Checking in on rabbits and potatoes.

There was some interest in how the rabbits are doing after last post, so I figured, especially since I didn't have anything else planned for today, I'd do a check in on the rabbits. Unfortunately most of the photos just didn't come out, but at least this family photo of Splash, Streak, and their kits came out. They eat together like this every day. When there were more kits in there, I had to position the trough so all of them could sit around it, or they'd try to drag it over so they could do that and spill a lot of pellets. The chickens didn't mind that at all, just to be fair.

The photo of Twilight, her daughter, and Twilight's litter on the other hand came out like a blurred mass of ravening animals. Coincidentally, this is about what it looked like in person too. The thing the photo is missing is grunting, a sound somewhat like a gravel crusher in the distance, and the sound of grinding teeth. This group gets plenty of food, but you couldn't convince them of it. If I didn't control their portions this would be a fat group of rabbits really quickly. I've been giving them more greens than pellets lately which is partially to blame for their obsession with the pellets they do get. Right now the adults aren't bred, but that's because of a heat wave. Now that we suddenly have a cold front coming through I'm going to get as many does bred as I can before we get into the August heat. My goal is Splash, Streak, Dawn, Dawn's Daughter, Twilight, and her daughter. I really want to make sure that we get at least someone bred by Herbie. If he still won't breed we have to figure out what to do with him because a buck that doesn't breed, doesn't breathe. We can't just keep throwing food at a non productive rabbit. We may end up taking one of the rabbits in as a house rabbit later on in life, but it wouldn't be him, it would be Dorado who's super friendly. Either way, we'll see what happens with the next round of breedings. The low number of breedings this season due to our other focuses and the odd weather means we're going to be trying to breed later into the fall and early winter. That mostly means more feed because during that time there isn't green stuff to cut and feed to cut  down pellet costs. It may actually work out just fine though.

The other thing that's notable right now is the potatoes that the Lady of the House got into buckets and planted a little while back. For a good starting time they just sat there, and suddenly they started going nuts. As you can see, some are doing better than others for no reason we can discern. We need to get a lot of soil and rabbit manure in those buckets to increase our production with the potatoes. Particularly in the one on the right! I don't know what's going on with that bucket, but I know it's going well. Plans for this weekend are a little off from normal. I'm going to be working overtime at my day job on Saturday which takes up a lot of the normal work time for homestead stuff. We'll see what I can get done Sunday with that in mind, and knowing that I really do need to give the Lady of the House a break from the Critter. See y'all Tuesday.

A busy time to get back in the saddle.

Today on Hillside Homestead, we've been very busy things that are a bit out of the ordinary. Specifically the Lady of the House is preparing for selling her art, and a new genetics centered collectible/game at Anime Boston. I also had a wisdom tooth extracted yesterday which is somewhat distracting as well. The up shot of that is, no new photos for today which I've been really trying to keep from happening since I've been trying to make sure to give the blog the attention it deserves consistently. I also wanted to take a moment to do a monthly mention of the Patreon and Amazon Wishlist links off to the right, and thank everyone for reading, and their support.

Below the cut I'm going to be talking about getting back to breeding rabbits, and thoughts about that.

All is well as the cold passes through

Well, as of this morning just at the absolute worst of the temperature and wind had passed, I went out for farm chores. Everyone was alive as of that time, and seemed relatively healthy if not happy. You can tell that rabbits aren't doing optimally when they are eating less than their normal daily consumption rate. That means they aren't getting enough water usually, and are probably huddling together. My design for the hutches has again been confirmed to me as all of the rabbits, even the ones that usually avoid the private areas were using them when checked on. Talking to them when I go out brought them out to their water bottles where they get as much as they can before they ice over.

Lots getting done thanks to help, also Chickens!

Sorry about the low quality pictures, but we've been keeping busy and I really didn't want to miss another blog post today. Last wee was a consequence of me not understanding just how exhausting first week of college would be from the perspective of being the phone tech support guy. It's still very busy at work, but I am not quite as fried in the evening which is good for actually getting things done. Speaking of getting things done, as you can see Above you see that we've managed to move the chicken coop and run near the house instead of behind the studio barn. That's thanks to a group of friends coming by and helping out Saturday letting us get a lot done!

