Plans for Our Little Acre for Spring 2013

We are more of the hobby farmer/gardener/homesteader types.   I just want to be clear about that.  Sometimes what we are doing here might sound big, but really we are just beginners going through a lot of trial and error.  I would love to produce all our food right here on this little one acre in the middle of town and I know it can be done, but we are not doing that, yet.  In fact, I am pretty sure we would starve.  I grew up in the country.  All around me were corn fields and cattle grazing, but I did not grow up that way....  none of that sort of thing was going on at my home.  My daddy worked, my momma went the grocery store and bought what we needed.  End of story.  I can remember a small garden one time, but we were not really a part of it.  I don't remember that being a shared venture for the family.  My daddy bought three cows once to raise to eat.  He kept them a few months and sold them after deciding not to mess with that any longer.  I had a horse for a couple of years strictly for fun.  I lived on 11 acres.

Do you see the irony here?  Pretty funny because now I live on one acre in the middle of town and have limited space and now I want to do those things that I grew up with endless space for.  Ironic.  So, now without having any experience we are trying to figure it out.  Well, I have been.  Cody is just getting on board.  Last year he started taking part in more of it even though his interest is not really in it.  This year he seems to be interested.  I think it was good for him to realize how much we benefited from the harvest over the past several months.  I think he had to see some of the rewards to appreciate the journey.  So, this year we are plowing up more dirt and looking at it from a different perspective.  It is more about sustainability.  What would we need to be able to do if we ever had to provide for ourselves.  All the creatures we have now have to have more purpose than just ""science" for our kids and a bunch of eggs.  That's all fun, but I told my husband it is too much work and we are spending too much money on it.  This is the sort of discussion that led to the first culling of the duck flock.

All that being said, I will try to detail what we have going on:

I will start with the garden areas. 

• We are using what we learned last year about where the sun falls on our property and trying to plan with that in mind.  We have a small garden patch by our house that is currently planted with two types of potatoes, two types of onions, and a wheat patch.  The wheat is an experiment from some wheat that spilled and got dirty.  It is growing well and is already about 6 inches high after only two weeks.  
• We will be tilling up a bigger garden in our back quarter (that is the back of our lot that is a 1/4 acre that we purchased a few years back).  This will be a variety of vegetables.  
• I will be putting in a long narrow garden, as well.  
• I am considering doing a raised bed corn method that I saw at a local Expo.  
• For fun I am considering planting a long row of sunflowers that will also provide a natural boundary on one portion of our property.  We have some neighbors that are bothered by our chickens (and everything else we do), so we might add a simple fence. 
• I am trying to use all organic methods and heirloom varieties, as well.

 I will refer to this part as "Orchard Items".  That does not mean we are planting an actual orchard.  We just have one acre and it is heavily shaded and orchard items like sunshine. 

• Currently, we are working on adding various fruit trees.  I have seven blueberries (four different varieties), two apple trees (two varieties) , a plum tree, two pear trees (two varieties), three grape bushes (3 varieties), a peach trees, a nectarine tree, mayhaw, satsuma, and navel orange. Some of this should have some production the first year I am told, but much of it will require waiting for the second or third year.  

We are considering selling off all of our rabbits as our children seem to have lost interest in them and they were really just for pets for us.  We are not rabbit eaters. If we were hungry, yes... but we are not, so they are our pets.  We usually sell the baby rabbits, but this has never actually been a profitable thing considering all the feed that the rabbits use.


The "birds":

• We currently have nine ducks left in our flock.  They are messy and eat a lot of feed.  Overall, they are not the best choice for raising for meat.  We have enjoyed the experience, but we are going to cull the flock.  We might keep one or two, but likely they will all go, so we do not have to deal with their messes.  They house nicely with all the other birds, but they make messes by trying to swim in anything they can which keeps the chickens water nasty all the time.  
• We have nineteen chickens for the purpose of laying eggs.  Really, we were not ever supposed to have this many, but my husband was not ready to kill the chickens for meat.  Our hens are "our ladies" and we have grown quite fond of them around here.  I am considering isolating some of them for a few days and seeing which ones are laying and which are not to consider culling some of them because we really do not need this many.  The feed bill needs to be lowered and I am not really one for selling the eggs because I would rather bless others with them.  I am uncertain of our plan for "our ladies".  They are not a bother, so it is not urgent to decide either.
• We recently added turkeys to our flock.  We have a Tom and two gals.  They are all full grown and about three years old.  I thought we were getting them to butcher, but Cody is the one that got them.  He says we are raising turkeys now.... so we are raising turkeys now.  Once they start laying we will let them hatch out their eggs and raise the babies for the meat.  The Tom is beautiful I must say.  It is quite interesting to watch him protect and guard his ladies with his feathers all spread in the air.  
• I have been trying to convince Cody that we should be raising chickens for meat, but he has not been easy to convince.  Our most popular meat in our home is chicken.  It makes sense that we should raise our own for meat if we are raising chickens.  So, I was sitting here one night and just for kicks I was looking at Murray McMurray's website and IDEAL Chicken Hatchery's website and IDEAL had a sale on Straight Run Black Broiler chicks for 90 cents a chick.  I told Cody and he said to order them... REALLY?... really.... so I ordered 30 and shipped and everything was $34.  That was just too good of a price to pass on.  We received 31 chicks, but have lost four... still a bargain.  They are about two weeks old and are growing really fast.  We will plan to butcher them in May when they reach full size.  They are supposed to be ready within 7-8 weeks, but I have heard that they take a little longer and I am okay with it take a little longer.  I also am considering keeping one rooster and a couple of hens from this flock to use for raising our own broilers without having to order.  We will determine that after seeing how well these birds do for meat chickens in the end.
• Our most recent addition was quite accidental really.  A lady in my Sunday School class mentioned that she had three roosters to give away and I made a mental note of it, but told her that since we live in town we were not going to have a rooster that would make noise and bother our neighbors.  One of my neighbors sent me a message wanting to know if I knew someone that had a rooster and I told her I would check for her.  I contacted the lady with the roosters and she said she had one and he was a friendly Buff Orpington.  Hmmmm... I have two female Buff Orpingtons and so now we have a rooster.  I have separate area in our chicken coop and so I have put the three Buff Orpingtons in there to mate and hopefully hatch out their own eggs.  I must admit I am considering pulling the eggs and putting them in the incubator because the hens have over a dozen eggs in there and they are not sitting.  These chicks will be raised for meat or sold as hatchlings.  

