Picture and Video Update

Farm Update

It's been a while, we've been busy with garden and family visits. Finally I am able to get some stuff out there!

I'll start with the bee's, we decided after our spring tests came back to split the 'snow' hive. We moved the empty 'dots' hive out to the friends property and got set up for the split. We took from 'snow' 4 frames of baby bees in varying stages from egg, to capped brood and one of honey/brood mixture.  First we made sure that the 'snow' queen was not on any of these frames we took (that's important or you have serious bee drama on your hands). Once the frames were moved over into the 'dots' hive we closed 'dots' up and locked them in for 24 hours. They can't fly and so can't get back to the original queen. By leaving them locked in for 24 hours the bees loose the sent of the original queen and will be likely to accept a new one. I contacted our Master Beekeeper and got a queen from him. We installed her 12 hours after the original lock up. Came back 12 hours later and freed the bees, making sure to put tons of weeds/grass/branches in front of the hive to make the forager bees reorient to the new hive. Jake also faced the hives in apposing directions, to further make sure the foragers would get back to the right hive.  Happy to say they did accept her and have been working strong for the last 3 weeks. We should have a huge population boom in the next week or so!

Next on my giant list of things to do was pick stinging nettles. I missed my opportunity last year and by the time I remembered the nettles were well into flower. This year mom and I went out with a giant green tub and filled it with nettles!  Mom will probably be horrified that I put a picture up of her rain-fuzzed-out hair! LOL!

I brought all the nettles home and divided them into 3 categories, blanched, dried or compost tea. I used the best of the leaves for blanching and freezing, dried the really good stalks for me and the bunnies. Then made the rest into compost tea.


The last is a video I made for the YouTube followers, livestock update mostly about the bunnies.

Rabbit Update

I made a video for the youTube followers who keep up with me there. Most of them don't know about how I feed my rabbits a natural diet and don't use pellets. I made just a general update about them and posted it. I link it here too so everyone can see the bunz.

Camp Freezer day

Livestock update 7-12-11

Well our new bee girls are doing well. They seem to want to build wax comb where they're not supposed too. Normally bee's won't attach comb onto the screen mesh of an inner cover,  some of our bee's haven't heard about that.

This is "dots" hive (yellow polka dots) they are doing the best out of all our hives. The neighboring hive "stripes" had a virgin queen, meaning she can't lay because she is unmated. Weather plays a crucial role in the queen being mated successfully. If it's too windy or raining she won't go on a mating flight. In short that's all the weather we've been having. We checked on Sunday 7-3 and she still had not been mated. But half way through the inspection TONS of bees went to the top boards put butts in the air started fanning their wings. A phenomenon not often seen, they were directing her home making sure she came back to the right hive. It's amazing how important her mating flight and her presents is to the hive. We didn't get a picture of it because of course we forgot the camera. But Peace Bee Farmer has a great picture and explanation of the mating flight. 

'Stripes' queen mating was confirmed on Sunday 7-10, her butt was twice as big as before and finally eggs are larva were seen! They will be our weakest hive since no queen meant no babies for the last month. Jake took a frame of capped brood from dots and put it inside stripes to give them a boost since 'dots' is kicking ass!

The chickens are doing good, each and every one of the Sussex's have gone broody. So our break broody method involves the dog kennel and a lot of patience. We put the broody girl on the side yard for the day locking the not broody girls in the chicken run. Then in the late evening we grab the broody girl and put her in the dog kennel with a roost. If she has any access to nesting material she will sit on it and be back at ground zero. This goes on for 3 days, by then she's broken broody and will just lay eggs. UGH! This is round two of the broody antics, every one has gone through it once, then we had about 3 weeks broody hen free and the cycle started over. Last night was the first time we've had two girls at once. They are only in the kennel at night when they sleep then get to enjoy the side yard and taunt the other girls all day. YEAH for heritage breeds raised by mothers not incubators! It really makes me wish I lived on property and could have a rooster then we'd have free baby chicks.

Side yard on the right. Chicken run on the left. Dog kennel (tan box) in the upper right. Silly girls.

