Disappointments

Well, the saying goes that bad things happen in threes, and we've had a few whoppers here in the past few days.

The firewood situation is looking a bit dire, and our 'wood guy,' who was supposed to show up yesterday with the remainder of our order, didn't. Apparently he has laryngitis - at least according to his wife's cryptic phone message. We may be better off not getting another delivery from him, but for all I know, he may just show up anyway. I'm glad I only paid him half.

We got our initial delivery stacked - the front of three rows (the back 2 being the majority of our first 2 cords) - and it is sorely lacking in size for the amount paid....maybe 2/3 of a cord, if we're being generous.

We're also going through our wood faster than I had expected. It's probably not helping that we're new to woodstove management and aren't damping it to slow down the burn as well as we ought.

The new wood splits very nicely. It is indeed good quality - just not the quantity that we agreed on.

Today, while doing a mid-day check on the rabbits, I found that the smallest of the 11-week-old male kits had labored breathing, and looked to be exhausted and in distress. I brought him in by the fire, and could definitely hear crackling in his lungs when I held him to my ear. The nights have just turned quite cold, and I hoped that he might improve in the sheltered warmth. I called a rabbit friend, who agreed that it was probably pneumonia, and we would be needing a round of antibiotics if we hoped to save him. The reality of the situation sank in - butchering day is Saturday. I held him for a short while, and he seemed calm, and then slowly stopped breathing while I cradled him. It was fast. His 2 cage mates have always been bigger and more vital than him, though I did note they seemed to be protecting him this morning when I went out with breakfast and the eagerly awaited morning treat of grain. Goodbye little guy. I'm sorry I didn't realize earlier that you were in trouble.

While I was futzing about with hauling feed and grass out to the rabbits, I took advantage of the clear weather to have a very quick peek into our primary hive. 

In the summer, you can hear the buzz of the colony from several feet away - if you know what you're listening for. We had closed up the floor and checked for stores 3 weeks ago, identified the queen and some new brood, and I felt quite confident that this hive was set for the winter. A couple of nights ago, I noticed that there was limited sound coming from the hive, and last night I tapped the wall purposely, which usually results in an increase of volume from the disturbed bees. 

And I heard nothing.

A flashlight shone in through the entrance holes showed no bees guarding the entrance, and none visible beyond that.

Today, with a sense of dread, I opened the hive to find maybe 200 bees - as opposed to the literally thousands there might be on a warm summer day. No brood. No sign of a queen, and what looked to be a bunch of bees gorging on honey as they chewed the wax cappings off the finished stores. 

A quick look into the secondary hive, the one that I had my doubts about, showed a considerably larger colony and some brood just emerging. No sign of newly laid worker cells. That indicates to me that those emerging workers may be the last of the brood we saw when we tried to transfer some new eggs over (it's 21 days to emergence for a worker). I was moving fast, since it was only 10 degrees at the height of the afternoon. I closed the hive up, and left well enough alone.

As the darkness and temperature fell, I donned my beekeeping veil and gloves, and went out to my formerly strong colony - and pulled most of the frames from the hive. There are still bees inside and I didn't have the heart to leave them without food for however many days they have left, but I'm also not willing to risk robbers stealing the honey that they worked so hard for. The remaining girls won't likely last long in the cold with their numbers too few to regulate the inside temperature. There is no large pile of bodies on the bottom screen, no sign of damage from rodents, or broken comb that might identify robbing activities. The colony is simply gone.

Not the harvest I wanted.

This definitely came as a surprise. I will continue to monitor our remaining hive, but I fear that they too will be gone within weeks as they age. For now, I will examine my bottom board and the hive body for more information in full light, and carefully examine the comb as I salvage the honey that was supposed to see the colony through the winter. In spring, we will have to start again.

Moving Day

 

We spent some time over the weekend setting up more large cages, so that we could move mothers and their 5-week-old kits outside into the sunshine and fresh air.  The Florida White mothers will eventually go back inside through the colder months, but these cross-bred kits should have warmer coats, and the females we are keeping will spend the winter with a sister for warmth and companionship. We'll keep an eye on things, and offer straw and windbreaks if it becomes severely cold. The nights are cold now, but not freezing, and all of the bunnies are quite dry and warm when we feed them in the dark at 7 am.  All of the 10-week-old bunnies were weighed and sexed - though we'll be checking again to verify our findings.

