Hey kids! Do you want a bunny?

YEAH!
Well, we're going to eat her babies.
Um.... WHAT?!?!

So my two step-daughters Chey (11) and Maddie (8) have pet rabbits at their mom's house.  I stress PET.  So a few months ago my husband and I told them that we were planning on getting one or two rabbits this spring (aka: now!).

They were SO excited... until I started laying out the ground rules.

1) They will live outside
2) We will choose the breeds
3) We will get a male and a female
4) I will let you keep ONE female from the first litter
5) We are going to eat all of the other babies

WHOAH! #5 was a shocker.  Luckily the girls are pretty open minded and have grown up in an area where there are a lot of farms.  We've agreed that we will "make the meat" on a weekend when the girls aren't here and in return they have agreed to try it (Although Maddie said that she is "going to cry the whole time she's eating dinner".

We'll see Maddie!  You're very brave to try and I know that you're going to be so proud that we made this meat ourselves. I'm envisioning a dinner with veggies from the garden and a nice rabbit stew as the centerpiece.

Thanks for agreeing to try. Hopefully this sticks after you've seen the babies.

We bought a chest freezer last month. We will hopefully be buying a hutch (or two) within the next month and a young rabbit (or two) soon after. We'll see how it goes!  I'm excited to potentially be getting back into the game and to be teaching kids at the same time!

Coop Designs - Yay Autocad!

So Dan and I have started playing around with "Google Sketchup".  It's actually pretty complicated... and very addicting! All of a sudden it's 3 hours later!

Anyway, these are our plans.  I mentioned to Dan that it would be nice to have a "chicken tractor" so we could move it around when the grass in the pen was sufficiently decimated.  So, he drew up a neat tractor for me.  Then I started playing with it and came up with another idea... Both plans are designed to fit in the back of a pick-up truck and are meant to hold about 5 chickens at the most. (We'll probably have 3 full size hens and maybe a silkie bantam.. I love those!)

Dan's plans:

My plan:

They're pretty similar huh? What do you think?

Mini-Farm Ideas are Forming!

Hi All!


So I've decided to start planning my VERY mini farm project here in the Adirondacks.  We are going to build a very small chicken coop, closer to a chicken "tractor" really.. Our yard here is very small, and I want something that can come with us when we move.  I am planning on finding 4 or 5 hens and sticking with that number until we have more land for more CHICKENS! (And, of course, other animals).

I found a GREAT little coop online that I'm going to reinvent and build myself.  I can't really see spending $400 on it from the manufacturer.  Especially when there are a few things I would change about it.


So, here it is!

Cute huh?

Online and PDA Livestock Resources

Hi All!

I know it's been a while, I plan on starting some new farming adventures this summer, so stay tuned!!

In the mean time... Check this out!  I recently got a "Smart Phone" and have been obsessed with finding animal related "apps" for it... I came across this - I am SO using this! (When I have something to enter that is...)

Anyway, I first found this...

Beetight is a free web application for beekeepers and is the best way to manage your hives and track them online or on your phone or PDA. You'll wonder how you ever survived with the old notebooks and spreadsheets!

You can use your PDA or smartphone as a data tracker while you're out in the field!  How cool is THAT?

From your computer you can print out scan labels to put directly on your hives so you can scan them with the barcode scanner on your device and get instant access to that hives records!  This is SO Star Trek!!

After I found this program I searched for something similar that would work with more widely kept livestock, and I found this... http://www.tracklivestock.net/

They don't have any graphics on thier site... it doesn't look as impressive as the Beetight site... but I might try that one out too... 

I'll let you know how it goes!!

A Bunny Aside...

Hey... if any of you rabbit people out there are having a hard time finding hutch and/or buck cards.... here are mine! You can download them to Excel or whatever and edit them for your own use. Merry Christmasish.

Hutch Cards: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pjXL72ug6PszrkUGdyaVoag

Buck Card: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pjXL72ug6PszjWsritOqLCQ

Tattooing Rabbits SUCKS!

It is a nice warm day today so I figured it would be a good time to tattoo the rabbits. I didn't want to do it during the cold weather because the cold puts enough stress on them, and I didn't want to wait much longer because I'm planning on breeding Sonny and Cher on the 1st.

SO, I re-read my books and got what supplies I thought I'd need ready. I had my tattoo kit, my green paste ink, baby wipes to clean up with, paper towels, alcohol swabs to pre-clean the area and a plastic shoe box to put the rabbits in to keep them still.

I used the alcohol swabs on all three rabbits left ears about 10 minutes before I was planning to tattoo them. I wanted to give the alcohol time to evaporate before I did anything. (You always tattoo the rabbits left ear so if you show them the show officials can write in their right ears). If anyone's ever given themselves a shot (which I have) and you didn't give the alcohol time to dry it SMARTS!!!

I decided on a numbering system for my tattoos quite a while ago. You only have 5 spots to work with so I had to revise my idea a few times. Here's what I came up with...

Sonny's tattoo is now M0807 because he is a male and was born in August of 2007.

