The Chicken Diaries » The Bunny Diaries

Ozimals Bunnies | Appreciation Food

Tracy Sparrowtree — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:45:25 +0000

Don’t forget to say goodbye to Ozimals Appreciation Food and Water at midnight tonight and return to the usual thing. The apprecation food was a gift given to apologise for the recent update difficulties and I don’t know about you, but it certainly has left a sweet taste in my mouth. I just wish all breedable food was packaged like it. All levels of food covered in one pleasant package, it made filling my feeder so much easier.

So as we say a fond farewell to Ozimals Appreciation Food, don’t forget to pull the usual food out of inventory and feed your bunnies tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: events, featured, Ozimals Bunnies, SL Breedables

Just Factual Breeds

Kirakah Little — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:31:26 +0000

I sat watching my energetic bunnies hop about my meadow when it dawned on me that I knew so little about these curious creatures outside of SL. Where did these breeds come from? What were their heritage? Are these Dutch really… Dutch? I sat and pondered and decided I wanted to get some factual evidence on these little critters. Could the new breed colors have true coat color characteristics of RL bunnies? So my research began.

Blanc de Hotot originated Northern France from a french woman named Madame Eugenie Bernhardt. She aspired to create a white rabbit with black eyes. Bernhardt took Papillions and bred them with several white coat rabbits. Bernhardt kept only the offspring that were lightly marked until all markings slowly disappeared.

Easily identified by it’s coat pattern, the Dutch remains one of the top ten most popular breeds in the world today. Surprisingly the Dutch rabbits are from England, they originated around the 1830s. Dutch rabbits come in a variety of colors such as black, blue, chocolate, gray, steel, and tortoiseshell.

The English Spot surfaced by selective breeding in England in the 19th century. Several fur colors are noted for the English Spot such as black, blue, lilac, tortoise, chocolate, gold, and gray. The English spot is classified as a white rabbit with eye circles, cheek spots, herringbone, colored ears, and a chain of spots.

Mini Rex descended from Standard Rex rabbits by mutations in the late 1800s in the wilderness of France. This mutation caused the Mini Rex to have exceptionally soft fur. The Mini Rex come in a variety of colors!

Havana originated from the Netherlands in 1898. Havana’s are recognized in five colors chocolate, blue, black, broken, and lilac.

Can you guess where the Harlequin originated? That’s right France. It would appear France holds much history on rabbit breeds. Harlequin have such a unique yet specific coat pattern. The colors of the Harlequin evenly split and alternate throughout the coat.

The Silver Marten breed originated as a “mistake” when Chinchilla breeders attempted to add black and tan to the breed. This attempted resulted in the Silver Marten and became their own breed in 1924. This breed comes in black, blue, sable, and chocolate.

The Holland Lop also originated in the Netherlands in 1964. The Holland Lop was produced by crossing a Netherland Dwarf and a French Lop. The Holland Lop is classified to have over 20 recognized colors according to the ARBA.

So where do the Himalayans come from? Yeah that’s right, the Himalayan Mountains! Unlike the Dutch rabbits which aren’t really Dutch… these hold true to their name! Like other Himalayan breeds the rabbit has a white like base with dark points on their feet, tails, ears, and nose. Himalayans come in lilac, black, blue, chocolate, however, they are born white and later accumulate color.

The Silver Fox is native to the United States, more specifically Ohio. Originally the breed was called American Heavyweight Silver in 1925. It it considered one of the rarest breeds of rabbits in America at this present time and is listed as endangered.

It’s fascinating the information available online, I was just stunned to learn all these tidbits on these breeds that I had fallen so in love with. I hope you picked up some great info on these amazing bundles of fur!

Kirakah Little

Special thanks to Hideyuki Ichtama and Trillian Poliak for the header image.

Technorati Tags: Breedables, Breeds, featured, Ozimals Bunnies, SL Breedables

SL Breedables | Dragons and Bunny Hairs

PacificBlue — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:40:34 +0000

Tuft and Kyoko’s Hair – White Well post, combined. Modeled by our writer Tracy Sparrowtree also. For the Precious Dragons and Ozimals Bunnies fans amongst us.

Dragon Mouth Pet Gatcha

Gatcha Dragon at Tuft

The exclusive Tuft-coloured gatcha dragon mouth pet

Green dragon - and that's me in the background, unable to model because I've used all my attachment points, and don't have a facelight. Lol.

Tuft currently have a little gatcha going. Pay the dragon plushie only L$1 for your chance of six different coloured little dragons you wear dangling from your mouth. There is an exclusive tuft-coloured one also to catcha in the gatcha – Tracy happens to be modeling that one for you.Transfer fine, so swap amongst your friends.