 

 

Everyone settled right in and noshed on some apple branches as an afternoon snack.

Planting Garlic and Bunny Comparisons

This year was my first experience with garlic rust, which made me a bit leery about my planting of our saved garlic this Fall.  Research said that there was no reason not to plant our cloves, but I decided to be a bit more proactive, and dunked the newly-separated cloves in buckets of water, with equal parts bleach and liquid kelp to disinfect and give a boost to next year's harvest.  I used a scientific 'glug' of each in a bucket of about 2.5 gallons of water.

As I separated out the cloves, I dropped them into their bath, where I left them while I prepared the holes for planting.  My reading says that they can be left in the water for up to 24 hours, and that treatment can be followed by a dip in rubbing alcohol or vodka (neither of which I had on hand).

 

I know I'm not the only gardener out there who suffers a twinge planting the biggest bulbs of the harvest.  This clove is a hardneck variety, likely Music, acclimated over three seasons here. I decided to plant one bed of hardneck and one of softneck as opposed to last year's chaos.  It should make garlic scape season a little less like a treasure hunt. Throwback at Trapper Creek, who's in Oregon, says she finds her hardneck keeps almost as long as the softneck, and the cloves are so much bigger and easier to peel that she has a preference for it.  We like the look of braids, for which softnecks are required, but the disease meant I sent all the greenery to the garbage this time around, snipped half and inch above the bulbs.  Food for thought...

 

As additional guard against dealing with rust, I increased my planting distance from 6 to 8 inches, so there is more room for air movement between the plants in the beds. This also means I downsized our harvest from 180 heads of garlic to about 130. Multiplier onions and shallots still need to be planted along the edges (fall planting is an experiment this year, using saved bulbs from this season's garden).

While I was making holes, my lovely husband was digging finished compost out of our two black bins, and we had the perfect amount to cover everything up.  What I didn't take a picture of was the
actual finished beds - tucked in with floating row cover, bricks weighing down the corners to discourage chicken 'exploration.' Still to come is a chicken wire fence around the plantings - this one will be sturdier than what protected the barley crop.

The bunnies and kits are doing well, although the tattooing seems to be a bit hit-and-miss, as the ink is still wearing off.  Sunday Adrian took our biggest and smallest kits out of their nesting boxes for comparison at 17 days (hint: I've dubbed the grey one 'Gigantor')

 

And the real comparison:

 

 

Can I hear an awwwwww?

Rabbit Identification Day

This morning started off clear, if a bit chilly.  Shortly after beginning my day with a bit of yard clean up (yay! no rain), I looked out the window to see the beginning of a deluge (yay! rain....).  So it wasn't perfect timing when my friend called to say she was on her way over to help tattoo the kits for identification.

Luckily, by the time she arrived and we had set up, the rain had abated somewhat, and we were able to organize our gear on a table in the carport to weigh and tattoo all of the rabbits from the two 7-week-old litters.  I still couldn't swear as to the sex of the bunnies today (and Jen commiserated about how difficult that can be as we both peered closely as fuzzy bunny genitals).  Development at this age is minimal, and there's....well....a *lot* of fur down there.

So, with each bunny weighed, we slathered ink in their left ear (on which I had spread anesthetic cream an hour beforehand), and clamped the Ketchum tattoo pliers to make their mark, spread more ink, and then whisked the annoyed bunnies back to their cages.  Everyone got a bit of grain for good behaviour (well, mostly good!)

So, may I introduce kits H131 through H1310, weighing in between 2 pounds 7 ounces, and 3 pounds 4 ounces.

 

I don't like you anymore.

 

After tattooing, additional ink paste is rubbed into the tattoo holes to ensure a clear tattoo.  Why yes, those are fresh scratches on my hand.

 

Clearly, there are going to be some trust issues for a few days.

As I left them with their grain, the bunnies were recovering and consoling one another. (It's ok - the ink is edible.)

