Somerhill Skylark

Skylark, 6 month old registered opal French Angora doe.
Her sire is GrCH Montour's Blue Skies and dam is Somerhill Fargo.
She is the only French Angora I have.

My opal doe

Opal junior French Angora doe from Montours Blue Skies and Somerhill Fargo litter.  Its been a LONG time since I had an opal, and I can't believe she is the pick of the litter, too!   I just love the nostrils on opals.  :^) 
Now to come up with the perfect name............

Dilute French Angora babies - a color comparison

2 opal French Angora kits - both born 4-22.  Look how different their
color looks, even though they have the same father, and their mothers
are closely related.  The one on the left has a wide tan ban, and the one
 on the left has very little tan, just a ticking.

The "bluer" opal doe.  Sire: Montours Blue Skies
Dam: Somerhill Fargo. 
There is a cream doe, and a REW buck and doe in the litter too.

This is the "tanner" opal, with her blue sister
Sire:  Montours Blue Skies    Dam: Somerhill Tidbit
There are 2 cream bucks and a blue tort doe in the litter, too.

Montour's Blue Skies

8 month old blue French Angora buck.

Shown with just 1.5" of new wool growth.
Mostly Spang breeding, has 1 BOS leg.

A couple of cute red French Angoras

Somerhill Fargo

Cream French Angora doe, bred to Somerhill Hemlock
for 11-8-12 kindling.   Looking for black, chocolate, blue,
lilac, chestnut, chocolate agouti, opal, lynx, REW, cream,
fawn, and all four colors of tort. 

Ready for Retirement Home

GrChamp Somerhill Nightshade "Pops" is looking for a retirement home. He is black, carries chocolate, REW, dilute, non-extended. In his prime, he was unbeatable on the show table. Excellent body, great density, etc.
 Born7-8-2009
He still breeds, but is not producing reliably anymore, especially in the summer. He is in good health, still grows a nice coat, and is pleasant tempered.
Pluckable.
The prospect of a clean, well loved retirement home is much more important than his price. He is available to an experienced angora home where he will be kept properly groomed and well fed.
Please contact me at somerhill@earthlink.net

UARC angora specialty at Marietta OH results

BOB Giant - Nancy James; BOB Satin - Lisa Rodenfels; BOB French - Tina Vance;, BOB English - Maureen Varvir.  Mareen also won Best in Show, and is holding the special award made and donated by Annette.

The BOB awards (made by me)
 

My dilutes - all dressed up, but no show.

Somerhill Hi-Jinx
Cream buck, 1 leg, registered. Several litters produced.  

Somerhill Tiddlywinks
Lilac tort doe, out of Hi-Jinx and Ti Kita.  Registered at
Springfield show.  Will be bred after the fall show season.

I went to the double show in Springfield on Sunday.  I had to leave by 3PM to make an appointment at the farm that evening, and angoras had STILL not been called to the table for either show.  But it was not a complete bust, since I did get Winky, Hemlock, and Moulin Rouge registered, and met someone at the show to deliver a SA junior doe.
There were 4 FA exhibitors, and one each SA and EA breeders there.  Met Jamie, a brand new SA owner, and watched as she taught Emily how to drop spindle.  And Maureen won Best in Show B with her English Angora - WOO HOO!
Next Saturday is the UARC angora specialty along with a double show at Marietta OH hosted by the Blennerhassett club.  There are several SA breeders coming to this show, so it will be FUN!   We should have all 4 angora breeds represented at this show.

Update on Ti Kita's babies

Ti's babies have opened their eyes, and are constantly hopping out of the nest box.  They've not gotten strong enough to crawl back in yet, so there is lots of picking up kits and putting them back going on right now.  Ti is getting used to me reaching in and touching them, and has gotten less grumpy about it.  She is a protective mother.
Looks like there are 3 REW, 1 lilac tort, 2 blue torts, and 2 creams. 

Oleander's babies are doing well.  There are some REW and the rest will be fawns, creams and torts.  They are still too young to decide colors for sure.

More baby French Angoras

Hi-Jinx and Oleander's newest.  She had 8 - white, creams, torts & fawns possible

Ti Kita and Hi-Jinx new babies

Somerhill Hi-Jink and GrCH Somerhill Ti Kita's new babies. There are 3 REW, and the rest are creams and dilute torts. I just weighed their 4 month old lilac tort daughter, Tiddlywinks, and she is 7#.

