I have the thought to give up on those three for now and pick three others instead. Kaelyn is currently sharing her cage with Cinnabun, and Snowflake has all her babies with her still, so neither of them are viable options. Caduci, Quetzal, and Raisinet are refusing to breed, Pocahontas and Princess Poppy are sharing a cage, Feather, Alice, and Lilith are all supposed to be bred and due in 5-7 days, and MooMoo is still off with the stud breeder, so that leaves me with Gretchen, Fern, Spotty, Calliope, and Quince.
Gretchen was also set to breed back to Ulysses, but she can be paired to another buck instead. Maybe try her with Fella to see if we can get him to be proven with a more experienced doe.
Quince is in a cage I really was hoping to avoid having a litter in, but I suppose if I give her a nice nest box and they don't fall out onto the wire they'd be alright. The bar spacing on that cage is a little wider than I'd like and I've used it in the past for bucks.
Fern, Calliope, and Spotty are all set to be bred on November 13th when the quarantine hold on the new bucks is up.
The next auction is this weekend and #2 and I will be going again. Perhaps we can snag something new and interesting to add to our collection. Another French Lop and a Jersey Wooly doe are top of the list, but who knows what you'll find at the auction, right?
Still no names selected, but golly this little guy is a gem. So patient with me as I pull on his snarls. Today I was able to get most of the mats broken down at least a little so they won't pull as much. He now is perfectly brushed out for about 1-2 inches on either side of his spine from his ears to the mat just above his tail (which is now several smaller mats). Progress! At least we are making progress!
This bunny seriously looks like a little plush rabbit. He's so stinking cute and just tiny. He also has an ear tattoo (LG4), so someone liked him enough to label him at some point. We had planned to sell this one when he was all groomed up and looking better, but now #3 wants to keep him too and possibly take him to a county fair to get him judged by a rabbit expert.
This morning I got up and Mazikeen wouldn't get up to go outside. No coaxing could get her to even sit up. So I put my arms under her in an attempt to get her feet under her. She cried out in pain, so I stopped. She attempted to get up and ended up in a weird yoga pose with her butt in the air and her face on the floor. After a moment she corrected herself and went out to pee. She was walking slowly and as though she were in pain. I offeredher a drink from the hose (her favorite) and she refused. She wouldn't drink the water from the bucket like she normally does either. I went out and did barn chores and groomed the bunny, but when I went to call her in she was down in the yard.
I texted Tony at work and asked him what I should do. Try to get her inside, see if the vet can see her, but really "you're the animal person, I don't know what to do." In all my years I've never come across this before. I've had a dog hit by a truck once who was tender for a while, but he was able to get up and move. Same dog, years later, went down in the yard and had to be carried back into the house in a make-shift sling made out of a sleeping bag (120 pound dog), and he died that evening at the emergency vet clinic from advanced stomach cancer that he'd only shown symptoms of for a week prior (not eating, lethargy, and vomiting blood the minute we put him on the exam table that evening).
But this, this is a six month old puppy. Her ability to open her jaw rules out lock-jaw (tetanus), her lack or diarrhea rules out parvo, and her ability to close her mouth rules out rabies. I have no idea what I'm working with here.
So I called the vet. Now, usually I would tell you how awesome my vet clinic is. they've been there for me for several pet emergencies, short notice visits, and they've saved my animals' lives in the past, and mourned with me over the losses that couldn't be saved. But today they sucked. I was told they had no appointments until Tuesday. I said it was an emergency, and they told me to call back tomorrow morning to see if I could get one of the three emergency appointment slots they kept open each day, but if I didn't have an appointment, I could go to an emergency clinic... the nearest ones are 1-2 hours away. That's great... I don't drive and my vet clinic is literally minutes away. I said I wasn't sure the dog could make it to tomorrow and the receptionist said "well i don't know what else to tell you." Wow. Just wow.
By this point, poor Mazikeen is shivering so hard it almost looked like convulsions. So I decided to risk it. I grabbed her hard and pulled her upright, forcing her to stand up. She bit me. Hard. Through the canvas to bruise my arm underneath, but she was standing up. So I managed to get her back into the house where she stood for a while, wanted back outside, and eventually flopped back onto the floor where she remained, barely responsive, for several hours.
I did managed to pry her mouth open and give her an aspirin when I realized she was burning up with fever. After that she kept her jaw locked shut. I tried a few times to talk to her, to comfort her, but she would only wag her tail once or twice, look at me without moving her head, and then close her eyes again. I texted my husband again and told him I didn't know what the problem was, but he should probably plan to run her to an emergency vet clinic if he wanted her to survive. She hadn't eaten any of her food yesterday (I thought my husband had fed the dogs before work this morning, but her dish was still full from when the kids fed her yesterday). He said he wanted to come home and see her before he made any decisions.
About 11:30pm Tony finally makes it home. As soon as the door opens in the other room, Mazikeen starts wagging her tail. As soon as he comes around the corner she tries to pick her head up. With some coaxing she did manage to stand up on her own and he brought her outside to go potty and got her to drink water and eat a few kibbles of food. She did go back down again and is currently still down. I will give her another aspirin before I head to bed, and Tony will probably be calling the vet clinic in the morning to try to get her in to an appointment. We have got to figure out what's going on with her and get her feeling better.
Some random thoughts - she did eat part of a Barbie doll a few days ago... could that make her sick like this? I pulled a grey tick off of her this morning - could tick paralysis be the diagnosis? The kids found the remains of a rabbit at the far edge of the yard, half eaten. A quick inventory shows it wasn't one of ours - could it have made her sick? On Monday the dogs brought a deer hoof up to the yard and I threw it away - could that make her sick? But Moose was chewing on it too... and Moose would have had access to the rabbit as well. I really don't know what to make of it, but I was so relieved when she got up for him tonight.
As much of a handful as she is and as mad as I am about her eating my breeding buck rabbit (poor Ulysses), I don't wish ill on the dog. I'm really hoping she's feeling better in the morning.
The down side of this is that tomorrow is the anniversary of the day my mother-in-law passed away. It's always been a rough day for Tony and I think it would crush him if his dog died on that day or all days. He's scheduled himself for a 12 hour shift to keep his mind off of things. So please, cross your fingers, send well wishes and healing vibes our way.
Harvest from the basement included four Isis Candy tomatoes, one Azoychka tomato (very small), and one melon. I thought it was a watermelon and was afraid it had not had time to ripen before the vine had died away. The kids asked if we could try to save seeds from it anyway, so we cut it open. Lo-and-behold, it's not a watermelon at all, but a tiny cantaloupe! I'm not sure if this one was Hearts of Gold or Minnesota Midget. It doesn't look like either from the photos I found online, but I think that's because the vine died before it could fully ripen. We cut it up and tried it. #4 and #5 loved it and asked if we could grow it again. #1 was allergic, as she is to most fresh fruits and vegetables, and I tried it, but I'm not a fan of cantaloupe, so I wasn't impressed. #3 suggested perhaps it wasn't sweet because it wasn't quite ripe yet. I think I agree. But still, very cool to find in your basement, and what a surprise that it wasn't the watermelon I had been anticipating!
The Isis Candy tomatoes were pretty tasty. Seeds are on the counter to ferment so we can plant again in the future. I plan to save the Azoychka seeds too.