Spring Babies Bigger!!

All the spring babies have gotten so much bigger! The tiny little puppies are already 10 weeks old, the chickens and ducks look like a giant yard of chickens and ducks instead of a yard of chicken nuggents for hawks.

And yes, that one on the far side, it is a sheep. 

George is still doing well. We've moved him to the Rabbitry for now until we can figure out how to help him get around better (if that's possible). But with him out there, he gets a morning jaunt out in the grass every day when I clean his cage and refill his food and water. He can't walk along for more than about an hour, but he seems to enjoy it.

Happily, my 1 handed typing has somewhat (and occasionally) returned to 2 handed typing. And the peasants rejoiced! Hopefully, this may mean I can update more frequently than once every 3-4 months.

These are 2 of our 2 Flemish Giant babies! These are from the first litter we had ever with Hugo and Bernadette. If we don't sell them, then yes, they will be snackums.

The Girl and her doggie Rupert.

My Magpie boy.

My pretty girl.

George!

Posting has been a little slow lately - I tore a tendon in my left wrist when one of our guineas got out and I can only type 1 handed. I keep hoping it's going to magically get better, but it hasn't improved in the last month at all. So 1 handed it is.

We hand a misfortune hatch of a duck, George. His legs are backwards and so are his feet. We keep promising ourselves we'll do the humane thing if he can't act duck-like anymore, but so far he's doing good!

We like us some George.

Fuzzy watching George

We've also decided to refine the bunny program a little bit. Instead of Netherland Dwarfs and meat rabbits - have Netherland Dwarfs and Flemish. We've already gotten our doe. She's gorgeous! And super friendly, she sticks her little nose up to be petted. We're going to try to go this weekend to pick up a new Flemish buck, but then we'll get rid of all the meat bunnies. It's been a year and still none of us has any want or desire to eat a bunny. It seems like a bad reason to raise them. People love those Netherland Dwarfs though. Those sell fast!

The Flemish Doe

Wickedly Warped Wednesday..

Well, we had a hatch. I have to admit I'm somewhat disappointed with the outcome, even though it IS better than the last attempts and we did increase the variables. So, a success in that aspect - but I had higher hopes for it.

We started off with 16 duck eggs and 14 chicken egg (our eggs for the first time). We refrigerated them for 7 days at 55 degrees with no rotation while in refrigeration. We culled 3 chicken eggs because non-viablity at candling at various times. Of the chicken, we had 5 hatch with 1 dying because one of the big chickens umm.. well.. Pecked it's head open. Of the ducks, we had a higher viability rate - only 1 was culled. We only had 5 hatch. All 5 had to be helped hatching though, as they couldn't get out of the shell on their own. There are 2 that have 1 sided blindness. (The same thing happened to the Buff Orpingtons we hatched out last time. We don't know what's happening. We suspect the flies are biting their eye, but I put fly netting over them so it would be a super sneaky fly and the ducks don't have the little pecky beaks like little chicks. I'm going to have to research this more because this is the second batch of hatch outs we've had with this problem.)

Conversely, we gave Matilda - one of our Dark Cornish hens 6 random eggs just as we were collecting them to sit on and she hatched them with with a 100% success rate. We also gave someone else 24 chicken eggs out of this same refrigerated batch and they had to cull 1 and had a success rate of 16/23.  I think I am most disappointed about the ducks. I was hoping for more of those to hatch out cause they are so darned cute. I kind of wanted a little army of them.

 This is the only light colored one of the bunch. It's also one of the one sided blind ones. It's laying in the warm spot taking a nap.

This little guy has figured out how to take a little bath in the water. The water is right in the warm spot too, just so they won't get to cold until they get their little feathers all grown in. 

For our fall breeding we also have 2 does (bunnies) due soon too! Our little grey bunny and White rabbit are both due to have their second litters one Monday the (28th). For a short period of time, we're going to have 3 litters of babies with their mommies. We planned it this way - sort of. We poorly planned Black Bunny's litter. But. We wanted to have litters available for pets and food the right size near Christmas, and in order for THAT to happen we needed them to be born.. nowish. See, I can plan. Sort of. 

Black Rabbit has had a litter of 6. She turned out to be our 1 animal so far that is a horrible, miserable mother and the second day - 3 of the 6 died. For the first 10 days we would have to go and keep checking to make sure the remaining 3 were warm (as they were frequently out of the nesting box and super cold) and put them with her for her to feed. Now the 3 babies are 3 weeks old and usually way too young to be eating or away from her - have started eating hay and pellets and lettuce. 