I think that sums up our Spring 2013 plans.  

Sad Rabbit Moments

As with all things when you are raising animals or growing things it seems there is always the downside.  I am sharing this not to be depressing, but to be "real".  I think often people look at various blog posts of people farming and homesteading and they see the blissfulness of it all.  While that is one side of it, that is not the only side and we need to paint a clear picture of the harsh reality that it sometimes brings.  There are lots of failures and lots of death.  And these deaths are not always the ones we choose... like culling our flocks, for instance. 

Today we awoke to find four baby lop bunnies.  These much awaited bunnies did not turn out how we had hope for this new little mommy bunny.  Often this happens with a bunny or rabbits first litter.  They just don't always know what to do.  "Little Stacy" did not even pull hair and line her nesting box.  It should be said that she did not have the best of nesting boxes either.  The box that was in her cage did not have piece of wood across the front entrance.  It is possible she did, at least, give birth to them in the box and they just got out of it somehow.  Three of the babies were out of the there embryonic sacks, so she did that part of the job correctly; however, there was one that was not out of it's embryonic sac.  That one was left in the nesting box. 

This is not my pic.  I am borrowing this to show what little bunnies look like at birth.

I tried to find a pic of a baby in the embryonic sac, but could not find one quickly online.  Anyway, I guess that is depressing anyway, right?!  So, I guess in the coming days we should have more litters, since my crazy kids bred all the rabbits and bunnies (lops) at the same time.  Time will tell.  I hope we have some new life and we will have something to celebrate out at our little rabbit area. 

It really is just the way it is... it is a part of the deal. 

Death on Our Little Acre

Warning: This post may be too disturbing for some readers.

You may have noticed I made some changes to my blog.  I am by no means a real homesteader, but I seem to be posting a lot lately about life here growing things through gardening and raising rabbits, ducks, and chickens.  I would love to fill this acre of land and truly use it.  It is not enough to merely own a piece of property if it has no real purpose.  For us it's main purpose is to provide a great place for our kids to grow up.  We started with 3/4 of an acre that we purchased with our home, but added a 1/4 acre so our kids would have a bigger backyard to enjoy.  That is our MAIN PURPOSE.  Included in that main purpose is the idea that learning to use that acre for the benefit of our family just goes along with our original plan.  In the future we may have a chance to add to our property and, if so, we will.  Anyway, I decided it would be fitting to add "on Our Little Acre" to my blog header.  So, off to my real topic....

About a week ago we had another "round of death" here.  It can be so depressing which is why I started not to blog about it all.  The reality is that it comes with the territory of raising animals.  And it seems to come in surges or "rounds of death".  It started one Saturday with me spotting two young pre-teen boys wandering around behind our house.  They looked suspicious, but I was did not want to overreact.  Oddly, they quickly ran off into the tiny patch of woods behind our house (and by tiny I mean less than 4/10 of an acre..... you have to keep in mind we live in town).  Later that evening we discovered a gun dart in one of our mid-sized chicks.  Fortunately, it survived even though the dart went in about three inches.  One of our laying hens was missing, though.  Two days later we found remnants of her body and it is safe to assume that the boys probably killed her and an animal of some sort found the carcass.  I was beyond aggravated that something so senseless happened to my chickens.  Parents need to really think about what they are doing when they buy their children these type of "toys" (weapons!) without teaching them to have a healthy respect for said "toy"... and a respect for others and their animals/pets. 

The second thing was our little rescued wild rabbit.  Oh, he was doing so well!  I had feed this little guy with a dropper 3 times a day.  He was precious and he had just started eating rabbit food and I had weaned him from his dropper feedings.  Because of this he was not wanting to be held as he had before.  I was started to question how wild he actually would be since it is not a normally domesticated animal.  One day Savannah notice something was wrong with our little guy, Easter.  Easter had been attacked it appeared through his cage and his back leg appeared to have a puncture wound and appeared crippled.  I was hoping it would heal, but it looked bad.  That night he was attacked again and I am in awe of how anything could get to him in his cage with such small hole openings.  He was completely mutilated and we suspect a cat did it.  I am so glad my husband found it first because it was awful and he was able to clean up the area some.  The kids were heartbroken.

