We seem to be so busy at the moment, what with running the homestead, earning money, additional projects and anything else we can squeeze in before the baby arrives (we know from experience that we will not be getting much done right after Nico arrives in about a month). So we decided to organize our chores into a weekly schedule, to help us remember to do some of the bits and pieces that need to be done every week. Then we fit all the other stuff around this list.
If interested, here it is:
Monday - Rabbits: breeding, weighing, weaning, separating females that are due, butchering, tanning hides, etc.
Tuesday - Watering trees. Moving chicken pen and tractor.
Wednesday - Garden: making soil blocks, transplanting, planting, collecting seeds, canning, drying, etc.
Thursday - Day off... well, day off chores at least, but that just makes it a better day to tackle big projects!
Friday - Water trees. Check on bees (every other week). Clean house.
Saturday - Laundry (by hand of course). We will now be starting to use the rest of this day to work on our site, as it is in pretty dire need of an update.
Sunday - Mushrooms (every other week).
Showing posts with label bees. rabbits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bees. rabbits. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Rabbit drama
The last couple of weeks have been extremely eventful for us as far as the rabbits are concerned.
First of all, Abe went out to see them one day and the mama of a two week old litter was jumping all around, flopping about and just generally freaking out. Abe looked at her wonderingly and there on the floor was a huge rat snake with a white baby halfway down its throat. Abe killed the snake, but it was too late for the baby. We normally only kill a snake if it is right up near the house and poisonous (rattlesnake), but we also cannot allow a non-venemous snake to take up residence with the rabbits. It was so big (4 feet) and beautiful though that I skinned it and have been tanning the hide. Today is the last day of painting both sides with a glycerin/alcohol mix and it'll be ready to use. When this all happened, we took Leo out to the rabbit shed to show him - we are trying to install in our fearless ranger a sense of fear in some things, you know, like rattlesnakes. Ever since then, he'll periodically say in a tiny, sad voice, "Poor rabbit" and then shout angrily "Bad snake!".
The next major event was the twelve week birthday of our first litter. We kept two females and one male, but the other four met their end. I won't post photos of this process, as some of you I'm sure do not want to see it, but don't forget, this is the reason we are breeding rabbits! We dropped Leo off at a friend's house, then processed the four young ones. We are tanning their furs too. While Abe did the grimmer side of the affair, I helped skin and then cleaned the skins and put them in a water/acid/salt mix. They have now been there for a week and as soon as I finish this post, I will go and peel the flesh off the furs and then they'll go back in the acid for another week. If it all works out well, I plan to make quilts, purses, etc. out of the fur. For the past week, we have been eating rabbit, cooked all kinds of ways, and it is truly delicious.
Two days later, we noticed Obama - our prettiest and biggest female - dragging her hind legs around. We thought that maybe she had just jumped wrong after the stress of the snake, but we seperated her from the others just in case. The next day, one more, Kiwi, had the same symptoms. Abe did some research and figured out what the problem was. They have a parasite called Encephalitozoon cuniculi (EC). Apparently over 80% of all rabbits have it, but only 15% ever show symptoms. We have started medicating them with a drug called Panacur and after three days they have already got some use of their legs back. They will be on the medication for three weeks and we're hoping they will fully recover. We will also be medicating everyone else too, as they probably all have it, and the medication does not harm them even as a preventative measure.
We also made an outside pen for the babies that have been weaned. Right now we have just two females that are breeding, so there aren't that many babies at one time, but we will be putting two more females with a male this month. At the moment, there are only three young rabbits in the pen, but they love going outside, and they have a tree to play under.
Just so that we end on a positive and happy note, Coco had five more babies the other day. They are precious (although they don't start to be pretty until they're a week old). Reina and Coco have now had two litters each since being here (the first of which happened right after they arrived at our place). For a while we were thinking that all the other females might have been bred, as Frisky got into their pen last month. But though his name is fitting, he was either too young or not in there long enough, and noone had any unplanned babies.
For more photos (none of butchering), click here.
First of all, Abe went out to see them one day and the mama of a two week old litter was jumping all around, flopping about and just generally freaking out. Abe looked at her wonderingly and there on the floor was a huge rat snake with a white baby halfway down its throat. Abe killed the snake, but it was too late for the baby. We normally only kill a snake if it is right up near the house and poisonous (rattlesnake), but we also cannot allow a non-venemous snake to take up residence with the rabbits. It was so big (4 feet) and beautiful though that I skinned it and have been tanning the hide. Today is the last day of painting both sides with a glycerin/alcohol mix and it'll be ready to use. When this all happened, we took Leo out to the rabbit shed to show him - we are trying to install in our fearless ranger a sense of fear in some things, you know, like rattlesnakes. Ever since then, he'll periodically say in a tiny, sad voice, "Poor rabbit" and then shout angrily "Bad snake!".
The next major event was the twelve week birthday of our first litter. We kept two females and one male, but the other four met their end. I won't post photos of this process, as some of you I'm sure do not want to see it, but don't forget, this is the reason we are breeding rabbits! We dropped Leo off at a friend's house, then processed the four young ones. We are tanning their furs too. While Abe did the grimmer side of the affair, I helped skin and then cleaned the skins and put them in a water/acid/salt mix. They have now been there for a week and as soon as I finish this post, I will go and peel the flesh off the furs and then they'll go back in the acid for another week. If it all works out well, I plan to make quilts, purses, etc. out of the fur. For the past week, we have been eating rabbit, cooked all kinds of ways, and it is truly delicious.Two days later, we noticed Obama - our prettiest and biggest female - dragging her hind legs around. We thought that maybe she had just jumped wrong after the stress of the snake, but we seperated her from the others just in case. The next day, one more, Kiwi, had the same symptoms. Abe did some research and figured out what the problem was. They have a parasite called Encephalitozoon cuniculi (EC). Apparently over 80% of all rabbits have it, but only 15% ever show symptoms. We have started medicating them with a drug called Panacur and after three days they have already got some use of their legs back. They will be on the medication for three weeks and we're hoping they will fully recover. We will also be medicating everyone else too, as they probably all have it, and the medication does not harm them even as a preventative measure.
