I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!On Sunday we went down to Arlington and brought home three new purebred, pedigreed New Zealand White rabbits from a different lineage for our breeding stock for $25 each. They are eight weeks old and it will take them a while to grow up. They are show quality rabbits. I forgot how small eight week olds are.
Meet Starbuck, Serenity, and Sweetie Belle.
Then on late Monday afternoon Piper kindled. She had seven healthy kits. They are the sweetest things, just these tiny, naked, pink squirmy bundles. If they weren't so squirmy I could fit three in one hand at a time. They make the cutest little noises. All of them had fat little tummies today so they are nursing well. Piper is such a good mama.
So right now with the seven newborns we have 19 rabbits in residence. That won't be the case for long though. Soon 5 of the 6 thirteen week olds will go to freezer camp, leaving only Lola to grow up and be breeding stock. It will be hard, but the whole point of this venture was to grow our own meat, so we would know exactly what went into it. We know what they have been fed and that they have been loved and cuddled and had happy lives. And we will know that those lives ended in a humane way.
DH is hard at work on a new frame for the new cages. We are keeping ahead of the space needs, but only just. I want to be completely ready for when I can move the three new youngsters out of quarantine and into the rabbit shed with the others after two weeks' time.
I am trying to locate a small livestock scale, so I can see the before and after amounts so I will know the dress out rate.
In six months' time I will have 3 breeding does and 1 breeding buck in one breeding line and 2 breeding does and 1 breeding buck in the other breeding line. Then I won't have to breed related rabbits to each other at all. It's not that big of a deal in meat rabbits, but a lot of people think it is weird based on human conventions. So if I ever want to sell live rabbits to people in the future, having bunnies from an unrelated doe and buck will make the squick factor not be there.
Aside from the $75 for the rabbits, I spent $30 for a new hay manger for them, and bought another $15 40 pound bag of feed. I found a new source for feed that uses no soy and no GMO. I found out about it from the breeder. And sure enough, one of the feed stores here carries it. And coincidentally they happen to have a meat rabbit expo going on this weekend, with a butchering demo. So we will buy a 50 pound bag of this feed when we go to it and start mixing the two together until the first is gone and then switch completely over.
So between the bunnies and homeschooling I have been pretty busy. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to catch up on the blogs again.
It's Been an Eventful Last Few Days
May 15th, 2013 at 06:47 am
May 15th, 2013 at 11:18 am 1368616717
May 15th, 2013 at 11:55 am 1368618957
May 15th, 2013 at 12:40 pm 1368621657
May 15th, 2013 at 02:37 pm 1368628649