It’s been a while since we posted…so what have we been up to at the farm? Actually, we’ve been on vacation in the south of France. Just kidding! Here’s the real roundup: Continue reading “Weekly Roundup: Farm Happenings”
Tag: Rabbits
February Kits: First Day On Pasture
We wrote this post yesterday, when it was sunny and beautiful out…it’s raining, dark, and gloomy today.
The rabbit kits born in February are 8 weeks old now. Time has flown! We would normally move them out into the tractors sooner (once weaned), but the weather has been unpredictable and there’s recently been heavy rainfall, so we waited until the ground had absorbed the moisture. Today’s 80 degree weather has really helped dry the ground out. Continue reading “February Kits: First Day On Pasture”
No Cable Here, But “Chicken And Duck TV” Is On All Day
One of the best things about living on a farm is being able to turn on the ever-entertaining and variety-filled “chicken and duck” (and rabbit) channel. You never know what you’re going to see!
This past winter, we spent a lot of time with the chickens and ducks lately after finishing up morning chores because that seemed to be when the hawks most commonly appeared. While it’s within the realm of possibility for a hawk to swoop down and grab a chicken and duck right in front of a farmer, the hawks like to hunt when people or other livestock guardians aren’t around. Why? Because they’re opportunists: they want an easy meal with low risk of injury to themselves. Unfortunately, a young, inattentive chicken fits the bill. Continue reading “No Cable Here, But “Chicken And Duck TV” Is On All Day”
Farm Project Update: Breeding Pens, Not So Much
We recently described how we had constructed a couple of tractor-style enclosures for the French Black Copper Marans and American Bresse breeding groups. While we’d like to tell you that they worked exactly as intended, that wouldn’t be reflective of reality…
We should all be able to agree that no one likes it when projects don’t work out as envisioned, especially ones that require a fair amount of toil. Nonetheless, that’s exactly what happens sometimes. We think it’s important to share “lessons learned” as well as successes so that others may benefit from the identification of our mistakes and process improvements (and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes). Continue reading “Farm Project Update: Breeding Pens, Not So Much”
Naughty Baby Lagomorphs: The Real Story
The rabbit kits are 2 weeks old now, and their eyes are open. What does that mean? Trouble.
Once they realize they can get out of the nest box, they go pretty much everywhere in the kindling cage. And they constantly harass the does, trying to crawl under them for a meal. Sometimes the mothers look like they’ve just gone to their “happy place”, ignoring the squirmy, hyper kits.
There’s no denying that the kits are incredibly cute at this age. They have fur now, and they check the world out with their bright eyes…eyes full of mischief. They’re deceptively fast, too – they can evade capture like you wouldn’t believe. Once captured, though, you have to cuddle them a little – we like for ours to be used to handling from an early age. Continue reading “Naughty Baby Lagomorphs: The Real Story”
Farm Construction Project: Chicken Breeding Pens
Spring is in the air and it’s time to get those constructions projects completed. The weather is just right: not too cold and not too warm, conditions that likely won’t last long. We needed to get the American Bresse and Black Copper Marans pullets and cockerels into breeding pens, so we broke out the new table saw and starting creating a lot of sawdust.
We used our plans for rabbit tractors as our template, but as with the rabbit tractor iterations, we modified the plans slightly to better suit our goals. These pens are wider and longer than the rabbit tractors, though they share the same general design (plus, if the breeding pens don’t work out the way we intended, we can easily convert them into rabbit tractors). Another difference is that the breeding pens are open on the bottom so the chickens can scratch in the grass – the rabbit tractors are wired all around to prevent digging out. Continue reading “Farm Construction Project: Chicken Breeding Pens”