Not Much Happening around Here

Well, there really isn't much happening around here and I guess that is why I haven't posted in awhile. Winter has been a long one and according to the weather man it isn't over yet. We are supposed to get a freeze later this week. I hope my seedlings in the garden will be ok. The garden got started later than usual because of the cold and wet. We have only had a few days in which it was nice enough to open the windows and air out the house. I do love it when I can leave them open all the time. There is no better sleeping than when you are breathing the cool night air. It is very refreshing. I have mended some fences this past week and put more compost in the garden for the warm season plantings. I usually have cleaned out all the deep beddings from the barns, but have waited because of the weather. The rabbits are finally producing babies again, so hopefully we will have rabbit meat soon. We had problems with a cat getting in the colonies and killing babies just for the fun of killing. I had 13 babies in one colony that were just about ready to move to the grow out pens and the cat killed them. I went in one morning to 13 dead bodies with a cat sitting in the middle of the carnage. Needless to say I was not happy. I have since double fortified the colonies so maybe that won't happen again. I am hoping that my goats are pregnant, but I haven't had a chance to pull blood samples for preg testing so I don't really know for sure. I really need some good milk and some babies on the ground. The chickens are laying like crazy right now so we have plenty of eggs. I am putting up the extras so that I don't have to do without this next winter when they stop laying or we only get one or two eggs a day. I am working on my first e-book as well, but I have to admit that I haven't had much time lately to work on it. Living wheat free has been going well for our family and I must say that I enjoy food more now than I ever have. I have lost more weight and most of my pain is gone. It makes life much more tolerable. We are still battling fruit flies in the house. They have been terrible and I have tried every natural remedy there is to get rid of them. I even resorted to bug bombing the house, which I don't like to do. It got rid of them for a few days and then we started seeing them again. Now we are back to a cloud of them in the kitchen and another cloud roaming the house. I have a ban on fresh fruit coming in the house that can't be kept in the refrigerator. I am so tired of these fruit flies. It is hard to even make a meal because the little buggers are everywhere. I even has fly strips hanging all over the kitchen and only eliminated half of them. I don't have any idea where they are coming from as there is nowhere for them to breed, but they are breeding somewhere because they are in here by the droves. We went to a wedding this month which was nice, even though it was a whirlwind trip. It is tough to find someone to stay here at the farm with the animals. We did find someone though and it was nice for us all to get away together for a few days. Right now about the only thing on our plate is getting all these trees from this past winter that came down cut up and put to use or burned. I guess it is nice to say that is our major project for this spring. We have been doing so much for so long that it is nice to basically not have to do so much. We have little projects and of course there are always repairs and such, but that is minor and easy compared to having a large new project to handle what we are doing or want to do. Like I said not much exciting going on around here. Blessings, Kat

New Rabbit Colony

We have had loads of success with our rabbit colony and so we have decided to start a new one, dubbed colony 2. We used the old chicken coop which was recently vacated by the pigs. We had to do some work to make it bunny proof, but I think it will work out just fine. We want to add an extra half door on the inside that opens inward which will give us more security when entering and leaving the colony. So far though we don't really have to worry about the buns escaping while we are entering and leaving. As soon as I start to open the door they all run to the back corner to hide. This colony will enable us to feed more rabbit to the dogs thus increasing our pet food production. Today I am going to try and gather up some more "toys" for the buns to have in there like tunnels for them to hide in and places for them to nest. They have one nesting spot now, but with 5 does they will need more. Hopefully, they will settle down and settle into routine over the next week. Fortunately, they all seem to be getting along and no one seems to be fighting. I will try to get pictures posted sometime today or tomorrow. Meanwhile, tonight is my sewing night and I am looking forward to it. It will be good to have some time to spend sewing. I have several dress patterns to cut out for my little one. We realized that she has a good amount of play dresses for the summer but not many town dresses for the summer. I also have a couple of work dresses that I am hemming simply to make them more practical to work in around the farm. I absolutely love wearing dresses in the summer especially. Well, it is about time to get to work before the rain moves in today. Blessings, Kat

