Armour Farm & Rabbitry

04/02/2024

Finally have some kits in nestboxes! 4 today, we will see what tomorrow and next week holds.

03/31/2024

Happy Easter! The tomb is empty! 🐇

03/29/2024

Wishing everyone a happy hoppy Easter!

🐰🩷

03/19/2024

10 year commitment, and I have had some live longer….they also will NOT survive in the wild. Stick with the adorable stuffed animals in stores and seriously consider your situation and the foreseeable future before investing in a rabbit. They live as long as dogs, yet are more prone to impulse buys.

03/17/2024

AFR75 earned 4 Best of Breed (BOB) awards this weekend at the NC Rabbit Breeders Association State Convention. I forgot to get 1 picture 🤦‍♀️

Show A under Nicole Bortz
Show B under David Cardinal
Show C under Ryan Harrah
Show D under Stacy Martin

I need to wait for the show reports in a few days to determine our other wins

02/09/2024

FYI- I don't play this game. The amount quoted is the amount quoted for the animal and pedigree. You will only get quality animals and I will tell you if they are show, brood or pet quality. Show does NOT guarantee how they will place however. Judges will judge to the best of their ability that day and it depends on the quality of animals on the table with yours.

I might be in the minority here, but it makes me hardcore roll my eyes when someone charges an extra amount just for the piece of paper.

01/30/2024

Rabbits are part of agriculture!

10 good reason for youth and agriculture.

12/03/2023

Good day showing at the Merry Grinchmas show hosted by ECRBA!
Competed in 3 Mini Rex shows and received two Best Opposite S*x Breed awards, for non rabbit folks this is basically second place out of every mini rex shown.
*Show A- DUDE castor senior buck (38 MR rabbits in the show)
*Mini Rex Speciality show- DW1 broken black senior buck (44 MR rabbits in the show)
*Show B- CUP Thrianta senior buck (8 rabbits shown in the Thrianta breed)

11/30/2023

All gone!
These guys are looking to hop to new zip codes. I’m getting out of blues and opals to make room for my other varieties. The goal is quality over quantity (having too many varieties to truly make progress.)
They can come to the Smithfield show this weekend or pick up in Pitt County, NC.

11/26/2023

Lots of rabbits looking to hop to new zip codes, Mini Rex Opals, Blues & Chocolate.
All can be taken to the December ECRBA Smithfield Show for pick up! Message if interested.

After the ARBA Convention I took a hard look my goals and decided to focus on just two varieties-castor & otter. Some of these are grow outs I was planning to show/use in my program and a few are older animals that have been producing for me & still have some breedings in them.

11/26/2023

Cute litter of castor kits!

11/23/2023

Happy Thanksgiving from the bunnies, they are glad turkey is on the menu today 🦃

11/08/2023

👇👇👇👇 The standards are there for a reason. Anyone you buy from should know their breed standards well.

11/07/2023

Dimes is such a good mom…

10/22/2023

Well NOGAME wasn’t kidding yesterday with building a nest. Came into 4 healthy little kits today. Did you know baby bunnies (kits) are born naked, blind and deaf? The fur you see around them is from NOGAME, she built them a nice soft nest with her fur.

10/21/2023

NOGAME is getting her nestbox ready for kits…due Monday. As soon as the nestbox was in she went to work.

10/13/2023

Fun time at my first ARBA Convention. Tens of thousands of rabbits and cavies (Guinea pigs), thousands of people at the Louisville convention center.
I took 1 rabbit and Dude placed 7th in his class- hitting my 2023 goal of top 10 in the class. I learned a lot and have been assessing my barn to determine how I’m going to be in the top 5 next time 🙃
Next show will be Smithfield Dec 1-2!

09/25/2023

Singing in the barn and I get this “look” from JM2….I’m a bit offended 😂

08/06/2023

Moms, of all species, are the most patient souls….the crud they put up with from their kids 😂🤣

06/05/2023

Who ordered a bowl of chocolates?

