From:The June MNDRC News Letter
From:Furry Friends Rabbitry
    Hi all fellow rabbit breeders. We finally got our first Opal since we started breeding for them. It has been all most a year and where has that year gone. We just had 2 litters in the last 2 weeks One from our Himi Marten Doe and a Sia. Sable Buck. Three kits REW, Sia. Sable, and a Sable Marten. All doing well. The other is from a Black Silver Marten Doe and a Chin Buck. Four kits were born, 3 Chins and a Black Silver Marten. The 3 Chins are doing well. The black Silver Marten is a max factor. We sadly lost our first bunny we got out of our own litters.  Her name was Noel she developed Splayed Hips, stopped eating, and wasted away. We will never forget her. She was the best bunny I have sean in our nest boxes. She was the doe with the head like a buck, if all you remember the last news letter we was talking about her. Hopefully we have better luck with these new litters. We have a Blue Otter doe due on 5/10/2000. Check news Flash for litter info.

From:Pattie Wiskow & Family
From:Wild Rose Rabbits - Green Bay, WI

    We raise Rex rabbits and are working on the lynx and broken lynx varieties.  We also have Black, Blue, Cal, Castor, Red, Opal, Otter, Sable, Seal and White and Brokens.  We don't have Chocolate or Lilac yet, but we are trying for those too.  I recently had a litter of Rex born (7) with 4 castors, 2 blacks and was surprised to find one chocolate in the bunch.  Unfortunately, the little guy ended up being a hydrocephalus baby (water on the brain) and his little head became more domed as each day went on and he finally got weak and died.  So, there went my first chocolate.  When this litter is old enough to be weaned and the doe is back in shape, I will try the same buck with her and hope for another chocolate.  We have other babies that are just two days old.  Our opal doe had six kits by an opal buck - all are opals.  A broken castor!
 doe also had kits (2) and they appear to be broken lynx and broken red.  I took two of the opal babies and put them in with the broken doe, so that each mom will have four to feed.  I actually like it when my does have smaller litters because the kits seem to really thrive and grow well.  With Rex they have to make a certain weight as seniors (7 1/2# for bucks and 8# for does), so we try to breed for size as well as type and color.  I used to raise dwarfs and still have BEW in that breed.  We had quite a few opal dwarfs but now my friend has those as we decided to concentrate mainly on Rex.  I will always keep my BEW's though 'cause they're my favorites.  I have two BEW kits that are about 3 weeks old and adorable little rascals.  We have some mini-rex also but no babies right now.  We had two does that did not take when bred, so time to try again.  We also have a light gray  Flemish giant doe named Millie who was shown for the first time two weeks ago and took BOSB.  A beautiful fawn buck got BOB and definitely deserved it but our Millie did well, so we were happy.  She is primarily a pet and loves to come in the house.  Our main house bunny is a chocolate mini-rex who is a retired show bunny.  She even sleeps with me.  One of our Rex bucks, Pluto, a broken black, loves to come in the house too but he tends to loose weight because he is so busy running around being silly.  He has two legs so far, a BOB and BOSB, and we are hoping he'll get his third and championship, so he has been confined to his cage for awhile.  When the shows are over, he can come inside again.  Good luck with your opal dwarfs.  Opal is a beautiful color in any breed, and is my second favorite (next to lynx) in the Rex.

From: Karen Newberry
From: Springvally Netherland Dwarfs & Himalayans
Web Page http://www.oocities.org/kblueberry

    We have a couple of litters right now 3 Netherland Dwarfs and 1 Himalayan litter.  In our ND litters we have alot of chesnuts a couple of black otters and chins, a chestnut steel, a squirrel steel, and we also have been getting a bunch of funny colored rabbits, not sure what color they are...they are 3 months old and 1 is a self, 1 is an otter and 1 is a silver marten...I thought that they were self smoke pearls and smoke pearl martens because they have that light blue color on them, they are lighter than blue, but certainly can't be a smoke pearl otter! Anyway, they could be smoke pearls with no shading and a very light blue otter.

From: Ron Smith
From: Smith's Farm

    Well as of April i final got back into the Jersey woollies and as of last Sunday in Portland Indiana I got back into the Polish rabbits.  I also got some new colored dwarfs such as blue steels and tort. martens and I also got some brokens over the past few months.
    By the end of this year I will be increasing my dwarf heard from 40 head to 100  and I plan to increase my breeds and the cage space and hope fully we will have ben moved back to the country by the end of this year.