The next thing a tiny baby bird... probably a day old that my husband was given at his school.  His students called him "their hero" for his willingness to attempt to save it.  It had to have only been hours old when they found it and he brought it home to me to save.  I made it a little nest with a nightlight as a warming light and set to feeding it raw eggs with a dropper.  It did not make it throught the night.

And the most devastating thing.... Patch... THE rabbit that started it all around here.  After buying two California rabbits and realizing that was a mistake (one died due to heat stroke & we returned the other), we had some friends offer to give us their pet rabbit.  They had not been ready for the responsibility of the rabbit, but knew Savannah and Sierra were.  Patch was their first rabbit and she gave birth to many babies that the kids cuddled and adored.  It was a big deal here to have "a rabbit that looked like Patch" because they really just had a love for her that they did not have for some of the other rabbits.  One Sunday morning we were heading out for church and the kids went out to feed the rabbits before we left.  Patch sits on top of her nesting box a lot, so she jump off, but landed wrong.  She landed on her back and died right away.  Apparently, she broke her neck/back.  What a crazy freak thing to happen.  Savannah was beside herself with grief. 

For the most part that was it... the "round of death", but we really have had some more, also.  You kind of get used to some of it even though it is still unsettling.  We had a litter of baby rabbits born a few days ago to our momma rabbit, Mary.  She had 7 living and one dead.  For some reason one baby was still in it's embryonic sac.  This seem to happen a lot.  I don't know if the momma gets tires or if they don't realized they have missed one.  Maybe they mistake it for the placenta.  Sometimes one or two do not make it due to this.  After realizing we had a new litter I began checking the other female rabbits cages.  We had bred 5 females at one time... allowing them several days to mate.  I discovered another horrifying scene in Miracles cage.  Miracle is the rabbit that was dropped twice as a baby rabbit.  It damaged her and clearly she will never be "whole".  We have tried to let her have babies three times now, I think.  The first time the babies all died and we thought it was due to heat or something.  Her second litter did not make it, either.  It was as if she did not know how to care for them.  We started to not ever try again with her.  We decided we would give her one last chance.  And it must be said that she is the sweetest rabbit.  I feel so bad for her.  This time whe resorted to cannibalism.... sorry, I just do not know how to say it any milder.  I don't know if she thought she was eating away the embryonic sac or the placenta.  I truly hope that is the case.  She is partially blind due to her falls.  All that was left behind were the heads of three babies.  (Sorry)  I disposed of them and told the kids about it later and we discussed that she will not ever be bred again. 

And that is how it is when you raise animals I guess.  A month or so ago we lost all three of our bantam hens.... each in a different way, but by predator attacks.  We also had a new chick drown in her water dish and another chick smother under the wait of her little flock of six.  It seems to just happen in "rounds of deaths", I guess.  It makes you very melacholy, but life does go on and you have to just keep doing what you are doing.  It is hard, but it teaches us many things, as well.  I think my kids are developing a better understanding of death than I ever did.  And death is part of living.  Everything that lives will one day die. 

Critter Adoption

Over the last year we have taken in a few orphan critters.  And we have truly enjoyed it.   I think our first "adoption" was a squirrel we rescued that had gotten away from the nest.  He was soooo stinking cute and so sweet.  He loved for us to cuddle him up and take care of him.  Unfortunately, our little Nutsy was accidentally released from the cage and our doors were open on that beautiful day.  We lost our little Nutsy that day, but have not forgotten that little one.  He had us wrapped.  And lately I find myself thinking about Nutsy because last week someone dropped by our house asking if we would take a wild baby bunny.  Oh.so.sweet!  This little guy is probably about two weeks old and totally dependent on us.  At this age baby rabbits are still nursing and at first this little guy refused to drink from the dropper of milk.  I am sure he had no idea what was happening to him, but since he would not drink I forced milk in him a little at a time.  We had recieved him Friday morning and he finally decided to started sucking on that dropper by Saturday evening.  I can hardly believe he figured it out before he dehydrated and died.  I have been so surprised by this little guy.  A rabbit taken from his momma is so rare to survive.... and yes, I realize that we still have a long way to go, but he is growing and seems to be thriving.  So here is our little guy, "Easter".  Caden named him that since it was Easter weekend and we recieved him on Good Friday.  And I could not resist this cute Easter basket picture...

You can really see how tiny he is in amongst those plastic eggs.  I really think rabbit babies are one of the cutest babies on this earth!  It amazes me how they transform those first couple of weeks right before your eyes and suddenly there eyes open and they look like a miniature rabbit.  They start out looking like rats and at about day 2-4 they look like little puppies.  And this little guy looks almost just like Nutsy except Nutsy had a tail, smaller ears, and slight differences in his body shape.  It really fascinates me how so many of God's creatures start out looking very much the same.

Over the last year we have also adopted (and I am not counting critters that we sought out... only ones that were needing a home) 4 Lop Rabbits, although one got sick and died.   Now, this little rabbit came to us this past Friday and today a friend deliverd two little yellow ducklings to our home. 

