Rabbit update

I realized I haven't given any updates on the rabbits lately. Mostly the rabbits are doing well, and the teens are still hanging around because I haven't had time to kill and butcher them. I'm fairly certain I'm not going to have time to take care of that any time soon no matter how much it needs to be done so I am going to be asking a friend to do it for me since I am constantly exhausted and busy.

The goats of Blessed Acre Farm.

We have renewed our desire to have goats on our property in a few ways over the past week, and one of them was simply visiting Michelle Chandler's goats with their kids. I thought the one Above was good to start with because it looks almost like a classical painting, and I'm a nerd.

A reminder to myself: Why chickens?

 One of the realities of life is that you always have to balance things. Money versus time, cost/benefit, ethics/necessity, etc. With rabbits it was easy to see the benefits, and how things would work, what we were getting and how it would pay off ethically and monetarily. It's a bit difficult in our situation for me to see how chickens will have that same pay off given how much it is costing in time, effort, and money to get started.  So below the cut, let's talk about why chickens.

Coop planning part 3, cost cutting

In day to day life it is somewhat difficult to think how soon the coop will need to be built and go into action, but there are reminders. Up where we live there is still plenty of snow actually on the ground, and seeing the dirt below it is unusual. When we come down to the valley though I am reminded that while winter isn't over for sure, spring is around the corner. Snow is gone less than 10 miles from our house, and soon it will be mud season.

Coop planning Part 3, our dream coop in detail.

So there it is, the complete coop sketch up for what we would ideally like to do for the coop. Of course in the process I found some things we could probably do better with, but here's the planning process continued. I will also include the estimate for how much this monstrosity will cost, and discuss some options when it comes to the construction. Above is the South face including the storage shed, and the low level windows which I'd probably want to move up a couple feet for better lighting.

Ups and Downs

 Dawn is doing fairly well in the wake of giving birth to her second litter. She has been a little nervous and jumpy lately, but has been a good mother to her 5 babies. The main signs of her nervousness is trying to dig at the cage and occasionally chewing on the wire. I've been considering whether it might be good to shift her to the growing out hutch when butchering happens on Wednesday.






Dawn's second litter is still in the huddle in small balls in their nesting box. In this case, a literal nesting box. They are doing quite well for being at that age, and are very very energetic. I'm not sure how much of that is the warmth allowing them to use more of their food to move around rather than just live, how much of it is them, and how much of it is Dawn being a more experienced mother. In any case, they are all over the place. I look forward to seeing how fast they grow.

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.