Cher's tattoo is now 06071 because she was born in June of 2007. I didn't use an "F" but instead used a "1" after her DOB because I am WAY more likely to keep more than one female from a litter than I am a male. So she is the first (only) female from June of 07. If I had another female from her litter she would be "06072".

Joplin's tattoo is 10081 - can you guess when her birthday is? :P

Here is a picture of the pliers with Sonny's tattoo numbers in place.

If you use pliers be SURE to test out the pattern on an index card before you use them!! As you can see from my index card, the first time I set it up I had them completely backwards!!!

So once I had the pliers all set up for Sonny I reached into his hutch and put him in the little box. I smeared a good amount of the green paste on the area where I was going to tattoo, got the pliers out, clamped them on his ear (he HATED it!!) and then smeared more paste over the newly punctured area. All in all, Sonny took it like a man. I was thinking, well, I could tell it hurt a little, but it doesn't seem too bad! YAY!!

Sonny post-tattoo

Rennie watching from a short distance

Oh how naive I was. I set up Cher's number, punched the test card and went over to Cher's hutch. ! was happy with my victory and picked her right up and plopped her in the shoe-box. I smeared her ear with the paste, got the pliers and clamped down.

HOLY CRAP!!!

Yeah, did you know rabbits could CRY?!?!!?! She freaked out, jumped out of the box and was trying to run away from me with the pliers still attached to her ear. She was SCREAMING! OMG, I felt SO BAD. I held on to the pliers though, I didn't want to have to do this again. Once I removed them I grabbed her and smeared more ink on. Then I took a break. My heart was beating so hard. My poor Cher!!!! The chickens were freaking out and "baa-gawking" all over the place.

After his mom's ordeal, this is where Rennie ended up, in the neighbors yard.

Not so funny anymore huh Rennie?!?!?

After a short recess I decided to get going with Joplin. Stop procrastinating! Maybe she'll be ok, like her dad! Yeah... Ok, re-read the previous paragraph. Joplin takes after her mom. POOR BABY!! Afterwards we were both shaking and covered in ink. I was SO HAPPY that I didn't have any more rabbits to tattoo!!!! (At least today).

Joplin post-tattoo... Poor eyes bugging out

Yeah, so that was my adventure today. I am planning on tattooing any "keeper" rabbits in the future, just because, well, you HAVE to if you want to keep track of a bunch of identical white rabbits. But I will NEVER take it for granted! *Deep breath* I'm taking it easy for the rest of the day!! After I go out back and give these three some carrot.

A Typical Snowy Morning

"Come on Mom!!!!!"

(Yes, that is a Steelers jacket!)

"Get with it Lady! Feed Us!!!"

"Oh yeah, nom nom nom..."

"Oooh! Am I getting fed! YAY!"

(This is why we call him Chuckles)

"Hey, is that midget getting some food?
What is it? I'm not sure I approve!"

"Me either, lets check this out..."

"What about US?!?!?!"

"Oh sure, feed the bachelors last, we see how it is..."

Now, finally, it's time for MY breakfast!

The Boys Last Day...

This morning I went to the store and bought some freezer bags for the boys. I was planning on butchering them this afternoon, once the sun came out. As I was waiting for the clouds to blow away I got a phone call. The man I had been talking to about getting a Californian buck was calling me to see if I still had the two boys available! Talk about saved by the bell! About 20 minutes after he called the sun came out. If he had called any later they would have been bunny burgers!!!

BUT... when he showed up to get the boys he had a TRUCKLOAD of rabbits... Yes, I gave in to temptation... I traded one of the boys for this ADORABLE rex doe. Isn't she CUTE? They have really short dense fur that makes them feel like velvet. Plus, they are commonly used as meat rabbits! SCORE! I'm going to breed her with Sonny and see what happens. (Since Sonny is an albino all the babies will have their mothers coloring - hopefully they'll inherit the texture too!). I have a sneaking suspicion that she is already pregnant though... she has a HUGE stomach and her little teats are sticking through her fur. I put a nest box in there just to be on the safe side. We'll see!! (She was sold to the dealer as part of a foursome - 3 girls and 1 boy - so if she is preggers they will probably be purebred!)

So the boys were saved and I have a new girl! Since I haven't had much time with her yet, she's still unnamed. Any ideas?

Our Egg Sign... and a Rabbit Rumble

It occurred to me the other day that I hadn't posted a picture of the new sign I made!
In other news, the baby rabbits hormones have kicked in! The two males who have been sharing a cage are now separated! I was filling up the feeders and generall putzing around near the hutches when I noticed that the two boys were... um... "overly excited". That was ok, I mean, they weren't hurting each other... But then it escalated into all out fighting! They would run from either side of the cage and RAM each other! There were chunks of bunny fur flying!!! So, now they're separated.

Lesson learned! I will NOT keep babies this long again! (btw: they are just under 4 months old). I am planning on "taking care of business" some time this week. :(

Rennie Rabbit and Molly

Some pictures I took this morning... for your amusement... :). By the way, those marks on Rennie's side aren't from Molly, they are pee from him hanging out underneath his parents' hutch. Ewwww.... acid rain...