Bunny pile! I split Big Mamma's first litter of 8 into two cages of 4. They are getting big. Tubbers is nearing the 5lb harvest weight. Likely they will reach weight by the end of July, then it's off to Camp Freezer. I am going to have Jacob build me a bunny tractor because transferring them back and forth from the pen to the cage is stressful.

This is Baby Doe's first litter of 4 they are really big! I think it has everything to do with being only 4 kits their was more milk to go around. Not sure.  One of the white spotty kids has splay leg the rear right looks like a seal flipper. The only way to fix it, is to hobble them. If it were a front leg it's easier for the bun to handle but being a back leg it's more stressful to cure. So far little spotty's had no issues and doesn't seem to mid it, so I'll just monitor it.

Big Mamma had another litter about 2.5 weeks ago. She had 9, but we lost 2 from Mamma squishing them on accident. One of her litter is a runt and is distinctly smaller (in front of bunny pile), think of an apricot vs. an orange. It's been doing fine though, I am just worried that the other bunz will beat it up. So far though eyes are open and everyone is getting along, they are in the adorable stage where their head is bigger than their body.

I know it seems like a ton of babies,  Mom asked me if we're going to have the freezer space for it. But if you think about it 5 lbs harvest weight means 2 lbs of meat but that 2 lbs also includes bones. So Big Mammas litter of 8 is only going to yield 16 lbs of meat and we don't intend to breed them in the dead of winter, we're stocking up now.

Everyone is good, busy but good.

Bunz are getting big

I set up an outdoor pen for the babies and sometimes adults to play in. Although I noticed that the adults seem really nervous with big eyes and don't move for fear of "discovery" from the evil _________ (fill in the blank, what ever bunz are afraid of.) Since it was so stressful on the adults I've started just sticking to the babies for now.

The little guys don't have any fear of the great out doors or Kai (dog) for that matter. I'll get a video on the next nice day so ya'll can see how they "play" together. Regardless I always leave the green tub in the play pen so if they feel threatened they can run inside.

All 8 babies are in the tub, eyes were shut but my presence made them alert.  They still like to bunny pile which is adorable. I have nicknamed one of the dark brown babies "Tubbers" since it's SO much bigger than the other 7 kids. Obviously someone is a dinner hog.

Rabbit Nest Building

Our "baby doe" who is actually named Confetti but we don't call her that, was nest building yesterday. She is due to kindle any day now. This will be her first litter and her instincts so far have been really good. She just seemed so confused so I had to take a video of it. She keeps carrying around a mouth full of straw but she's just not sure what to do with it, or for that matter why she is carrying around straw in the first place.




Baby Doe figured it out a little while later and has since stopped nest building, but she was so cute I just had to share.

The babies are good, to them mom = jungle gym. Ches gets along so well with Kai(dog) that I wonder what would happen if I let them out together. Probably Ches would bite Kai and that would be the end of the happy friendship. Still, it's nice having a well trained dog who LOVES everything, accept the chickens they scare her (which is awesome and very funny!)

Exploring Bunz

The babies are out of the nestbox now, at 3 weeks old the eyes are open and the squeakers are ready to explore. This video is really dark, since rabbits don't like the heat we have them under our deck, but it makes it really difficult to get a clear picture since the light is so dim. This was taken at 4 pm and totally bright out.... oh well we need a new camera.




Cuteness overload (baby in food dish):

The little squeakers like to climb in and eat the grain, right now they fit perfect inside it. I've seen several of them at it. The world is their jungle gym.

Rabbit Food

The easy answer, pellets. But we didn't want to go there. For one finding organic pellets is a challenge, and secondly they never come in bulk. Before we got these bunz I did TONS of research (big surprise) I am the queen of research. I came across a web forum called Rabbit Talk all the information I could have ever wanted came from right there. Right on the main page they have an entire section titled Natural Feeding For Rabbits. Within that tab is a web page "sticky" that has all the plants (weeds, trees, shrubs) that rabbits can eat. The page is way to long to list hear but I will list you what I have fed on a regular basis so far.

Carrots (both tops and root... I can get the tops from Huckleberries in large bags)
Clover/grass
Raspberry shoots
Apple branches
Willow
Poplar
Dried bean vines from last year
Sunflower sprouts (when I'm not eating them myself)
Wheat grass
Lemon Balm (it comes up so early like a champ!)