They are HUGE. Well over a pound already. They are our biggest babies by far. This little guy has the best coloring EVER - it's a mottled brown/red with grey. He has the same dad and Dopey. I can't WAIT to breed Dopey and see what he has. But, since this Black Doe is such a horrid mom, we're going to give her one more try once these 3 are fully weaned and see if she's figured it out. Otherwise, we'll have to sell her and pick up another doe. We can't even use any of THESE babies to replace her - as they'd most likely be bad too.

We're also getting a new - GIANT - barn built! We need the extra room in the house, so we're going to move the stuff that's in the *shed* now into the new barn and make the *shed* into the full fledged rabbitry! It's pretty big so it'll be for storing the animal foods (and the big extra freezer and fridge) and bunnies! The new barn will be for big animals when it's cold - the goats and dogs - and the lawn mowers, wood, tools, stuff that normally goes in a garage. Then we'll transform the garage into a MIL suite type thing for my mother. It's already got a little sink out there and eventually put a little bathroom out there. It already has it's own entrance, and we can make a little cabinet, microwave, mini-fridge area for her. The barn should be built by the end of next week! Then we can move the kids into their own rooms. Hopefully, they'll sleep better - at least maybe they'll stop - heck it probably won't stop or change anything. They probably won't be able to sleep for the first 2 weeks because they're *afraid* to be alone..

Ohhh More Babies!

White rabbit had her babies! She had 7 total here they are at 4 days old:

 3 white babies

1 dark and 1 light brown baby. (The light brown is totally my favorite rabbit we've had so far.)

2 black babies. 

I've got to admit I've totally become smitten by the tiny little light brown one. C says we can keep the little fella and work him into the breeding schedule since he IS so different to play with colors! YAY! Yeah, it's the small bizarre things that make me happy. 

The Netherland Dwarf babies will be ready to be sold in the next week or so. We will probably keep 1 if we can reverify that it IS a doe. (Yeah, we still have no true idea what we're doing, but we're doing it well :p ) They've gone from SO small to bunny size in 7 weeks! 

Those are all 3 the same Bunny! The last is Charles taken yesterday, at 6 1/2 weeks. Charles is the one we are probably going to keep and breed to Oreo. Ooooh the colors that we could get could be fun!

This is Oreo. He weighs a little over 2 pounds and it's not looking like these babies are going to be BIG so probably the standard Netherland Dwarf 2 pounds or under.. But all the others in the litter were the same color as the Momma doe. Yep. We actually sit around and talk about the color of bunny rabbits. Not for any purpose other than to see what colors we think we might be able to make. I guess when that stops being amusing, it's time to stop having bunnies. Clearly, we aren't there yet.


Oh we also go these the other day!

These big fluffy ladies are Buff Orpingtons. They are young laying age and have settled into a fairly nice laying pattern after a few days of getting acquainted with their new barn mates. We got them mostly as a compromise for the fluffies the goats stepped on and killed, but these things are pretty funny. They *talk* when they lay in these odd quirls and chirks (for the lack of a better description of it.) We have 1 Orpington rooster I've named it "Opie" because it's reddish and well. Why not?

Look at this big boy! Adams is weighing in at a full 50 pounds now and he looks so ferocious!

 The geese are big now too :) And they bite everyone but me! BWAHHAHHAHA!

 One of our egg layers! She likes to lay them in a different place every single day. Although, now we actually CAN play "Duck, Duck, Goose"!

The Zoo is Now a Farm!

The Family Zoo has now become a Farm! With our recent move to a place with land, we have acquired  some animals. Ok, several animals. The kids are LOVING it. We're just starting this little experiment at animal farming, but so far we've only had the loss of 1 chick. 

Our original small collection of random animals now has a defined purpose. The bunnies will be raised for pets and meat. The chickens for eggs and meat. The ducks for whatever purpose they dispose themselves for - if they are nice duckies then eggs, if they are mean duckies then meat. The goats are mostly pet animals but may branch out into milk.

Part of what I'm going to attempt to have the kids do before we have things ready to sell is sort the website out so it's organized better. Which, obviously, it's not.  Anyhow. There are pictures of all the new aquisitions because they're cute!


The Rabbits:

Thumper - A Netherland Dwarf buck - about a year old. Will be a breeder boy for the pet rabbits.

