Hot - N - Steamy Chicken Noodle Soup!

Tonight I made some scrumptious chicken noodle soup!  I got the recipe from a Cooks Illustrated magazine.  It was amazing......

Soup cooking on the stove

In the pot cooking

Done!

All in a row....

ready to be eaten

The Secret People!

They dwell amongst us and yet we do not know.   They are quiet and secretive and hard to find.  There has been sightings of them recently in Colorado.   The secret people have just recently been discovered and are very interesting.   Here are a few pictures (very rare!).

A Secret person caught outdoors

A closer look..

The little secret man trying to run away!

Louis found the secret girl!

She is smiling

Trying to hide.

*Secret man was made and trademarked by Gabriel Dupon.

~Secret girl was made by Sophie Dupon and it is also trademarked by her.

:)

~ Feed ~

I have recently been asked as to why I use rabbit feed and not chinchilla feed because they are two totally different animals.  This is a very good question to ask because feed can be very important to healthy chinchillas.  The feeds that I used in my research analysis was Mazuri Chinchilla feed and Manna Pro -Rabbit Pro. 
After doing research on the different ingredients in the chinchilla and rabbit feed I came to a very interesting conclusion:  Each feed has 30 of the same ingredients!  The only different ingredients that the different feeds have is that the chinchilla feed has two more 'filler proteins' and they each use different types of oil (chinchilla feed uses Soybean oil and rabbit feed uses vegetable oil).    In all the rabbit feed has 36 ingredients while the chinchilla feed has 42 ingredients.   The overall different analysis' in the feed are a lot the same besides the protein.  Chinchillas need to have 20-45% protein in their diet.  The rabbit feed only has 16% and the chinchilla feed only has 20%.  Both feeds should most likely be supplemented, especially the rabbit feed, but both are very low. 
As you see there are 30 of the same ingredients and I only named 1 ingredient from the rabbit feed and 3 from the chinchilla feed, there are still some feed ingredients that are missing.  The chinchilla feed has some probiotics along with some acidophilus, a lot of 'gut' health supplements.  On the other hand the rabbit feed lacks the 'gut' health supplements but has several more vitamins and minerals than the chinchilla feed. 
My conclusion to the research that I did is that they are both suitable feeds, neither is better than the other because they both weigh each other out with the extra vitamins or gut supplements.   I do feel though that both feeds should have a protein supplement because they are low in protein levels.   The feed that I would recommend to supplement for protein would be Calf Manna.  I have found it to work well.

"Remember that scientific feeding is only one phase of successful chinchilla production.  Controlled breeding and practical ranch management are just as important.  Without practicing all three one cannot succeed."

Chinchilla Rancher's Handbook

In the Newspaper!

I was in the newspaper (Reporter Herald, Loveland, CO) this past week for some of my projects that I did for fair.  Here are the articles.  :)

Fashion Revue

Dress a Bunny Contest
*I got overall best dressed bunny at fair!*

Baby Pictures!

Tonight I took some pictures of my baby chinchillas.  :)

Standard Gray Male born August 6th, 2011

Isn't he ADORABLE?!?!

He has the cutest personality!

Looking Cute!

His parents are Daisy (Standard Gray) and Diamond (White). 

My little Ebony female born today! (August 9th, 2011)

Isn't she precious?

I am going to keep her to see how she turns out.  Mom is Jaicee (Tan) and dad is Bear (Ebony)

Little White female out of Cloud (Standard Gray) and Diamond (White).  She has some cute markings!

She is so fast, she will just be totally still and then dart, gone.

Sweet thing....

Dyno! (Born July 29th, 2011). 

He has the BIGGEST eyes!

His parents are Rex (Standard Gray) and Diamond (White)

"I'm not being bad...."

Badger!  Born July 7th, 2011.  Mom is Muffin (White) and Dad is Bear (Ebony).  I was only able to get one picture because she decided she wanted to play.   :)

RoseMary!  Born May 15th, 2011.  Reserved for Megan!  Mom is Panda (TOV Ebony) and Dad is Bear (Ebony). 

She is SO sweet!

Basil!  I will be keeping Basil to see how she turns out.  She is a TOV Ebony.

Sister to RoseMary.  Mom is Panda (TOV Ebony) and Dad is Bear (Ebony)

Little White Male!  Born August 6th, 2011.  Brother to White female in above pictures.

Mom is Cloud (Standard Gray) and Dad is Diamond (White)

The End!!!

Babies!

I had two beautiful litters of chinchillas last night.  Daisy (the dad was Diamond) had a huge standard gray male and Cloud (the dad was also Diamond) had a white male and a white female.  The babies are gorgeous.

Daisy's Standard Gray Male

Cloud's White Male

Cloud's White Female