Paper Heart Rattery Blog

Lovett’s litter is doing great. Their ears have opened up a day early, and I have an initial count of what we’ve got
For the males – 2 standard eared rex, 2 dumbo rex, 2 dumbo standard coats
And the females – 2 dumbo rex, 1 dumbo standard coat, 2 standard eared rex

Here is a quick picture of the gang…you can see the second one from the right is lighter than the others…I can’t wait to see what color it turns out to be!

And Lovett says…
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(Sorry – she was walking on the keyboard!)

As expected, PH Lovett had her litter yesterday. There are 11, and she is an exceptional mother. She is very organized and keeps the nest perfect and the babies fed, but at the same time she is very relaxed (if that makes sense!). I believe there are 6 males and 5 females, and there is a good mix of standard and rex coats. Pictures will be posted soon!

I took some new pictures of Iris and Calla’s litters today – they are on their litter pages. Both litters are doing well. Reservations will start in about a week – a little later than usual, but I am trying to see how the rex coats develop in Iris’s litter before making any final decisions.

I also took some “fun” pictures of some of the babies…here are a few!!

And here is my Frex…he joined the babies for the photo shoot

I also have to share – one of the babies has the CUTEST belly markings! She has a perfect arrow on her belly…

I also have decided on themes for the 2 older litters, and have named the babies. Iris’s litter will have a Candy Hearts theme, and Calla’s litter has a “Lost” theme.

I also wanted to mention – I am behind on e-mails at the moment, I haven’t had much time this week to get on the computer and have had a flood of e-mails now that baby pictures are up I will try to get caught up tonight and tomorrow – thanks everyone for your patience!!

Today I have a little bad news, but mostly good! Calla’s litter is doing well. They are still being taken care of by Iris, and Calla is taking care of Iris’s litter. Unfortunately one of Calla’s little girls passed away. But the others are doing very well. They are still a little small, but they are growing fast.
I had little bit of a surprise in the litter…russian silver agoutis! There was some american blue way back in their pedigree, but I didn’t think that it would carry through since it hasn’t shown up in a long time. But 4 of Calla’s babies are russian silver agouti!
Of course it was impossible to breed this color when I was trying for it – and since I’ve stopped trying, it’s shown up in 2 litters now!
But without further adieu…here are Calla’s boys…from left to right: one russian silver agouti dumbo, one russian blue agouti, one russian blue agouti dumbo, and one russian silver agouti.

And the girls…from left to right: russian silver agouti, russian blue agouti, russian silver agouti dumbo, russian blue agouti dumbo, russian blue agouti

I also took a few pictures of Iris’s litter…they are doing great!

I also got some pictures of Lovett…she is not doe for 3 more days, but she is HUGE! She looks much bigger in person than in the picture – I guess it’s the angle…anyway – I am hoping she has a nice big litter!

Iris’s litter is doing great. Her babies are big and fat and beautiful! Here they are at 12 days old…

Calla is not quite the mom that Iris is. Her babies are a bit small and are behind in their development. Here they are at 9 days…

I’ve decided to “trade” moms for a day or so. Iris now has Calla’s litter, and Calla has Iris’s. Hopefully Iris can get some weight on Calla’s litter so they can catch up!
I am not crazy about having to switch moms, but I am concerned that I would start losing Calla’s babies if I didn’t intervene. I could supplement with milk replacer, but mother’s milk is the best thing for them, and I think this is the best way. Hopefully it helps!

I finally got the site updated today. I forgot to mention in my last post, but I’d switched hosts when I renewed my website for the year. I couldn’t log into the FTP account to update things…but I finally got it resolved and had lots of updates ready to go.

Here is Iris’s litter. There is 1 little boy, and 6 girls. All are dumbo; all are rex except for one. The male is a russian blue agouti. The girls (not in order) are one mink (standard coat), one russian blue, one russian blue agouti, one black, one agouti, and one cinnamon.

In this litter, I was really hoping for a russian dove or russian cinnamon. I didn’t get it, but I am happy to have a succcesful litter from my old guy Hoover. It doesn’t look like there are any double rexes, which I am actually happy about. I have a lot of rexes at the moment, and don’t want to have too much rex in my breeding program! I was also hoping to get a harley – but I have the worst luck with them I’ve just about given up on bringing back harleys at this point.

Calla’s litter is doing great. There are 10 of them…6 girls and 4 boys. I am not sure of colors yet, but I think there are both russian blue agoutis and russian blues. I wasn’t sure if I’d get both colors – it depends on whether Calla carries the non-agouti gene or not. But unless some other color has popped up, it looks like she does. They are a mixture of standard and dumbo ears.

Here are the boys…the one on the right is quite small, but hopefully he continues to grow!

And the girls…

I am expecting one more litter to be born at the end of the month – between Hoover and Lovett. Lovett has put on weight since the breeding, so I do believe she is pregnant.

Well – I decided that it’s time for a change, and that I would make a new blog.  My old one can still be viewed here, but this is the site I will be using from now on.

This will be my first post of the year as well…and I am excited to say that this will be my 5th year of breeding! My first litter of the year was born today – PH Hoover and PH Iris graced us with 9 little ones yesterday. I took a quick peek at the babies, and there are lots of curly coated ones, one standard coated girl, and…one that might just be a harley! She could also be a satin…both look very similar until they are about 2-3 weeks of age. So I guess time will tell, I don’t want to get my hopes up yet. I thought I’d lost the harleys, and this might just bring them back – we’ll see!

Iris’s sister, Calla, should have her litter in about 3 days. I am expecting russian blue agoutis and hopefully some russian blues. Both are lovely colors, but I am hoping to breed out the agouti gene as soon as I can so I can focus completely on the colors I want to work on – russian blue and dove.

I’ve also bred Hoover and Lovett…she will hopefully have her litter on the 26th. I bred her a little younger than I usually do, but Hoover is getting older (27 months now), and I am afraid that he will no longer be fertile if I wait much longer. Fertility often drops off at about 2 years of age, and this is the latest I’ve ever tried to breed one of my males. Hopefully he is still fertile, since he produced a normal-sized litter with Iris, but I guess anything is possible. We’ll find out in a few weeks!