Week One

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One Day Old - Tuesday 2nd June 2009

Grace is being a very attentive mum, the babies are hardly squeaking as they are all nicely full of milk. She is constructing the usual mega nest around them, despite the hot weather.

Two Days Old - Wednesday 3rd June 2009

One of the darker babies is very obviously blazed. Yum. Some of the others are quite light coloured, which possibly means they're Essex as the four colours I'm expecting aren't light usually. I'm resisting the temptation to sex the babies at the moment, after the hash I made of the last litter. We'll try to wait until ten days and see which ones have nipples.

It's still very obvious how much better it is for mum to have a small litter, even though it means my waiting list isn't getting smaller. The babies are so quiet and well fed. I'm planning another litter in eight weeks, which I'd hoped to have but put on hold as I wasn't sure if I would have homes for them. Luckily I still seem to have a full waiting list despite the long delay in having this litter.

Three Days Old - Thursday 4th June 2009

We had a weigh in this morning. Markings are visible on some of the babies, but there may be more to come on the lighter coloured ones. I gave in to the temptation to try and sex them and think I have three girls and four boys, but I'm not certain about one of the boys.

This is what I think we have:

Grace is going through a manic nesting phase, trying to take anything she can grab in to add to her nest - my clothes, the curtains, pieces of A4 paper - just anything that comes to hand.

The babies' ears are unsticking from their heads at the top, like the corner of a page folded down. I don't remember that happening so obviously before.

Four Days Old - Friday 5th June 2009

Grace has made the most enormous nest, but the babies are still being tended on the hard cage floor.

DOES		BUCKS
Photo	Description	Photo	Description
	Mid coloured unmarked girl		Mid coloured unmarked boy
	Dark unmarked girl		Dark blazed boy
	Light triangle headspot girl		Dark tiny boy
			Light headspot boy

Grace has been adding to her mega nest, so I took some photos and a video of her hard at work.

After a while Grace began to run out of tissue to take in, so she tried to take my hand in too!

Five Days Old - Saturday 6th June 2009

I'm fairly sure the three darker babies are black. Grace is being the sweetest and most relaxed mum, I'm sure the babies are going to be really chilled if they take her.

Six Days Old - Sunday 7th June 2009

I cleaned out around the nest today, although the nest does actually cover most of the cage. Here's a baby picture:

A video of the nest

Some evening photos:

DOES		BUCKS
Photo	Description	Photo	Description
	Wandle, mid coloured unmarked girl		Brent, mid coloured unmarked boy
	Effra, dark unmarked girl (agouti?)		Ravensbourne, black blazed boy
	Moselle, light triangle headspot girl		Tyburn, black tiny boy
			Thames, light headspot boy

It's looking very much as if six of the seven are black based colours. The two lightest look mink Essex, and the two mid-coloured look mink. The dark girl is probably agouti and the two dark boys are definitely black.

One Week Old - Monday 8th June 2009

I took a new batch of photos, as last night's weren't the best ever:

DOES			BUCKS
Photo	Description	Weight	Photo	Description	Weight
	Wandle, mink? unmarked girl	24g		Brent, mink? unmarked boy	24g
	Effra, agouti? unmarked girl	21g		Ravensbourne, black blazed boy	22g
	Moselle, mink? triangle headspot girl	20g		Tyburn, black tiny boy	18g
				Thames, cinnamon? headspot boy	21g

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