~ The Hoppin' Circle ~

Earlier this year I joined the "The Hoppin' Circle" which is a circle of rabbit breeders and hobbyists from around the country that enjoy reading each other's blogs and keeping informed about the rabbit "happenings" around them.
Every month, each of the bloggers send in their top/fav. post of the month, and it is compiled all into one post. This enables more people, that may otherwise not know about it, learn interesting facts from these breeders! Enjoy! : )


Oak Ridge Rabbitry shows us the imporatance of being transparent in our rabbitry.

At Home Pets tells us how she breeds for health in her rabbitry.

The Kelfla Project shows us how they stay organized with a animal management application.



Fisher Farms Rabbitry shows us their set up for taking sassy pictures of their adorable buns.

Hendricks Hearth tackles a very important topic in The Hay Post.

Rabbit Smarties introduces us to the breed; Silver.

October Grace Rabbitry shares with us some of their dreams for their barn

~ Photo Shoot ~

I did a bunny "photo shoot" the other day, and I thought I'd share a little bit about how I do it.

First, you have to have a good backdrop! I seen where some breeders use their grooming table outside and pose their rabbits on that. That works great, but only if the scenery in the background isn't messy. Another way to do it is to have a fabric background (which is what I use). I've seen a couple ways to do the fabric background; 1: is to have a piece of fabric purposely "crinkled" to add dimension to the picture. Or you can have the fabric laid flat (which is what I do). Just be sure that your fabric, whether "crinkled" or flat, it ironed and crisp! The last thing you want is to have wrinkled fabric that takes away from a otherwise very nice looking rabbit!

Also, if using a fabric, try to use a "neutral" color. Pastels usually work best. I use a very faint green colored fabric to go with our "green" color theme of our site. It is still light enough that it doesn't take away from the rabbits. Sometimes if you use a bright color or bold print, it can be very distracting! And your eye looks at the fabric and not the rabbit.

Second: Now that you have your background settled, you need to figure out when the best time of day you'll get the best results. For me, I put up my "set" up on the front porch. And I get the best lighting at about 10-11 am. Right when the sun is starting to come around the house. I personally think that rabbit pictures look best when taken outside in natural light. It's harder to get a crisp picture with artificial light. But some breeders still have fantastic pictures when taken indoors! You just have to see what works best for you! :)

Third: I used to use props a lot for my pictures (especially for the bunnies), but since I can't leave my "set" up all the time, I got tired of having to put everything together every time I wanted to take some pictures. So, right now, I'm just sticking with just a fabric background.

Now you're ready to take some pictures!! : )

Here is a picture of my "set":

This was from when I used the flower "props".

You don't have to have an expensive camera to take good pictures! Just having a good background and good lighting is half the battle! I use a simple Kodak digital camera.

I usually like to get more close up photos of my bunnies, so I put my camera on "flower" (up close) setting to get the best results. With any photo shoot, (especially with bunnies!!) you most likely won't get a good picture the first shot. It usually takes me at least 5-10 pictures per rabbit/bunny to get a keeper! Sometimes if the rabbit just doesn't want to sit still it takes even more to get a good one! You just have to be willing to work with them and have patience to wait for the good shot!

Here are some pictures I've taken over the years (all of which haven't been edited ain any way!):

The pictures above are all of babies. That is why they aren't posed. I usually don't try to pose them in a picture when they are little, because I think they are much cuter just being themselves! If I do though need to pose them to see quality or to show someone that is interested in one of them for breeding and needs to see a profile of them, this is what it usually looks like when they are little:

For the most part the bunnies are much more interested in checking out the set rather then sit still for a picture! lol :)

Here are some pictures that I took the other day of Gisele's babies. They are developing VERY nicely!! The sable point is a male (Arthur), the Tort is a female (Sue) and the broken tort is a female (Giada). We are keeping Giada.

In other news, all of the litters are doing well!! Millie had 5 babies, XC had 2 and they are all very fat and happy!

Sissy (NGF's 266) had a litter this morning, but it was one DOA and one peanut. Sadly the peanut will die soon since it's by itself. We will try to rebreed her sometime next week. I think I will try her with Drew this time.

The weather has been soooo nice this week! As I'm writting this, it is almost 70 degrees!! :) And it's the middle of Febuary!!

I think that's all for now!

~ Triple Crown Show ~

Today was the Triple Crown Show in Spartanburg, SC!!

This is the closest show to us, so it's always nice to not have to get up wa early to get to a show! It's only about 50 min away.

It went pretty well....I don't remember exactly who won what, but here is what I do remember:

Show A:
Clint won Best Solid Jr. Buck (and won a leg for it! His second)
Oliver got 2nd Broken Sr. Buck (which is pretty good considering that he's a young Sr.)
Everyone else got pretty good remarks. The Judge mainly said they need some more time to develop.

Show B:
We didn't do very well at all in this show... : /

Show C:
Clint won Best Solid Jr. Buck, but there weren't enough to win a leg...
Alyson got 2nd Solid Sr. Doe (I showed her as a Sr. because she was over the weight limit for a Jr.)
Emma got 2nd Broken Jr. Doe
Oliver got Best Broken Sr. buck, Best Of Variety, and then went on to win Best Opp. Sex of Breed!! : ) Yay! His first leg!!

All in all, it was a pretty good show, and it's always great to see all of our fellow Rabbit breeders!!

