Spinning In The Catskill Mountains of New York This Weekend
Topic: Spinning Retreats

I'm gearing up for a weekend of spinning. Eighteen of us will take over The Winterclove Inn for the first Rip Van Winkle Spinning Retreat. Friday Saturday and Sunday will see us carding, dyeing and spinning autumnal color blends, and making sock and lace yarns.

Want to come? There are two spots one spot left. Drop me a note.

Late Summer report on wool mites
Topic: Wool Mites

What a day! The dew point was 58 this morning, and with the temperature at 72*F, this has been a banner morning for working in the barn. Mondays are dedicated to my bunnies, and I enjoy taking all the time I need to hold and check over each fur ball. Their toenails get clipped once a month; their coats get brushed (barely, as they are German crosses who do not require brushing); they get their skin checked for fur mite populations, receiving Ivermectin and Carbaryl flea powder once a month if they need it.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know about the battle I am fighting with wool mites that go on, and on, and on... I am having some real success, finally, with the new regime and new Ivermectin dosages. Once a month they ALL get 1 cc of 1% Ivermectin administered orally. Their weights range from 7-11#, and the two bigger girls get a tad more...1.25 cc. Of the 15 I checked this morning, only two rabbits had any signs, and they were "flakey ears" which is the absolute earliest symptom I have been able to link to wool mites. Rabbits can groom off some mites, but they cannot get behind their ears to groom that spot (unless they are living in a colony, where they will do it for each other!)

One interesting new tidbit of information/experience I will pass along is my new thought on foot pads/mats/wool mites. The two rabbits who had some sign of mites (very little sign, but it was there) had slightly matted foot pads last month. I trimmed their pads as short as I could, but there were some hard spots I could not trim down to the skin, so I left them and hoped the Ivermectin would finish off anything living underneath.

It apparently did not.

So, today I trimmed mercilessly, and dosed FEET with flea powder. That is a first for me. I'll report on how it that worked in a few weeks.

What's the poop?
Topic: Feeding

(bottom right are NIGHT FECES, which all rabbits produce a few times a day)

Cleaning the barns yesterday, I was struck by the differences in the appearance of the 2 week dropping piles each rabbit had produced. Each had been fed the same, except for one, and most of them have the same length of coat. Most were in good shape, as evidenced by the top row of the picture above, but there were two who had smaller droppings, as shown by the two on the bottom left. These rabbits need intervention to get their dropping size bigger, which is better for angoras.

Fiber that is sitting in the gut of rabbits contributes to less "motility" and as the digestive system slows down, toxins can accumulate. This will eventually lead to wool block, which can be fatal, So we act aggressively and proactively to keep things moving through.

A handful of tasty hay eaten every day is all that is generally needed to keep any ingested fiber moving along. When one adds extra fiber to a rabbit's pelleted diet, which I do with sweet textured horse feed as explained in an older BareHare post, there is a two-fold safeguard.

But, every now and then, I make a check to see what each rabbit's system is up to. There may be genetic factors involved with some rabbits that cause them to bind up sooner, or groom themselves more, etc, leading to the possibility of an impacted gut. Fur/wool mite infestation can lead to more grooming! So, unknowns abound in this situation.

One of my favorite food additives when I see smaller droppings are dandelion leaves. Any fresh long leafy grass also works great to move things along. So, a diet with less pelleted feed and more fresh food, fed for a week or so, will generally work to clear things up. What if there are no fresh greens to pick? Consider Flax Seed. Added at 1/2 tsp twice a day, this oil-packed food is thoroughly enjoyed by all my bunnies and serves to add a lubricating item to their diet. It is available inexpensively at feed stores that cater to horses.

Mature coats and black color
Topic: black
All of you as entranced as I about depth of color in mature angora coats will love this post.

I am discovering some wild stuff in my aging does.
The line that I personally love for their gorgeous heads/ears/body/personality type are uniformly graying out as they age. (see the coat on the right in the photo above). The line that I am having a hard time with in the health, personality and conformation area is staying darker (see the coat on the left).

So here is the single angora I have been able to feel good about in that line:

Grindle has a phenomenal coat. Her health was shaky in the beginning and I did not breed her for a season to keep an eye on her. Of her two litters, half of the bunnies born have issues of some sort. I have two of her offspring from the last litter, and only her son DeVoss looks good enough to breed, while the coats on all of them were excellent at 4 months. One from her first litter has moved back after using his teeth too often (!) on his owner. He is settling down fine here, but I will always wonder about him.

But her coat, her coat. Such a rabbit! I hold out hope that finding the right buck will correct some of the issues I am wondering about. Here are her true brown eyes, but I see a SLIGHT lighter color:

If you look closely on her coat you can see the white tipped black hairs, which has me wondering what is going on underneath it all. Her face does not exhibit "steel" coloration, but her coat sure does. I would LOVE some feed back from angora breeders who have mature black coat pictures they can share!

Handspun sweater...done (really) at last
Topic: Handspinning

Hallelujah. And just in the nick of time. Next Monday this sweater travels to the judges at the fair.

That last reserved handspun skein (and here I was lamenting about making too much yarn!) was an almost-match for the other sleeve, so I am as happy as I can be about this sweater. I had to hang it to get all of it in the picture, and my lovely shaping pleats are obscured, but you can see the color shadings very clearly this way.

I posted some knitting details about headbands on BareNeedle if they intrigue you.

The heat here has finally lifted and I have been out in the barn with the bunnies the last few days. I cleaned and scrubbed floors/bowls/cages and brushed a few coats. I check for bot flies every few days and when I see rabbits looking odd, so I cuddled a few fur faces, manhandling entire bodies looking for odd lumps just to be sure. And all was well, as it usually is.

I have also ended the self imposed RCD/RHD quarantine and we welcomed our first visitors yesterday. Consequently, two bunnies have moved out (that was quick!) and just two are left for sale right now. One wee white doe (nameless at 5 months) and Gretel, who has been my most prolific fiber and bunny producing doe. She is black with a silver coat, just over 4 years of age, and I want her to retire to an indoor life where she will be coddled and fussed over.

So what do you do with odds and ends of handspun yarn?
Topic: Handspinning
My handspun sweater is done, done, done, and is drying as I type. Its appearance on the blog will be forthcoming shortly. I have a slew of yarn leftover, which I can be only grateful for as I desperately needed an entire skein to use for the alternative sleeve.

I had started a headband with the first yarn I thought I wanted to use for this sweater, and then added in 15 yards of the second on a whim, and then used a partial skein of the final yarn to finish it off for wearing.

You can clearly see the early yarn mix on the bottom (browner and just two ply); the less brown but still too light mix in the middle...also a two ply; and the final more blue-gray 3 ply I settled on for the sweater, on top.

I love headbands, They are probably, hands down, the most useful garment I knit. Our winters here in the Hudson Valley can be brutal in January and February (although it's hard to believe when you stand in the noon sun in August). I like to walk daily in winter and hats are OK, but HEADBANDS are better. I usually have one lolling around my neck (in all angora) and one snugged up over my ears and forehead. The wider they are, the better, for they cover more skin. They are useful when the air is so cold it burns your skin, for you can pull the neck one up to cover nose and mouth and simply breathe through it. I am knitting them a minimum of 5" wide now, as well as a tad on the small side, for they stretch into shape and narrow their coverage a bit once on.

They are great for gifting and use up small amounts of precious handspun. 50 yards of bulky is all you need.

Annemie and Rabbit Personalities
Topic: tortoiseshell

Denise sent me a note asking about rabbit personalities in general. Are they friendly like a cat, dog, bird, hamster? Do they like to be petted?

In each litter born there can be a mixture of healthy rabbits, rabbits that do not grow as well as the others, coats that are not as good as the others, rabbits with birth defects, rabbits with issues, color surprises and best friends waiting to be made.

Annemie is the later. She is a lover.

I don't often get a doe who is so friendly, for a doe's hormonal mission/nature is to protect and defend the nest. I give does a LOT of room to be who they are, and do not ask too much of them. They mostly learn to live with my occasional intrusion into their lives, and we come to a mutual respect over time (I adore each and everyone of them and they know that). My herd rabbits don't get handled as much as an only rabbit would be, and it takes longer for friendliness to surface. But they generally, here in my herd, don't like to cuddle in the first 10 minutes of any grooming session. Once they have been on my lap for 10 minutes they relax and love cuddling...it just takes longer. Annemie, at 4 months, is an exception (as is her half sister Betina). She presents her head for stroking every time I open her cage door.

