Savingdogs-Saving the chickens

[savingdogs]

The buns are great! I enjoy them. They are little beauties and getting to know me. None of them are bred yet however, one half of each pair is not quite old enough. Junior and Sister are siblings and have to finish growing up first, but I can breed them for the first time in March (to their mates, not each other). I need to work on trimming their nails for the first time very soon. And also get little kindling boxes ready for Nana and Sister. I have found one buck, Gramps, eats twice as much as the others so he will be a more expensive one to keep, but he has one of the best personalities. He is not old, he has light markings around the eyes that remind me of my old golden retriever is why his name is Gramps. Males are supposed to be friendliest in my breed (Creme d' Argent) so this is normal. We are feeding Purina Professional, I hope that is a good choice, and free choice hay, plenty. I probably could breed Nana to Gramps, but that is her son and the breeder did not suggest doing that so I'm following her advice. Nana is the show bunny of the group. I'd really like to wait and breed her to Junior in March as my mentor suggested. Hoping for some nice kits I can sell too since she is my special one. We made each cage HUGE and I like that, very easy to keep clean.

Hubby, who will be the processor, does not even want to get to know the parents! We will never eat these four because I pledged this to my mentor, but it will be hard for hubby to process them as he adores animals. But for me, I'm looking forward to eating rabbit, just not Junior, Gramps, Sister or Nana. Easy for my brain to process, like the ducks; those babes will be dinner or $. We ate rabbit in Los Angeles and it was so tender and good. I'm also looking forward to working with those hides.....I've been re-reading Jean Auel's books in preparation for the new one coming out and I'm into hides suddenly. These rabbits are gorgeous!

I wonder if Ayla's way of tanning hides would really work? Did Jean Auel really research neanderthals tanning methods? I'm tempted to save a little brain and find out. I believe the brain of the animal was spread over the hide after the fat was scraped off. Wouldn't mocasins of rabbit fur be cool? I was thinking of making us some indian footwear. This area was once occupied by native americans (for the berries) AND we bought this place here from people who were following native american traditions because of their ancestry. There was even a sweat lodge frame on the property when we first looked at it (they moved it). So mocasins would be fit in here! We shall see what my little hides are like first I guess.

Picture from today:

 

[savingdogs]

Photo time!

This was taken of my goats last spring (tried for something recent, but they were grumpy from snow), while we were taking a goat walk on our trail. You can kind of see what most of our land looks like however from this shot. That is our camping trailer in the background and I think Hubby and Bindi Jo are in this shot too. Molly is the black agouti, Donald is the darker larger brown one and Ginger is the lighter smaller brown one (the infamous four-teated pregnant doe!).

More to come....I want to see how this come out.

 

[savingdogs]

I had some pictures here of my chicken coop and rabbits, but edited them out to make space. The rabbits are gorgeous.....the coop is ..................homemade!

 

[savingdogs]

Here are the girls....some of them at least. I don't think any of my EEs are in this one.


And one final one. This is the back of the house and the window I look out of when I'm in our room. I get a nice vantage point of all the assorted animals in their pens. I'm right inside that window there, just tap on the glass and I'll go around to let you in!

 

[BarredBuff]

Very nice pictures, chickens, goats!!! AND VERY PRETTY RABBITS!!

 

[Dooley]

OMG, your goats are adorable! And those chickens (especially those speckled ones) are gorgeous!

 

[lorihadams]

Pretty!!!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

yeah! what are those speckly chickens!??!?!



ps we have the MIL's subaru for the week. i gotta say.. i'm a total hater but at least it gets better gas mileage than our big truck! i thought of you today when i saw it in our driveway

 

[savingdogs]

The speckly chickens are my orloffs.

They are the whole reason I'm here! You see, a long time ago, I knew nothing about these forums or BYC. We went to the feed store to buy THREE OR FOUR rhode island red chicks. On the way there, we decided to buy eight in case we lost a few raising them, since we were newbies. By the time we got home from the feed store, we had 12.

Well, right away, we thought we could see half were cockerels because they were bigger and friendlier and redder. We sold one even. We were bummed because they were supposed to be sexed pullets.

Then the "girls" started looking weird. White feathers everywhere. And the "boys" were looking like females. So I started researching what spotted chickens should look like and found Backyard Chickens. I looked and looked for pictures like my speckled pullets, but found nothing. So I "joined" and took pictures of them.

Right away, Russian Orloff enthusiasts chimed right in and told me I had rare russian orloffs. I was stunned. I called the feed store. They had indeed had russian orloffs on special order, and six had disapeared! They did not realize they had gotten mixed into the RIR chick bin.

I was bummed and right away, traded three of them for two RIR hens and my wonderful Charlie the Roo Harper, who was a wonderful addition, we love him.

In any event, I stayed with BYC and eventually wandered over here too.

I ADORE my subaru......and the last subaru I had. I hope to have a subaru of some kind forever. What would Abifae say? I lubs my subaru!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

that is hilarous! all of it.... you and your fancy chickens! and a roo named Charlie Harper! ha!

all of the 'special' chicks i got at the feed store turned out to be roosters. drat.

anyway. i bet your subaru doesnt smell like bad poodles. this one does... grump grump grump.

at one point the MIL said we should buy her stupid 'suub'.. of course we wouldnt have even gotten the family discount..... i told my hubby over my dead body and that was the end of the discussion.

anyway.

today when he was loading out the car he left the back hatch open and our barncat, Shine, jumped into the car. i was all "oh no he'll pee in it" and my hubby was all "not that you'd notice and it would probably smell better." ha!

later all the dogs walked by to hike their legs up on it. heck i think even little kai pee'd on that stupid car. ha!

oh hey i owe you a pm.. did you get your box cleaned out?


;-)