Here are some pictures from around the show:

This judge loved crazy hats!

                                                               This is Oliver getting judged:

Oliver and his trophy! : )

~ Show Results ~

I finally got my show results for the Dec. 3rd Columbis, SC Show!!

Here are the Results:

Fisher Farm's Clint ~ BOSV, BOSB and a leg in Show B; 2nd place of variety in show C

Fisher Farm's Drew ~ 3rd place of variety in show A & C

Fisher Farm's Alyson ~ 1st place of variety in show A, and 2nd place of variety in show B & C

Fisher Farm's Oliver ~ 2nd place of variety in show A & B, and 1st place of variety in show C

Fisher Farm's Emmie ~ BOSV and a leg in Show A! (her second leg!!)

Smith's XC ~ 2nd place of variety in all 3 shows.

All around pretty good show!! :)

Here's a picture of the ribbons we won:

Clint is our first homebred buck to win a leg!! And Emmie was our first homebred bunny to ever win a leg, and now she has another one!! : ) I am expecting some really good things out of her daughter Emma!! Can't wait to show her this weekend at the Spartanburg, SC show!

~ Facebook ~

Our Rabbitry is officially a part of Facebook now!! : )

Please go and "LIKE" us at: Facebook.com We are under "Fisher Farms Rabbitry". We'll be posting more pictures and updates soon!

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It's been kind of quiet here around the Rabbitry with no babies jumping around! But that should change in the next few weeks. : ) We bred most of our Does, so hopefully we'll have lots of cute little bunnies running and jumping around soon!
Isabell and XC are the first to be due. XC has already started making her nest and has pulled lots of fur. Isabell on the other hand, doesn't seem to be pregnant.....If she doesn't have a litter this time, we'll most likely be selling her. This will be her "3rd" litter. The first one, she didn't seem to take, and the second was a litter of stillborns. She is one of our best Does, and I'm very sad to think that we may have to sell her as a pet!

We have a triple show coming up on Jan. 28th, in Spartanburg, SC. We always enjoy this show, because it's the closest one to us, and we don't have to get up way early to get there on time! : )

That's about all that's been going on around the Rabbitry!
I'll post when I know we have some babies!

~ Happy New Year ~

The last of the "Christmas" bunnies were picked up on Tuesday. They were the last bunnies we'll have for a few months....

The bucks have been busy around here! : )
Here's a list of who's bred to who:

Oliver-- Isabell

Max -- XC

Max -- Lexus

Oliver -- Darcy

Oliver -- Sophie

Oliver -- Gisele

Max -- Emmie

Zach -- Bonnie

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Between the 8 litters, we have Does due from mid--late Jan. And if the litters are successful, the babies will be ready to leave early--mid. March.

This is the first time we've bred Oliver, so hopefully he's old enough and the Does took!! We bred him to all the bigger Does because he's so small. And we bred Max to the smaller Does.

Because Max/Oliver are the only bucks we have old enough to breed, we had to breed them to broken Does. So we'll most likely have lots of Charlies this go around! : )
If you'd like to be added to the waiting list for these litters, let us know!

We'll try breeding NGF's 266 "Sissy", Millie, and Alyson sometime in Feb.

I updated the website today. We don't have any litters at the moment so all the baby pictures are off. We still have "Bow" available on the for sale page. I re-did her pictures this morning.

I also added Dasher to the "Bucks" page. We had originally called him "Jingle" because he had a sister named "Belle". So it was Jingle & Belle (for our Christmas theme). But since we decided to keep him, we thought "Dasher" sounded better. So Dasher it is! Here's a picture of him:

I think that's all.....I hope you all have a Wonderful and Prosperous New Year in 2012!! : )

~ Back Again ~

Since the last post, Isabell had a litter of 4 babies. Though, none of them lived. I think she had a hard time getting them out... : (

And Lexus never had a litter, so I guess she never took!! So we re-bred her yesterday to Max again. If she still doesn't take this time, we'll probably sell her.

Oliver just turned 5 1/2 months old, so we decided to try him with Isabell, since he's such a small buck. It seemed like it worked, so we'll see what happens! : )

We also bred XC with Max. I would have liked to have bred her with another buck, but the only other buck available was Oliver, and that's her son. So we'll probably get broken blacks again.

We tried breeding Emmie again, but she wouldn't cooperate, so we'll try her again in a few days.

Sophie is now old enough to breed, but when we tried her with Oliver, she didn't want to have anything to do with it. So we'll try her again later.

In other news, we recently got another new bunny! Well, not exactly new...Her name is Darcy. She was born at our Rabbitry last Nov. and was sold to a sweet family for Christmas. Well, the family was no longer able to keep her, so they asked if we would take her back. And, we did. After looking back through my records from last year, I figured out that her parents were Bucky and Kim. And because we don't have either of them anymore, I had to go look through my pedigree records so I could make her a pedigree.
She was pretty scared the first day or two, but now that she has settled in, she's super sweet and loves getting attention! Just like our other bunnies! : ) She's a brood quality kind of girl. But no surprise considering who her parents were. Her owners never got her spayed, so we're going to try to breed her to Oliver (since he's so small) in the next few days. Hopefully she'll take and be a good mom. It's harder to get them to bred when they are older, but it's not impossible! Our one Doe "Millie" was a year old when we got her and, now she has litters with 5-7 babies! So we're excited to see what Darcy will do! : )
Here are some pictures of her: