We had our first litter of reds May 16,2011. They're turning out beautiful. Carmen and I made a bet about the number and colors. We both guessed Ethel would have 6 kits. I guessed she would have REDS and REWS since the grandsire was a REW. Carmen guessed all REDS. From birth two of them had darker tails. I didn't think much of since I was Expecting REWS. Then those dark tails started to get points and shadings. WE have TORTS!!!!! One is a chocolate tort, and the other is a black tort. A FAWN also popped up out of the litter. Know we know our lines carry tort.
Lucy had her second litter 3 days after Ethel. She had 7 again.,I guessed that much. The colors were another thing. She was bred to our Broken Black Otter Buck, Mickey. I had no idea what kind of colors were gonna pop up. She had seven that afternoon. I acutally got to watch her give birth. She had 2 booted, 2 brokens, and 3 solids. All of them appeared to be otters, and broken otters with a red tinge. I said , okay, that makes sense. I just wrote them all off as pets, because they were unshowable colors. I looked at them yesterday, they turn out to be Castors and Broken castors. I was so blinded earlier that castor never crossed my mind.
Juliet's litter was the litter I was most excited about. I couldn't wait to see what she threw. Then, tradgedy struck. Day 30 I palpated her to make sure she was still pregnant, none of the babies were moving or showing any signs of life. I knew then that all of them were DOA. Day 35 rolls around as I was cleaning up, I noticed half of a baby hanging out. This baby was Breeched. I didn't want to touch it because I didn't want to placenta to break. I went back inside for a while, when I came back out the baby was still in that position. The baby I saw appeared to be a broken black otters, with a beautifull pattern. I just left her alone, because the biggest thing for me at that point was for her to just deliver all of them. A couple more hours pass, Juliet ends up pulling half of the baby off :(. The other half of the baby was stuck up the canal. To make a long story short, we took her to the vet to put her down. She looked to be in too much pain, and was probably slowly dying.
The only good thing to come out of this was a reason to keep Mickey around. Mickey was the first Mini Rex we got. He has a lovely personality and gorgeous type. Since we know he throws castor when paired with Lucy we can use him to produce broken castor. Those broken castor can be used for our Broken Red lines. Now all we need is a Broken Tort :D
Lucy had her second litter 3 days after Ethel. She had 7 again.,I guessed that much. The colors were another thing. She was bred to our Broken Black Otter Buck, Mickey. I had no idea what kind of colors were gonna pop up. She had seven that afternoon. I acutally got to watch her give birth. She had 2 booted, 2 brokens, and 3 solids. All of them appeared to be otters, and broken otters with a red tinge. I said , okay, that makes sense. I just wrote them all off as pets, because they were unshowable colors. I looked at them yesterday, they turn out to be Castors and Broken castors. I was so blinded earlier that castor never crossed my mind.
Juliet's litter was the litter I was most excited about. I couldn't wait to see what she threw. Then, tradgedy struck. Day 30 I palpated her to make sure she was still pregnant, none of the babies were moving or showing any signs of life. I knew then that all of them were DOA. Day 35 rolls around as I was cleaning up, I noticed half of a baby hanging out. This baby was Breeched. I didn't want to touch it because I didn't want to placenta to break. I went back inside for a while, when I came back out the baby was still in that position. The baby I saw appeared to be a broken black otters, with a beautifull pattern. I just left her alone, because the biggest thing for me at that point was for her to just deliver all of them. A couple more hours pass, Juliet ends up pulling half of the baby off :(. The other half of the baby was stuck up the canal. To make a long story short, we took her to the vet to put her down. She looked to be in too much pain, and was probably slowly dying.
The only good thing to come out of this was a reason to keep Mickey around. Mickey was the first Mini Rex we got. He has a lovely personality and gorgeous type. Since we know he throws castor when paired with Lucy we can use him to produce broken castor. Those broken castor can be used for our Broken Red lines. Now all we need is a Broken Tort :D