Thursday, January 23, 2014

Suburban Homesteading: January 2014


My last homesteading update was in May so I have a lot to talk about. Both our chicken flock and our rabbitry have grown! In May 2013 Mopsy had a litter of 10 kits. Unfortunately, only 4 survived. Flopsy was suppose to be due at the same time but it turned out that she wasn't pregnant. When she didn't give birth, we bred her again. In July she had a litter of 5, with only 1 surviving. Out of these litters we ended up keeping the only 2 females (Beatrix and Flora) and 1 of the males (Baby....more on him later). The other 2 were processed in the fall. 


We also hatched more some chicks in the summer. We didn't keep any of those but it sure was fun! In August we bought some chicks. All the Silkies went to a friend but we kept the Rhode Island Red and Polish; Penny and Joan Jett.



Of Mopsy's and Flopsy's litters, we were only planning on keeping the females. Well, this little guy was just way too tame to process. His name was changed to Baby and we attempted to keep him as a house rabbit. He's just too big for the house so he went back outside with the others.


We did end up getting a house rabbit. We got this little Lionhead in November. His name is Thumper. He hasn't gotten much bigger than he was in this picture:

Around then, our does were due, or we thought. It seems they hadn't gotten pregnant. So we decided to give a rabbit colony a try and moved the rabbits in with the chickens. The girls did beautifully. The boys however, couldn't get along. The girls now live in the colony and the boys live in separate cages and get special visits to the colony. Hubby also built an awesome new chicken/rabbit run this fall. It's bigger and more sturdy than the other one. I absolutely love it! The chickens and rabbits are getting along just fine....once the chickens realized the rabbits weren't something to be scared of. 


Almost 2 months ago we had the results of the rabbit colony 3 of our 4 does gave birth. The one doe that didn't give birth was just slightly too young to get pregnant. We had a total of 24 kits. We lost a few and are down to 17. They are now weaned and doing great. Some of the current babies will be adopted out as pets, some will be processed and I'm thinking of keeping one female. She's a beautiful solid black. The boys have had visits with the girls so if it all went well, we have 4 does due in the beginning of February. I love having the babies around! 




And lastly, yesterday, the chickens got their first taste of snow. .... They were not impressed!!

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