We also made an outside pen for the babies that have been weaned. Right now we have just two females that are breeding, so there aren't that many babies at one time, but we will be putting two more females with a male this month. At the moment, there are only three young rabbits in the pen, but they love going outside, and they have a tree to play under.Just so that we end on a positive and happy note, Coco had five more babies the other day. They are precious (although they don't start to be pretty until they're a week old). Reina and Coco have now had two litters each since being here (the first of which happened right after they arrived at our place). For a while we were thinking that all the other females might have been bred, as Frisky got into their pen last month. But though his name is fitting, he was either too young or not in there long enough, and noone had any unplanned babies.For more photos (none of butchering), click here.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Breeding like rabbits
2 days after we got the rabbits, one of the adult females, Reina, gave birth to a litter of 7 babies. All survived and are now starting to open their eyes. Very cute (especially now that they have fur!). We had known that she was pregnant, but had certainly not expected her to kindle so soon.Our other adult female, Coco, whom we thought to be just a couple of weeks pregnant, gave birth this morning. We only saw two babies, which is odd. However, we haven't looked around too much, as does are apt to eat their babies if they get too freaked out. Maybe she has more hidden somewhere or maybe the huge storm we had last night caused a problem with the birth. Will let you know in a week or so, but for the moment we are leaving her and her young in peace.
As for the others, they are all doing great. Seem very happy and are growing like weeds. They have made a whole web of burrows in the dirt and straw we put into their pens (on top of wire, so they can't burrow out).
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Food systems
I think I have already mentioned this, but now that the house is so comfortable, we are focusing our attention this year on the power, water and food systems.
The power system is now done, at least for now. We will one day add another solar panel and get a freezer, and build a couple more wind generators (even though this site is not great for wind, we have the parts and we love wind power). For the first time, we have free refrigeration - having switched form propane to electric. We run what we want when we want (although we are conservative by nature - force of habit, I guess). We recently put a fence around the solar mount.
The water system will
be addressed in a couple of months, so stay tuned.
As for the food, we are really enjoying working on that system. Until we have our big tank, we are taking it slow, not planting the majority of our seeds until the rains come - next year, we will be able to go crazy! For now, we have lettuce, beets, cabbage, collards, tomatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, radish all in the ground in the garden, growing like weeds on compost and worm tea. Inside, in seed blocks, we have turnips, eggplants, arrugala, chard, cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, comfrey, purslene, asparagus. We should be transplanting most of them this week.
Under the trees, we have all kinds of squash, beans, spinach, melons planted and they are getting big. All our trees are doing great and we will even get some fruit this year, which is incredible considering we just planted them.
The trees are on a drip system and they get watered twice a week. Their water comes from a small tank we set up uphill from them. We have a fishtrap in the river and we are trying to stock this tank. So far, we have 4 perch, 1 bass and 1 carp in there. We have a little solar powered pump set up that oxygenates the water. A small system, but Leo loves it. It is his job to feed them worms, which he also loves.
Of course, there's the bees and the chickens, mentioned in previous blogs.
And last, but not least, rabbits. We haven't actually got rabbits yet, but we are starting to work on their house. While I have been making garden paths, Abe has been leveling a 20' x 10' area. We will build a shed for them in this space, and then have pens coming off that. We are going to be keeping the rabbits in a colony setup instead of cages. We'll keep you informed.
The power system is now done, at least for now. We will one day add another solar panel and get a freezer, and build a couple more wind generators (even though this site is not great for wind, we have the parts and we love wind power). For the first time, we have free refrigeration - having switched form propane to electric. We run what we want when we want (although we are conservative by nature - force of habit, I guess). We recently put a fence around the solar mount.
The water system will
be addressed in a couple of months, so stay tuned.As for the food, we are really enjoying working on that system. Until we have our big tank, we are taking it slow, not planting the majority of our seeds until the rains come - next year, we will be able to go crazy! For now, we have lettuce, beets, cabbage, collards, tomatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, radish all in the ground in the garden, growing like weeds on compost and worm tea. Inside, in seed blocks, we have turnips, eggplants, arrugala, chard, cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, comfrey, purslene, asparagus. We should be transplanting most of them this week.
Under the trees, we have all kinds of squash, beans, spinach, melons planted and they are getting big. All our trees are doing great and we will even get some fruit this year, which is incredible considering we just planted them.
The trees are on a drip system and they get watered twice a week. Their water comes from a small tank we set up uphill from them. We have a fishtrap in the river and we are trying to stock this tank. So far, we have 4 perch, 1 bass and 1 carp in there. We have a little solar powered pump set up that oxygenates the water. A small system, but Leo loves it. It is his job to feed them worms, which he also loves.
Of course, there's the bees and the chickens, mentioned in previous blogs.
And last, but not least, rabbits. We haven't actually got rabbits yet, but we are starting to work on their house. While I have been making garden paths, Abe has been leveling a 20' x 10' area. We will build a shed for them in this space, and then have pens coming off that. We are going to be keeping the rabbits in a colony setup instead of cages. We'll keep you informed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)