Growing Up Fast

Jodie the foster chick is three and a half weeks old, and the bunnies - at a week old - are soon to be opening their eyes.  Our two neighbourhood cats are very interested in the back yard right now, so I took a quick pick of Jodie this morning, then had to trick her back into the dog run when she took flight and ran off for a bit of freedom.  She has wings, and knows what to do with them!

Not too please with being confined.

 

Sakura's litter of seven kits are furred out in various shades from grey through brown and black.  Cute little ears and feet everywhere!

 

Close-up of a sleepy little bunny. 

 Chun Li's litter of three - a much darker, solid colouring.

Noticeably bigger, sleek, and full of milk - but just as sleepy.

 

We bred our two other does on the weekend - though one of our girls was not interested in the process, and I'm hoping that putting her back in with Notch the next day results in a pregnancy. We prefer to breed two girls at the same time, in case of problems with the mother, or litter size.  

Rabbit Roll Call

We currently have one Florida White breeding male, a second Florida White male representing different lineage, and 4 breeding females.  This weekend, we will be welcoming Notch, a Champagne D'Argent buck from Horse Drawn Farms (already bred to Sakura) to come and join our backyard herd.

Spot, a Florida White, was born in October 20, 2011. Parents Peter and Darla.
Spike, our untried Florida White male, was born on April 3, 2013. Parents Peter and Sweetie.

Sweetie her half-brother Peter and half-sister Darla all came from an American breeder, to serve as the foundation for our initial rabbitry stock - all Florida Whites.

Rose, Chun Li, and Sakura (our Street Fighter girls) were born on April 28, 2012. Parents Peter and Sweetie. 

We wanted to try crossbreeding with a larger, calmer rabbit breed, to hopefully keep the build of the Florida White (a breed with good return of meat for feed consumed - but somewhat anxious), and get a slightly larger, more laid-back rabbit.  We will be watching with great interest to see how these kits develop.

From our July 13th breeding at Horse Drawn Farms, Notch and Sakura have produced a litter of 7 kits.

They have pink undersides, with blush noses and insides of ear, and are black everywhere else - from a quick inspection to make sure everyone was moving, and had a full tummy. They're not keen to be out of the nest.

Chun Li, bred to Horse Drawn Farm's buck Gypsy, had a litter of 3 kits, who are much darker in colouring, and much more full of milk this morning, because they don't have to share nearly as much!

 

Just look at a the chubby tummies!  Welcome all, this is the start to our new line of "Florida Silvers".

Rabbit Reposting

I was keeping notes in an online journal back when we started keeping rabbits, and wanted to copy a couple of important entries here for future reference:

Our first attempt at breeding Sweetie, our well-mannered, dainty queen of the rabbitry did not go well, and she gave birth on the cage floor. We eventually lost all of them after trying to revive the surviving kits under a heat lamp....

The bunnies didn't make it

September 12, 2011, 14:04

We left the nesting box with mom for two days - all readings suggested interfering as little as possible (especially since we'd already had to handle them). Taking everyone outside into the shade of the apple tree, we found the babies had all died in their nesting box. I'm not sure if it was simply too confusing for Sweetie, or if she rejected them because we'd handled them and brought them back to her. I don't think that she knew what to do - though she was lactating the morning after giving birth. I buried the little bodies in the comfrey patch, sad that their lives had been so cruel. It's a bit of an odd feeling, since we were growing them for food, after all - but I had expected to provide them with sunshine and fresh greens and an outside run before ending their short lives as quickly as possible. There seemed to be a bit more balance to the process with that scenario in mind. I will try breeding the two girls at the same time next week, so that Darla can be used as a foster mother if she seems to be more capable. I knew this venture wasn't going to be simple or easy, and I have never taken lightly the fact that I am responsible for the lives of my animals. I'm also very glad that I'm not urgently needing to be sustaining myself from my own labour. This loss makes me even more aware of how fragile the food chain really is, and how much we take for granted the easy availability of food in our commercial 24/7 society.

If only we knew then that Darla would be an unfit mother herself, and wound up killing all but one of her third and last litter before we culled her.  We bred them both soon after...

