It turns out that the doe I bought from Tracy Adams from Indiana is not a true blue, and has both Steel and Light Grey in her pedigree.  If I had done more research on the Flemish Giant Blues, I could have either looked more carefully for the blue I needed, or I could have decided earlier that I wasn’t going to try to have blues. Tracy Adams farm took a horrible tragic blow this past year, as a bloating illness went through her herd and took all her blues and blacks, totally 28 lost rabbits. 

So what I do have:

Although the mother has the Steel and light Grey in her pedigree, the phenotypes for the babies seem to be fine.  I feeling pretty lucky because I keep hearing how difficult it is to get some nice blues and I did find Cathy Caracciola, who specializes in blues and has them, has true blues and has nice ones, and takes shows with them and although I can tell she finds it a challenge, I think she finds it very rewarding.  She said something that I found very inspirational about how raising blues is really about improving the breed-- it’s something bigger than us, to me-- more than just having rabbits or winning shows, but more about keeping a rare rabbit in existence.

Maybe that makes it an art to me.  I will just continue to work the blues untill the steel and light gray no longer show ion the peds and maybe they also won’t show on the rabbits.

I am posting these kits for sale and they are going to be ready for Easter.  I haven’t decided yet if I will reserve any of these at all, but I would like to make sure the blue eyed black go to someone who wants to breed for steels.  The smaller blue one might pick up some weight.

Another thing I realize is I don’t know how to insert a table on this iWeb program yet.  I guess I have a bit of reading to do.

I want to thanks Tracy Adams for sharing the papers on genetics and eye color of Flemish Giants and for sending me the links and hooking me up with some of her FG friends.

I want to thank Cathy Caraccioloa for all her expertise and knowledge in the field and for raising beautiful big Flemish Giant Blues and keeping them true to color, even though it isn’t easy, as we all can clearly see.

i also want to thank anyone who can tell me how to insert and build a table for my iWeb pages/ and blog.  thanks everybody and have a wonderful, beautiful day!! the sun is shining! I loved being outside all day yesterday and today will be even better!!