Preserving Rabbit Hides

I think I have said this before, but in case I haven't this is the year that I learn to not only preserve my rabbit hides but learn to use them. I have always hated that waste of burying a batch of hides because I didn't know what to do with them or if I had the time to fool with them. I am still not sure about the time issue, but I am going to try. So what is the first step (after butchering that is) to keeping those hides for those lovely projects you have floating in your head? The first step is to scrape all flesh and fat off the hide. There isn't much on a rabbit hide, but there is more than you think once you scrape it. I don't have a proper fleshing tool so I use a de-barking tool that is really supposed to be used to de-bark logs. It works. A dull knife can also be used and I always have several of those around. To de-flesh a hide I use a large diameter pvc pipe, put my hide so that part is over the end of the hide and then lean that end against a building. Then I straddle the pipe and begin to de-flesh by moving the knife from the middle of the hide to the outside. Don't put too much pressure and don't saw back and forth or you will tear through the hide. When you get to the edge of the hide then simply continue straight off the edge and that will give a clean edge and pull the flesh right off the hide. Rotate your hide as needed until the whole hide has been fleshed. The hides are small so this doesn't take very long. Then salt the flesh side of the hide liberally and rub the salt in well making sure that all the flesh surface area is covered. Fold the hide flesh side to flesh side, roll it up and place in a box (left open for air circulation) and store for 2 weeks in the summer or 3 weeks in the winter. Once that period is over there are more steps, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. I worked some hides yesterday and have a few more to finish today. I can't wait to make a blanket from these hides. It will be nice to actually use them and not feel like they have been wasted. Our little one was giving me a whole list of things to make with the hides that she would like to have so she might keep me very busy. Rabbits are doing well in the colony, we have a brand new litter of 6. So we should have plenty of hides to work with. Blessings, Kat

Rabbit Colony Addition

We have had several rabbits that we were growing out and thinking of starting another colony with them. However, I don't know with all of the projects that we have going on if we are going to get to building another colony before winter gets here. So since the original colony started with 6 adults we decided to add the girls to the existing colony. We started with the oldest the other day. It can be tricky adding a new adult to an existing colony. Does are very territorial and they can kill intruders (new additions). We certainly don't want anything bad to happen to our little replacement so we placed a cage in the colony and in that cage she went. All the rabbits came up to check out the bunny in the cage. She has been there two days and it looks like all is well so far. We will see when we let her out today. We will have to keep a close eye on things, but fortunately no one is nesting right now so there shouldn't be any serious aggression. Once she is out and safe we will put another doe in the cage. We have several juveniles that need to be removed and placed in grow out cages but with these bunnies taking up grow out cages we didn't have anywhere to put them. Hopefully, the additions go well and we will be back up to 6 adults. We are beginning our deep bedding of the colony, goat barn, and chicken coop to get us through the winter. We added another window yesterday in the colony since it seemed to be so dark in there all the time. It makes a tremendous difference and lets in so much more light. I really think that will help the buns. We discovered yesterday that we seem to have mites in the colony so have treated everyone for them. That is the one drawback in the colony is that instead of one getting something they all get it. Mites can come in on hay and since we have been adding more hay for the bedding it is just something we have to deal with. It is easily remedied though except for the having to catch every rabbit to treat them. They will have to be treated again in 14 days to fully kill the life cycle of the mites. Just another day on the farm taking care of critters. Blessings, Kat

Updates from around the farm

Well, things are going well this spring around the farm. I might finally be getting the hang of this farming thing after 10 years. The garden is going great, just loads of work. I still can't say enough how I love my bio-dynamic garden. My garden is lush and green and full of yummy food. The weeding is relatively easy. Right now some of the pathways are getting out of hand and the rabbit patches are growing faster than the bunnies can eat. However, that is a good problem to have since I don't have to worry if the rabbits are going to have enough food. I am still having trouble with one chicken getting in the garden. I hate to get rid of her since she is one of my best egg layers and I have lost two hens this year already. One was simply very old I suspect. We don't really know how old she was when we got her as she was given to us by someone who could no longer keep chickens in their town backyard. The chickens are getting to where they range farther and farther away on the property and the other hen looked as if she was attacked by something. We really need another LGD, Dakota can only work so many hours and she does an awesome job at night. During the daytime though she gets rather exhausted and it is hard work keeping up with chickens scattered hither thither and yon. Right now with the farm situation up in the air we really can't justify another dog. On a good note we have had two hens sitting on eggs. They decided to nest right next to each other and apparently are sharing duty. They mixed up their eggs and so both had eggs hatch from the early batch and then there are still eggs from a later batch. One hen is taking on the newly hatched chicks from both nests and the other hen sits on the unhatched eggs. The rest of the eggs should be hatching within the next week or so. The chicks are mutts, but they are ever so cute. It is so much fun watching mama hen teach the little ones how to find food and she is a vicious protector of those babies. Poor Cujo thought he would check out the little fluffballs and say hi. Big mistake as he found himself with a face full of angry mama hen! The rabbit grow out cages are almost full and since it isn't all that hot yet I am hoping to get a few more litters from the colony. I don't really know whether they will take a summer siesta (papa bunny going heat sterile) or not since being in the indoor colony. We will have to wait and see. We can't complain with the numbers though and will truly have a great supply of rabbit meat this year. The bunnies are still very happy with their colony and so far it hasn't been all that difficult to catch weanling bunnies to transfer to the grow out cages. The goats so far are behaving themselves when I let them out to browse and are staying close to home. We still have the perimeter fencing to re-fence, but that is on hold until we know what is going to happen to the farm. I just wish they would hurry up and have those babies. I have a couple that look like they are going to explode they are so big. However, they could wait a few more days until I get the goat barn stripped and the new kidding stalls built. So much to do and not enough time or energy to get it all done.