This is NOT our ducklings, but they look just like these.... just to show what they look like.  I just borrowed this pic of the iternet.  So, they are the typical little yellow ducklings and there is no telling what they will look like in a few months.  Super cute little guys!... well, hopefully gals... We are pretty sure our other four ducklings are one female and three males*, which is pretty much the opposite of what we were wanting.  ;(   Maybe these will be females.  Either way, we are having lots of fun adopting critters!!!

* Note: Our guessing the gender of our ducks is based on internet research.  Apparently, females "quack" and males sound "hoarse".  One of our 7 week old ducks has a definite quack while the other three hardly make a sound.  They actually sound like young chicks to me chirping hoarsely. 

Watching Things Grow

I love watching things grow!   Yesterday I discovered a birds nest in our backyard with 4-5 tiny little eggs in it.  So, today we had little "field trips" in the backyard.  Sienna was content playing in the dining room, so I told the older four that I would take them out in pairs for a little backyard field trip.  This would leave one older child watching over Sienna while we were outside.  I took them out and showed them the little nest and eggs and also, I took this time to show them the progress of some seeds I planted on March 19th.  It is so neat to see things springing to life and pushing through the dirt.  I am not sharing pics at this point because really you would be looking a little patches of dirt with tiny specks of green.  It is not quite photo worthy in my opinion at this point.  The most remarkable growth (and this one is actually photo worthy to some degree) is the Morning Glory seeds I planted.  Those seedlings are actually already 3-4 inches in heighth and the leaves are about one inch long.  I had no idea they are such fast growers, so if you are wanting your kids to see some action in a hurry I would highly recommend planting some morning glories.  It might be a long time before blooming and full maturity, but you do see quick growth early on.  In addition to that I have dill, oregano, basil, and chives sprouting up.  All of those are super tiny, but definitely pushing there way into the world.  I also have a pot that I planted a full packet of Cosmo seeds in and they are sprouting up quickly, as well. 

Each day we are going to continue to watch for growth in the backyard.  I can not wait to see those little baby birds hatch out.  And the kids are so excited to take our daily little backyard field trips.
 
This Saturday I think we will try to do some planting of our veggie garden items.  I tend to get ahead of myself and buy lots of seeds, so I am all ready to go.  I really want to get out of my box and just start planting things and taking a chance on how they do.  Sometimes I think I need a well planned garden, but I am starting to think that I need to just start marking off some little areas and poking seeds in the ground.  I need to take that chance and see what will just grow easily here.  I think we tend to make it more complicated sometimes.  I would love to look up one day and have growth all over out little acre here in town.  I want to use this acre... really use it.  I am thankful in many ways that I do not have several acres to manage, because let's face it.  Most of us aren't even "using" the acre we have.  If I can learn to manage this one little acre well, then one day I hope to add more.  I grew up on land.  My parents had eleven acres... and for the most part we were the only things growing on it.  I loved the large piece of land, but honestly I think I can grow as much right here where I am at.  Of course, I am not going to have any livestock that would have odor issues here in town, but we can choose other things to do.  I want to continue with raising chickens for eggs.  I would like to raise ducks for eggs and hatchlings.  The rabbits will always be just a fun project for our kids, I think.  Selling the babies is not profitable for us, but we never meant for it to be.  I would like to raise chickens for meat, but first I have to convince my husband to kill them.  He likes them.  I do, too.  He does not like the idea of killing them... so, I guess I need to find some ugly chickens for the cause.  I want to learn to garden.  I can grow flowers well.  Surely, I can manage to improve with the veggies and fruits.  The first step is getting it in the ground.  Then, we can watch it grow.

Preparing Animal Housing

Everytime we add another creature to our little acre around here we have to give it great thought.  We have to consider it's affect on our small area and on our neighbors.  What we don't really do well is plan ahead too much.  We get the "creature" and then, worry about it's future housing.  We always have and immediate housing plan like small cages, but not the long term housing ready.  Part of this that if we get a creature that is not a wise choice we have not invested a lot of time and money for something we are going to get rid of. 

So, this is kind of how it has gone....

We had three rabbits and two small cages (3' X 3' X 3').  That worked until we had our first baby rabbits born and suddenly we had to put daddy rabbit in our old dog kennel temporarily.  The search and planning HAD TO begin.  I was making calls to check wiring prices and surfing the internet to plan making our cages.  Ultimately, I got an "easy button" on that one.  I found someone locally that was selling cages for cheaper than I could build homemade ones.  We were able to purchase two sections of caging with five caging areas in each (also referred to as a "five hole").  Rabbit caging problem solved.  Also, at some point we have adopted some lop rabbits (one for free and then, added the other three for $30 complete with cages, etc.), so we also have some other small cages here.

We decided to try out having chickens and we ventured off to the feed supply store with no idea how many we were coming home with.  I thought a couple chicks would be good.  I asked my husband and he said a dozen.  With little thought I basically just got two of each breed that was available that day and that made it ten little chicks.  We brought them home and put them in ONE of our first cages we had used for the rabbits (3x3x3).  We knew we needed a coop, but we did not have one ready, yet.  As the chicks started growing they were getting very crowded, so we put the two cages together to form one cage.  I went to planning, again.  And I want to share a link with you that is great for seeing a huge variety of options and plans for housing chickens.  It is www.backyarchickens.com .  Being that we live in town I wanted to go simple.  I did not want to build a big coop and find that we had to get rid of the chickens later.  I decided on building more of a temporary chicken run that we could later add to.  So, I had my little plan all sketched out until I ran an errand one night and drove past a furniture store that had some large wooden frames (used for shipping couches, etc.) out by their dumpster.  I told Cody and he hitched up the utility trailer to the van and went to look.  He agreed that we could make it work and brought it home.  We were able to attach the frame pieces together and cover it all with wire for a very simply, but efective chicken run with a nesting area.  Now that we know that chickens work well for us we are planning to build a better coop this summer.  Meanwhile, they are continuing to enjoy their chicken run (approximate size is 6' X 10').  They free range during the day and spend their nights in their run. 