Somerhill Tiddlywinks - lilac tort



Some of the youngsters

ElizaBar Ginger Hill    Chocolate agouti JR doe from a new youth breeder.



Somerhill Tiger Eye.  He is 5 months, and a chocolate agouti buck.
 You can see some of his new wool coming in through the faded baby wool.



Somerhill Mardi Gras.   Chocolate SA doe, just turned SR. 

Somerhill Tiara.  3 month old REW doe, just purchased by Maggie, a youth FA breeder in PA.
Coincidently, Maggie also is a new breeder of Bluefaced Leicesters!

Tic Tac Toe

My new little cream buck, SHF Tic Tac Toe. 
He is Hi-Jinx and Ti Kita's son.

French Angora kits update

I've named all the FA kits from Hi-Jinx and Ti Kita's litter.  They are all Ti names with an attempt to play on the Hi-Jinx as well:
REW doe - Tiara
cream doe - Tidbit
lilac tort doe  - Tiddlywinks
REW buck - Tiebreaker
cream buck - Tic Tac Toe
blue tort buck - Tick Tock
The are growing by leaps and bounds!   All weigh over 4# at 9 weeks, and even though I've separated them into does and bucks, the cages are getting crowded again!   Hope I can get at least 2 of them to their new home in a few days.  2 others will have to wait until early next month when I deliver them to the PaRBA show in Lebanon, PA.  It might be fun to enter Tiddlywinks and Tic Tac Toe in the show even though they are too young to compete with 5-6 month old juniors. 
Ti Kita is registered now, so I just need to send in her legs to get her grand champion certificate. 

Pending Grand Champion Somerhill Oleander

Oleander was BOB in both shows today in Wilminton, OH

Judge Mike Adams evaluating her for Best in Show.  He eventually
selected the Tan, but mentioned her along with the Mini Rex and Florida White
as the top rabbits in the show.

Thanks for the pictures, Annette. :^)

Remodeling the rabbitry

I have stacking cages for the rabbits, and for quite some time, I've not used the bottom cage because its hard to reach the back of cage to clean it. It also is hard to lift the rabbit out of the cage safely, and young kits are impossible to capture if they go to the back corner to hide. The top cage is also a problem for the same reasons. After talking and considering several ideas, we've decided on building a frame of 2x4s and stacking 2 cages on it. This raises the cages to the optimum height for me to reach both rabbits.

This shows the frame Chuck made that supports my 2 French Angora bucks, Hi-Jinx (cream) and Nightshade (black) I am also replacing the floors of the cages and some of the legs and tray slides.

New baby bunny pictures

The Satin Angoras.  These are from Macgiver and Maybelline, and are all chocolate agoutis.
 I think there are 3 bucks and 3 does.  3 of the bucks, and 2 does are reserved.  
I've got my eye on the big, high rufus buck with dark grey underwool. 

The next 3 pictures are the French Angora babies from Hi-Jinx and Ti Kita.
Here are the REW buck and doe - both spoken for.

These are the cream buck and doe.  The buck (left) is blue-based cream,
and the doe(right) is lilac-based cream.  I may keep the buck.
The doe is spoken for.

This is the blue tort buck, and lilac tort doe. 
The buck is spoken for, the doe I may keep.

Updated baby pictures

These are Ti Kita and Hi-Jinx baby French. 
2 REW, 2 cream, 1 lilac tort, 1 blue tort.  The creams are different
shades, so I think one is a lilac based, and one is blue based. 

These are Maybelline and Macgiver's babies.  They are all chocolate agoutis.

Lancaster Rabbit Show Sunday

Oleander, my REW French Angora doe picked up her second leg at the show yesterday.  She was BOS  to the best of breed white buck my friend Tina showed.   We had a pretty nice show; 13 English, 13 French, and 11 Satin Angoras were shown.  None of my Satins placed, which is not a big surprise, considering I took a plucked buck, a clipped doe, and 2 babies.  :^)  My friends Nikki and Annette both got legs on their rabbits, so it was a good day for them, and fun for all of us. 

It was Tina's birthday, and Jenna baked a cake and brought it to the show as a surprise.  What a good friend!