Since it is spring and the weather outside is glorious we have been doing some hot and heavy cleaning up and cleaning out and repairs of course. We have cleaned out a lot of garbage that the previous owner left and kept saying she was coming to get. Since she held our mortgage we didn't throw it out because she kept saying she wanted it. Now that she has passed away we know that her heir doesn't want rusted old metal and 30 year old batteries. It is nice to be able to finally rid ourselves of all of that garbage. Maybe now we can get in the shed and rebuild the roof since we finally have room to work. I couldn't believe when I gathered up all the old batteries to take to town.....I gathered 20 old batteries from various places around the farm. Yesterday, doing some more cleaning up I found 3 more, so those will be going to town. It sure does make things look better around here to have all this garbage gone. The thing that astounds me is the amount of said garbage that we have gotten rid of over the years. The previous owner never threw anything away and if it was broken it just got pushed into a shed or piled in a pasture. Those mountains of old fence and rusted metal were the first thing to be gotten rid of. They were such a hazard to anything in the pasture and there was nothing of value in them anyway since everything was rusted to bits. Anyway, it is nice to finally be able to get things cleaned up. Now, if the heir will just come and get the rest of her stuff we really will be able to do some things that we haven't been able to because of the mountains of stuff. The ducks are doing a great job of keeping bugs out of the garden. I have seen very little and even though I have some flea beetle damage to my crops it is nothing like in past years.

Things are going well this year with the exception of not knowing what is going to happen with the farm. I just try to stay busy and not think of losing 10 years worth of work. I know if it is God's plan that we start over somewhere else then that is what we will do. Sometimes it is just hard thinking of doing just that when I think of the work, time, blood, sweat and tears of the past 10 years getting to this point. So, I just keep plugging along knowing that what God wants will be and we will adjust and adapt however we need to. He will never give us more than we can handle....at least that is my mantra. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Weed Safe List for rabbits

Since I talked about picking weeds for the rabbits in my last post I thought I would post a list of the weeds that I know are safe for rabbits. Always introduce greens very slowly to rabbits and in small amounts. A large change in their feed can lead quickly to enteritis which can and will kill a rabbit. So here is my list of rabbit safe foods.

Dandelion
Shepherd's Purse
Curly Dock
Burdock
Creeping Charlie
Wild Cherokee Rose
Honeysuckle (without the seeds)
Sow Thistle
White clover
Purple Clover
Wild Strawberry
Blackberry
Apple and Pear branches
Most grasses or grain crops
Sweet Gum Leaves
Catalpa Leaves
Chickweed

Each Year I make it my mission to firmly identify at least one more weed to add to the arsenal. Of course, there are many things from the garden that you can feed the bunnies also. When I thin the carrots this week then they will get the carrot thinnings which they love. I thin a little bit each day so that they don't get too much of a new thing at once. I need to thin the broccoli a little more and they will get some of that also. Here is a list of garden safe foods:

broccoli thinnings
carrots (not too much root as it is high in sugar)
radish tops
bean and pea plants
beets (again not too much root because of the high sugar content)
spinach
turnip greens
collard greens
corn thinnings
sunflower (thinnings, seeds, flower heads)
kale in very limited amounts
swiss chard
lettuce (preferably the dark green or red varieties)
sweet potato vine trimmings
herbs (lemon balm, catnip, basil, rosemary, mint, etc.)

So as you can see there is a wide variety of things that you can feed your rabbits and cut down on the feed bill. They are so happy to see that bucket of greens coming also. Mine hear my voice in the morning and come running to the colony door and then dance around my feet until I dump the bucket. Then all you hear is munch munch munch! I think they stay healthier also when they get to eat what they were designed to eat. Rabbits were designed to eat a wide variety of foods, not just one food. I think it keeps a healthier digestive system which is a very good thing in rabbits.
Please make sure that you firmly identify your plants before feeding them and if you don't know what a plant is take it to your extension agent for identification. If you have a plant and want to know if it is safe for rabbits or not then the best thing to do is google the plant name and rabbits. If you can't find information that way then you can have one test bunny to test a plant by eating it for several days before feeding it to the whole herd. Then if the plant is not safe you only lose one rabbit instead of all of them. Another word of caution, please make sure your weeds are safe and come from an environment that is not sprayed with chemicals. Rabbits are very sensitive and do not have the ability to survive eating pesticides and herbicides. If in doubt, leave it and get something that you know is safe. Blessings, Kat

More Baby bunnies!