Overdue update

A new day, a new set of baby bunny faces. Well, really right now it's the same set of faces, but as they grow so fast it can feel like a whole new set of faces. Above are three of Twilight's current brood.  Much like their mother they are very engaged with anything involving food. That naturally includes us since we're involved with the appearance of food. I wanted a photo of Twilight hovering over them, but all of them were blurry dark gray mountains that didn't look so good sadly.  Overall, Twilight's kits are growing the crazy rate we expect, and we're happy to see that. Everyone is going to get re bred soon, so they'll only be with their mom for another few weeks for which she will be profoundly grateful, the're eating her food!

Back to the normal life, plants, and rabbits.

The Lady of the House is back, and I'm very happy! The rabbits are still very active and hard to get good photos of, but at least I was able to get a couple of the Lady of the House holding onto fast moving babies so I could get photos. The one above is from Sunshine's litter since I still haven't gone after the wasp nest in Dawn's hutch. Below the cut will be more baby photos.

A merry chase

I figured today was a good day for baby bunny photos, unfortunately I forgot that when trying to get photos on a rainy day you A: need to be out of the woods, and B: a corollary, you need a second pair of hands. The Lady of the House is out of town right now since she was selling at Otakon this past weekend. This promptly led to a game of find the blue gray 2 week old rabbit in the tall grass and raspberry bushes. Before doing the cut, I assure those of you who just came for the baby bunny photos, all turned out well, and no babies were harmed, and there will be more (well, one more) photo below the cut.

All sorts of new!

So many new things I wasn't sure what to start with so I defaulted to baby rabbits, even if it is blurry. Sunshine's litter is all alive and well, and have opened their eyes! I missed my favorite day of them with eyes half open. It's been a busy few days since the last post before Thanksgiving thus all of the new!

Baby photos from Sunshine, finally!

Finally beginning the post with real baby pictures again!  I'm finally comfortable taking Sunshine's babies out to look at them despite the weather because they have fur. Still not taking them out for long because it is very cold, but at least we can share them now. All 5 that were alive the first day are still alive it looks like. At this point I'm just plunging my hands into the nest after warming them up as much as I can and trying to count by feel. Sadly it looks like Dawn wasn't pregnant it seems, so just the one last litter which should put us enough to eat for the winter.

A gift of weather, a completed garden bed, and saying goodbye to the teens.

With the gift from nature of a gorgeous Saturday, the Lady of the House and I got a good bit of last minute garden work done. The delayed season has been a bit concerning for us from the perspective of climate change leading to more extreme weather, and worries about having sufficient freeze time for certain plants. But! On the up side, having not had enough time before, this was a bit of a reprieve.

So many kits on the ground, but not as many as we'd like.

As seems to be the refrain at the moment, a lot is going on right now. Less than last week due to the downpour over the weekend that kept me from working on the multiple outdoor projects.

Twilight's first baby pictures!

Twilight has relented, and allowed us contact with her babies without more than an occasional grumble and check up that we aren't doing anything wrong to her babies. The Lady of the House managed to get some nice photos while I was getting weight checks done quickly in the unpleasantly winter like weather.

Meet Halley and Comet, and help us make a decision.

A lot of things are going on lately, and I'm not really going to try to cover all of them in this post. First things first though, last Friday we managed to breed Twilight and Dawn in the easiest breedings we've had yet. Second, we are keeping a pair of the babies from the winter litter for breeding over the summer. Meet Halley and Comet, we haven't decided which is which yet. Deciding what how we are going to handle the two has actually led to a bit of a debate between the Lady of the House and me about how we should do things.

Developing personality in the growing out hutch

Life has been continuing with only slight changes for us. We moved the babies to the growing out hutch finally, which they definitely seem to enjoy. It is a really joyful thing for the Lady of the House and I to watch the babies realize I can run, and jump, and do all of these fun things.

New ideas, and stabilizing runts.

The babies continue to grow well, even the runts. That said, the runts are now about half the weight of the bigger babies. They are no longer in danger of not making it though which is a relief. As always for the winter, water is a concern since dehydration is one of the primary threats to a rabbit. Right now it is warm enough they can easily get enough water, and with the crocks that will ameliorate the problems on colder days.

Lots going on right now, including rat rescue.

Obviously, first and foremost the babies are doing well. The one small weak one did not make it, dying the night after I posted concerns about his health. The rest of them however are as you can see doing well. They didn't get weighed today due to the rain and cold weather, but their eyes are opening.