Super Bunny

Renegade Rabbit

We have an escapee!! One of the three males from Cher's litter flew the coop day before yesterday and has made himself quite at home in the pine trees behind the hutches. He's having a blast and seems to find it very funny that, try as I might, I can't get my hands on him!

He's figured out that the poop piles under the hutch are nice and warm!

We've decided (well, he has actually, since I can't catch him!) that we're going to let him roam the yard and "see what happens". He's already made friends with our cat Molly, they've been playing tag all morning - he does as much of the chasing as she does! Since he's made himself stand out from the crowd he's earned a name... Rennie (AKA Renegade Rabbit).

See him laughing at me??

Here is a shot of the new hutch. It is a MESS because it's been snowing non-stop for over a week and neatening up is not a priority right now. There are three sections on the top (with trays under them to catch the droppings) and eventually it will have 2 grow-out pens on the bottom for future litters. The striped awning flips down to give them some protection from the wind. This is in a temporary location. I'm planning on building a shed near the wood pile this spring for all of the hutches to go into. You can see the other two boys in the last cage... they didn't get out... Rennie's a sneaky one!

Not a Creature Was Stirring... Except for the POSSUM!

I hope everyone out there had a merry Christmas... we did. And to commemorate the occasion we took a "family portrait" by the tree.... complete with Rambo! Of COURSE we had to have a chicken in it! Come on now... who are you talking to here? :)

ANYWAY! I haven't written in a little while, so I have some catching up to do! After what happened last night I really have something to write about!

Last night around 11:00 I was standing out by the back door having a late night smoke in the thunderstorm that had just rolled in. It was raining pretty hard, but it was surprisingly warm out there. All of a sudden I heard a ruckus coming from the coop. The roosters in the bachelor pen were making scared noises. I ran out back (as fast as I could through the mud in my boyfriends ginormous shoes) and shined my flashlight into the pen. There on top of the hut was a HUGE POSSUM!! I hurried as fast as I could back to the house and told my MIL what was going on and to get the gun. I grabbed my little .22 pistol and my .22 rifle, she grabbed her revolver. (You'd think we were going to fight a war or something). We hurried back down there and I tried to balance my flashlight (which was really a little LED clip on book light - but it was the only light I had with good batteries!) and tried to shoot the damn thing. I unloaded my .22 pistol on him - I hit him, but I couldn't get a head shot so he was just getting pissed off. Then I grabbed the revolver and tried again. It was really hard to see so again, I missed his head. The darn thing only had 3 bullets in it... so I moved on to my rifle. FINALLY I got a shot to his head and he started dying in earnest. It seemed like it took forever to do this and my hands were shaking. This is the first thing I've shot other than targets. I don't feel bad though. Napoleons little brother was found dead a few weeks ago and I think this was the culprit. The ironic thing is, the boys pen is the only one that still has netting over it... I guess that's only good to keep the hawks out!

*Sigh*

In other news I had built a new rabbit hutch to hold the boys and to accommodate whatever future breeders we decide to keep. It came out nicely! I'll post pictures soon. I found some old wooden doors someone was giving away in the front yard of an old house that was being refurbished. They made really nice sides to the hutch. I even used some old tin sheeting to made a poop-slide so I could eventually put some grow out cages in a lower level beneath the upper breeder cages.

Right now the three boy bunnies are in it growing up. They are just about 12 weeks old now and I think their time has come. We are keeping the one female to breed next year (I named her Joplin because Chastity just wouldn't have worked with her job description), but the boys really don't have a use other than as meat. It's sad... they are really sweet, but that's why I "made" them so I need to just toughen up and take care of business.

My neighbor shot a nice doe last week and saved me the hide - so I'm trying to tan it myself. With the weather the way it's been and with my not being able to keep the hide inside I'm not sure how well it will come out. It's in the back near the coop with a makeshift tin roof over it. It might not make it... but I want to try!

Well, I'm still coming down from the adrenaline... that bastard (excuse me) possum killed one of my boys... I try to show respect for animals, especially in death... but I just wish this one had minded his own business and gone and raided someones garbage can like a good self respecting possum. Leave my chickens alone!!

Completely Silly

I'm away from my "farm" and I really miss them!  I must... I took the time to create this silliness in their honor...

Transporting Eggs In Your Suitcase

The Mighty Adventurer

Yeah, I did! I am visiting my parents back home and wanted to bring them some "real" eggs... but with all the restrictions on what you can bring on an airplane I was a little nervous. I called the airline and was told that I wasn't allowed to bring the eggs in my carry-on... but I could in my checked luggage! (What, are these eggs or hand grenades?!?) Anyway, just to be on the safe side I overpacked... I brought 4 dozen eggs in egg cartons (I have soft-sided suitcase!). Each egg carton was wrapped in papertowels then taped into it's own garbage bag. Then I nestled them nicely into my clothes and PRAYED!

Guess what? ONLY 5 BROKE!! Crazy right? Oh, and paper/cardboard cartons hold up better in cargo holds than the foam ones. All of the eggs that broke were in foam egg cartons.

The luggage inspectors must have thought I was mental!! :)

Since I didn't have any farm-ish pictures to share... I decided to share a picture of me in the Nanook of the North early Christmas present my mom got me :) I LOVE IT!