False pregnancy, kind of...

Gertrude was put in with Peter on May 16th, so she was due between June 13-16th. On June 10th I gave her a nesting box and she set about happily making her nest, all was well with the world.

June 16th came and went, no kits.... I waited and waited, nothing.

June 20th, I removed the nesting box because it was clearly a false pregnancy.

The morning of June 22nd, a single deceased kit appeared in her cage with her. 

Peculiar, none of my rabbit friends have never heard of such a thing and we can only surmise that the kit died before the due date and her body finally removed it.

Very sad and unfortunate.

 

Rabbit tractors

The rabbit tractors are made, these are the tractors (cages) that the rabbits grow up in on the grass. I needed something to put on them for shade and found at Home Depot some corrugated plastic in a multitude of colours. I chose yellow because it is a happy colour, more suitable than red, blue or green I thought.

For the record, they are completely covered with heavy gauge mesh, the plastic is only for shade purposes...

The bunnies love having fresh grass every day as you might imagine.

Mabel's due date

Well today, May 6, is Mabel's last technical due date... sometimes they can run late up to 3 days but I looked inside her nesting box this morning and saw nothing new, no fur and even felt around in the back there to make sure. Yup, nada. Guess she's not pregnant after all.

This afternoon I took over some grass for the rabbits to enjoy while I collected the chicken eggs. I wasn't even looking but FUR caught my eye.... sure enough the fur was 'breathing' from the kits underneath squirming around. 

Because I do not know if this is her first breeding, I decided to leave the kits alone until tomorrow (Sat).

Then when I went out to put everyone to bed for the night, I grabbed more grass for them and decided that since she would be busy eating that it was a perfect chance to check on the kits.

10!!!

10 new teeny tiny all black kits delivered by Mabel during the night last night. Wowsers.

This gives us a total of 16 kits delivered in the last week.

Oh, and also I was at The Great Canadian Superstore (Grocery chain) yesterday and came across this, by chance:

Frozen Rabbit

$17.61/KG CAD

($6.20/Lb USD)

You could have knocked me over to find this in the shops.

1st Kits have arrived

Quite naturally, I forgot to take the phone with me and hence do not have a picture yet. Here is one off the web which looks the same but for the number of kits.

Gertrude had 6 kits on May 1st. 5 are black and 1 looks surprisingly white (hairless and pink at the moment).

Mable has developed her 2nd chin and has begun making her nest. 

I expect the 2 deliveries to be fairly close as Gertrude delivered on the last day of her 'expected' due dates. 

Hopefully Mable's delivery will be faster in case I need to (unlikely, but...) move some of her kits over to Gertrude in the event that she has a large litter. This fostering is only possible if the deliveries are within a few days of each other.

I did pick each one up today ( 24 hours after birth) to accustom them to the feel of human hands, one is larger than the rest and one is far smaller than the rest.

If the pink one does indeed prove to be white -- and female, she will become the new Mable.

Garden begins and Kits are imminent

And so it begins.... the garden is being put in. Weed fabric is down and we put a bird net over the top ( I didn't think to get a picture of... later, I will.

Weed fabric. Garlic strip on right under straw for winter

Uncovering the garlic for sunshine and ~20 mm (3/4") rain 'they' say we're getting.

Gertrude is setting up her nest and she was pulling hair yesterday which usually means kits are imminent. Nothing as yet though.

Here are some updated pictures of them all:

Peter

Gertrude (with nesting box)

Nesting box is being renovated to accommodate the babies (kits)

Mabel 

(seems to be getting a double chin so we'll see)

All 12 chickens having a blast in the chicken run

We are super excited to get our first set of kits from Gertrude anytime now. Also quite hopeful that Mabel is pregnant too but I am still unsure about her. She will be going to freezer camp anyway because she attacked Peter and we don't want to breed aggression. 

 

Mable attacked Peter

Warning: Sensitive details of rabbit breeding.

