Saturday, July 16, 2005
Labels
If you have been to my rabbitry, you know I love labels. Each rabbit over about 3 months old has a label that includes his or her name, parents, variety and gender, ear number and birthday (for more info on my system, see www.thenaturetrail.com/MagnetSystem). And each litter has a label with the sire and dam and date of birth. That's especially important because I foster so many kits (www.thenaturetrail.com/Breeding) and I have to keep track of them.
I like to be able to walk down the aisles of my rabbitry and know what's going on in the 60+ cages of bunnies. For example, I check to see if litters that are 12 days old have their eyes open. In hot weather, a litter of 14 days that keeps getting out of their nest box can have it removed. I'd hate to have to check a calendar or some other record. I want it right there.
I wish I could remember the sire and dam for each of my bunnies off of the top of my head, but I can. So I label.
And I get a little crazy when I get behind on my labels. So today, it was time to update lables.
I started by placing magnetic numbers on my feeders for all of my bred does. I like to see the due date every day so I don't forget to put a nest box in. It would be embarrassing to forget, given how many people check out my nursery page and know when I have a doe due in three days!
Next, I made a list of all of my litters, noting the ones that are combined in a single nest box. I had 9 such litter tags to make today for 10 litters. Trista had a litter of all peanuts, so she is fostering Leigh's and Mercedes. Leighs are tort and Mercedes' is a broken tort, so it's easy to keep them straight. Leigh is fostering Nina's litter because Nina didn't seem to calm down to mothering right away and she had some very small kits that needed feeding right away. And Leigh was begging for babies to feed. All other does have their own. I forgot about Darla. Darn. I gave her one of Katee's. I'll have to make a new tag now!
Now for the big job. I have 45 pre-juniors weaned or just about ready to be weaned, born between April 13 and May 27. It was time to sex them and record their colors, assign them ear numbers, enter them into the data base . . . and make their label.
For this batch I'm using ear numbers NT294 to NT339. I made a chart and filled in the info, leaving the name blank--ear number, blank for name, birthday, color, pattern, gender, sire, and dam. Then I printed it out and it's ready to fill in the names.
That's just about as far as I got today. Now it's time to come up with 45 names. Yes, I do use my rabbit names page (www.thenaturetrail.com/RabbitNames). But I start to feel like I've already used all of my favorites. I've named 14 so far: Godiva, Charm, Estella, Vanity, Jo-Jo, Nugget, Bliss, Kismet, Gambler, Casino, Reno, Pixie, Kokomo, and Bosley. Just 31 to go. Yes, I'm taking suggestions.
Laurie Stroupe
The Nature Trail Rabbitry
"Holland Lops of Distinction"
www.thenaturetrail.com
www.thenaturetrail.com/blog/BLOG
¶ 8:11 PM
I like to be able to walk down the aisles of my rabbitry and know what's going on in the 60+ cages of bunnies. For example, I check to see if litters that are 12 days old have their eyes open. In hot weather, a litter of 14 days that keeps getting out of their nest box can have it removed. I'd hate to have to check a calendar or some other record. I want it right there.
I wish I could remember the sire and dam for each of my bunnies off of the top of my head, but I can. So I label.
And I get a little crazy when I get behind on my labels. So today, it was time to update lables.
I started by placing magnetic numbers on my feeders for all of my bred does. I like to see the due date every day so I don't forget to put a nest box in. It would be embarrassing to forget, given how many people check out my nursery page and know when I have a doe due in three days!
Next, I made a list of all of my litters, noting the ones that are combined in a single nest box. I had 9 such litter tags to make today for 10 litters. Trista had a litter of all peanuts, so she is fostering Leigh's and Mercedes. Leighs are tort and Mercedes' is a broken tort, so it's easy to keep them straight. Leigh is fostering Nina's litter because Nina didn't seem to calm down to mothering right away and she had some very small kits that needed feeding right away. And Leigh was begging for babies to feed. All other does have their own. I forgot about Darla. Darn. I gave her one of Katee's. I'll have to make a new tag now!
Now for the big job. I have 45 pre-juniors weaned or just about ready to be weaned, born between April 13 and May 27. It was time to sex them and record their colors, assign them ear numbers, enter them into the data base . . . and make their label.
For this batch I'm using ear numbers NT294 to NT339. I made a chart and filled in the info, leaving the name blank--ear number, blank for name, birthday, color, pattern, gender, sire, and dam. Then I printed it out and it's ready to fill in the names.
That's just about as far as I got today. Now it's time to come up with 45 names. Yes, I do use my rabbit names page (www.thenaturetrail.com/RabbitNames). But I start to feel like I've already used all of my favorites. I've named 14 so far: Godiva, Charm, Estella, Vanity, Jo-Jo, Nugget, Bliss, Kismet, Gambler, Casino, Reno, Pixie, Kokomo, and Bosley. Just 31 to go. Yes, I'm taking suggestions.
Laurie Stroupe
The Nature Trail Rabbitry
"Holland Lops of Distinction"
www.thenaturetrail.com
www.thenaturetrail.com/blog/BLOG
¶ 8:11 PM