The colony is working out so well, we now have our 4th litter of babies in the colony. I haven't yet done an official count, but there feels like there are a good many in there. I am so pleased at having gone the colony route. My production has definitely increased and the bunnies seem so much happier. It is almost time to round up the first two litters and move them to grow out cages. Then I need to clean out the colony and re-bed it. The new nest in inside an old cat carrier so it won't be hard to work around that nest without disturbing it. Hopefully, that is the only nest right now. I will have to take a good look around before I start cleaning everything out. We are having a good spring with loads of weeds to feed the bunnies. They are getting two 5 gallon buckets of greens a day which means that I don't have to feed too many grains. I must say that having them in the colony makes it much easier to feed more greens. Especially, when I cut roses and thistles for them. I use to hate having to put handfuls of those things in the cages as my hands got torn up. It was also more time consuming to divide the greens for the individual cages and now I just dump the whole bucket in a big pile and the bunnies jump right in. Another thing I have noticed is that they are cleaning up all of the greens, whereas they use to leave some. So I guess if there is something that one doesn't want at the moment then someone else is more than willing to eat it. At the current breeding rate we are going then I will definitely be able to provide plenty of rabbit meat for our family, but I will be able to supplement the dogs as well. That is a great thing that we have not been able to do in the past. And then dare I hope that we will have rabbits for sale as well?! The rabbits have definitely turned out to be the best investment on the farm. They cost me very little in upkeep, yet they are returning so much. I certainly could not purchase meat for the amount of money that I spend on care of the rabbits. I will start dehydrating some greens for feeding the rabbits this winter even though we do have some greens that still grow in the winter, it will be nice to be able to provide more variety this winter for them. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Farm Update

Well, there is so much going on right now that I just haven't had the time to post much other than a couple of short snippets. We almost have the floor replaced in the den which has been a large work in progress and I will be glad to have done. It makes such a huge difference in the room, especially since we are removing carpet that is about 30 years old and way past worn out. Our goal is to get rid of all the carpet in the house, that is if we are still here in the future. We have some legal issues going on with the property and just simply don't know where we stand yet, in other words we might lose the farm. I don't know what we will do if that happens. I can only trust that if the Lord closes this door that he will open another one for us. But for right now I am not going to dwell on unpleasant subjects.

The garden is going well. I think it gets better every year now that we have switched completely over to bio-intensive gardening. The only problem I have is 2 particular chickens that are strongly attracted to the garden. They seem to know exactly what I plant, when I plant it and then they come behind me and dig it all up. I have had to replant so many times this year that I have pure run out of seeds and in many cases have had to buy more. I finally got the peanuts planted and they have them all dug up. So now I have to go and buy more peanuts and plant again. This is really getting old and the only thing that has saved them from the stew pot is that they are two of my best layers. They might have to go though.

Speaking of poultry, the ducks are laying again and as long as I get the eggs before Dakota we are good. Apparently, she has begun stealing eggs and she is much better at knowing where the hens are laying than I am. I wondered why I couldn't find any eggs and why she wasn't eating her dog food. Well, I found out one morning as I watched her go from spot to spot and then caught her with an egg in her mouth. She has been eating at least a dozen eggs a day if not more. So now, I have to check for eggs almost hourly if I want to get any.

The rabbits are doing really well in the colony and I believe that two of my does have shared a nest and caring for the little ones. I think this because there were so many babies in the litter and they all seem very well fed and are growing like weeds. I did lose a couple of bunnies but it looks like I have 18 healthy bunnies that will be ready to move to grow out cages in about a week or so. I will strip the colony down and add fresh bedding for the next round of bunnies. This is so exciting since my lack of baby bunnies for so long. I will also have 6 bunnies ready to butcher in a couple of weeks. Can't wait to have rabbit again, we have really missed it. Moving to the colony set-up was one of the best things we have done for the farm. I think our rabbit production numbers will greatly improve with the move.

All of the pastures are looking good and we have great grazing this year. The one pasture that I have always had trouble with was greatly improved from the pigs. It is amazing at how much better that pasture is this year than every before. Now if I can just divide the large pasture for better rotation.

Some projects have been put on hold until we find out what is going to happen with the farm situation, so our 12 months/12 goals has kind of come to a dead stand still.

Prayers would be appreciated and we will keep you updated. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Temps are Skyrocketing

Holy Moly! I knew it was gonna be an early summer and I am glad I have been getting all the planting done. At the rate we are going the garden will be burning up by July. This whole week we are supposed to get into the 80s, not just low 80s but a few days of mid to high 80s. It's March....our last freeze date is SUPPOSED to be the end of March! Definitely must get in the garden today and get more seeds planted. I simply can't believe this weather. It's gonna be a hot one folks and looks like it will be here sooner than we think. Of course, I should have known that it would be like this since we have had no winter to speak of this year. The bugs are gonna be nasty too. Better get the soapy water ready to pick off those stink bugs as they are gonna go crazy. On a good note we have been having baby bunnies like crazy around here. So far 3 of the girls have had their litters and they are looking good. One doe kindled with only 2 very large kits, which does have me a little concerned. However, her last litter was 8 so I am not too concerned unless this becomes a trend. The colony is working great. I should find two more litter this morning. Each doe found her nest spot and built superb nests and they now are guarding their territory...some more vehemently than others. Papa bunny is none too happy with me as he is in a cage inside the colony. It gives the girls some peace to have their babies and rest before he tries to breed them again. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Rabbit Colony 4

Well another day's work on the rabbit colony. I am so excited that we are so close to being done. Looks like the rabbits will be able to move into their new digs within the week.