SLurl : Tuft at Unwanted

Kyoko’s Hair White Well Bunny Ears

Kyoko’s Hair Shop – White Well has Bunny Ears Hair.Tracy was sporting this hair when I TP’ed her in to get a dragon, so I took a look. The hair is a popular item as a Lucky Letter, set at 5 minute intervals. Or if you don’t want to wait around to win it, you can purchase a fatpack of six colours for only L$100.

Slurl : Kyoko’s Hair

Technorati Tags: featured, freebies, hair, Ozimals Bunnies, pets, Precious Dragons, win

Easter in June

SuriYangtz — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:58:23 +0000

A few weeks ago during the Ozimals update, I was getting my bunnies in order, kindling a few nests, and sending off bunnies to bunny buries, when I saw a bright gold butt and a chocolate face with lop ears. I checked to make sure that I only had coffee in my cup and then clicked on the bunny for the stats.
            Miracle
            Owner: Suri Yangtz
            Male Age: 8
            Gens Left: 15
            Happy: 68%
            Hunger: 1% L2
            Thirst: 1% L2
            Love: 100%
            Energy: 13%
            Elite: Easter Choco-Bunneh 2010
            Fur: Havana Lilac
            Eyes: Light Gray
            Ears: Lop Ears
            Shade: Radiant
            Elite: Easter Choco-Bunneh 2010

It was a bit of a shock. I mean a Easter Elite in June, that was kindled from a nest destined to go to bunnybury. I think Miracle, is a perfect name for such a bunny. I am not sure if anyone else in the Ozimal Community had this happen to them, but if so, Congratulations!!! I would love to hear from people if you have had one of these crazy, magical, random experiences.

I am one of those people who always has twisted luck, and this is a perfect example. I really wanted a Easter Elite, but at the time I only had 6 bunnies and there was no bunnybury, and I kinda was keepin’ my bunnies on the DL. So I didn’t go into a kindling frenzy, and the Easter Elites were expensive. I crossed my fingers, wished on a star, prayed to God… No really I just said Please, Please, softly under my breath as I randomly picked three nests to kindle. Little did I know that around three months later, my Ozimal dream came true. I just thought it was a glitch, and I was lucky, but PacificBlue talked to Aeron and based on the rules of the game, there could be more Easter Elites out there.

I kinda think he is even more special arriving a few months late. I also think that Miracle is a prime reason why it is so easy to stay invested in Ozimals. I also posted a pic for all you skeptics out there.

Thanks for Listening,
Suri

Technorati Tags: Easter Elite, featured, Ozimals Bunnies

Ozimals Bunnies | Coming Up Strawberries (Preview)

PacificBlue — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:09:15 +0000

If you managed to attend the Strawberry Festival Dance today, you may have been gifted with some of these – giant strawberries! No, actually, these rather large strawberries, entitled the Ozimals Strawberry Festival LE Gift contain a preview of one of the things available as BunnyBury points items to purchase.

Open the big strawberries and you will find some strawberry cupcake treats inside. Drop one of those cupcake treats on a bunny of your choice – your model today happens to be a strawberry elite – and poof!

The particle effects last for 30 minutes, or until you pick the bunny up. Which is just as well, because it took me almost that long to get this shot setup to show you the strawberries emitting from the bunny. Very effective – you can imagine these being in demand for displaying bunnies, and bunny auctions etc.

/me goes back to actually eating some real life strawberries – I have two strawberry farms less than a mile up the road. Mmmmm…

Technorati Tags: BunnyBury, featured, Ozimals Bunnies, strawberries

Ozimals Bunnies | Update to 1.3.F.6 and Omni Food Gifts

PacificBlue — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:08:20 +0000

This may be old news by now, as the majority of Ozimals owners tackle another update for their bunnies, but worth blogging anyway. Today Ozimals Bunnies have underwent another 1.3 update, taking the latest version to 1.3.F.6. This update will hopefully have tackled any last remaining issues with previous updates, and be beneficial to the bunnies in a further way – free food, and a requested statistical cutdown on getting an Elite Strawberry bunny in the next week.

As an apology for all of the updates recently, Ozimals has issued a free omni food and water pack, available to pick up from all the same landmarks in-world as you will find the latest Updater totem, and also on xstreetsl.com. This Omni food will sustain ten bunnies for ten days, no matter what level of food they are on. Pick up the normal food out in use before putting the omni strawberries and large water bowl down, and save those for when the Omni food gift expires – 14th July.