That kind of friendliness is standard behavior for bucks from the beginning, and I can usually tell by 8 weeks of age what we've got. That is why I always suggest bucks for pet bunnies...it is in their nature to be friendly as they are always looking for a doe!

I've seen exceptions. You can get a rabbit with an attitude, regardless of gender, that makes him/her unsuitable as a pet. A rabbit that uses his/her teeth to defend territory is an animal that will not coexist well with humans.

The trick is to learn what makes a rabbit fearful and arrange their environment so they aren't, and to bypass the defense attitude entirely. Rabbits are basically creatures that like peace and harmony and will enjoy being petted as long as they feel safe.

What's wrong with this picture?!?
Topic: Handspinning
It took me three days to get up enough courage to face what was going on, and then a whole day of whining to my knitting friends, but now I can handle what I have to do to this sweater:

I know there is variation in most of the handspun yarn I've made for this project, but the skein that made the sweater's right sleeve is much darker (and fuzzier!) than the rest of the sweater.

Luckily, I have another skein that is very close to the one I am using for the almost finished sleeve, so I am confident(?) I can rip and reknit for a better over-all appearance.

The reason for the snafu? Two fold...I used less plying twist in some of the skeins (by mistake) AND I did not blend all the angora together first before I started blending the dyed and undyed wool with the undyed angora. Thus, the bag of bunny wool I used for that skein was a lot darker than the rest because THAT BUNNY was darker.

Spin and learn.

I still have 2 weeks left, so that third sleeve will be done on time for the Columbia County (Chatham, NY) Fair entry. Come and see it there!

Hay is for horses...and rabbits, too
Topic: Feeding

One of the surprises of my rabbit keeping career was discovering how much rabbits like, and benefit from, eating hay. The fiber that hay provides all but eliminates the deadly condition known as woolblock...IF the rabbits like the hay they are given and eat it daily. Hay keeps everything moving right along, and good gut motility is vital to good health in rabbits.

When buying, or growing, hay, keep in mind that rabbits thrive on timothy and other grass hays. Legume hays, such as alfalfa and clover, are thoroughly enjoyed, but can add too much protein to their diet if your rabbits are already eating 18% protein wool feeds. A high protein feed is best adhered to for fiber production, so the compromise is to find grass hay that will be just roughage for the rabbit.

If you are lucky enough to be around hay fields, you can keep an eye on them while they are growing and hand pick the mix when the farmer goes out to bale.

Hay fields are seeded and then will grow consecutively for 5-7 years here in eastern NY state, producing great hay crops at the beginning, and more weeds/less hay at the end. This is all well and fine, and rabbits will eat some weeds mixed in as the field matures. (They LOVE Queen Anne's lace (wild carrot)and Orchard Grass!). If the fields/hay you are looking at has a great proportion of weeds, then you have to educate yourself to look for POISONOUS PLANTS.

Rabbits are generally smart and will avoid parts of the hay that do not taste good, but you never know. So look through your hay and learn to identify what you have.

Just yesterday, I was out walking my dog and we passed a hay field we travel by every day. Something is flowering this week that looked very suspicious to me.

I took a detour to check it out and my fear was confirmed...nightshade. And not just one lone plant, but thousands sprinkled throughout this lovely 100 acre clover and alfalfa field.

I found some info on-line about nightshade and pets:
nightshade

I normally see 6 plants a year around my barns, and I keep an eye on them. (They like the south side of buildings here). They have not spread much in ten years, and I welcome their nodding star flowers as it's always a sign of late summer to me. I have never seen them in hay fields like I have this year.

...knitting right along
Topic: Handspinning

I have knit quite a lot this week on the sweater, and I hope to have the first sleeve done by tomorrow night. This is "my" first handspun angora sweater, and although I spun this yarn very tightly, and 3-plied it to have it wear well, it is turning out to be quite fuzzy while I am knitting it. Seeing that it is only 35% angora, and first clip bunny at that, I am rather pleased :) The Cormo and Corriedale wools I used are not as soft as the angora, and with the amount of twist I put into the yarn, it had a less-than-poofy hand when I started. Once knit, this fabric is as soft as cashmere on the surface.

When Trish was here she remarked how little the halo showed up in the first picture I posted, so I experimented with a patch of sunlight to see if I could portray it better:

Knitting with handspun angora is an act of faith. The bloom that you WILL get after the garment is knit and worn will far surpass your expectation when seeing the freshly spun yarn.