CrimsonRose's Cataloged Catastrophes! Electric went out Bator got cold

[Wifezilla]

Ok. Pout over

Wow is Big Mama BIG!!!! (And your daughter is a total cutie )

 

[glenolam]

Shy little big foot sure has one big ear!

They are all very beautiful! I sure miss my rabbits...

 

[CrimsonRose]

Yay Speckles!!! No stew pot for her!!!

43 babies, wow!! Oh and Mr Papatotie is the most handsome rabbit ever.

Ok give me a run down. How long have you been breeding? How did you learn about rabbits and who does the deed???

I would love to try but I haven't managed a chicken yet. So that's my first goal.

g

We raised rabbits when I was a kid on my grandma's farm... but they sold the farm when I was about 10... I've had pet rabbits off and on since I've been married (past 10 years) but didn't decide to get into meat rabbits and breeding till about 2 years ago... Now we have about 10 adult breeders and 3 more babies we are keeping to add to our breeding herd... Rabbits are just about the easiest farm animal to raise there really isn't much to learn when comparing them to chickens with egg hatching brooders and such... Rabbits you basically just feed and water... toss the girl in with the boy when you want babies only takes a few mins... then one month later give her a box and BAM you have babies... Then just keep feeding and watering till D-day... As part of her chores my 8 year old daughter does most of the daily rabbit feeding and care... She's been doing this since she was 6...

As for the deed hubby has done a few and I've done a few... even though they are cute and fuzzy they are easier to "do the deed" they seem to die much easier than a chicken... Plus SOOOOO much easier to skin and clean...

They do take a tad longer to tend to.... since they are all in individual cages instead of one big cage and one big feeder like the chickens... But they grow out faster than normal duel purpose chickens do... so you get meat in about 4 months from time of breeding... where a chicken takes about 6-7 months from the time of an egg to table... and 2 month worth of raising them the momma rabbit does all the care... no brooder needed... Summer time they eat garden scraps or weeds the kiddos pull up... so you can almost feed them free in the summer... and free meat is always nice...

In the winter I've averaged the amount of feed I give to the mom rabbit and the babies.... and I have about 3-4 dollars in each baby bun... I would have that much in just buying the baby chicks if I wanted cornish-x from a hatchery... then you still have to buy feed...

Each year I sell a bunch of babies to pay for additional cages feed bowls and such... so right now I'm raising my bun practically free... after this next batch if I sell a few... then all my expenses (other than the feed cost over winter) my buns will have basically paid me back for all the money I invested in their cages and such in the beginning... (where as the chickens end up costing more than if I just go buy my eggs at the store...)

 

[Denim Deb]

How long have you been breeding?

I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good.

 

[CrimsonRose]

Anyhow...

Today was a great day! it almost got up to 70 today nice and sunny! Mud covering everything... but mud is way better than ice and snow!

I worked on cleaning up my raised beds and added some more bunny poo... 2 beds are now ready for plants and mulch! I am going to try and tear apart one bed and expand it soon and try to get one more built before May... I hope I can get it done those things are not easy to build with the rocks... but they look pretty and you can't beat the cost (free)

I'm going to put in an order for more shrubs and fruit trees tomorrow!!! Basically going to order a whole dwarf tree orchard... we have a few standard trees that haven't grown an inch the 2 years they have been in the ground here... so I'm going to see if I can get the dwarf ones grown up a bit in 5 gal buckets then when they are a good size plant them in the ground... I'm going to order them from directgardening.com I ordered from them before and while their stock isn't great they are super cheap and have a great replacement guarantee that makes it worth the extra work...

As for the baby buns they are all still doing great... Speckles did tip over her nest box today... twice... so I'm hoping she just did it accidentally with her big butt jumping in and out... SO I screwed the box down to prevent her from tipping it again... She didn't act like she was trying to hurt them any and didn't even growl at me when I fixed them back into the box... so I'm still hoping she is going to be a good mom...

I also dug out my bator today... I have 14 eggs sitting on the counter waiting to go in... I hope they all turn to be decent chickens... I looked at ordering some chicks from a hatchery... but really don't need 25 hens... plus it's hard to justify about 70 bucks on baby chicks! I know it's not bad... but I keep thinking I have free eggs laid fresh for a bator everyday... My main draw back is the hens are some sort of road island red cross and they are amazing layers... laid great all winter even without extra light... but our roo is a silkie... So I hope his genes of broodiness gets passed on but also hope he doesn't hinder their laying abilities... oh well I guess it's worth a shot...

Anyone else hatch out a similar cross chicken before? if so how were they for layers?

 

[CrimsonRose]

well Day 2 and babies are still all doing well! All 19 of them! woot!

The day was so beautiful out and I got a lot of yard work done... tidied up a bit and worked on the garden beds some more...

While outside one of the extra roos we have freeranging attacked my 3 year old... She was NO where near him he decided to run across the yard and just attack her!

Well I have put off processing them since Oct... Back in Oct we had 3 extra roos I was going to process... my eldest daughter was going to help... well we did the first one and the processing went bad... first his neck didn't break and then my knife was too dull to finish bleeding him out... well my daughter had helped with some quail before and they die quiet... He squawked and beat his wings... it was awful... it scared her (and me) and she began crying (this girl is tough as nails and doesn't cry!) so I sent her in the house and finished off the bird... By this point I was a nervous wreck and the roo was a tad too old and I had a hard time trying to skin him... well almost an hour later I'm almost finished and ready to gut him.. well I cut the gut it went everywhere and I pretty much ruined the meat... I was so upset and frustrated I just put him in the compost pile and went in the house... I was already quite upset and almost ready to cry... well the phone rings to tell me my father passed away...