 Oreo - A Netherland Dwarf Buck - about a year old.Will be a breeder boy for the pet rabbits.

 Anne - A Netherland Dwarf Doe - about 8 weeks old. Will be the breeder female for the pet rabbits.

 Hazel - A Flemish Giant/Holland Lop mix. About 2 months old and already BIG. She will be the female for our meat rabbits.

I'm calling this one Sausage, the kids have him named something else - but I don't know what it is. He is a New Zealand/Lop mix and is about 2 months old. He will be the boy breeder for the meat rabbits. He's going to be a little smaller than Hazel (who he's going to be *umm* friends with, but we figured that the female being a smidge bigger can't all that bad).

The Goats:

 This is Lamby - She is almost 2 weeks old. She is bottle fed and freaking hilarious! She follows us around like a puppy and baaa's (which is how she got named Lamby - it sounds just like a lamb) when she's unhappy. 

This is Jack. He is about 3 months old and is quite a bit more shy than Lamby, but is warming up nicely. He's kind of into the quiet, stalker mode right now. He's definitely got his own personality. He and Lamby seem to be getting along pretty well though.  Hopefully, when they both get to a reasonable age we'll have some more baby goats because these 2 are fun. 

The Ducks:

 These are Goldie and Herbie. They are just starting to get good and feather-y. They are starting to get shy so they may turn into eating ducks or egg ducks depending on if they are male or female (don't let their names fool ya, we have no idea.) 

These 2 ducks are Wilbur and Blackfoot. I couldn't tell you which was which without looking at their chest and feet and well, I don't care that much. They fall into the same category as Goldie and Herbie. Eating or eggs if they don't straighten their act up. Heck, we don't even know what kind of duck these 2 even are. 

The Chickens Of Doom:

 Meet Doris of Doom. She is a hen of doomic epic amounts. She clucks and squacks and poops. She is a dark Cornish chicken and would be a tasty addition to someones Sunday Dinner. She will be one of the founding member of the meat breeders unless she keeps being evil, then she'll be dinner.

 This is Dark Meat. It's supposed to be a pullet - though we have no idea. We have a total of 5 Rhode Island Reds that are supposed to all be pullets - I'm guessing we probably have at least 1 that isn't but, ehh Dinner it will be. 

 These are our first 2 successful egg hatches!! They are Silkies. The kids like them because they're fluffy and fuzzy. I don't know why we have them other than that. Egg hatchers I guess if they are hens.

These are the 5 Rhode Island Reds. They are all feathering nicely and currently in the garage until the coop and fence get built. They don't really seem to mind their big dog crate so.. These 5 (assuming they are all hens) will be the founders of the egg layers group. Why this kind? Heck if I know. It's just what we ended up with I suppose. 

The Dogs:

 Rupert 5 months ago.

 Rupert Today. He is about 6 1/2 months old and over 80 pounds. He's such a good boy though! 

Here's Bear. I couldn't get him to look over at me, odd - I know - not being able to call the deaf dog to get his attention.. He's still right around 65 pounds and is probably full sized now that he's just over a year. 

The Cats:

 Fuzzy - the biggest and most congenial of them all. He lets the kids drag him ALL through the house. Literally. His real name is Jinx though.

 Squirtle - Named after a Pokemon character. One of my favorites after Merlin.

 Merlin - the grandpa of the group at 13. He is my all time favorite of all the cats ever.

 Toby. Garfield would have been a better name for him as we have him on a continuous diet.

 Vinny - the only girl of the cats. Yes, her name is Vinny. Wow, she's loud too.

Ulee - The most cat like of the group. 

Random Leftovers:

 The Hamster - I'm sure it has a name. I just can't remember it. 

 

 The fish tank. It DID have 19 frogs in it earlier today. The frogs are now helping the chickens grow stronger by being their dinner. So now there is 1 lone fish in the tank. 

The eggs in the incubator. I just candled them the other night and all but 2 (which I threw away because they looked nasty) are showing veining and positive growth signs this time! That's the highest count so far!! Hopefully we'll have a high hatch rate this time. The 2 little Silkies above are the first hatches and the kids were SOOOO excited, so if we can get a higher rate, that would be cool.

The Help:

 This little helper boy will be 7 in just 1 more month! He complains less about cleaning and helping with the animals than brushing his teeth. He likes the chickens and goats the most so far.

This little helper girl is almost 8 1/2 and loves the bunnies and goats. She is great and getting them all cleaned up and fed every morning!