Spring is coming!

I can tell because the driveway is almost clear of ice on the actual driving surface, and the average level of snow is a little below knee deep rather than a little above knee deep. It is warm and pleasant outside by comparison, and the mist is epic. Obviously with the indicators of spring's impending arrival we are excited about a whole bunch of things, and our minds are whirling with how to most efficiently handle everything we need to do while still both working full time plus.

The Antici . . . . . . . . . . .

Pation!

Of waiting for new babies. It can get a little frustrating. We are actually starting to wonder if Umbra ended up with being heat sterile this summer.

Bears are a Problem!

Bears. This seems to be the time for them from what we can tell. Last year we didn't see a single bear on our property, but this year we have seen them many a time. I'm now starting to see potential correlation between bear visits and lack of weight gain for the day. 

(Picture from http://www.weforanimals.com/free-pictures/wild-animals/black-bears/1/black-bear-5.htm)

DIY vs. Hiring a Pro: The Studio

Obviously, as we are attempting homesteading the lady of the house and I are comfortable, and indeed actively tend to do things ourselves rather than getting a professional to do so. That said, I'd like to examine some of the pros and cons of each. One of the big attractions to us about our house is the big garage with a second floor on it, but it did need finishing. Given our rather slim financial situation, one might assume that we did the whole thing ourselves, and you'd be wrong. The why I think is the important part.

How to Butcher Our Rabbits

Even now, before we get our breeding rabbits we had a big question we have to answer before we even decided to finalize our decision to get rabbits. What about butchering them. Given our requirement for ourselves that our raising methods be humane, we also require of ourselves that we give a humane death to our rabbits. To some this may seem like a strange statement, after all, we are killing them for meat. That said, there are better and worse ways to kill an animal. Think of it this way, why do we euthanize our dogs and cats instead of letting them die at home of cancer, or cluster seizures? It's less painful and frightening to them. Ok, so why bring them to a vet which is stressful for them instead of shooting them at home? My answer to that is two fold, one, I don't want to kill my pets if I can avoid it, and two, an injection of lethal doses of anesthetic or other method isn't going to miss a vital organ and leave a screaming animal in pain. So, given that to have a meat operation we would have to kill animals, we went to our favorite activity, research.

Rabbits: Space Part 2

Last Thursday we discussed factory and pet home suggestions for raising rabbits, and some complications for what we were going for. Today I am going to be writing about pasture raising, and colony raising and concluding with what we want to do, and why.

Pasture Raising
Pasture raising a rabbit is not like pasture raising a cow, it isn't out of a cage wandering in a field and eating grass. It is in a movable pen called an Ark. I don't know who pioneered this first, but the one who one most often hears about with it is Joe Salitin of Polyface Farm. His operation is one of the big ones that we drew inspiration from, especially involving the rabbits and chickens sharing space in one way or another. Here you see the movable pens that his rabbits forage in and their Raken   as well as some information on that.

Decision Making On Rabbits: Floor Space

Obviously, given the subtitle of the blog, we decided in the end that rabbits were indeed a good idea for us to raise. The question that really matters for everyone else is why, and how did we come to that conclusion? As with every other decision we have made so far, it was based on a fair amount of research, and a lot of things are still evolving for us. Our base considerations were cost, heartiness, care requirements, ethics, and finally, can we handle killing rabbits for meat? In this post I'm going to discuss how much space each rabbit needs.

Gloves

Apologies for the late post, not sure if I imagined writing a post up, or if I forgot to save it or what, but this is a bit last minute.

Today I'm going to talk about gloves of various types that one has use for around the house. I took inventory of the gloves that I have and use and was actually a little stunned by the number. Gloves are one of those items that every household needs, how many depends on what all you do. That said, there are actually a number of things where gloves that are great for one thing will actually not be good for something else. I'll be interested to see if there are other kinds of gloves that people use regularly that don't come up in this post. If so chime in in the comments.

Breeds We Selected

Our Primary Considerations
The factors we are looking for in a chicken are:
Hearty, especially to cold.
Relatively docile to human handlers, specifically those that they are familiar with.
Able to defend themselves at least somewhat from predation.
Lay well.
Decent meat.
Good at foraging.
Medium to large eggs.

 This reused image is a picture from some local friends of ours with chickens showing their laying flock.

Note: We had hoped to have pictures to go with words from the Big E, but sadly they didn't have chickens there when we were there, so sadly this will be a post sans pictures of what I'm talking about.

Below the cut will be specific breeds and the benefits we want from them.

Learning Experiences Part 1

Learning Experiences
Everyone has learning experiences. It's what happens when you make a mistake, and gain something from it. By sharing our doubtless substantial number of learning experiences, hopefully others can avoid making the same mistakes. I'd like to note that many of these will be learning experiences in progress, so we'd love input.

                                         Stock Photo

Of Tractors and Other Tools
Everyone knows that each job has its tools that you need to have to function properly. For writing it is a computer and a dictionary, for IT it is Google and your box of gadgets, etc. Before you move into a house you are warned that there are things you need for a house. It's almost like a whole other job based on the tool set you need. If you are going to be homesteading and trying to take care of things on your own, it's an even bigger tool set.

There are any number of lists of tools that are vital for homesteading, and I'll probably go into these various tools at some point in the future when I've experienced more. For now though I'm going to stick to my personal experiences and talk about the first major tool that has been an issue.

Starting at the Beginning

Beginnings:
The hardest part in any project is the beginning. It is an old aphorism, but from what I can tell entirely true. Finding where we began looking into homesteading is hard because it started relatively organically. Where this blog began though is a lot easier. This blog began because we thought, man, we're making a lot of mistakes and learning a lot of things. We should share what we are learning so that people can be wiser than we were.

If you read homesteading books they begin by suggesting ideal locations in which to set up your homestead to make things easier. If decide to homestead before you buy a house, and you can afford to do so, I strongly recommend it. Not every place is ideal for homesteading, and despite certain advantages our new house is not exactly ideal. So, evaluating the house now for homesteading, this is the list of pros and cons that come to mind.