On top of all this is their grain ration. I made this recipe from many sources but the bulk of it came from my rabbit book Storey's Guide To Raising Rabbits. Here's the recipe I've settled on, it makes about 1+ month worth of feed, although that's changing now that I have a nursing momma and soon babies that will be eating this too.

17 c. Oats
8 c. Wheat
8 c. Barley
4 c. Black Oil Sunflower Seeds
4. c alfalfa pellets ( only nursing and expectant mothers get this stuff )

Everything is organic except for the sunflower seeds. But I don't fuss over that too much. Right now I have added an alfalfa pellet ( just alfalfa nothing else ) to the mixture to make sure that Big Momma is getting adequate protein. She is expending so much energy producing milk for 8 babies that I don't want her loosing a ton of weight and getting weak. The alfalfa pellet is the most processed thing these bunz eat. I'd say that's pretty good considering most bunz only see pellets and nothing else.  In winter I add 1T. of molasses and 1T water (for dilution) to the above mixture of grains for extra minerals. If I don't have any nursing mothers, all the bunz get 1/3 c. twice a day of the grain mixture. Right now Big Momma gets all the grain she can eat.

They also get free choice hay which I get in the 50lb. bales. The hay comes in two types, alfalfa and alfalfa grass mix sometimes called orchard mix. I am not sure if the hay is organic since I had to purchase it from the feed store because I got the bunz in December. This year I will buy directly from the farmer and I'll ask those questions. Hay is harvested in the fall so that's when I will get it, should be cheaper too since it will be "in season."

Transferring the bunz to this diet was a long and slow process. They were all raised on pellets, so I purchased one bag and made the switch gradually. I had to use a bit extra in the molasses department in order to make the switch official (bunz have a sweet tooth), coercion works every time!  Now they don't have any problem with the new feed. The gal I bought the bunz from insisted that I would kill them if they ate anything other than pellets. I just kept asking the question... "Then how did humans do it before pellets were invented?" Regardless, I did not kill the bunz since they've been going strong on this diet since mid January.

Another very important ingredient in the bunz diet is mineral salt. Which is used for minerals they don't get through the grains. I use the small red wheels that any pet store sells, but in the future I'll get a mineral salt lick (like for goats) and chunk it into smaller cubes then place in a small container for them. The mineral wheels I use now hang on the side of the cage but they are way to expensive and I'm all for cost saving endeavors.

I am sure that feeding this way is more expensive, I have yet to do a cost analysis because I haven't gone through a bag of each grain yet. I am just not sure how long one 45lb. bag of grain lasts. I will figure it out though and report back. Though with each bun only eating 2/3 c. of feed per day.... it's gonna be a while before I have any figures to report.

Weird looking baby bunnies

Baby bunnies remind me of baby mice, all pink and weird looking. This is a video we took Sunday morning, all 8 babies survived so far.

Babbies and Eggs

It's official our Big Mamma just popped! I went out to feed the bunz and chickens this morning at around 6 am, earlier than normal because Jake and I both had pre-work day dentist appointments. It was a good thing to because had I been on my normal route we probably would have lost 2 kits.

Before: (big and preggers)

 
After: (look she has a waistline again)

When I went up to the cage I could tell that the bunz had been born because Mamma was looking rather skinny. She didn't pull much fur to cover the nest, which is another indicator that the babies have arrived. I gave her some treats and took the nestbox inside to to inspect the contents. I found 6 babies in a huddle with one slightly outside the baby pile. That one was moving but not much, it was just too cold. I proceeded to poke around and found another baby, way in the back all by itself not moving at all. Rubbing it I could tell it was alive but only just. So I rearranged the baby pile and fur so they all had a good coating and brought the nestbox upstairs and placed it on the heating pad. Only about 15 minutes did the trick and the two little cold ones were moving and a squeaking.

