Welcome to the Farm

Four Americauna Pullets

Came home with us today.

Welcome to the Farm.

Skittish

I've come to the realization that I can't learn to do anything right without first doing it every possible way wrong. Or surmounting every concievable obstacle and problem surrounding whatever task or project I want to undertake. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not.

It was like that with the garden. Blight, mildew, various bugs, drought, flooding, no fertilization, no sprouts, and disease. And that was just in my first year. This year has been better. I can at least say that.

Yesterday, I had gathered up my camera and variety of rabbit care tools in the hopes of capturing me grooming one of the boys.  So I could show everyone that even a novice with no mentor, no farm past and no farm present can have a tiny slice of the life we Barnheart'ers crave.

It went well...at first. I relieved Duncan of another mass of soft-as-air fluff. I trimmed off a hidden mat on his hind leg. All the while he was perfectly fine. Oh, there was the one moment when I was sitting in my anirondack chair softly cooing to the gentle beast while gathering his white gold when he got a bit spooked and jumped off my lap. I let him go, grabbing for him could hurt him more than the short jump from my knees to the wood pallet deck. He stopped after he landed and I scooped him back up and proceeded with the trimming.

He seemed fine. Until I put him back in his cage, his face smeared with blood. When things like this happen my heart jumps into my throat and otherwise stops altogether. Breath catches in my lungs, I have to tamp down the panic. I checked him over and found one nail hanging in the fur of his front paw. Somewhere during the trim -I'm thinking when he lept- it ripped off. The entire nail. Black claw and white bed. The blood flowed hard and red, he favored the other leg. Duncan washed perfusely which only aided in smearing the fresh red blood all over his stark white fur, leaving him looking like a derranged psychotic carnivore. The contrast was startling.

I left him to tend himself unsure what the proper course of action was. They don't cover these things in Rabbits for Dummies. I hopped on the Rabbit Talk board and frantically posted a question about what to do.

Thankfully, it seems this will take care of itself. It needs to stay clean and Duncan needs to stay calm so he doesn't rip it open while it heals. As long as infection doesn't set it, he'll be fine. This morning I went out and he greeted me at the door, his face white again and weight seemed equally distributed between front paws. Breath I didn't know I held was released in an audible sigh. I'm not going to finish his trim for at least a week while he heals. No out-of-cage exploring for him either.

I could have posted how wonderful the event went yesterday and omitted the part when my rabbit profusely bled all over and scared the hell out of me. I could have made my homesteading experience a vision of a slowly fulfilling dream-life but that's not how I function. The good comes with the bad. My learning seems to thrive on haywire and the unplanned. Yes, I'm skittish like a rabbit in an open meadow with hawks circling above when it comes to expanding my homesteading endeavors. The loss of Flora still has me nervous about those two new does I'm considering. But even with all the problems chalked up to learning, all the bitching and all the heartache my life really is a slowly fulfilling dream.

The Boys.

Duncan.

Duncan and Conner.

Another set of "Oh no"

The puppy is sick. Still pooping worms. We came home at ten last night to a diarreah explosion all over the beadboard wall behind her crate. We freaked out she ate grapes and feverously researched that for about half an hour. Rob and I both searching on both our computers at the same time. Its something that can kill her. Then thought maybe it was the little sample of free food we got from Tractor Supply (which we will NOT be feeding her again).

The bunny isn't eating. Two days and he hasn't more than touched his pellets. I've been putting off shaving him. Now I'm worried I really messed up by not. He's got mats in his fur which we've been slowly cutting out but it's been cold. I don't want him to be too cold by taking away too much fur. Now I think he has wool block. Something that can kill him.

The feedstore isn't open today either so I can't go get anything for either of them. I have some worm meds for the pup but she was just dewormed just over 2 weeks ago and then the week before that. I have to see if she can have it already. The bunny is getting slices of banana with the skins which he will eat which is hopeful.

Scared I'll be losing my animals.

Building A Bunny Hutch

Duncan has been sitting on the porch in a 30x30 cage which is all well and fine except his droppings have been getting scattered all over the place even with a pan beneath him. He was also really close to the ground and we have a large feral cat community here. There's possums and raccoons too.

Before we got him we wanted to have a hutch in the very well shaded back yard. He's an angora, remember, so we have to be really careful with his cooling in the summer. We had drawn up plans for lots of impressive wooden/metal hutches based on the models that run in the $200-400 range. Well, those didn't work out so much. They've got a lot of exposed wood which can be pee'd on or chewed. We came up with a design that integrated the 2 30x30 metal frames, would be easy to clean and didn't cost anywhere near $200 to build.

First off you have to get yourself ready. Tools and safety are important, as is being warm while you work. Get an outfit similar to this but beware, it attracts a certain kind of octopus...

Here is the frame for the 2 cages. The roof is slanted and will be covered with corrugated aluminum roofing we had left over from the building of the shed that this is now attached to.

Here's Rob and his foreman Alex. Keep warm me boy!

