Posted by roo on September 24th, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies
Jasper has just completed his first adult wool shedding, and as per the shedding of his baby wool, is again mainly bald! This shedding has lasted almost 3 months, his wool being released a bit at a time, and I was getting concerned that with the constant tufts of wool coming loose he’d end up with wool block. At one point he had so much wool in his droppings that I fed him a tablespoon of meat tenderizer mixed with honey, to ensure that if there was a blockage about to occur it would be stopped right here and now. He has now completely finished his shedding proces, thank goodness! This afternoon I let him run around the backyard for a while so that I could get some up to date photographs of him, and he had a blast! He ran, leaped, grunted, and was just absolutely silly. Jasper is the only rabbit we have that ‘talks’ to you when you open his cage door. He will grunt an entire conversation while pushing his head under your hand to be scratched. Jasper is definately one of a kind!
Sienna’s babies also got a turn to play outside, and I got some up to date shots of the black baby who STILL has no name. He thoroughly enjoyed it too, kicking up his heels and running at full speed, here and there stopping to nibble on some blades of grass. Both of Sienna’s babies are incredibly sweet, as can be seen below, where my almost-4-year-old son Jesse is holding Peter, the chestnut agouti baby.
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Posted by roo on September 21st, 2008 — Posted in Bunnies
The bunnies are in full shedding mode right now, including Sienna, and I’ve been plucking handfuls of their fluffy fiber out of their coats, storing it in neatly labelled bags so that I know what wool came from which bunny.
Even the two babies are releasing their baby wool! I’ve been harvesting their wool ever since their first grooming, and now the fleacomb is filled to the brim with long satiny fibers after a few minutes of combing. filling their bags quickly. There is nothing as soft as a baby satin angora bunny, I’m sure of it.
I was grooming the chestnut agouti this evening. I’ve been astounded by her - she’s got a wonderful personality (she loves to lick, especially while being groomed, and would lick a hole in your arm if let her, I’m sure), is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and is exeptionally big and heavy compared to her brother. Her size has puzzled me for some time. She was laying on her back with her head resting on my knees as I groomed her chest and belly, and startled, I pulled my hand back as I noticed a large blood blister on the inside of her back leg. What on earth? I put down the comb, parted her wool, and examined it closely. It wasn’t a blood blister… and something began to dawn on me. I checked up high under her other leg, and sure enough… another one… TESTICLES! So shocked was I, that I burst out laughing. It suddenly explained her size! But how can such a pretty bunny be male?
It will hurt me when it comes time to neuter the babies. The black one I had already decided to neuter anyway, I wanted to keep him as a black wool producer, and as a companion for Jasper. Jasper however, wants nothing to do with the poor guy, so now I can try the agouti, who now turns out to be a male as well, and who I have decided to name Peter (yes, after Peter Rabbit, seeing he is the same colour as a cottontail). Peter is just so beautiful and of such high quality, it is a shame that he has to be neutered due to not having a pedigree. He is, of course, a purebred, but Sienna did not come with a pedigree. I purchased her as a pet due to a disfigurement to one of her legs that she had a cat to thank for when she was a baby.
Ahhh… what a discovery!
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Posted by roo on September 18th, 2008 — Posted in Julia, Fiber
For some time I’ve had a basket of lovely rolags of Julia’s fiber sitting in my living room, but with all the renovations we are currently doing in our house, weeks have gone by where I did not even as much as glance at my spinning wheel. But with the recent cool spell reminding me that autumn is only just around the corner, I have taken some time here and there to spin it up into two large, lofty skeins of yarn. Winding them onto my niddy noddy once again spurred me into thinking about how I can extend my niddy noddy to allow for a 2 yard wrap instead of a 1 yard wrap. When you’re working with full sized skeins a 1 yard wrap is just laughable, you can’t even twist it into a presentable skein due to the lack of length! It’s been so long since I’ve spun a full sized skein, and I’ve never done a white one, that I was surprised to see that under the 4 areas of yarn where I tied it for support, the wool was still dirty. *sigh* It would just have to do until I had finished my project, them wash it out.
When knitting, it is so much easier for me to have my yarn in ball form, so I unwound the washed and dried skeins into two very large balls, one was 185 yards and the other was 200 yards. It was my intention to knit a lightweight sweater for my child, therefore I had spun the yarn at a sport weight, and wanted to use a size 4 or 5 needle. Yes… only when I looked in my needle supply I had nothing between a 3 and an 8. How pathetic is that? I decided that a 3 would do, I’d just keep the tension loose, and it’s working very well abeit incredibly slow going! It seems as though I’ve been knitting for days and I’m only now halfway up the back piece, which is the first piece I started on. I’ve never knitted a sweater before, mind you… I’m just flying along here by the seat of my pants. *grin*
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Posted by roo on September 15th, 2008 — Posted in Marius, Julia, Demi
Last Friday, when I was in SC to pick up Jason, I visited our alpacas. It was my intention to pregtone Julia, and I was nervous about it. With good reason. Driving an alpaca halway across the country for a single breeding and then back again is a sure recipe for failure in the pregnancy department.