Livestock update and feed costing

September 28, 2011, 17:06

The girls are both halfway through their (assumed) pregnancies, and aside from being occasionally skittish or growly, are happily eating their greens and snatching their apple slices, both seemingly content with the world. Sweetie is notably less aggressive than during her last pregnancy. Everyone is getting outside time on the weekends at least - as now it is almost too dark by the time we arrive home from work for me to rush and collect greens for their evening enjoyment. For now - until the frost hits - the rabbits have a selection of roughly five or six types of greens a day (dandelion, comfrey, mint, lemon or lime balm, strawberry leaves, plantain, kale, celery leaf and sorrel...), but the selection is dwindling with the waning daylight and colder temperatures. There will be more reliance on apples, pears, carrots, (the dehydrator is running most days with local fruit), whole-grain bread (they *love* oats), apple tree twigs and hay in the colder months, and hardier greens. Having just purchased a new fancy dehydrator (3-7 days shipping), I will try to dehydrate some of the greens we're currently feeding to store for occasional winter food interest. I like to think this gives them a nice change-up in their day, something entertaining to do with their time, and is helping cut down on the amount of pellets they're eating as well. We aren't sure if they're using the mineral licks, or if the humidity is affecting them, since several have broken apart and most of them seem 'wet.' The rabbits are never near them in my line-of-sight.

This weekend we drove out to the Feed store in Abbotsford, and dropped two hundred dollars on animal feed. We grabbed two bales of Timothy hay ($26.00), now hanging from the ceiling in the carport (sorry rodents!), as well as:
- 3 20kg bags of "16% Rabbit Pellets" ($13.99 each)
- 1 bag of "25% Horse Creep Feed" ($18.99) to help with rabbit pregnancy and lactation, and as a fattening boost for kits once they're eating solid food. Currently introducing a small handfull daily to the girls' diet in preparation for their kindling.
- 1 40lb bag of "Step 2 Sweet Feed" ($15.49) for both rabbits and chickens - grains and molasses mix to help the animals generate internal heat in the colder weather
- 1 20kg "18% Free Range Crumble" ($11.99) to be mixed with
- 1 20kg "16% Organic Layer Mash" ($18.99) for the chickens, along with
- 1 20kg "Hen Scratch" ($11.79) to occupy the birds once we have them confined for the day in the hoophouse on a deep straw litter.
- finally, 1 40lb sack of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds ($24.97) as a treat for everyone
That was the litter where Darla gave birth to Spot, our sweet-tempered scratch-loving little buddy who is having some ear mite problems right now. He was the pick of the litters when we had our important first cull and became 'fully' experienced meat-rabbit raisers

The deed is done

January 11, 2012, 12:48

Eleven bunnies went to freezer camp this past weekend. We decided to keep back one friendly boy, now named 'Spot' by Adrian, who thinks it's an ironic moniker for an albino.... All went relatively well, and each bunny was dispatched as quickly as possible out of sight, smell and earshot of everyone else. Processing was repetitive and caused muscle issues, but the whole experience was rather affirming and fascinating. We are lucky people and are looking forward to new births this weekend with freshly scrubbed cages and fidgety mothers (Sweetie seems to have forgotten what the nesting box is about, and has eaten or trampled multiple loads of straw through the cage bottom).

It's difficult to put a price on the 'lappin' we've produced. The final tally of our eleven culled rabbits was: 37 pounds live weight, 21 pounds of carcass weight. We saved livers, and decided we weren't really thrilled with the taste, never having been fond of liver in the first place - but the livers, hearts and kidneys should be saved and fed to the chickens as a very good 'free' source of healthy protein. Those and other 'parts' could be saved for dog treats and food. Extra rabbit manure could be bagged and sold, worms could be raised in beds beneath rabbit cages for fishing, chicken feed, or for vermicomposting, or chickens can forage underneath the cages to clean up spilled food and aerate manure and bedding for garden mulch use and add a secondary use for space allocated to rabbit raising.

