Second rabbit mating

The rabbit buck and doe spent a few days together this week. Expecting the next litter around September 12th.

I also replaced their standard rodent water bottles (which I'd gotten for free, but were small and leaked) with 2 gallon buckets with metal nipples to drink from.

Chicken injury and recovery

One recent morning I did my livestock rounds and found the Black Australorp lying on the ground with her legs splayed behind her. She couldn't move them much and couldn't stand up at all. She would definitely die from exposure and dehydration if I didn't give her any support, so I brought her indoors. I laid out a towel for traction in the bathtub, and propped her against a food bowl and water.

She perked up immediately after drinking water. Over the next three days, she steadily gained strength in her legs (left one more quickly). She started being able to shuffle around on her "hocks." She'd had diarrhea at first, but it cleared up after 24 hours. She started preening her feathers after 48 hours. I did little rehab exercises by holding her above the floor and slowly lowering her down, so she would try to engage her muscles to support herself.

Three days after the incident, I had to leave for the weekend. I didn't want to leave her in the bathtub in case she knocked over her water bowl (which had happened once before), and so that she didn't poop and then smear it all over herself. I arranged for my local vet to board her.

Fortunately, on the morning I was leaving, she was able to stand and take a few wobbly steps at a time. With that milestone, I felt comfortable putting her outside into one of the old animal pens. She continued to gain strength while I was gone and could walk up to a few feet before resting.

She is now back with the flock and has even been able to get onto the roosting bars at night.

Yarn spinning progress

I don't spend as much time at my spinning wheel as I wish I could. On Sunday I drove down to the Black Squirrel for the new monthly spinning circle. It turned out that the group is meeting on the second Sunday of the month, not the first. I stayed anyway and got 3 hours of spinning done. I'm finally close to finishing the "MLP" roving I bought two years ago. I think it will only take 1 or maybe 2 hours more.

Once I'm done spinning up the roving, I will ply the three spindles together.

Dead baby bunnies

Well that turned quickly. This morning I saw the doe in the box with her babies. In the afternoon I decided that it was time to check on them again. There were seven - one was smaller and I hadn’t felt it earlier. They were all totally cold. Their bellies were big and squishy, not emaciated. I think that mom was taking care of them fine, but either disease or environment killed them. One of my local friends suggested that it was the bad air quality from nearby fires. I will wait until the air clears up so that the adults aren’t stressed, then rebreed then. In the meantime I’ve thoroughly sprayed the nesting box with bleach.

Baby bunnies!

I am so excited to welcome my first litter of rabbits! The doe was due to kindle between Tuesday and Friday, and waited until Friday morning. Then I held out for only 24 hours before checking on the nest. I'll leave them alone again for the next few days since rabbit moms eat their babies if they're overly stressed. (yikes)

There are 3 dark gray babies and 3 pink ones. They don't have any fur yet and their eyes and ears are closed, but they had full bellies. They startled and wriggled violently when they felt my hands reaching around and picking them up, but would calm down after I'd held them for a couple of seconds. I picked up a few for just a few seconds each, counted everyone, then covered them back up with mom's fur. She checked on them after I left.

Next batch of broiler chicks

Raising chicks is so much fun! The next batch of 25 arrived a couple weeks ago. It's been so hot that I haven't turned on the heat lamp for them after the first few nights. No deaths in this batch. (Last set had 3.)

Baby pictures:

This one has an injured left eye.

For the most part I can't tell what breeds I have, but I got 3 of these hideous Turkens!

Why do they have naked butts??

So ugly.

25 broilers processed

Chase, Andrew, Iona, and I processed 25 of the 28 surviving broilers. The missing 3 are being trialed with my laying flock, as I want to have a back up rooster. (I thought for a while that I was going to have to dispatch the current feral rooster, but he may be on the mend from his injury.) I did most of the catching and dispatching, since the roosters were least stressed by my presence in the run. We all prioritized having it be humane death for them. Everyone did take a turn at dispatching to gain some experience.

I had borrowed a large pot and propane heater from Rachel and Eli, who couldn't make it. So scalding was a simple process.

Then plucking was SO easy with my new Yard Bird plucker!! It was a very generous gift from Chase and Andrew!

By far the most time-consuming part was gutting the chickens. Chase and Andrew had brought over a couple of fancy sharp knives, and we all got faster at the process as the night went on, but still we worked from noon to 10 pm with only a few short breaks.

They also brought a vacuum sealer, so these almost look like store-bought chickens!

All the volunteers took home a couple of chickens each. It takes a village - I definitely couldn't have done all this myself! Thank you to my amazing friends!!