The Update itself has caused some controversy amongst some Ozimals owners, because it has been coded to not work in what is deemed ‘low performing’ sims. This has seen many larger breeders needing to take up groups of ten bunnies at a time, move them to a higher performing sim to update them, then move back – making a lot of work for some people.

From a personal level I also encountered this updater problem on my homestead sim – although there appeared little lag at the time, and the FPS numbers and active scripts around were 300% better than that of the rented parcel I took my bunnies to, where the updater worked. And the updater does work really quickly if on a ‘high performing’ sim, so I would recommend this method should you also be having issues, despite the travel and work needed to do this. Look for a sandbox as a good resort also, if your own land is giving you problems. And as we know, not all sandboxes are equal, but a nice quiet one where you can work quickly would work out great for you.

I have watched with some great understanding of the stress involved with all of these updates, from both sides. And currently it’s not just with Ozimals. I sit hoping for another update which will work for me on a completely different breedable animal, and understand the stress and time involved as an owner in all of this. Today, for me, has been incredibly limited by these updates, and I’ve been unable to do anything else I would have like to have done. But as a reminder, I know that when I look back in a month or so’s time, and my bunnies, or other animals are working strongly, and I do have that spare time to finally go on a hunt, then my work, and that of the coding and creative team behind the animals, will be worth it.

Finally, if you’re still having problems, don’t moan about it on group chat, personal chat, or behind the scenes. All of those creators are out there awaiting your cries for help, so just contact them. They are there to support both their business, and care about your investment in their products. Use them – first.

And yes, if you’re a creator of another animal out there, and are considering an update, can you give me a personal breather for a couple of days before releasing it? That will do just fine, thanks.

Technorati Tags: featured, Ozimals Bunnies, update

Ozimals Bunnies | It’s the Final Update

PacificBlue — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:26:32 +0000

The final update to Version 1.3.F.5 is taking place across the grid for Ozimals Bunnies owners. Update totems are available at several SIMs – look up the 1.3.F.5 update notification in groups.

There was a flawed update first thing which took the bunnies to version 1.3.F4. This version remains on hovertext above the bunnies, even though a 1.3.F.5 totem has been used. To check any bunnies you may be purchasing in the future have been updated to the correct version, look at the description field of your bunny – it will have the figures ’2010062800′ at the start of the long numerical key in the description field. This indicates that your bunny is actually at the correct version – 1.3.F.5.

Technorati Tags: featured, Ozimals Bunnies, update

Ozimals Bunnies | Strawberry Festival Elite

PacificBlue — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:41:45 +0000

From 9am SLT 28th June to Midnight SLT 11th July, in celebration of the Oz Strawberry Festival, every 1.3 Ozimals Nest kindled has a random chance of being a Strawberry Elite. Normal elite rules do not apply (ie. elites can only be born to mothers with only 3 generations of offspring left, etc).

If you do not want your special breed nests (ie. the argents, himalayans, hot-tots etc) to come out as a Strawberry Elite, hold onto those nests until after 11th July. Many people on the grid had already discovered these elites before the announcement, and if you’re not lucky enough to get one, you will already find several Strawberries being sold on markets.

The Strawberry Festival 2010 Elite – available 28th June to 11th July 2010.

Technorati Tags: Elite, featured, Ozimals Bunnies, strawberry

The Virtual Livestock Exchange

Tracy Sparrowtree — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:52:51 +0000

The Virtual Livestock Exchange is a website currently catering to those in SL selling Ozimal Bunnies or Petable Turtles. It was birthed by Tesseract Toxx with the goal of making it easier to find the right Bunny (or other breedable) while saving buyers the many hours it can take searching Markets. It also gives sellers the opportunity to get the word out about their stalls and farms in a unique way and track the lineage of their bunnies. The Virtual Livestock Exchange is backed by a real company that has been in the website creation business since 1994, Libertytec LLC. The mission of the Virtual Livestock Exchange is to create an easier way to connect buyers and sellers of breedable pets with the goal of remaining user supported and free to use through the use of advertisements.

The website has basic and advanced tutorials to watch and is also in text on the Help page. It is explained very well and seemed easy to use, but seeing as I am a hands-on sort of person I decided the best thing for me to do was to try it out myself. So after a quick dash to SL7B to pick up my breedable freebies. Yay!! I went to the Second Life Location to register for an account.