If you recall me mentioning it...

Doe rabbits will sometimes attack the Buck and detach their genitals while the Buck is attempting to breed.

Wouldn't you know it -- sure enough, Mable did.

No problems with Bambi or even Gertrude but Mable - went for the gusto.

I always but the Doe in 2 days back to back. Only for an hour each time and the 1st day I only left Mable in with Peter long enough to see him have 2 goes at her. Because I had a lot on the go that day and didn't want to forget to take her out - knowing I would put her in again the next day to be sure he had impregnated her, I opted to remove her - and good thing too.

Fortunately, on day 2 - I was there and able to separate them immediately because she was having none of it.

Problem for her is that no one wants to breed aggression, so she will have to be culled with her kits. I will hold back one of Gertrude's kits for my second breeder. 

We are not able to breed them over the summer as it is too hot for rabbits and the males actually go temporarily sterile so the new kit will have time to grow to breeding age without any problem ( 16 weeks) by fall.

RIP Bambi

Sadly when I went out Saturday morning to the animals I found Bambi had died in the night. She had seemed fine the night before.

We have no idea what happened. She was given nothing unusual to eat and nothing got in to the barn... she just went. 

Peter and Gertie are fine. There is just no explanation for why Bambi died.

I will still wait until she has been here 2 weeks to breed Gertie, this will give her time to adapt fully to us and her new surroundings. I did clean out Bambi's cage and put Gertie in there so that she would have Peter as a friendly neighbour and they could get used to each other.

I will say that Peter was far more excited when I put Gertie in beside him than he was about Bambi, likely because his spidey senses are tingling now that he knows what thats about.

Regardless of everything it is hard to lose any animal who's life you are responsible for so I was a bit out of sorts for a while. We just don't know what happened. 

Some friends suggested we do an autopsy to see if we could find out anything but we decided that dead is dead and as she wasn't fed anything unusual there wouldn't be much to find. And as we don't know what she died from, using her meat would not be an option either.

Kits and Starlink

Saw this sign in Peavey Mart yesterday.... so tempted to get it but.... $26 so a pic will do.

The day finally arrived for Bambi and Peter to have their playdate. Brad came with me just in case the Mrs got nasty with Peter but everything went fine -- well, lets just say he knew what to do but he had some confusion on which end was up -- he figured it out eventually.

L-R: Peter and Bambi

A little snuggle

In order to ensure that Bambi is pregnant I put her in again the next day... because he's a rookie I wanted to make sure.

Also yesterday a local rabbit breeder reached out because she had a doe available and she knew I was looking for a second one. During a rather busy day, we managed to run out to her farm and pick her up.

Gertrude (Gertie)

Gertie is breeding age but we will wait 2 weeks to allow her to settle in and so we don't get overwhelmed by kits (baby bunnies).

When we were still in BC, we ordered Starlink satellite internet... I made sure to change our address info when we moved and yesterday the dish arrived. They upgraded us to the new super duper version for free too. 

While you do need to pay for the equipment ($600), the internet service itself is the same price as our previous internet. 

Not having to go and reset the internet 3 x a day.... Priceless.

Shipping Box

No mistaking this is SpaceX internet

All the pieces were intact

Super simple instructions.... total plug and play.

Comes with its own router

All set up. The dish rotates and aligns itself and even heats up when it senses snow.

All set up and ready to go

 

Our previous internet download speed was 18.2 and upload speed was 3.43

and we had to reset the router on average 3 times a day as it would glitch out. (Xplornet)

With Starlink our internet download speed is 193.9 and upload speed is 13.9

We have not yet had to reset anything. 

Once the system is turned on the app on your phone asks you to create the wifi network by giving it a name and password. 

Thats it. 

Kinda disappointing for a techie, really but... super simple so that anyone can do it.

