2015 Goals

My most favorite post of the year is the annual goals post. :) I love reading my friend's goals too, so if you haven't already, please post. A look back at 2014:

2014 Goals

1. Acquire a new homebred herd buck- MET - Yes, yes, and yes! I now have several that I am soo pleased with. 4Kings Isaac, 4Kings Jace, 4Kings Ivan, and 4Kings Koen. I hope to introduce the last two pretty soon. Very pleased with Isaac's overall type and Jace's type and size. I look forward to 2015!

2. Attend Nationals and Convention - Partially MET -We did not make nationals this year but did make convention.

3. Place in the top 5 at either Nationals and/or Convention - MET - I had several top 10's and got 3rd place JR doe out of 53! All but one were molting so it just wasn't my year.

4. Improve eyebands- MET - Really this is a goal that could be set every year. Eyebands vary from litter to litter and really it is unreasonable to expect clean bands consistently. For the most part though, this has been met.

5. Improve Californian program- NOT MET - I no longer have Californians and have decided that no other breed will capture my heart like the Dwarf Hotots so I will not get a second breed.

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2015 Goals

1. Place in the top 5 at Nationals - We will be going to Sedalia, MO this April, I hope I have enough nice jrs and srs to take.

2. Replace foundation stock with offspring- This will be hard. I want to keep the rabbits that made such a big difference in quality in my herd. However, to move forward, I will have to replace them with nicer offspring.

3. Lessen the number of non-showable stock in my barn- Another difficult goal to meet because I like to keep rabbits for type regardless of color. Now, I have less cages and am keeping more and more nice showable babies so it will come down to culling for color/mismarks now.

4. Cull out megacolon rabbits- Megacolon will always rear it's ugly head in our breed but since it is very genetic, I am going to try hard this year to not keep a single one. Unfortunately, some of the nicest rabbits are the ones with megacolon. Currently I only have 2 rabbits with megacolon in my barn, they are healthy, have good condition, but just have a nasty floor wire due to their 'issue'. 

5. Survive the summer!- This summer is going to be rough. I have a new cage system that requires a ventilation system and well...you can't run that and an A/C and expect it to keep it cool in the barn. My main concern is the ammonia levels. I'm worried...so this will be a biggie. Just need to survive the summer without heat losses.

2013 Stats:
Born: 133
Died: 50
Raised: 83
Keepers: 23
Culls: 60

2014 Stats:
Born: 171
Died: 58
Raised: 113
Keepers: 24
Culls: 89

Okay so this year we had more babies, a lower stillborn rate/loss(34% compared to last year's 38%), but our keeper rate still stayed the same. That's okay, 80% of my herd was born this year and have replaced last year's keepers, I still think that's pretty good progress.