For a week after that I had nightmares of that chicken dying... and I just couldn't bring myself to process the other 2 roos... So I just let them freerange all winter and tossed them scraps and they were fine...

But after one attacked my eldest daughter a few days ago and then one attacked my baby today... well nightmares or not they had to go... Hubby refuses to help with any farm stuff (even though he knows killing bothers me something awful and it doesn't bother him like that) So even though I've begged him for weeks to just kill them for me... he still kept putting it off...

So I did one of them myself today... He died quick but it took me forever to skin the boy!!! but one more will be processed tomorrow he's in a cage for the night... I just hope I can sleep ok tonight...

 

[Denim Deb]

Congrats on doing the deed! I have 2 that will be going to freezer camp real soon.

 

[CrimsonRose]

well here is an update... both rabbit mama's are doing great! Babies are fully furred and a few have their eyes starting to open... We did lose a couple (moms just couldn't feed that many) I tried to bottle feed but that rarely goes well so we put them down... but we still have 16 little fatties and for 2 first time mama's I think we are doing well!

I have another doe due in a few days and put some bedding in her nest box today... She is a first time mom as well so hope all goes well with her... then 3 more does are due in a couple of weeks... :bun

I did put some eggs in the bator! they are due to hatch on the 11th of march... I candled them and seen some developing... I stink at candling so the ones I couldn't tell I left in there as well... There are 14 and at least 8 are defiantly developing! woot!

Other news I never got around to processing that 2nd roo yet the weather got nasty so he has been siting in a cage awaiting the D-day...

I went out yesterday and found one of my chickens sick... She acted like she was gasping for air and she sneezed a few times... It's been a muddy mess and cold so I'm hoping it's just a cold... Chickens can get regular colds right? My flock hasn't been exposed to any other chickens or anything...

I isolated her in an old rabbit hutch we have down by the house and she still isn't herself today... I put some powdered antibiotics in her water to see if it helps... not sure what else to do for her...

She is one of the older chickens we were planning to butcher when the weather was nicer... since they all stopped laying (haven't gotten a blue egg since the beginning of August) but this past week they started laying again and we got 2 blue eggs today... So I may let them live out the summer since they are laying something... The chicks I'm hatching won't be laying till the end of summer so the few extra eggs a week will be nice... They are much easier to feed through summer as well since we will have garden scraps...

 

[TanksHill]

How long have you been breeding?

I will be good. I will be good. I will be good. I will be good.

Nice Deb.

Thanks for all the info. It sounds like your rabbits are a great win win situation.

g

 

[CrimsonRose]

Well we had a massive storm really early this morning... and the electric went out... and my bator got cold!
When the electric first went out I dug out a flashlight that puts out a little heat and put it in there and wrapped it up in blankets really well... I checked on the temp over the next hour and the flashlight was keeping it steady at 98 degrees... Hubby offered to turn on the generator but I didn't want to waste all that gas just for a bator if I could keep it warm otherwise... and the storm was over in a matter of mins so I didn't think the electric would be out too long...

Anyhow that happened at about 5am... way to early for this nonmorning girl... so after the first hour and I seen the the bator keeping steady I went back to bed and hubby left for work... The rain must have made me doze off a little longer than planed but by the time I got up it was almost 3 hours later the electric was out for about 4 hours the flashlight battery was dead and the temp was 89... :/ So I refilled the battery in the flashlight but it still wasn't heating it up it was only keeping it at 89... We have a small power converter that hooks up to the car battery but by the time I finally found an extension cord and got it hooked up (almost another 20-30 mins later the power finally came back on...

I plugged the bator back in and it took it about 20 mins to heat back up before the lights kicked off... so for at least and hour and a half possibly longer the eggs got cold... I had this happen once before with quail eggs and some still hatched but I've never been super successful with chicken eggs to begin with... I'm hoping all my chicken hatching disasters was due to bad postal shipping...

I'm going to try to candle the eggs again here in a few to see if they are ok...

more bad news my chicken is still sick... she doesn't look as bad as the first day we found her sick but she does still have a sneeze... I don't know anything about chicken illnesses... so I'm hoping I'm doing the right thing with putting antibiotics in her water... I hate using drugs but I didn't know what else to do for her...

more animal drama... I have a new doe due here in the next couple of days... but she refuses to leave the bedding in her nestbox and kicks it all out... I hope I can get hubby to make me a new box tonight for her with higher sides but it's pouring the rain and cold... not good weather to want to work outside in... So If I can't get him to make me another box this girl better learn to leave the bedding in the box...

on to more good news... all 16 baby buns are still doing well... one of the new zealands has some unique fur... I thought it was going to be black like it's mama but it's black with brown and grey peppering in it's coat with what looks like it's going to be a white or grey belly... It's going to be cute! not sure where the weird markings come from though since both mom and pop are full new zealands her grandma must have had a fling with the milk man or something when the breeder wasn't looking... :bun