Apology and some nookie

Sorry about all that political rhetoric in recent posts but as a member of a 'Small Fringe Minority' who was made an 'Enemy of the State' by our not-so-bright leaders -- I just didn't feel I could NOT say something.

Now that things have calmed down, at least for the present time, we will be returning to our 'regular programming'.

It's almost breeding day for our rabbits and Peter is definitely looking forward to his play date, Bambi... I'm not so sure about.

In rare instances a Doe will attack the Buck and she can be quite savage.. removing important breeding requirements straight off his body. (I'll let you figure that one out on your own)

March 16 is the day. I shall keep you posted.

I keep meaning to take pictures of the rabbits and have even taken the phone out with me a few times now but keep forgetting to take pics. I function on habitual routine and so to remember the photos requires me to change the routine and I clearly have issues remembering to do that.

Rubberized

I gave in. 

After having to carry water out to the rabbitry 2-3 times a day for ages now (rabbits don’t have heated waterers like the chickens do) - when Bambi’s very expensive thick plastic water bowl cracked I said “sod this” and looked to Amazon for the rubber bowls I’ve seen people use ( I hadn’t found them when I looked before) 

I found them:  3 for $75 CAD… basically $25 each. Brad had to go to the city for some house related something he had to copy and send ( yes, still dealing with that gong show), so I went to check at the Alberta farmer’s shop where I found them for $7.99 each!!! I bought all 5 on the shelf. Same 2qt size. I was/am thrilled with that!! 

It’s been super busy around here and I know I haven’t been writing like I used to, I’ve been pretty off my game since my Dad passed in Sept. and I realize that, I have to get back into the groove. 

I haven’t even been reading my morning ritual blogs. Like I’ve e said before - I’m a terrible person., but I’m cute so what the hell! :D

Honestly, I will be making an effort, and I know Dad would be some choked at me for being so put off my game by his passing…. but as long time readers would know we have more going on than just that and there is even more I haven’t mentioned here as yet.

So I apologize to my regular morning blog reads and commit to getting back to that routine immediately.

Liver treats, Peter and Bambi

I bought 4 packages of liver for about $6 each and cut them into bite sized pieces for freeze drying as treats for Robbie.

The finished product was 3 quart jars which will last him about 3 months... cheap like borscht. 

Remember 'Blackie'?...

That name just wouldn't resonate with me, even after 4 or 5 days, I just couldn't get it into my head so today we changed his name to Peter, Yay! :D

Bambi

This morning I drove into the city to pick up our doe and I named her Bambi. No reason, it just came to me as such and I went with it.

L-R: Bambi and Peter

Bambi was born Aug 8th and Peter Sept 16th. As you can see, Bambi is much bigger than Peter but only 5 weeks older so he will be doing a lot of growing in the next short while. Breeding will commence May 16, 2022. We have an order in for another doe and that litter will be ready in spring.

Our rabbitry buck arrives

We went to pick up our rabbitry buck to bring him home. His first girlfriend won't arrive for a few days yet. We have the buck cage about 2 inches from the closest doe cage because as they say 'breed like rabbits'.... they will actually breed through the cage walls - if they are close enough and we want to control that so we don't end up with kits (baby rabbits) in freezing temps, as they may not survive that.

Brad named him Blackie (eyeroll)

Peek a boo

3 hung cages, each 2' deep, 3' long and 18" high

I ordered 3 cages. We plan to keep 2 does and 1 buck as our breeders.  The 2nd doe will arrive in spring. There is room for another 4-6 cages, if we needed to increase our numbers. I have since given him straw to bed down in for warmth if he needs it.

Underneath the cages we have a 2 ft poop/urine catcher which is working really well. We hung a tarp behind the cages and along the floor to protect the walls and floor from the strong rabbit urine as well. 

There is a poop scooper so that we can scoop it into the feed bags to allow for drying to use in the spring garden. Eventually, I want to create a sloped poop slide to guide the poop into a container rather than scooping it but this will work until we can build that in warmer weather, with the rabbits outside away from the noise - we just ran out of time before pick up day.