Here is the half wall that separates the actual colony from the feed area.


Here is the half wall from the inside of the colony itself.


Here is the outside door that opens into the feed area. This is from inside the colony.


I had another picture of the outside of the door that opens into the feed area. We still need to put up the gate into the colony itself and trim some of the conveyor belt and put up a few new pieces. So a little more work and we will be done. Again I am so excited to get these rabbits out of their cages. Blessings, Kat

Rabbit Colony 3

Well, we had a really productive day in working on the rabbit colony. Our friend Cherelle came over and gave us a hand. Many, many thanks for all her hard work! Here are the pallets that are being used as the base for the bottom wall that are nailed up and in place.

Then we framed in the doorway that will lead to the feed area of the rabbitry.

Next we began tacking conveyor belt (thanks to another friend, Jen, and her husband). This stuff is really heavy duty rubber and will make the walls easy to keep clean and also there is no critter that is coming through those walls now.

Here we all are tacking up more conveyor belt along the back wall. That's my short little fluffy self in the green jacket. Hubby is too tall to stand up straight in the space so he has to bend over a lot. The little one in the front was a great little helper!

Almost done with the conveyor belt.

Then we put screen up along the outside to keep flies out of the rabbitry. Wire is going to be put on the outside to keep critters from trying to get through the screen, which wouldn't be that hard.

That is about it. I think we made great progress for the day. Won't take much more and then we can start to think about moving the rabbits in! Blessings, Kat

Rabbit Colony 2

Well the first step in setting up the colony was to clean the space out. We burned off as much of the trash and debris as we could, but as you can see there was a good sized pile of stuff that will have to be hauled off.


Here is the small pile of potentially usable lumber than we got. It is mostly small pieces left from other projects so we will probably use it to build stuff for the rabbits.


Here is the small pile of stuff that might still be in usable shape. I will sort through this pile in a couple days and discard anything beyond repair. We did find some heavy duty pullies, a fence stretcher and a come along. Hope they are still in working shape once they are cleaned up. Sure would be nice to have.


This is the space all cleaned out of junk and the old nasty particle board off the walls. Sure did let in some light taking that stuff down. The space is about 14 ft. wide and 16 feet long. It will be a good sized space to set-up two colonies, a feed space and a couple cages for emergency purposes. The large hutch type cages that we are using now will make nice grow out cages for the weanlings.


Next step in a few days. Blessings, Kat

Rabbit Colony

Well, we have made the decision to move our rabbits into a colony or colonies type setting. We won't have an outside colony, but have decided to use the old feed room in the big horse barn. We have made this decision for several reasons. I have several rabbits that refuse to use a litter box and so their cages must be cleaned since they are wood bottomed regularly. All my cages are full and I either need to build or buy more cages which I have no where to put in the area that the rabbits currently are. The rabbits are not necessarily cooperating on cage breeding lately. So our first step was to clean out the old feed room which had been used as a storage area by the previous owner. Particle board had been put up on the walls, which was falling down and most of the stuff she had in there was rotten and destroyed by mice. We even found what we think was a possum skeleton behind a wooden box. We have spent years getting rid of the junk left on this farm by the previous owner. She never threw anything away and each of the pastures had a large mountain of scrap metal where she just dumped old tools, wire, roofing material etc. She kept saying she was coming to get stuff from the buildings so we were careful to keep it there. However, we need the space and there is so little left in that room that is useable or even recognizable. One large wooden crate had obviously been filled with stuff made of wood which had rotted into one large pile of sawdust. Of course the stuff had been in there since the 70s and there had been leaks in the roof for quite some time when we moved here, but what a mess. So we cleaned all that out yesterday and burned what we could and now have a couple loads to take to the dump and one very small pile of stuff that might be usable. Now we have a clean slate. Today I will measure the area and plan the layout for the colonies along with taking the junk to the dump. I will take some photos along the way to show our progress and how everything is set-up and built. There is so little on the net about indoor rabbit colonies that I thought a pictorial of the progress would really help others thinking about doing the same thing. The cages will be kept as grow-out cages for weaned litters and this way our colonies won't get too crowded and it will be easier to catch the rabbits for butchering. For the posts on our progression I will keep the same title just adding numbers behind it for ease of following. Blessings, Kat