I got the babies back out with Mamma, but first I put a drop of vanilla extract on her nose, this disrupts her sense of smell so she doesn't smell me on her babies. Rabbits only feed the babies 1-2 times a day, so bringing them inside isn't a big issue. Since it's still going to be below freezing for the next week (insert pissed off grumble here) I plan on bringing the nestbox inside at night and putting it out with her during the day time. I do have the cage covered with a burlap sac, just to help out with the the wind chill. It's 42* outside right now and windy. So anything I can do to help out those kits the better. I also slid a piece of cardboard in between Big Mamma and Confetti's cage's to further help block that wind. If I leave that cardboard in place I'll likely leave the babies in with her overnight, but I haven't decided yet.

Here's the babies in mostly straw with some fur, I know it looks like a bunch of straw in a box but trust me they are in there.

Our baby doe, Confetti isn't so much a baby anymore, she got breed for the first time today. By mid May it will be her turn to be Mamma.

At least two of our Sussies are laying with a possible third. Today is our first 3 egg day, I am not sure if Curious our Buff Orpington is one of the three... but I doubt it. Training them to use the nest box has been difficult. One girl doesn't mind the nestbox and use's it gladly. But the other insists on laying in the dirt. Maddeningly I fought with her over this point for at least an hour. She jumping out of the nestbox and running back down to the dirt, me placing her back in the nest box. Over and over and over. The egg size is cute too, rather small so far but they may get a bit bigger as the girls get into gear.

Red Star egg (purchased from a local farmer), Sussex egg. Just to give a good comparison, I am not sure if the Red Star egg is considered jumbo or just large but it's big. I don't mind the size difference I'll just need an extra egg in the omelet.

Insanity

Well it's spring time around here and all the jobs are piling up. I am busy on the best of days with a fully working shoulder but now being as I am not fully recovered, I'm swamped. I have to rely heavily on Jacob's "boy strength" because I have super wimpy "girl strength" right now.

I have tons of pictures on the camera, to be posted here.... but that will have to wait until later. In the last week I've repotted just shy of 50 tomato plants, about 20 pepper too. Last night I got all the baby onion starts outside, along with the pea's I started inside about 2 weeks ago.

Jake and I are in the process of building a shed, our garage has to many wood shop tools in it to hold the hay and straw bales plus all the garden tools. Our straw was kept outside under tarps and so far this year we've caught 5 mice and 2 voles in traps, so that straw needs to move inside. Today is the official raising of the shed. It's a plastic thing, but we wanted to be able to take it with us when we move out to land as a temporary housing for what ever we happen to be working on.

Big Mamma doe is preggers (finally), she is due to kindle any day now. I feel so bad for her because she is obviously pregnant, they say some rabbits you can't tell by looking at them.... well it's not so with Big Mamma. I plan to breed our other doe soon after BM has her babies, that way the cycle of baby bunz is 1 month apart.

The new girls the Sussex's have finally started laying. Only two of them so far, and the egg size is adorably small. The old gals, the red star's laid large to extra large eggs and for the small size of bird they were, it was impressive. The Sussies however are big birds and they lay medium sized eggs. I think they would likely make a nice meat bird too since they seem to have a lot of overall heft to them. We'll find out eventually...

I made rabbit-chicken-bacon sausage the other day. I had one bird left from the Halperns and it needed to get used, so I deboned it and a half a rabbit, plus about 4 strips of bacon (mostly fat) all through the meat grinder. I added tons of spices: onion, pepper, garlic, sage, salt, cayenne and chili pepper and made some lean sausage patties. They are pretty good, a valiant first attempt.

More to come later.... I gotta go raise a shed.

The difficulties of bun breeding

We bred our big mamma on the 24th of December meaning she should have had some babies last week if she was preggers. Well no babies came. But now she's being really difficult to re-breed she's just not in the mood. So I tried some different tactics to get her used to Ches our buck. So far none of them have proved successful she: "just doesn't want to and you can't make me...."

Ches is on the left and Big Mamma Clove is on the right. 

Here's a quick video of them in the "make-out" pen, I was hoping she'd get in the mood in a neutral and on sold ground location. No such luck. They just played ring around the rosie for a half hour. Both bunz were pretty pooped by the end. Curious the chicken didn't like the bunz being so close and she made sure to tell me all about it! Check out the mighty adorable leap Ches makes about 20 seconds in. He's trying to impress his lady with his slick dancing skills.... to bad it doesn't work.



