Saturday was “kindling day” for Siobhán, our American Chinchilla doe, and Oonagh, our Silver Fox/New Zealand doe. This is a first pregnancy for both girls, so it’s never safe to assume that everything will go smoothly.
Rabbits give birth after roughly 31 days. Oonagh gave birth to seven healthy, dark gray kits late in the morning on Sunday. Siobhán didn’t kindle until later in the evening, but also had 7 healthy kits, though she had them in a pile of hay instead of the carefully arranged nest box we put in for her. Continue reading “The New Moms’ Kits Are Here”
Tag: Rabbits
Keeping Animals Cool In The Heat
When heat indices near or surpass triple digits – like it has this week – it becomes dangerous for many animals (including farm animals) and stressful for farmers committed to ensuring the health and welfare of their livestock.
Rabbits, in particular, have difficulty with high temperatures (hmm…maybe that fur coat of theirs?). We’ve noticed that the rabbits in our outdoor tractors do well even when it’s very hot because breezes blow right through their living quarters, and they’re on moisture-holding grass. Their houses and the tractor roofs also provide shade. We also check their water bottles to ensure they have water, especially important on hot days. Continue reading “Keeping Animals Cool In The Heat”
Ava’s Second Litter – Day Three
Our red-eyed white (REW) New Zealand doe, Ava, kindled on Sunday. She tends to pull fur at the last minute, so we knew something was up when we saw the nest box lined with white fur. The kits were completely hidden from sight, but slight movement beneath the fur indicated the babies had arrived.
In preparation for kindling, Ava made a very plush nest in the tractor outside – it was thickly padded with grass she had industriously collected and spread inside her tote bin shelter. While it was a shame to waste her efforts, we brought her inside a few days before she was due to kindle and provided her with an equally cushy nest box, which she proceeded to rearrange. Doe’s prerogative. Continue reading “Ava’s Second Litter – Day Three”
Separating The Rabbit Kits
Yesterday, we sexed the February kits and separated them by gender. They’re a little over ten weeks old now, and they’re starting to have skirmishes.
Sexing rabbits isn’t exactly a fun job – you need to position them on their backs and take a close look at their privates. They don’t like it. They have very sharp claws (like cats) and powerful back legs, and they can scratch the heck out of you.
So imagine trying to hold a squirming, kicking rabbit and looking down there to try to figure out if it’s a boy or girl you’re holding…and it’s not as obvious as you think. We have a pretty good accuracy rate so far, with just one kit in the first group from last year misidentified. Continue reading “Separating The Rabbit Kits”
More Weather Mayhem
We had another night of severe storms, with forecasted winds of up to 55 mph. After the chicken tractor went aloft in the last windstorm, we modified it by shortening the tarp providing shade and cover on top; the result was that less than a quarter of it remained covered. There’s no way that thing could take off again.
Wrong. We were using it to house our “extra” roosters, and were flabbergasted this morning to realize that it had moved several feet from its original location. Of the original 10, only 1 cockerel remained inside. When we went looking for the others, it became clear from the body count that something, either a coyote or fox, had massacred the cockerels that had escaped when the tractor was lifted by the wind. A couple of them had been eaten, but most had just been killed and left where they lay. We didn’t find a couple, but the piles of feathers is a clear clue that they were likely victims of the predator, too. Continue reading “More Weather Mayhem”
New Rabbit Tractors
Can you believe that the rabbit kits are nearly 8 weeks old now? It was looking crowded in the kindling cages – there were 20 babies, after all – so we built two additional tractors this weekend. These are tractors number 4 and 5, and we made minor modifications to improve on the original design; specifically, reducing the width slightly to allow for a larger roof overhang (we get good storms out here). It’s all about continuous improvement!
Construction never seems to go quite as planned. We encountered the typical twisted lumber issues; even better, we discovered a roll of cage wire had a major defect (a gap where it was missing wire) that wasn’t visible until we had wrapped more than half the tractor and secured it with screws. Rather than undo it all to take the wire back, we patched it and continued on. It was a bad surprise, though, meriting choice expletives. Continue reading “New Rabbit Tractors”