So, as Spring approached we decided to add a few more chicks.  I went to see what was available and came home with six more chicks and four ducklings.  Again, we used the little cages (3x3x3).  One has the six chicks and the other has the 4 ducklings.   And this is why I am writing this post.  Those four ducklings are growing very fast!!!  And guess who did not plan on that?!!!  I am trying to figure out what the solution is for them.  I was thinking that we would give them the chicken run and the chickens would have their new coop, but it is not going to be able to wait until Summer.  And the six chicks will be needed room soon as well.  I think we will end up having to make another smaller temporary pen of some sort for the ducklings. 

And I must add that I have tiny chicks in a smaller cage in the house.  I wanted to add Aracaunas to our flock, so I was thinking of ordering those until I found out our feed store had some scheduled to arrive. We anxiously awaited those and when they were in we got six Aracaunas (one drowned in the water, so we have five) and two other chicks.  So, we have stages of fowl that need proper caging and no definite plan.  LOL!  It will all work out, but I have got to get on it! 

My thoughts are mainly on the ducklings.  I have no idea really what is the best solution for them.  Maybe once they are grown they won't even need their own caging.  They might be able to just join the chickens in their housing.  I mean, now that I think about it I have never heard anyone talk about their "duck coop".  LOL!  It is all a learning process and I really did not consider too much about it on the day we bought the ducks.  I'm smart like that!  ;) 

Since this post is about Animal Housing and not just the feathered friends we have, I want to include that this past Fall (2011) we were given two male goats.  We had the idea that they would just join in with our two dogs (rat terriers) in their pen.  That pen is very large... I am guessing that it is 12' X 20' and has three dog houses in it.  That space was fine.  I would suggest having more space for goats, but they would have been fine in that much space.  We decided to get rid of them because they made it stinky.  We could walk out the back door and it smelled like a livestock barn.  I asked the neighbors and they said they did not smell it, but I am sure it was just a matte of time before they would have.  It was yuck!  I don't think this would have been an issue with females, but once the males hit maturity the odor began. 

These are our "bigger chicks".  They are approximately 4 weeks old.  We took them out to have a chance to free range a bit under our close watch.   We won't do that much as they hard to catch. 

These are the "baby chicks"... Buff Orpingtons are the yellow.... Aracaunas are the brown.

These are the "baby chicks" in their caging in our house.  They almost made it one week in here, but today I moved them out.  The weather is forecasted to be in the 80s with no rain.  We were having flood situations when these little gals came home with us, so in the interest of their survival I put them indoors.

Our ducklings in the 3x3x3 caging and under a tarp due to flash flood weather.  They like this little nesting box, but they outgrew it within a week.

The nesting box also proved to be a place that there poop could accumulate.  Yuk!  These birds are super messy and they require that their cage be washed down about every other day.

Stinking birds... I mean, sweet little ducklings...

These are the 3x3x3 cages on the simple stands we made out of 2x4 boards.  These cages are not glamorous, but they were $10 each and we had the lumber to build the stands.  These cages have served us well and have been very useful for muliple purposes.  We even had a rescued squirrel in one for a while.  Also, the flooding issue has made a fine mess and quite a stinky situation.  This is not normal, so it usually looks a little better than this.  The tarps were necessary for the excessive rain even though the rain still got these poor little birds.  They look pretty sad after that storm.  They are all better now.  If you look close you can see one of our adult Barred Rocks under the cage. 

This has nothing to do with "housing", but this is the first time our ducks got to play in the water.  We had a "pond-like backyard" due to the flooding. 

These are the "Bigger Chicks".  We had placed them in this cage to carry them to an area that was suitable to test them out with free ranging.  The orange ones are New Hampshire Reds.  The two speckled ones toward the bottom are Barred Rocks.  We already have two adult Barred Rocks and I liked them so much that I added two more to our flock.  Not sure this was wise, though.  One of these little ones keeps trying to peck me!  The two other black chicks pictures are Silver Wyandottes. 

Our Little Acre

We started out here on this little lot of land in the middle of our small town with 3/4 of an acre of land.  Being that we live just a few blocks from the old town square 3/4 of an acre is actually a pretty large piece of land.  Now, I grew up on 11 acres, so to me it is not large, but for town life it is a nice size lot.  There was a 1/4 acre vacant lot behind our property that was not being maintained, so after some research I found out that there were debts owed to the city for a house demolition and several years of back taxes owed on the property.  After a couple of years I called the owner and offered to pay his debts and an additional $2, 000 to him for the property.  This was a generous offer since I could have pushed the city to confiscate his property and I would have probably gotten his property for much less.  Mostly, my husband wanted the property and I knew that this was the best approach to assure we got the land.  So, we did it and now we have 1 full acre making us the only ones in this area of town to own half a city block.  Seriously, it is a big deal and we are quite in love with it. 