Keeping in mind that we were feeding 3 breeding adults from date-of-purchase and raising a secondary breeding male, 15 rabbits -to date- have eaten (roughly) $95.00 - worth of pellets, (bad stop-gap purchase of a small $25 bulk bag at a pet store took that over the top)
$10 sweet feed, oats and manna, (partial bags shared with the chickens)
$50 worth of alfalfa hay
$10 of carrot 'seconds'
$10 of local apples (dehydrated for rabbit treats)
Greens, herbs and branches from the garden and kitchen scraps

My head is spinning a bit here.....That's roughly $22 a month since this venture started in May; three months from birth to butcher for the two litters means all 15 rabbits ate $66.00 in those three growing months, at $4.40 averaged feed cost per rabbit. Our meat cost does not include the initial set-up and supplies ($1080.00 for breeding stock, cages and supplies that should last for ten years or more) or our labour, though much of it was enjoyable time petting and watching bunnies, and the dirty parts at least were exercise out in the sunshine, benefitting the garden (no need to buy manure this Spring at $50.00 on average application and from questionable sources). So, 21 pounds of rabbit meat averaged $2.30 a pound. Local grocery stores have Extra Lean 'Canadian' ground beef ("fluff style"?!? - granted, no bones) advertised on special for $3.49/lb, and chicken breast at $4.99/lb this week comparatively (again no bones). Whole Rabbit at local grocery stores runs $7.00/lb - but at that cost, we would never have consumed it on a regular basis.

If we're eating our own meat for $2.30 a pound, and locally available, comparable meat averages $4.25 a pound - *on sale - currently* we save $1.95 per pound on our grocery bill when we choose to eat meat. 

Bees and Bunnies

We went into the hive during a sunny break on Sunday, and were surprised when we found capped brood, but no other sign of a queen bee.  The hive has a reprieve until next weekend at least, when we will check again to see if there is any sign that the hive is queen-right and things are progressing well - we have our fingers and toes all crossed. This is proving quite the complicated beekeeping experience.

Work continued on the rabbitry, and we managed to get frames installed and covered, that will eventually each house two large hanging cages for our rabbits to have more space and fresh air. 

Sakura and Chun Li are both due to deliver today, and have built nests but have not yet begun to pull fur.  I'll be checking on them all day, but they'll likely wait until tonight to have their kits.

Long Live The Queen

We opened the hive again yesterday, to replace the bottle of sugar syrup, and to check on the progress in the brood nest. We know they're eating the syrup, and have observed them bringing in pollen, but the big question was whether the queen was laying in the comb that the workers had built....

Perhaps not the visual that everyone wants, but we were thrilled to verify the presence of eggs and larvae in various stages of growth, as well as some cells already capped with new bees-to-be maturing inside. It has been just twelve days since this colony package went into a completely empty hive. Workers, which is likely what the queen is laying, take 21 days from the time their egg is laid to when they emerge to become part of the colony.

Otherwise, the comb has been expanded, and they have capped honey cells near the top of some of the comb as well as stored pollen. The girls have been very easy to handle, and accepted our intrusion into their home with little bother. So that we could observe the cells, I was able to get the workers to move off the comb by blowing gently. We have not yet needed to use the smoker, but may find there is need as the colony grows and there are more bees on guard duty. Our main problem is gently putting the top bars back in place, as there are always inquisitive bees moving up and down the wood top bars. It takes a series of gentle bumps to get the girls to move out of the way and avoid squashing anyone.

Today is cold and rainy, so I'm glad we were able to open the hive yesterday. Our Mason Bees are still on hold in our fridge, as there have not been enough warm days in a row to warrant risking the 80 cocoons we saved from last year. If there is an extreme drop in temperature, the males (who are first to emerge) might die off before the females emerge for their mating flights on the next warm day.

The bunnies are getting more adorable as their fur comes in, and they should be starting to open their eyes as early as tomorrow.

New Additions

This is Sweetie:

She's been busy preparing her nest over the past few days. This morning, disturbing only the fur on top of the straw, 31 days after she was bred to Peter, we greeted some new arrivals:

We'll check back in the next few days, to make sure none of the kits is in trouble - we've lost several newborns in our rabbit-keeping experience due to mothers birthing on the cage floor (they cannot move their kits into the nest and they die of exposure), or unfortunately eating their young (a fear response). We also had a mother that killed older kits for no reason that we could fathom - but I did save a runt by grabbing the mother for one-on-one time over several days to make sure the little thing had a chance to eat without competition.

Ten days from now, they'll be furred out with eyes open.