The economics of rabbits

Good morning! I thought I would talk a little bit about raising rabbits for meat. I know many people can't get over the cute fluffy bunny pet thing, but for those of you who think you might be able to give this a try then this post is for you. Even if you have a hard time getting around the cute fluffy bunny, that's ok...you can read along too just in case. All rabbits can be used for meat, but some breeds tend to be better suited for such a purpose. The most common meat breeds are New Zealands and Californians. There are other breeds such as the Florida white, but they tend to be harder to find when looking for breeders to start with. The Dutch is also a good little meat rabbit even though it is a medium size rabbit. It tends to have a really nice meat to bone ratio. Usually you can pick up a trio of rabbits, one male and two females, to start with for about 30-40 dollars. Rabbits can be housed in a colony setting or in separate cages. Colony settings provide a more natural environment for the rabbits, but disease spreads easily and it is hard to keep up with litters. To me cages are easier. You can either purchase cages, cage kits or make your own with cage wire. Or you can do like I did and mix it up a bit. I have a couple wire dog kennels that work just fine as grow out cages for weaned bunnies and I have some homemade hutches that are made from wood and wire. Wood floored hutches truly are not the most desirable and need to be cleaned and disinfected quite often. However, if you are working on a budget start with what you have and replace as funds become available. For my rabbits that are in the wood hutches I have litter boxes available which helps to keep the cage cleaner and more sanitary. I started my rabbits with one buck and one doe. My doe had two litters by that buck of which I kept a doe to add to the herd. Then I had to replace the first buck because he died due to an impaction. I purchased another buck and bred him to the two does. I now currently have 5 does, 4 in production and the one buck. I have kept a replacement buck and doe from a couple of this springs litters to add to the herd. So my breeders will be 7, two are still little and with their mama. The cost of feeding these breeders is not much compared to the amount of meat. My does that are in production consistently give me 7-8 offspring in each litter. Gestation period for a rabbit is 31 days and I leave my babies with their mom's until they are 6 weeks old. At week 5 I rebreed mama so she has a new litter 3 weeks after the previous litter has moved to the grow out cage. Since I grain and natural feed my rabbits they do take a little longer to grow out than pellet raised rabbits, about 16 weeks. One rabbit provides enough meat for our family of 4. Last year my girls provided enough meat so that we had rabbit 2-3 times a month. This year with a few more breeders we can increase that amount. The rabbits breed heavily in the spring starting about February and ending with the last litters born in June. Then they get the summer off and in October I will breed each girl for one more litter of the year. I don't breed through the winter because I don't want to worry about babies getting too cold. Now what are the benefits of rabbit meat? Well, first it is a white meat that is very lean. In fact a diet of only rabbit could lead to what is called "rabbit starvation" because there simply is no fat in the meat and our bodies need some fat. But if you are looking to add a low fat meat to your diet then you can't beat rabbit. Rabbit is also very high in protein. Having a 20.8 % protein, which is easily digestible it beats out any other type of meat on the market. Being low in fat it is low in cholesterol and also low in sodium, so for folks concerned about these things that is a definite benefit. Rabbit meat has a fine texture and can be cooked just about anyway that you wish. My children love fried rabbit, just like you would fry chicken. Feeding the rabbits doesn't cost much either. I estimate that the rabbits cost me about 20 dollars a month to feed and that is with the grow out cages full. In the winter I have been having to buy hay, but this year I am hoping to eliminate or at least reduce that cost due to making my own hay for the rabbits. During the winter months I buy about 1 bale of hay per month just for the rabbits so that is usually about 6.00 a bale. Total winter cost for hay is about 30.00. Rabbits are also easy to process. I can process from kill to freezer a litter of rabbits in about an hour and a half. Chickens take me longer. Then if you are really industrious you can learn to tan the hides and make things with them. We haven't done this yet, but would like to learn and do plan to in the near future. One more advantage of rabbits is that they don't take up much room. You can raise them anywhere. Some folks even raise them in their basement. Rabbits are also something that can be raised in the city since they are typically not considered livestock. Just a few rabbits and small investment can provide a family with a great source of meat relatively cheaply. Rabbits don't require too much in the way of veterinary care as long as they are fed well and kept in a clean environment they stay pretty healthy. Sometimes there are issues and I have had my fair share of first time mothers losing their litters or rabbits dying, like my first buck. But the benefits do outweigh those things. So think about rabbits as you are planning your journey towards self sufficiency, they can definitely be a benefit to any plan. Blessings from the farm, Kat

Raising hay for the Bunnies

Ok, I have done the silage experiment and well that just didn't work out real well. I don't have a lot of property that I can grow hay, but I do have patches here and there in the garden area that I can grow small amounts. So, one of my experiments this year is raising hay for the rabbits this winter. One thing that is really making this an experiment is that rabbits aren't just grass eaters, they really like their diversity. Not a problem as right now I have tons of "weeds" just waiting to be eaten. Right now they get all the fresh weeds that I can harvest for them and each morning do the happy bunny dance when they see me coming with the green bucket. So my summer experiment is to dry grasses that I grow in combination with weeds that I pick and to store the dried materials in an old trash can that I have "aerated" by drilling holes around the sides. I figure storing it loose this way would be best due to the very different sizes and such of the weeds and the grass and storing loose will better prevent mold which I will have to be diligent about watching for. So I am starting to harvest not only fresh stuff to give the bunnies, bunnies fresh stuff to be dried. I am drying in the sun on a screen frame that I made. I simply harvest my weeds, place on the screen in the sun. After 24 hours I turn them and let them dry another day in the sun. Since the weeds are different diameters and different moisture content I want to make sure that I am drying thoroughly so that I don't have a mold problem in storage. No sense going to this trouble only to have it ruin. Now here are some of the most common weeds that our rabbits love to eat:
Dandelion
shepherd's purse
purslane
creeping charlie
honeysuckle
plantain (not the banana thing)
curly dock
clover
kudzu
morning glory vine
wild blackberry leaves
chicory leaves