Registering in SL

Well that was easy. I just typed my email address into chat and straight away my username and password were supplied. I then went and signed up on The Virtual Livestock Exchange webpage with my new password. I had to go back to Fruitful Farm to get information about some of my bunnies before I could take the next step. Personally I don’t take much notice of my bunnies genetics or keep long notes about pedigree, well I’m a bit ashamed to say I don’t keep any notes. I do keep track of the nests that come from my sibling pairs, but that’s about it. Which leads into another aspect of The Virtual Livestock Exchange, it can also be used as a tool to keep track of lineage. This appeals to me as I think I would keep track of my bunnies lineage if I could do it easily and for free. So the website is a tool to possibly improve my breeding as well as get the word out about the bunnies I have for sale.

So with my bunnies in sight I was able to quickly type in the relevant information and list my bunnies prices. There is an Ozimals Bunnies page and you can look at all bunnies listed or search for the specific bunny you are looking for. Having the slurl available of the place the bunny can be found means you can go straight there and purchase your bunny and gives sellers the possibility of selling other bunnies which may not be listed.

Girl posing pretty

You can also upload a 640 x 480 picture to show the prospective buyer exactly what your bunny looks like and any information you could possibly need to give about your Ozimals Bunny is included. As I write this Tesseract is adding Petable Turtles to the breedables available to be advertised. There are great plans for the future with talk of automating the listing process with an in-world tool that will automatically send animal information to their server.

Our goal is to offer listing services for all popular breedable pets and change the way they are sold in Second Life. We also want to make an online market for accessories. Those that sell housing, decorations and other accessories will be able to list their items. Look for a farm and market directory in the future as well.

There will also be advertising opportunities on the website and The Virtual Livestock Exchange is having a contest for a new logo and site banner, it starts on the 28th June and the prize is 10,000L’s! So if you have some graphic abilities start brainstorming.

Overall I think The Virtual Livestock Exchange is a useful tool and easy to use. I would/will use it, as it gives me the ability to list my bunnies for my own benefit and for the chance to reach buyers I may not otherwise come in contact with while relieving the guilt I feel at not doing enough advertising in SL. There is also a trade option which I think is very useful for the Petable Turtle market.

SLurl for registering

Webpage

Technorati Tags: Breedables, featured, Ozimals Bunnies, Petable Turtles

Product Review | Jolly Farm Plaid Backpack for Ozimals Bunnies

Tracy Sparrowtree — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:51:15 +0000

I did double duty today as backpack model and store decorator. With more things to do than time I thought I was pretty darn smart to manage my SL multi-tasking. Today was the big opening for The Village and my first chance to take a look at my new stall. I was very impressed I must say. The place looks wonderful and I was very excited to put some of my newly updated Bunnies on sale. There was alot going on at The Village with a prize hunt and the opportunity to put your name in the draw to win 1 of 3 special bunnies. I personally didn’t find any horseshoes while I was there. I’m no good at that sort of thing, unless I trip over it lol. I did find it amusing watching people fly by in their frantic search though.

Plaid Backpack

So onto my other purpose, reviewing Jolly Farm’s cute Ozimals backpack. I love Jolly Farm products, so much so that I have an affiliate vendor at Fruitful Farm, and I was lucky enough to win one of Sookie’s Plaid backpacks in a lucky egg dip she had at Jolly Farm (can’t remember how much it was, not much). I’m a bit of a Noob when it comes to editing things I’m wearing, so I think the first time I put it on I thought, that’s nice, and took it off again. Today I thought it would be nice to take My Boy Charlie with me to set up shop, so I persevered, and it turned out to not be that hard anyway. So my first piece of advise is to remember to attach your Bunny to your spin instead of the usual attach point, which is your hand. With your bunny attached to your spin it doesn’t take much editing to fit him nicely into the backpack with his little head and front paws sitting out. He looks oh so cute don’t you think.

Rearview of the Backpack

I did have to move the backpack around a little to get it looking right. The strap can sink into your arm and then I found the backpack was, in, my back. Not a good look. Very good directions come with the purchase though, so you don’t have to rely on mine. Once I had it all sorted I really enjoyed having my favourite boy with me and he enjoyed it also, as the spine is also a point that will increase the Ozimal bunnies happiness. I did have to remind myself to take him off and put him back down at home, because he wouldn’t have been happy for long if I’d logged off and left him there.

Relaxing with my Bunny

There are 7 different colour combination’s in the Plaid and there is also a Goth version with 10 different colours. They are very affordable at 100L for either the Plaid or Goth (that’s per colour though, not a pack). The backpack has cute decorations which include a bottle of water, a carrot and a little bag of treats (decoration only). Jolly Farm products can be found on Xstreet, inworld at Jolly Farm or through affiliate vendors.

SLurl: Jolly Farm

Technorati Tags: featured, Ozimals Bunnies