It's important to have the proper tools for working. Like a screw holder.

Or a ladder.

Here's a photo just cause he's a handsome guy so engrossed in his project he didn't know I was taking photos.

The back and sides are on the hutch. More aluminum lines the inside walls and metal sheathing (I think that's the right term) covers the wood frame. Like a huge urine guard.

The bottom is open so the droppings can easily be harvested. (Yes, I just did say we're harvesting bunny poop). They're about chest high here too which will make it better protection from predators. Bunnies can get scared if they can't get away. They can have heart attacks.

Most of the wood is treated but we gave it a once over with Killz and added a top part to the front roof so cats and whatnots can't hop on top of the cages. It's important to have your "helpers" keep busy with various other projects.

Here's the completed hutch sans Duncan.

I picked up a toddler play yard at Target for 75% off. It was normally $129 and I scored it for $35. I'll use this to house the buns when I have to clean the cages and when I want to let them get some exercise. Duncan can fit through the bars so he has to be supervised in it.

We used a blow torch to clean off the matted urine dried hair that accumulated on the bottom of the cage.

Rob took over this project...I think he just wanted to play with fire.

 

And finally, here's Dunk settled in his cage.

What a weekend project this was. Happy Valentine's Day to me! and Duncan :)

Our first homestead livestock

Ok so I'll admit it's a pretty small step towards homesteading. At least it is a step. Sunday we drove out to pick up Angora Rabbits for our homestead. It was quite a time.

We arranged to meet at one thirty at the breeders home in Polk City. It's about a half hour drive straight down the highway then another ten minutes slowly navigating the unpaved backroad to her house.

Mary was outside waving us in when we pulled up the drive. She runs a dog rescue in addition to breeding rabbits and her back (well, really front) yard dozen or so chickens and was outside walking one of the dogs when we arrived.

We walked around outside looking at her bunnies. She initially had a REW Angora buck born in May and this guy -a French/English Angora mix- for sale. The REW had started sniffling that morning so she pulled him from sale. I was a little disappointed but it was good to know she wasn't going to pawn off a sick bun on us. That left us the huge cotton ball of a rabbit above.

His little nose was twitching constantly while I held him and cooed to him while we talked about care and feeding and such. I met his dam and sire a few cages down from him. They seemed nice and came to the wire of the cage to sniff us a hello. He gets his black ears and nose from mom.

He's a lot bigger than he looks in the photo but not hefty. The three or so inches of thick wool make him look like an oversized snowball with a face. He's luxuriously plush and was relatively calm through our handlings. He got skittish a few times but settled down quickly. Mary went over his care and showed me how to clip his nails. We packed him up in a cat carrier we had picked up from TSC just a few hours before. We were as nervous as first time parents bringing home a babe. Constantly checking on him during the ride. I looked over my Storey's Guide for Rabbits on the way back nervous I was missing something vital. Or maybe hoping I'd find a quick blurb that would tell me it would work out fine.

He settled into his new 30x30 cage quickly. It was a bit larger than he had before. We had bought a wooden plateau house thing for him to get into incase he got scared. At the store Rob thought I'd be plenty big but we quickly realized the fluffy guy couldn't get into it. It's now on it's side like a cubby but he doesn't seem to mind. Rob spent the better part of an hour fashioning a free feed manger for Timothy hay that attaches to the outside of the pen.*

The kids were excited and I'm pleased to report they were fairly calm and understanding about the bun needing quiet and his own time. They are bugging me regularly to go "check" on him but that's ok. I want them excited and happy about the animals we bring to our  home. They're family even if they're live stock. Someday I hope this bun can sire us some kits that have his wonderous wool.

We had a bit of a freak out when we put the bun in his cage and realized he was eating some stray old oak leaves that had blown into the mesh wire cage. The search results for "Rabbit oak toxic" came back with some alarming results. I ran to my homesteadingtoday.com forum friends and got feedback that he'd be okay. My first afternoon and I thought I'd killed the bunny. This whole livestock thing is going to be an experience. I think I'm up for it even if it can be scary.

After two more before bed checks in the freezing for Florida weather and another early morning pop out to check the bun, he's doing alright. There was a baby possom on the porch when Rob went out for that last check but he was shoo'd away easily and the bunny blanket cover over the cage was secured with a variety of items. A stroller, 2 paving stones, my bucket of gardening supplies and a cooler. He's an outside bunny so vigilance against predators is necessary. He's still skittish, getting used to his new home. I hope soon he'll warm up to us a bit. This morning I treated bunny (man, we really need to get him a name) to a single basil leaf. He nibbled it quickly from my outstreched hand. I hope he realizes we're not crappy people to take him from his bunny friends. Though he was in a cage alone he was surrounded by other buns with just wire separating him. We might need to get him a friend or two soon.

*I'll take photos and see if Rob can tell me how he made it. It's fashioned out of hardware cloth and some sort of tape. It's really quite the thing.