The only problem is.... I fear we are gonna get thrown out of town for all the creatures we have started keeping in the last couple of years.  Hahahaha!  It was a big joke when we moved here over ten years ago that I had come from the country and might dare to have chickens here.  I honestly thought I would NEVER have chickens.  Fast forward to the present... and we do have chickens.  And more creatures.

We started with dogs.  Pretty simple... pretty normal.  We had four, but have had some deaths, so now we have two dogs... rat terriers.  They have such sweet personalities.

Over a year ago we added rabbits.  In the Fall of 2010 we got two California Rabbits and one died right away of heat stroke.  We returned the other for fear of it dying.  A friend gave us another rabbit her kids did not want anymore.  Within a month or so we purchased two more rabbits.  By the early Spring of 2011 we had over 30 rabbits!!!  Oh my the way they multiply!  We upgraded to a 10 cage system  and we now have lops and regular rabbits. 

In the Spring of 2011 we also added eight chickens for the purpose of laying eggs.  In the Fall of 2011 a friend gave us 3 bantam chicks and we have one that has survived.  Actually, we found her first two eggs today!  Woo hoo!  They are so cute little tiny eggs.  Anyhow, this Spring (2012) we have added six more chicks and four ducklings and we intend to add a few more chicks next week. 

Last Fall (2011) we were given two male goats that we were going to raise with our dogs, but that did not work out because once the goats hit maturity they began to have a strong scent.  It smelled like a livestock barn here.  Stinky!  They had to go. 

So, right now on our little acre we have:
8 laying hens (2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Golden Sex Links, 2 Black Australians
1 bantam hen (Duck Wing Bantam).... Ooops!  Update:  It seems our banty got in the dog yard... It's a gonner!  :(
6 chicks (2 Barred Rocks, 2 New Hampshire Reds, 2 Silver Wynndotte)
4 ducklings (Uncertain of breed)
4 lop rabbits (1 baby)
16 mix rabbits (9 babies)
2 rat terrier dogs.

LOTS OF FUN on our little one acre!!!!

Summer is....

Everyone is talking about Summer.  School is out for public schoolers and many homeschoolers.  Everyone is talking about plans... plans for vacations... plans for their schooling during Summer and in the Fall.  It seems there is so much to think about.  For us Summer is....

Going to be a time of slowing down a bit in some areas.  Our regular school plan will change.

My husband will be off work after next Tuesday, since he is a public school teacher. 

We are not planning a vacation this year; however, you never know when that might change.

My brother, his wife, and their daughter are moving bake to Texas this Summer.

I might rip out all the carpet in this house (my big fantasy).  The problem with this little fantasy is that there is only plywood underneath and since we want to try to pay off our mortgage within one year we don't want to spend money on flooring.  So, we have to decide if we can hold off until the mortgage is paid off or if we can find a cheap or temporary flooring solution.  I despise carpeted floors.  Upstairs we have some painted floors, but it looks "right" because it is a board floor.  If I had a faux flooring solution for plywood that would look nice I could live with that for a year.  That would allow us freedom to be messy with our artsy craftsy time.  After the mortgage is all gone bye-bye we could change if we wanted to hardwood floors. 

We will do some special schooling...  I am planning to use "Consider God's Creation" (Science) some.  I would also like to do some art curriculum that we have not been faithful to complete (or really even begin).  We will continue to keep math "fresh" for Sierra and read a lot.  Savannah will actually finish up her Grade 4 math and possibly begin her Grade 5 math.  She does not know it yet, but I have decided to detour that plan a bit, though.  I am awaiting the arrival of the first book in the Life of Fred series.  This Summer I am going to let her try that.  I originally thought it was just a supplemental thing for math, but have recently learned it can be a complete math curriculum.  I also hear that the kids who put up a fight to do math actually beg to do this... It's worth a try!  Sewing is top on the list to do with my older ones.  There should be no excuse to not have time since my hubby will be off and there are no scheduled vacations. 

And if it will ever rain I would love to focus some more on growing veggies!

Oh yeah.... we HAVE to build a chicken coop.

And we will be selling seven baby bunnies. 

And I would like to have some lazy days like this little momma (Sahara) and her babies.

Birth Surprises TIMES FOUR !!!

If you have been around here long, you will know that this series of posts about "birth surprises" has nothing to do with human birth.  It is all about these crazy rabbits we have.  We started with THREE rabbits and we have now had FOUR surprise litters.  We also had someone deliver a Lop to us that they needed to find a home for.  Ironically, they showed up to deliver the Lop as we were about to drive off when I was in labor with Sienna.... never a dull moment here!!! 

So, this past Friday we got another surprise litter... eight more babies!  Apparently, this rabbit bred on the same day she delivered her first litter.  Bllleeeeechhhhh!  What is it with these rabbits!??... don't answer that~!~  ;)  I thought we were in the clear on this one because she carried the litter for 32 days.  The rabbit books we have say that they typically deliver on the 30th day and there is little variance on this rule.  One of the babies died and we discovered that today.  So, she currently has seven living babies from this litter.  Our total for rabbits in currently 36 now and it is safe to say that we will be selling some "Easter Bunnies".  Serioulsy, we are just going to have several that are ready to go around Easter.  We plan to give some away to friends and the rest that we sale to will be for a small fee to offset some of the feed cost.  They are starting to go through some serious amounts of feed.  I try to get the kids to pull plenty of weeds to supplement their diet each day, but they have to be reminded.  If I forget to remind them, then it just does not happen. 

