It's Been a While

[amberfocus]

Have I really not posted anything for nine days? Gosh, I suppose when you lose the LJ habit...

School is almost done. Rose gets out on Wednesday and is more than ready to put her junior year behind her. Tobias only needs to finish up his compare and contrast literature essay and we are done homeschooling until September. Which I am more than ready for. It means time to write things that are not blog entries. Actual fiction, for a change. I have worked some on The Watchmaker's Daughter, but not near enough to be a chapter.



Our first processing day for the rabbits was on Sunday. We did five. It was...hard. Not as hard as I thought, but still hard. I was stoic during, but a little weepy afterwards. It took about 30 minutes per rabbit. That will improve as we get better at it. We got 18 pounds of meat and 1 pound of livers out of it, plus five furs to tan (they are in the freezer for now until I have enough to do a batch of tanning solution). Not bad for $17 worth of feed and $3 worth of hay. I think small scale farming will pay off for us. Lola keeps giving me reproachful looks. She is the only one we saved out from her litter and I think she is missing her former cage mates a bit. I am not sure if we will keep her as a breeder, or grow her out, give her one successful litter, and then sell her as a successful breeding doe.

The kits are growing well. They hit five weeks on Sunday and 2 of them are already over two pounds. The adorableness factor is at it's peak. I am trying hard not to become too attached, but they are just so darn cuddly. I am hoping that one of the big ones is a girl because they are both so super friendly I will keep one for breeding for sure. Skittish does make things harder than they need to be.

We have our rabbit tractors (portable pens) built now, so tomorrow, assuming the weather is nice, we will start giving them turns out on the grass. During the summer we may not have to mow the lawn at all as we will move the tractors to a new location every day. The rabbits will eat it down well. We made the tractors large. Six feet long by two feet wide by two feet tall. That is so they can run back and forth and also so they can go up on their hind legs without reaching the top. They like to stand up like that.

I've introduced them to chard, radish tops, carrots (not too often, too sugary), carrot tops, lemon balm, oregano, raspberry leaves, blackberry leaves, parsley, and cilantro. It really solves the problem of what to do with the leftover cilantro when you've made your salsa and still have two cups left of the herb.

I have another 9 to 11 or so days to go before I find out for sure whether or not Phoebe accidentally got pregnant when she jumped out of T's arms when Leo was out of his cage. If she starts nest building and pulling fur than she's pregnant. We think we got him off her in time, but we just don't know for sure. Bunnies move quick. The second bunny phrase I now have personal knowledge of: "quick as a bunny" (the first being shag like bunnies). I really hope she isn't pregnant. I wasn't planning to breed her until July 2nd when she will be six months old.

She should be okay if she is pregnant, but I was hoping to breed her and Piper on the same day so that if she has problems with her first litter I can foster the kits to Piper who is a good mother. First time mothers run the risk of not understanding what to do, especially if they are young and without Piper as backup I am a little worried. Piper had two week old kits at the time and I wasn't going to rebreed her then on the off chance. Oh, well. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed that she can figure it out.

Comments

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

wow... I do envy you that you have room for having natural food sources at your house. I've been trying to eat pretty paleo and living in an apartment that's pretty expensive.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

It is nice to have the room to grow food and to raise livestock. It does free up a good amount of money from the grocery budget, though I still have to count animal feed into the costs.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Did you do the slaughtering yourself?

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

We did. Chris did the killing and I helped with the skinning. He did the gutting and then we aged the meat for 2 days and then I cut it into pieces and packaged it. It would have cost $5 per rabbit to take it to a slaughterhouse and they don't really like to do small orders like that. Plus if we do it, we know how humanely they are being killed.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

I would think the real test would be how the meat tastes - though at just over a dollar a pound, I'd say you're doing great. I can't help but read the list of what you're feeding the bunnies and thinking, "mmm, marinade". Which is probably pretty awful. (The thought, not the combination of greens.)

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Rabbit is incredibly good. We are waiting a little while before eating it, but I will probably fry some up for Sunday dinner.

Yeah, thinking of it as marinade is kind of gallows humor. We did that a bit, too.