I also mix in extra herbs I happen to have like lemon balm, catnip, parsley. Then there are the excess veggie greens. I toss those in there also. So lots of variety being set out to be dried for winter feeding the bunnies. I know it it is time consuming to do this, but definitely cheaper than hay. Blessings from the farm, Kat

How we keep our Rabbits

I started out keeping our rabbits in wire cages. They were a pain to clean because fur and poo would get stuck in the joints and was hard to scrub. I also got super filthy trying to scrub all that wire. It wasn't too bad when we had them in the old chicken coop that we thought would make a good rabbitry. We found out that it was too small and the mosquitoes really loved that shady spot. Also because of the tree beside the door, it was hard to get the wheelbarrow in to clean out the droppings below the cages, which attracted a multitude of insects. We decided to move the rabbits to the center aisle of the goat barn. In the summer they will get great ventilation and there are fewer bugs. We also have electricity in the goat barn for a fan in the summer time. The issue was the droppings from the wire cages as two of our goats like to rest beneath the cages. Not the healthiest environment and we certainly did not want babies playing under there. We also needed more cages and were wondering where to hang them all. Well, I came across a video from the French Angora industry and how they cared for their rabbits. They used kennels with solid bottoms. Each day they add more hay/straw and the rabbits use what they don't eat for bedding. This method of course costs more than just letting the waste drop through the cage floors. I liked the idea though and we built kennel type cages. They have a solid floor and a solid roof. Three sides of the kennels are wire for summer ventilation and in the winter we have a heavy rubber tarp that covers the wire sides and back of the kennels to preserve body heat and warmth. We are using the deep bedding method and have had wonderful results. This is how we are handling this. When we set up the cage we put down about a 1 inch layer of Dry-Stall (a natural absorbant clay product that we use in the horse stalls to absorb urine and keep the stall floors dry. Then we added another 2 inches of straw. Each day we give the bunnies a generous portion of hay and they eat what they want and spread out the rest. Their activity causes the droppings to fall into the bottom layer of the straw. They tend to use one corner as their bathroom area so we make sure that a layer of straw or hay gets into that corner to keep absorbing moisture. Each day we checked for too strong a smell, dirty bunny feet or any other problems with not changing the bedding daily. We planned to keep the deep bedding system going for a month. It is a success. The bunnies are happy and healthy, there is less smell than there was with the old rabbitry, and fewer insects as well. When we cleaned out all the bedding at the end of October there was very little moisture on the wood floor as the dry stall and straw/hay had absorbed all that was in the potty corner. Our rabbits seem much happier as they jump and leap and zoom around their new digs. They can see more too which I think they like. They stayed clean the whole month. October was a pretty warm month for us so it will give us an idea of what we might expect next summer. The cages were much easier to clean as everything was swept out into the wheelbarrow to head to the compost, and then a mild bleach solution used to scrub out the entire floor of the cage. It was then allowed to air dry and then new bedding added. Summer might present some issues and we will just have to adjust as summer gets here. Cages may have to be cleaned more often in the summer. One of my concerns was that if the bunnies got to warm the straw would present an issue. However, this does not seem to be the case as our buck demonstrated. He simply pushed all of the straw away from one of the sides and plopped his big self right down on the cooler wood floor on a couple of really warm days this past month. My big issue is being as efficient time wise as I can around the farm, this definitely helps in that goal. Of course, we are still in the experimental stage because we have not had to go through an entire year of seasons doing this, so we will see by the end of next summer whether this will work or not. Right now, it is a great way to keep rabbits even if a little more expensive. God bless.