Anyway, we have bunnies running out of our ears!!! 

Even More Birth Surprises!!!

Yes, even more birth surprises... And they are still not about me!

So, Sierra is outside checking on the all the rabbits and she screams out that the momma to the first litter, Mary, has picked up one of her four week old bunnies with her mouth and shook it.  She also pointed out that there was freshly pulled hair in the cage and she thought the momma might have pulled some of the hair from the little bunnies. 

Now we are not expert bunny raisers, so everyday is a new day around here with these little creatures.  Cody and the kids decide they want to move the four week old babies to another cage to seperate them from the mother.  I quickly run into the house and google when to seperate the mother from the babies, because we do not want her harming them, of course.  I come back out tell them that what I have found says that they usually need to stay with their mother for about eight weeks.  Comments are going on amongst us all about the hair pulling.  I am telling Cody that it is possible that she bred with the male the day the other litter was born, since the bunny birth was a total surprise and we are not sure how long he was still in there after the babies were born.  And the timing woud be 29 days and that is pretty darn close to the 30 day estimated gestation for rabbits.  I also point out that Mary (momma rabbit)  is stretched out and breathing heavy like the day the other momma rabbit (Patches) had her babies.  Of course, Cody is rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of this all... and I admit I was only speculating at the mere possibility.  I did not really think it could all be so.  We decide that for now we will keep Momma with her four week old babies, so they move her to the cage that they had just moved those babies to.  They fluff it full of hay pull some weeds from the yard that the rabbits love to munch on.  We leave them all as a bunch of happy, frolicking rabbits.  All the four week old rabbits are having a "hay day" digging around in the hay.

Fast forward about one hour or less.  I had gone in and was reading more online about rabbit care and once again we hear a scream from outside (the back door was open).  This time the scream was from Savannah stating that she thought there was a newborn dead baby rabbit in the cage.  Everyone came running and to our surprise there was a tiny little baby rabbit lying in the middle of the cage still enclosed in the amniotic sac.  Cody tried to help it, but it was cold and lifeless.  Inside the nesting box I reached in to feel the warmth of 5-6 warm little bodies surrounded by hay and freshly plucked fur from their momma.  We are in amazement! 

So, back the momma, Mary, goes into her original cage and we move the nesting box full of new babies into the cage with her.  The four week old babies are officially being seperated from their momma.  I am so glad they are thriving and doing so well.  I did come back in to find that the article I was reading when Savannah screamed did go on to say that baby rabbits can be weaned and seperated from the mother as early as 4-5 weeks.  And that is a good thing, because I don't think we have any other option. 

So, let's recap.....
We started with one female rabbit, Patches.  We added one male and one female from two seperate litters, Mary and Peter.  These two stayed together because we thought they were too young to breed.  ;)  We discovered 4 weeks and one day ago that we were wrong and arrived home from church to find 6 baby bunnies.  Apparently, we now know that some breeding went on that day, as well.  We moved Peter in with Patches, since we only had two cages at this time.  We totally were prepared for the possibility of more babies in thirty days; however, were surprised to find Patches laboring only two weeks later in the middle of the day.  Peter then had to move to a dog kennel temporarily when Patches birthed her 12 (later lost 2).  And today we once again had another birth from Mary and for now I am going to estimated the birth at 7 with one loss making it 6 living.

Here's the math....
+  1             Patches (female)
+  2             Mary (female) & Peter (male)
+  6             Mary's first birth
+12             Patches' first birth
-   2             Patches' losses
+ 11            Mary's second birth
-   1             Mary's loss
   29            Total Rabbits  (Revised Total... There were more babies than we originally thought in Mary's second birth.)

Bunny Update

I had a request for a bunny update and because they are soooooo stinking cute I am just gonna have to do that.  First a little review. 

The first litter is now 3 weeks and 5 days old.  That litter was six and all of them have survived.  One was dropped by an adult that was visiting and we were advised to "put it out of it's misery", but it was not showing signs of pain.  We decided to pray for it and wait awhile and that little one has made a full recovering as far as we can tell.

The second litter is now 1 week and 4 days old.  That litter was 12 and we have lost two.  The momma rabbit stuffed some towels into the nesting box and one of the weaker ones was unable to get to her to nurse, so we found that one dead and dehydrated.  The other one that we lost was a couple days later and again the momma rabbit stuffed a towel in the nesting box and as she was leaving out she accidentally drug out several babies behind her and one got squished behind the nesting box.  It was also one of the weaker ones.  So sad to lose them, but that it nature and with 12 babies we knew from the beginning that we would probably lose some.  There is one that is half the size of the others, but the others are doing well.  We are trying to help this little one by taking it out and letting it nurse from it's momma all alone. 

This is the little one (black & white) that is so much smaller and weaker.  It is hard to tell by this pic, but it is half the size of the others. 

Another pic of the tiny one (black & white).

