Mama Dani's Musings: homestead

Showing posts with label homestead. Show all posts

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Spring Fever

I have a serious case of spring fever. I'm not sure if it's just my norm for this time of year or if it's Mother Nature's flip-flopping. All I seem to be able to think about is gardening, spending the majority of the day outside, hikes, setting up my hammock, camping...etc. I know I'm not the only one. Who's with me? I'm just not made for this nasty cold winter weather. Winter is my least favorite season but at least it's followed by my favorite!

For now I...

Plan:

I have several plans/ideas running through my head. For the garden: first thing is I need to move my Passion Flower Vine. It took off last year. Which is great except it took over the butterfly garden, killing other plants in the process. I need to give it its own place and something to grow on. Moving it out of the main butterfly garden will allow me to expand the butterfly garden this year. I collected a lot of Milkweed seeds last year. I want to have more Milkweed outside but also have some Milkweed that is only in the caterpillar nursery. I also want to do the same for the Black Swallowtails. I want to add Parsley to where the Fennel is and have some for the caterpillar nursery.

This spring I want to give the ducks a better pool/pond. Ideally, I want a self-sufficient mini pond. I don't want to have to constantly dump and refill it....especially if I want a bigger one. ...that's a lot of water we will be wasting! So I am researching and brainstorming. I'm thinking about adding plants and animals (snails, fish) to the pond to keep it cleaner. I have the idea of finding an old tub someone is trying to get rid of and converting it into the duck pond. I think it would look neat and it already has a drain if I need to drain it. But that's only one idea. I'm not exactly sure how it's going to turn out. I'd love to hear some tips and ideas!!

** I had to come back and add this little bit. I was looking over the post, about to hit "publish" and remembered something else I need to be planning. ...A bigger, better caterpillar nursery!! Last year I raised and released 46 butterflies. I hope to raise and release more this year!!

Prep:

As I said above, I collected a lot of Milkweed seeds this year. They are currently in the fridge going through a cold moist stratification. I will be able to plant these seeds about mid-February. I think will plant the Parsley at the same time.

"Cold stratification is very important for the germination and growth of Milkweed. It helps to break the seeds natural dormancy cycle by exposing the seed to winter-like temperatures that help soften or crack its hard outer casing. Without prolonged exposure to cold temperatures, your milkweed seed is unlikely to sprout." - American Meadows

Enjoy some houseplants:

I bought a couple of houseplants when I was at Walmart yesterday. I also used some Christmas money to order a bonsai tree. It should be here this week! I can't wait to try my hand at taking care of a bonsai tree!!

And look back:

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this past spring/summer:

I just love bumble bees!!

One of the 17 Monarchs I raised and released in 2017...It's a girl!

One of the 29 Black Swallowtails I raised and released in 2017...It's also a girl!!

Female vs male Monarchs...notice the black dots on the male's bottom wings

A Black Swallowtail laying an egg on Fennel

Please comment below! I'd love to hear from you!

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Monday, January 15, 2018

Suburban Homesteading: New Feathered Friends

It's been quite awhile since I've posted an update on our little suburban homestead. Since then we've lost a few feathered friends and gained some. I'm going to focus on the positive here today. We have a new hen. We hatched her back in June. Her name is Hei Hei.

Hei Hei, Zoe, Amelia, Tiny....and of course Sean:

I'm excited to also announce that we have added ducks to our flock! We have been talking about adding ducks but waiting till maybe this spring. Then I found a local that was looking to rehome her ducks before moving. She had 4 Muscovy ducks. Perfect! That was the breed of ducks that I wanted to get. They are known to be a quiet breed. It was like it was meant to be. Three are hens and one is a drake....but regardless of gender we couldn't resist on naming them Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Scrooge. Scrooge is our drake.

When I brought them home I set up the dog house that we have in the run as a place where the ducks could go. I wasn't sure if they would go into the chicken coop since it's off the ground and no longer has a ramp. Then we got a blizzard last week and I found the ducks in the coup.

Please comment below! I'd love to hear from you!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Suburban Homesteading: February Rabbit Babies

We've had a lot going on in our little rabbitry. We had three litters born back in December. Unfortunately we lost quite a few of them After research and talking to other rabbit breeders I think that it has to do with their early and abrupt weaning. Their mothers decided at 4 weeks that they were done and were actually charging and snapping at the babies when they went to nurse. The "diagnoses" is called weaning enteritis. I made their diet partly pellets but mostly oats and hay. As long as that was their diet, they did well. If I increased the pellets in the ratio (thinking that they were old enough), we'd lose a baby or two. So, that's the diet they will have until they are old enough to process (next month). There was a pretty solid black baby doe that I was considering keeping. She loved to snuggle under my chin (picture below). We lost her one day when she decided to run up my shoulder and jump off. :'(

The mamas: Mopsy, Flopsy, Flora, and Beatrix

Since the babies had been weaned for awhile, I decided to rebreed the mamas in early January. We rotated the boys in the run for a few weeks. I was hoping for 4 litters since Flora was old enough to breed now. However, that didn't happen. On the evening of Feb. 11th Beatrix have birth to 8 kits. That night something spooked the animals. The mama rabbits, the chickens and the weaned rabbits took notice around 9:00pm. The chickens began making alert bawks (if you have chickens, you know this sound!) so I ran to the window. I saw them looking and bawking at the gate to the side yard. The weaned kits were standing at attention in the pen, also looking at the gate. The mamas were running around, standing at attention, looking at the gate and thumping their hind legs. I continued to keep watch while hubby got ready to go outside. I never saw anything and he didn't see anything once he got outside. Who knows what it was but it sure did frighten the animals. The next morning I found 5 more kits scattered around the run, obviously dead. I'm just assuming that they were Beatrix's but could have been Flora's or Flopsy's. We'll never really know b/c neither Flora nor Flopsy had a litter afterwards. Mopsy, however, did have a litter overnight on the 17th. She had 12 kits (1 of which was a stillborn). I couldn't believe she had so many! Unfortunately, I discovered the rest had passed 2 days later. My best guess is she abandoned them but don't know why. In this time we also lost 3 of Beatrix's. Good news is the remaining 5 are doings great. They are now 2 weeks old and have started opening their eyes!! The other 3 mamas have been rebreed and hopefully are due at the end of March.

Beatrix and her kits:

This is a sight I had not expected. Henrietta, our Easter Egger hen laid one of her pretty blue eggs in the nest with Beatrix's kits.

And I can't write a post about our rabbits and leave out our house rabbit, Thumper. He's a snuggler...who has taken to licking me. Strange rabbit!

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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!