Tough Day. Goodbye Bubba bunny

Well, yesterday was a tough day. Our Bubba bunny died after fighting (probably) bladder stones for a couple of days. We tried everything we knew how and talked to the vet, but outside of surgery there was nothing that could be done. Bladder stones are like a death sentence for rabbits unless someone wants to spend a bunch of money for surgery. Then you run into the problem of finding a vet who can operate on a rabbit. Our rabbits are for meat production. They are not pets even though we love our breeders and care for them a great deal. Surgery is just not an option for a 12 dollar rabbit. That is one of the sad facts of homesteading and farming. Bubba started to not feel well a couple days ago and wouldn't eat his grain. I did wet his greens and he ate those along with a small piece of apple and a small piece of pear. He was still urinating and pooping so we thought he just had a little upset stomach. He ate some raspberry and plantain leaves which are good for upset tummies. That evening he still wouldn't eat his grains, but was still using the bathroom. The next morning I talked to my vet on the phone and we determined it was not bloat, because his stools were normal and his belly was still soft instead of hard. Then Bubba stopped eating his greens and stopped drinking water. Another call to the vet, and it was suspected that he had urinary calculi. We talked about his food that he had eaten. We don't feed alfalfa pellets because we don't want to overload our bunnies with too much calcium. Calcium leads to urinary calculi (bladder stones). However, one thing that I had not thought about (and should have) was the amount of calcium in the greens that he ate daily. Dandelion, plantain, honeysuckle (higher in calcium than alfalfa), radish tops, etc. all are really high in calcium. When Bubba stopped drinking I began giving him eyedropperfuls of water in his mouth and he would swallow, but still no improvement. By this time Bubba was staying in the house with us (mostly in my lap)and I was doing what I could. Yesterday evening Bubba started having seizures and had not urinated most of the day. I already knew that it was coming because he had been pretty zoned out all day. Even the dogs, came to sniff him as if they were saying goodbye and he didn't flinch a muscle. He had several seizures in a row and died in my arms. We buried him out near where the pony is buried so he wouldn't get lonely (I know sounds stupid). My toddler took it hard as she loved her Bubba bunny and doesn't really understand. I feel like an idiot because I didn't think and can't help thinking that if I had paid more attention to what I was feeding him this might not have happened. Death is a fact of life on a farm, but it isn't something that you ever get used to. It is especially hard when there is always that nagging question of whether or not this might have been prevented. I started grasses in pots a couple of weeks ago for the rabbits and they are just about tall enough to start cutting for their fresh greens. We did get one litter sired by Bubba bunny. We were planning on keeping a doe, but now I think we will keep one of his sons also. So now we are down to Baby our mama bunny and their 6 little babies. It will be tough scrubbing his cage today. I'm sorry Bubba and we will all miss you.

Baby Bunny Update

Well, this was not a good start on our bunnies. All of the babies have died. I think this was mama's first litter and she just was not real sure about things. She did not use the nesting box and wound up killing several because she trampled them. She also was either scooting them out of the cage or they were wiggling out of the cage. Each day we would find a couple of them on the floor of the rabbit house. As sad as this is, it is part of the territory of farming. Sometimes, babies die. We will of course breed her again and hope that things turn out better next time. Some rabbits just don't make good mothers and that is always a possibility, but we hope that this was just inexperience. We will see with the next litter. We have also lost one of our chicks in the past couple of days. Apparently we miscounted baby chicks when locking the chicks up for the night and it got left out in a terrible storm. It was dead in the yard in the morning, so now we are much more careful in our count at night to make sure everybody is safe in the hen house. Otherwise, they are growing like little weeds and becoming quite the adventurers. It was quite a site I am sure watching my 2 year old and I round up baby chickens last night for feeding time. They had discovered the feed room and the cracked corn that my little one had spilled. Needless to say they did not want to leave the feed room and their new found "candy". Took awhile to round them all up and get them to the hen house. There is nothing like the adventures of living on a homestead! Life is certainly never dull and mundane.

Baby Bunnies

Well, our rabbit surprised me yesterday morning with her new litter of babies! I have been expecting them, but wasn't sure exactly when since we werent' told exactly when she was bred when we bought her. She had 10, but 2 did not survive. We had a bit of a problem when she decided to "clean up" after birthing her litter and accidently scooted 3 babies right out of the cage. Not realy sure how she got them all the way out, but she did. The were ok though because she has been scooting her hay out of the cage for several days which provided a nice cushion for the babies to land on. Rabbits are funny about their babies and they will abandon or eat them if they smell like a human, so my dilemma was to get the babies back in the nest without offending mama. I rubbed her real good to dilute my scent on my hand, and then took some of the fur from her nest that she had cleaned out. With the fur actually touching the babies, I hope to not transfer too much of my smell which hopefully was diluted by rubbing and scratching mama. I picked the babies up by the scruff of the neck and popped them back in the nest. I checked on them later to make sure that she wasn't purging weak babies from the litter and that this was a mistake. Mama and babies were all happily curled up together in the nest. When she hopped out of the nest to see if I had brought any treats (or because the flashlight spooked her)all 8 babies were lined up perfectly and contentedly sleeping. So all the more reason to get the rabbit runs and rabbit yard finished so these babies will have a place to graze and play when they are ready to do so. One or two of the females will go back into the breeding population while the other 6 will go in the freezer. So Mama bunny has already earned back her cost. I admit it won't be easy to butcher these babies, they really are adorable, but at least we will have the satisfaction of knowing that our babies have had a happy life with lots of love and care. Up until that day we can enjoy their cuteness and the antics that always come with watching baby bunnies.