Demi was the first one I looked at, seeing she was nibbling at the remains of their morning feeding in the holding pen. I had been disappointed with her wool at shearing. Although it was a lovely colour, a mix of medium fawn, light rose grey, and creamy cria tips, and it felt very soft to the touch, her histogram came back at 26 microns. This was shocking news to me. While I digested it, I stored her blanket away for later use, and have sent a small handful of samples to fiber artisans who placed orders for a substantial amount of fiber. About a week or so ago I was preparing an order for a lady and decided to send her 4 ounces of both Dom’s and Demi’s blankets as a complimentary something extra. Dom’s fiber had come in at 24 microns, which is certainly not bad for a grey, and considering his age. It was the first time that I had Dom’s and Demi’s blankets next to each other, and it struck me how much softer and finer Demi’s blanket was than Dom’s. Again, that nagging doubt… did Yocom McColl make a mistake? Or was Demi’s fiber sample for analyis taken from the wrong part of her body? We will see in the spring, when I will personally bag her sample and we’ll see what the count comes back as. But here she was, just a month short of being a yearling, standing in the holding pen. It was the first time I’ve handled her since shearing, and everybody’s wool is growing in nicely right now too. So I parted her blanket with my hands and my mouth just dropped open. Her rose grey colour has now fully developed and is nothing short of stunning! Solid light rose grey is such a pretty colour, soft tangerine with swirls of light rose, strawberry, cream and grey. Her staple length also surprised me, it was longer than I expected. Oh, I just cannot wait to see her blanket when shearing rolls around in the spring!
A small footnote if you are a fiber artist: I retained both Demi’s and Dom’s blankets for myself this year, although I have given small samples of it to a couple of people. Next year I will be offering their blankets for sale, but it will only be through advance reservation (before shearing). I will retain whatever is left at shearing time for myself. If you are interested in reserving fiber (minimum amount: 4oz) please email me and I can either put you on the mailing list, or I can reserve it for you now.
Marius, who was also in the holding pen, astounded me - he’s developing so well, his front leg that was a worry for me has completely straightened out and he is certainly not limping on it. His wool, however, is what bowled me over, it has grown back just as soft and lusterous as the wool he was born with - it’s very plush and unbelievably silky, it’s like placing your hand in a bag of silk or angora rabbit. I’m very excited about him.
Ahhh… and then the pregtone testing of Julia. I rubbed the oil on her lower abdomen - it was so dry and tense down there, her skin absorbed the oil as I put it on, so I gently massaged it to give her a moment to adjust to having someone touching her under her belly, and to make sure it was sufficiently lubricated for the echo device. She’s such a goodnatured girl, made no attempt to kick at me, spit at me, or even snort her disapproval. John was comforting her as I pressed the pregtone against her belly, my heart pounding somewhere in my throat, expecting with an already sinking feeling a mere silence from the machine. And there WAS silence, for what seemed like forever. And then, the first beep. Loud and clear, and as I slid it in the correct position, consistent beeps, rhythmic like a heartbeat, over quite a large area of her belly! I blinked, surprised, not quite wanting to believe it, and after entertaining myself with the sound of the beeps for a few minutes, switched off the machine and straightened up. It was hard not to smile, but I still could not believe I was hearing beeps. John, seeing my reluctance, suggested doing a spit test with Fandango.
He was sick, the poor man, he and Letti both, but he bent over backwards to assist me, and he prepared Fandango’s pasture for Julia’s entrance. As soon as she entered, I knew she was pregnant. She fought him off with everything she had, first avoiding him by outrunning him and ducking away from his attempts to bring her down, then turning and spitting at him, great resolute showers of it, even kicking at him. I was beaming, I was so proud of her.
She is my miracle alpaca! She has the best fleece out of our entire herd, she is also the best mom, delivering her first cria completely unassisted and then being very watchful and loving of him, and now it turns out that she follows in the footsteps of her mother (SA Delilah) when it comes to her ability to reproduce. Easy conception, strong, stable pregnancy, smooth delivery. I knew the risk I took, taking her on a 10 hour drive for a single breeding to Captain Black… but my suspicions about her were right and I am glad that I listened to my inner voice!
Of course we are not out of the water yet, but I am just thrilled that she conceived and managed to hold on to that fragile embryo all the way home! Fingers crossed she will retain the pregnancy until delivery time.
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Posted by roo on September 5th, 2008 — Posted in Fiber, Dee Dee
Some pictures of the black test bracelet with the floral and magnetic hematite beads. This was made with a tightly spun yarn from Dee Dee’s seconds, which was run lightly across a block of beeswax. The yarn seems to hold up much better this way and doesn’t fluff up nearly as much. Surprisingly, you can’t feel the beeswax, the alpaca still feels soft to the touch.
Recently I found a lady in England who makes wrapped bracelets from merino and she states that they will fuzz up after some wear. She recommends that people trim them with scissors to keep them neat - I hadn’t thought about that!
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