This is the daddy rabbit of all the babies.  He is now in solitary confinement and obviously very lonely in his new cage. 

These are our new cages that we were able to get for a great bargain.  We were going to spend our day last Saturday building cages, but I got these cheaper than I could buy the supplies to build.  We only needed one set, but thinking into the future I wanted to get more while the bargain was there.  Each large section is 5 seperate cages that each measure (30" x 30").  That times two is 10 cages .  We got this all for $120, which is the equivalent of getting each cage area (30" x 30") for $12 each.  That also comes with the water sysem in place and feeder trays.  Our only issue at this point is that we will need to eventually have a roof of some sort over them.  For the time being Peter (daddy rabbit) has a piece of tin over his cage and we move it to open his cage (cages are toploding). 

This is a pic on one of the healthy bunnies from the second litter.  Size is about 3" long by about 1 1/2" high.  They have their fur some, but the eyes and ears are still closed and they resemble puppies at this stage of development.  Miraculously in a matter of days they will appear more like bunnies and the eyes will open.  Soon after the ears will open up.  It is truly amazing to see them transform. 

This is not a great pic, but this is the 10 youngest litter in their nesting box. 

This is our first momma rabbit and her 6 babies that are now 3 weeks 5 days.  They are about 7" long and 4" high.  Bunnies are fast growers!  Her litter has three that look like the daddy, two like the momma (like the one on top of the box), and one little "black sheep of the family" (black & white).  Savannah has named and claimed this one as Zebra (her favorite animal). 

Zebra got a trip inside the house.  Zebra was not so sure about the surroundings.

Zebra gets cuddled like a little baby.... they all do!  ;) 

These little bunnies are not going to allow this much longer, though.  They are started to kick their little "Wanna Be Mommas".  Sierra is quite happy to be holding and mothering them while she can, though!  We are all thoroughly enjoying our bunny babies! 

And we have learned so much from them.  We have dropped our Science curriculum for now and loving it.  They are amazing little creatures and there is so much to learn about them.  I have been truly surprised at some of ways rabbits mother their babies vs. the way humans do. 

•  The mother actually stays away to protect her babies from predators.  Mom has a strong scent that attracts other animals.  The babies have no scent. 
• She usually on feeds them a couple of times at night to when predators are not around.  That includes people, so you are not likely to see her feeding them at all, if you are trying to observe this.  We thought our first mother was starving her babies.
• If mother does not feed them it would be rare to be able to save them as there is nothing that can replace rabbit milk.  A mother can be held on her back and forced to nurse one that is not getting feed and this is what we have had to do with our weaker babies from the larger litter.  We are only doing this with the one little one now. 
• Male rabbits can maturely breed by only 10 weeks old.... Good to know.  Seriously, there is no way to tell the sexes apart until the male is "mature". 
• Females can breed again as soon as their babies are out.  So, solitary confinement for daddy bunny is a must. 
• Mother starts to run from her babies by the time they are about two weeks old.  She is not willing to be a "human pacifier" like some of us human mothers.  ;)  She is one smart cookie! 
• Babies hop, but seem to lose this ability in several days.  They then start to walk first on all fours and around two weeks they begin to hop, again. 
• And many more random facts.....

And they are really fun!!

More Birth Surprises!

Yes, more birth surprises and they are not about me.... but I do only have THREE WEEKS UNTIL MY DUE DATE!!! .... Okay, back to what my real topic is, though.  Two and half weeks ago we came home from church to find a surprise of baby bunnies from our rabbit, Mary (or that is her most recent name).  We immediately removed the male (Peter) and placed him in with our other female (Patches).  We knew when we did this we would likely have more baby bunnies in 30 days, but we were so wrong.  Fifteen days passed and we noticed Patches was making a nest with her fur... and lying inside the nest and breathing rapidly.  As we played with our recent litter of two week old bunnies I asked my older girls if they had ever seen Patches behave like she was behaving.  They said they had not.  We left Patches alone and went in the house for a while.  When we came out the nesting box was filled with fur.  Let me just tell you that if they do this you probably already have baby bunnies... and we did.  This was Monday afternoon by the way.  I reached in the nesting box and could feel the body heat and tiny little bumps that were bodies.  Immediately, we once again removed Peter.  As both our rabbit cages are now occupied by mothering rabbits Peter is temporarily in a portable dog kennel and looking very lonely, but never fear we plan to solve that problem this weekend. 

So, this morning we checked on the rabbits and I was very curious as to how many new baby bunnies Patches had.  Mary's six seemed like a lot to me, so when I reached in and started counting it went something like this...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Hmm... she might have as many as Mary....


6.... She does have as many as mary and I still feel more!



7, 8,... Still I feel more... wow!

9.... No way!  And I am still feeling more!

10 !!!!!!...... Nope, that's not all!!!!


11..... Hmmm... Getting closer...


Well, just how high do you want to go?!! A DOZEN!!! Patches must have been listening the day my husband said, "Time to make the donuts!"..., And thought he said, "Time to make the bunnies!"  A DOZEN BABY BUNNIES!   So, I think we better get on that cage project!  These little guys grow fast.  We went from THREE rabbits to TWENTY-ONE rabbits in a matter of two weeks.  And I am soooo glad I am not a rabbit... twelve at a time would be way too much... even six would be way too much.  ;)