Eggs, Blizzard and Fire Cider

Farm fresh eggs ready for freeze drying

I do 18 per tray.

I also freeze dry the egg shells and add to oatmeal etc for the chickens which obviously aids in egg production

Brought in what we hope will be enough hay and straw for winter

2 Hay, 6 Straw

Ladies are happy and providing a full meal deal of 15 eggs/day

Not too shabby for 15 chickens! In winter!

The rabbit cages are ready for pickup, but....

We had a blizzard!

8" of snow in 14 hours

Baby its cold outside

The snow sure looks magical on the trees, though. The bows are hanging low and heavy. We had trouble getting the new snow blower going, Brad had to disassemble and fix it which took up a lot of the day yesterday. It propels itself along, which is fantastic!

I had to shovel a small path from the back door down to the rest of the garden as the deep snow and incline was too much to get that thing up to the back steps. 

I also had to shovel a small area beside the back door where Robbie is trained to do his business, he doesn't like to get snow on his underbelly and likes to have something tall to lift his leg against so I just made a higher wall with the moved snow and voila.

I cleared a path in front of the chicken coop and put down a bunch of straw along it so the birds have an outdoor space without burying their whole bodies in the snow as it was taller than most of them. I haven't taken a picture of it yet, sorry.

This morning I strained a 'Fire Cider' that I made - well, 6 weeks ago and so I am taking the strained bits out to the chickens for a treat... have to remember to add a bit of eggshell to it first.... (I did run it under water for a few seconds and strained it just so it isn't soooo strong for the chickens).

For the chickens

I've been keeping a stash of our used glass bottles and I thought this one was fitting for the Fire Cider. I did show it to Brad and advised that he not confuse the two!!! 

HAHAHAHA

Once we get the cages, we have to complete the rabbitry area to make arrangements for their highly acidic urine and to separate the poop as we will use it for the garden. Free this year, last year we bought it from a local I found who was willing to sell it, not cheap either. 

Then we can get the rabbits!

 

Coop renovation, Rabbits and IBS

 

There are 2 barn cats on this property. Robbie has been sussing out whether they are friend or foe, this black one we call Boots, there is a white with grey one we call Snowden... I don't know why, it just came to me.

They are getting along and neither cat has shown interest in the chickens which is great.

Brad's Mum sent us an old Italian recipe that his Father had so Brad cooked it the other night. Spaghetti and meatballs. Not my favourite, but this was very tasty and I did really enjoy it.

We even had wine with it.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been fighting humidity in the coop. Not everyone bothers, I know but because we don't know the age of these hens (only a guesstimate) we want to make sure we get some eggs from them before we send them to freezer camp.

Ideal conditions for laying are between 7-27C (44-80F) and between 50-60% humidity. Other than laying, humidity is important because high humidity and freezing temperatures can cause frostbite on their toes and combs - and likely other extremities as well. 

We had closed the wall between the 2 sections as 1 side is for chickens the other will house rabbits but with the humidity issue we decided to create a mesh window for ventilation. The 2 main available walls for windows or mesh gaps are on the northwest side of the building and our weather comes from the northwest so those 2 walls are not an option, hence we opened up to the rabbit side.

Mesh window installed

We have rabbits coming mid month and I was going to make the hutches for them but found a local woman who has just begun. making them and she gave me a price that I couldn't refuse. So they are also coming mid month. I have made the little bunny houses for inside the cages and am currently trying to source the hay and straw they will need. 

Undoubtedly, I have mentioned in all this time that I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Because of this, I have been drinking a Tim Horton's French Vanilla Cappaccino every morning for roughly 16 years. Not good but it was the only thing that kept me going - so to speak.

I recently came across some info which suggested that raw milk will solve my problem, so I called a local farmer we've met since we arrived here and I've been testing it to see how it works. So far, so good!