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Coming Out of the Darkness

July 1st, 2014 at 09:40 am

It has been a rough 10 days. I came out of one virus and went directly down into another 2 days later. I couldn't keep food down for 5 days straight. Horrible, awful, nasty experience. Even when I had the bad stomach bug in October it wasn't like this. My stomach is still tender and I've gone 3 days without throwing up now. But I can't eat much. At least I can drink now, though. Getting my calories through rabbit broth and chicken broth and fruit bars.

Despite being ill, I had to help with butchering. We did 8 rabbits and 4 Pekins and I don't know how many chickens. I had to keep running back inside to be sick and I did the least handling of the icky parts, like fetching the live animals. But we have 3 full shelves in the upright freezer of just chicken parts in gallon bags and 28 quart baggies of cut up breast meat for stir-fry in our chest freezer, too. We shouldn't have to buy chicken this year at all. I am not sure if I would raise chickens again. Maybe if I could take them to a processing facility.

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but a week ago Sunday we brought home 4 one-year-old Welsh Harlequin females. Well, those ducks started laying once the Pekins were gone and we've gotten 3 eggs so far. After the 4 Pekins were butchered we've now got 9 Welsh Harlequins. At least 2 of the males will have to be butchered in a couple weeks as a ratio of four drakes to 5 ducks is too hard on the females once the drakes hit maturity. In the end we might only be able to keep one drake, but I hope we can keep two.

Also during this week we hauled all of the used bedding off the property. It took 4 pickup loads. One load went to the dump, but the other 3 went to a lady who had just moved to a farm and wanted to start a deep mulch garden, so we were able to take all of it out there. I could not do much of that work at all. I wasn't strong enough with the illness. But I rode out in the truck with my husband.

Today I spread a bit of finished compost onto the hay bales and I will be planting them tomorrow with broccoli, cauliflower, and purple kohlrabi. The husband got up two more gutters on the turkey pen. One I will be succession planting radishes in and the other will be for snow peas which will climb up the lattice.

I had a decent day on one day this week and I made some garden update videos if you'd like to see how those are progressing.

Fruit Garden Update:

Text is http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE and Link is
http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE

Hay Bale Garden Update:

Text is http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE and Link is
http://youtu.be/M4-wkFrHLmE

Straw Bale Garden Update:

Text is http://youtu.be/8mRkO0xPsEM and Link is
http://youtu.be/8mRkO0xPsEM

I am starting to rethink the idea of becoming a farmer. I might just be beat and been put through the wringer, but doing just the rabbits was never as hard when I was sick as having two types of meat birds, 3 if you count the turkeys but they won't be ready for months, and 2 types of laying poultry.

I am thinking rabbits, laying ducks, and laying hens, and that may be the limit. Unless I can get someone else to process them. I am selling some of my breeding stock and reducing my herd. I sold Fiona on Sunday and Andromeda goes on Tuesday. It is possible that Leo will go with her to the colony setting. I am hoping to sell another proven buck, too, but that is harder to do than selling proven does.

I have two rabbits, Serena and Kalia, due to kindle in 3 to 4 days. I really hope we have some milder weather for it. After Wednesday it is supposed to drop back down to the low to mid 70's again, which would be perfect for delivering on the 3rd or the 4th.

The bunny that I had fed with a dropper after her mother died we are keeping. Her name is Luna Blue and she is a companion for Firefly to grow up with. Firefly seems so much happier to have another kit in with her and Luna Blue is definitely happy to not be alone after all her siblings went to freezer camp. They made friends very fast.

If Luna Blue ever hits breeding weight we may put her into the breeding program, but she will be a pet otherwise. We never expected Kalia would hit weight, either. It just took her a few months longer.

I still want to do aquaponics, too. That part has never gone away. And maybe butchering meat ducks and chickens is time consuming, but quail still aren't. So if I stick with raising meat animals, I do have some other options. I think if I do it though, I'd try to raise a batch of 10 birds every 3 weeks and not 30 to 50 birds in a short span of time and end up overwhelmed by it.

We'll see. At this point I shouldn't be making any decisions anyway.

11 Responses to “Coming Out of the Darkness”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    1404215279

    I think you are already a farmer! Maybe not full time like you imagine, but you are. I sure hope you feel better soon. Illness is no fun EVER.

  2. SecretarySaving Says:
    1404216744

    You definitely stay busy and work hard. It's noticed! I hope you get to feeling better.

  3. CB in the City Says:
    1404220379

    Well, I'm exhausted just reading about it! I can't imagine doing all that while sick. For some reason I thought you were sending your rabbits, at least, to a processor. Keep monitoring how you feel. Some dreams don't turn out like you thought; there is no shame in changing direction.

  4. Looking Forward Says:
    1404227828

    Doing all that work while sick will slow down recovery time for sure.
    I hope you can get some rest and feel 100% soon! Smile

  5. snafu Says:
    1404232619

    Get well soon. Looking forward to photos of bunnies cavorting outside

  6. LuckyRobin Says:
    1404232637

    CCF--Well, urban homesteader at the least. Today is a little better. I had pudding for breakfast with my broth. That's a step in the right direction.

  7. LuckyRobin Says:
    1404232666

    SS--Thank you.

  8. LuckyRobin Says:
    1404232694

    Snafu--

    I'll have some up in a couple of days.

  9. LuckyRobin Says:
    1404232916

    CB--I took a lot of breaks. No, we don't have anyone local who processes rabbits so we do all the butchering ourselves. They are fairly easy. DH can do one in 8 minutes. We don't even have anyone local who does poultry right now, but a place is in the process of opening up so I'm hoping by the time the turkeys are ready in November they will be, too. They will only take chickens and turkeys when they start, but will add waterfowl once they get going.

  10. LuckyRobin Says:
    1404233250

    LF--Yes, now that all the work is pretty much done, I am going to spend a couple of days in bed with a pile of books.

  11. rob62521 Says:
    1404257494

    You have stayed super busy, despite being under the weather. Hope you are feeling stronger.

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