05/27/2023

Someone changed a color on a pedigree on an animal I bought and unfortunately for them I knew the said animals previous owners. Their argument was the incorrect color was there based on their genetic knowledge. Long story short it caused a blow up and now that I’ve bred the animal I know the original color was correct. I also recently figured out a pedigree of another animal I have can’t be fully accurate based on 3 litters she’s had with different known bucks pedigrees 🤦‍♀️ She’s not meeting my goals so she will be culled.
I’m very picky on my animals so that I (and you) get quality. Stinks when others aren’t. Whether you get a bun from me or other breeder- keep in mind these questions.

Last post for the day 😊
DO'S AND DON'TS OF PEDIGREES

Between receiving a request for this post and seeing this discussion coming up again in the groups, I thought it was time to repost pedigree etiquette. This information will be helpful for anyone looking to start raising rabbits, but could serve as a refresher for those of us that have done it a while.

Before I go into the do's and don'ts, let's touch on what makes a pedigree complete. A complete pedigree is one that a registrar can use to register a rabbit with ARBA. Ear tag number, weight, variety, name, DOB for the rabbit being pedigreed, buck or doe, and breed. This information is useful in a multitude of situations, including (but not limited to) granding, efficient meat production, breed specific genetically related health condition tracking, and color possibility planning.

Now let's get into the nitty gritty of it: ETIQUETTE. Before you go in search of stock that meets your needs, make sure you're aware of what to ask a seller and how to handle situations that may come up. Ask things like: is this a complete pedigree with all weights included, is there any Vienna in the line, and is there any chocolate in the line (important if you ARE raising blue eyed whites).

But what should you do if you've already purchased stock, and possibly shown it, before realizing info was missing? The simplest answer is to request the info from the seller. If the seller doesn't have it and cannot get access to it, just breed a few generations to get back to fully pedigreed stock.

DO's:
💜 ask questions about the pedigree prior to purchase
💜 request missing info from the seller/breeder and respect them if they don't have access to it
💜 ask permission prior to making changes to a pedigree for an animal you didn't produce
💜 include the rabbitry names on all kit pedigrees you produce (if mom is MAF's BooBoo, make sure you put 'MAF's BooBoo' on all her kits' pedigrees for her name)
💜 enjoy showing and breeding the rabbits

DON'TS
❌️ change or add anything without permission
❌️ guess weights that are missing (stop falsifying pedigrees)
❌️ remove the rabbitry name from the rabbit you didn't produce
❌️ add your rabbitry name to a rabbit you didn't produce
❌️ convince other people to falsify weights
❌️ steal info from a breed to make your own pedigrees on nonpedigreed stock you purchased elsewhere

While the idea of winning and granding a rabbit is exciting, it's better in the long run to breed back to a full pedigree than it is to ruin your own reputation doing something unethical. In reality, it takes about 1.5-2 years to do so and you can still enjoy breeding and showing along the way.

05/20/2023

Great show weekend at the ECRBA show in Smithfield. Some tough competition but we did earn some show legs and now DZ2 will be able to get his grand champion certificate! To get a leg a rabbit must beat 4 other rabbits shown by at least 3 (total) exhibitors. A GC certificate requires 3 legs.
The highlight was from a new kid on the block- DUDE got Best Opposite S*x in the Mini Rex breed for show A! Even as a small junior (he just turned 14w) he got lots of great comments from all the judges.

05/19/2023

Dr Stewart has secured the RHDV2 vaccine and has two days set aside specifically to vaccinate rabbits.
RHD has been in Europe for awhile and has made its way to the US. It is deadly.
More info on the virus- https://arba.net/announcements/

05/02/2023

First round of kits that are potential ARBA Convention entries are in the nestboxes, MIGAME in particular has made quite a nice nest!

04/15/2023

My rabbits are much more calm….although there is always that one doe who has to be different 😂

03/28/2023

Rabbit is a healthy lean meat that is coming back to the table.

Old foods made new

03/26/2023

I feel like mom’s and dad’s everywhere can relate….poor Dimes 😂

03/25/2023

We did a little photo session with some coworkers kids yesterday after school and some AFR kits. Sneak pic of 3 month old C “hugging” one of Opal’s kits.