the funniest and also the part I fear most to write because I do not want to give opportunists some funny ideas to exploit our precious rabbits.

You see, based on the scenario described above, you can basically sell a rabbit with 4 digit tattoo on its ears and claim that it will hit the jackpot. I am not sure how you are going the derive the most probable winning number and even if you do know the number, isn't it better you use it for yourself?

But I want to go further than that because a Holland Lops can do just more than winning a lottery ticket, it can direct traffics too!

If you do not believe me, here is a photo to prove my point:

As you can see, the Holland Lop's ears can be quite flexible sometimes, they move from back to front and even stands up occassionally.

So, I think all you Chinese should stop thinking about numbers for now. We sometimes do need traffic wardens to get our lives back on track too. A Holland Lop or any other pet will do just that! Don't all our beloved pets keep us sane in this insane world? I do not know about you, but my rabbits sure do!

Eclipse & Luna Update: Ear Measurements

It's been a while since I wrote about Eclipse and Luna. I brought Luna out to get her to pose for me. I liked what I see.

I like the way she poses but something else caught my attention. Her long ears. When I mentioned this to a friend, she said that I should take the measurements of their ears now and again when they turn senior age. Having had seen how Lindsey measured her rabbits' ears (thanks Lindsey!), I placed a ruler in between their ears and here is the outcome of this exercise. So these are the measurements from crown to the tip of their ears:

1) Eclipse - 8 cm

2) Luna - 8 cm

My curiosity got the best of me so I measured Skor as well:

3) Skor - 9 cm

Skor 9 cm!!!????

Oh my goodness, these kits has got ears almost as long as a full grown adult macho stud Buck!?

They only have got 1 cm buffer left. How am I to keep their ear length at 8 cm?

I leave it up to Mother Nature. I rest my case...

LOL...

Juniors at Tru-Luv Rabbitry

I just thought of snapping a few photos of each and every junior living at TLR at the moment. It was great fun taking these photos. Some pee-ed and poo-ed making it so hilarious for me. I just cannot stop laughing. Some posed well and others wasn't in the mood. Either way, these are their natural poses. They are all my pride and joy. Enjoy Everyone!

Tru-Luv Moesha (Mo) - Jr Doe:

I just love the broadness with this girl. Absolutely stunning. Such a cheeky girl. Whenever I take her out for a photo session, she will give me absolute protest always looking downwards. As soon as I put her back into the cage, she will show me the nicest pose.

Tru-Luv Charlyz (Charl) - Jr Doe:

It is hard to tell that Charl has once fell 5 feet from my clutches to the ground. She is very active compared to Mo. Generally, they are too young for praises. Just hope they both grow up well and healthy.

Tru-Luv Eclipse - Jr Buck:

Eclipse has shown great depth since a very young age. I am just a little disappointed with the long ears. I do hope it is an "ugly duckling" situation and those ears stop growing from now.

Tru-Luv Luna - Jr Doe:

Somehow, I like the way Luna poses. It may be a little faulted at the top line but I like her build so far. Again, the long ears isn't what I was hoping for.

The Rabbit Hill Holly Hope - Jr Doe:

Holly Hope is now putting on some stockiness. I am hoping that she will blossom further and gets filled up soon especially the head. She is scheduled to be bred to Skor come November 2008. I am looking forward for a Christmas litter.