BOX FORT! Strange weather, and design fatigue.

 So over the weekend, we gave the babies some new toys. You can see one of them in the background, and the other is the box. So far 5 days later the nice new chew toy we get them is un-touched, and the box has been so thoroughly used and destroyed it is now on its way to being compost.

 The funniest part about the box fort was that one baby would get in, and play around having fun, and would move the box. This would prompt a mass freak out as all of the other babies, not understanding the moving box would flip out and run. But within seconds they were back investigating the box. I don't think I've seen them have this much fun with anything other than being able to run full speed from end to end of the hutch. It is nice to see them having a good time, and given that cardboard makes just fine compost, we are trying to bring home boxes from work to make them box forts with since it is so popular. Another update I don't think I mentioned is that the baby who was hurt seems to have gotten better. We went to butcher the baby since rabbits will hide that they are in pain, and we wanted to avoid suffering. We couldn't figure out which one was hurt by motions, only personality and looks, and thus have just left well enough alone. Sometimes I can see it limping a bit, but its life doesn't seem to be impaired so it can live until butchering day which could be as soon as some time next week.

We are considering saving at least one of the babies for breeding. If we do that we will save two females, and keep them together in the growing out hutch until the next round of babies is ready to go in. At that point we will pick which one is stronger, healthier, bigger, and has a better personality to keep. If both are great, well, we might save both if I've had time to make another hutch by that point. We would only be able to breed them with Umbra, or another fully unrelated male since they are a Little too close for comfort where it comes to inbreeding.

Those of you who live in the Western Mass area know we have had some crazy weather lately. Unfortunately I mixed up when uploading the photo files for today to Dropbox, and only got a few. The fog was amazingly thick, and was something between horror film fog and fantasy film fog, mostly depending on the amount of ambient light. This morning due to the rain and humidity in the air, the insides of the rabbit hutches were wet. I was concerned that water was leaking through, or something of the sort. No, it was so humid that water was condensing on the under side of the hutch roofs. When I think about that it's not too surprising. That said, it means that keeping their food replenished and throwing out any damp food is important, as is making sure that none of the rabbits get too wet. While it is warm right now it will be in the low teens tonight, and back to freezing temperatures over the next week.





















From now to then though, our frozen solid stream out back went from just that, a block of ice to a rapidly rushing stream literally over night. It is difficult to get a good photo of it, but the water has carved a channel through the ice all the way down, and there are some beautiful hollows carved away in the ice that you can kind of see in the Above Right photo. It was almost like watching geological time in action.

I have been continuing doing research on the chicken coop considerations, and I have a lot of information. That said, design isn't coming up with what you want. It is taking what you want, what you need, and what you can afford and making them meet in one place. It is tough to do good design when working constantly because design is in its own way just as exhausting as building, working, or running. So Tuesday expect to have an update on the coop, it may not be to the finalized stage, but there is progress!