Yesterday I did finally get her to *ahem* get with the program. It seems she needs to breed at night instead of early morning. Go figure! Now we wait another month and see if this time it's successful.

Lessons Learned

Sunday set a tone for this year,  we became meat farmers officially. The two baby boy rabbits had reached the 5 pound harvest weight, it was time to move them from camp living into camp freezer.

We opted for the pellet method which seemed to us the least traumatic for the bunz and for us. The death was quick and precise. I did the gutting part since I have more "inside" animal knowledge. I don't have the strength in my shoulder to aim and fire even a pellet gun, so Jacob took that part. The whole process from set up to clean up for both bunz took about 1 hour. We'll be faster at it next time since I should be fully recovered by the time the next harvest comes around.

I said thank you to each bun when I took them out of the cage. The whole process was pretty surreal, we former vegetarian, against animal cruelty types became meat farmers. Who knew?

The arrival of rabbits

On Saturday morning, before our second round of coffee, we had rabbits in our rabbitry. The breeder (Brenda) I was in contact with told me she'd be available Saturday morning or else some time late this week to next week. I really wanted to start this project, the sooner the better!

Jake and I opted to take 2 extra bucks for "harvesting" later this winter, in addition to our breeding trio. A breeding trio means 2 does (girls) and 1 buck (boy). This team should provide us with nearly all the meat we and Kai can eat in a year. So we took home 5 rabbits that day. It's been no more challenging than chicken care, and once I get this down the routine will go much smoother. I also plan to switch the rabbits from a pellet diet to a grain/hay diet. A diet change will take months because rabbits have a delicate digestive system and I don't want to upset it by to much change too quickly.

I did hesitate to name them because you don't name your food... however, we will have these guys for 3+ years and I refuse to call them by a number. When it comes time for their death it will be difficult like Quizzie's but no less appreciated. But that's in the future and it can stay there for a while.

Here's the new crew!

Confetti- our baby doe, she won't be ready for breeding until sometime this spring, May probably.

Boy-girl-boy. These three are from the same litter, we are going to keep the girl as part of our breeding trio but her brothers will meet the stew pot in about a month. For now they can be kept in the same cage, because they are too young to mate but boys reach maturity before the girls do so they will have to be moved out soon.

Another shot of Confetti, she is a tri color white-tan-black. She doesn't have many black spots though. She's nice a bit shy but will allow me to pet her. I have to work with her a bit so she's more comfortable being held.

This is Clove, she is Confetti's mom. She wasn't handled much as a young doe so she doesn't like being held. Her nails are stupidly long so I trimmed them today. A few I cut bit too short and they bled, which further reaffirms that I am out to torture her I am sure. See how her but is backed up to the corner of the cage and climbing up it almost? I feel bad for her because she is so scared, but I keep talking calmly to her and petting her so she knows I am not out to harm her.

This is Chestnut, he's a young buck about 6 months old. I think he was a 4H bunny or he was shown a lot because he loves to be petted and he just wants attention. It's rather cute. Ches will come up to the cage door and stand up tall to get noticed. Also he and Kai are best buds, Kai will clean his head and nuzzle him and he just takes it in stride, he'll even give her kisses back. I have a video of them with the cage door shut, but now every time I come in to give food and water he pokes his head out to nuzzle the dog. He is too cute and just look at those ears!

Here's the video of the rabbitry, featuring Kai and Ches.




With any luck I'll breed Clove with Ches this week and we'll have some babies by the end of January! I want to wait until Clove is a bit more settled and not so terrified of me, but that may never happen so all I can shoot for is comfortable.

Rabbitry Decision

We are going for it.

After long thought about producing our own meat we've decided to start raising rabbits. Being in the city limits us to an animal that makes little to no noise. Since chickens preach to the choir, often at full volume they are not an option. Also we didn't want any one else to take a hand in our own supply of food.

We've purchased 5 cages and Jacob is designing the rabbit hutch in sketch-up. I'll post pictures as this project unfolds.

My mom told me today that my great grandmother couldn't stomach raising rabbits because when the fur came off they resembled cats too much. I disagree, I had to skin a cat for Anatomy at Vet school. ( that was fun.... <--- insert sarcasm )