Tag Archives: rabbits

We Have Baby Rabbits!

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proud momFinally! (Though not completely on our own yet; more about that later.)

A little background: We got two eight-week old female rabbits last June, a few weeks later we got a slightly older male (from a different breeder). In October they were old enough to breed, we brought Clover (doe) to Winston’s (buck) cage and they did what needed to be done — though it was awkward and Clover wasn’t very encouraging. But we had officially started breeding our rabbits.

Sorta. It didn’t work, and didn’t work, and didn’t work… We tried Winston with each of the females, repeatedly. We bred in the morning, we bred in the evening, before meals, after meals. Each time it seemed like they couldn’t quite get into the right position for correct “contact”. We read forums and blogs for insight. We inspected the genitalia, we inspected the poops. We tried holding the female in position and “assisting” the male. We fed them a little less to make them leaner. We tried swapping cages so they could smell the other’s scent and get in “the mood”. We tried overnighting them together (they are very docile), rabbits are nocturnal after all. We tried adding apple cider vinegar to their water (supposed to be an aphrodisiac). Then after each attempt we’d wait and see if there were any signs of pregnancy, a couple of times we even waited the whole 28 – 31 day cycle, and we were repeatedly disappointed and discouraged.

WE’RE BREEDING RABBITS, we thought, HOW HARD CAN IT BE!

We mostly took December off, it was very cold here (relatively) and it is a busy month. When January arrived we got together with our good friend Rob, the man we got our rabbits from, to trouble-shoot the situation. We determined we didn’t know if one or more of our rabbits were “broken”/infertile. So we decided to breed our rabbits with his “proven” stock. We brought Clover, to Rob’s place, to spend the night with Bugs (who has fathered many litters). We also brought back his doe, Cali, to spend the night with Winston. This was the middle of January, so we’d know by the middle of February.

Mid-February arrived and Cali/Winston had a litter of 10! So Winston wasn’t shooting blanks and apparently, with the right motivation, could do what needed to be done. But the Clover/Bugs breeding was unsuccessful.

Rewind slightly, two weeks after we bred Clover with Bugs we brought over our other female, Artemis, to breed with Bugs. So even though Clover hadn’t “delivered”, we still had our hopes out for Artemis (and Rob felt very sure, based on their time together, that Artemis would be pregnant).

young kitsFinally the week came, we put in the nesting box and last Thursday morning (2/28) I went out to feed them and we had a litter of seven kits (baby bunnies)! We had six alive and one dead. Unfortunately, likely since it was her first litter, Artemis hadn’t used the nesting box; instead making a nest out of cardboard (that had been lining the nesting box), hay, and of course fur in the corner of her cage. It worked, though I suspect the one that died may have been near the edge and got too cold. I, carefully, moved all the nesting material and then the remaining kits into the nesting box and they quickly snuggled into the soft fur.

To say I was excited was an understatement! (I later described my feelings as “disproportionately excited.”) I took a couple of pictures and then texted Sarah, the kids, and Rob that we had finally been successful!

We’re now about a week in, mom and babies all seem to be doing very well. Artemis appears to be a good mom and the kits seem to be growing and developing appropriately.

The next test, now that we know both Winston and Artemis “work” is to successfully breed our two rabbits together. We’ll do that in a couple of months.

We traded Clover, with Rob, for a four-month old female. We’ll breed the new female, Clover 2.0, when she reaches six months.

I write about this not only to share our failures and victories, but again as a warning: ANYTHING in your preps that you’re going to depend on needs to be tested first. Last summer we would have asked, “What could possible go wrong breeding rabbits? They breed like rabbits, right?” Finally after four months we are, mostly, successful.

Test, and retest your preps, plans, and the systems you have in place. Be sure you know how to use them, take the time to actually make them work appropriately, know basic trouble-shooting steps, and then share this information with the rest of your family.

 

What We Did This Week To Prep 10/12/12

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The week started off with a drive in our new (to us) Ford F350 pickup truck to Josh’s house (Josh of Rural Relations with Josh), about two hours away. I had gotten together with him several times, but this was the first time meeting his family. We thoroughly enjoyed his wife and children and our time at their place. While there Josh taught me how to split wood (I grew up in the suburbs…), and Brynn and Alison enjoyed learning how to ride his off-road mini-bike. It was fun to see his place, “in real life”, and see what he describes in his blog posts. While there are some great aspects to his property, I also saw the disadvantages and hassles he has discussed. Again I’d encourage everyone, develop community, get to know both your neighbors and the like-minded preppers around you; take the initiative and reach out to them — I believe community will be the key to survival in the future.

Our “father” rabbit, Winston, had an ear infection this week. So we went to our favorite rabbit resource, Rise and Shine Rabbitry, and determined he had a mild/moderate case of ear mites. We’ve been treating it by putting drops of olive oil mixed with tea tree oil into his ears and massaging it in. Apparently ear mites can live up to 28 days, so we’ll treat regularly for the next month. We definitely do not want them to spread to Clover, our pregnant doe, or her future babies.

Summer here in Western Washington is pretty much over. After almost three months of sunny days, but without too hot of temperatures, it’s been one of the best summers we can remember. But now they say rain and the clouds are on the way again; possibly with very heavy rain this weekend.

We’re done with summer gardening. We picked everything still on the vine and will can some salsa this weekend. We left most of the plants themselves in place, for now, and will pick them as needed to feed the rabbits. We just received our fall/winter crop seeds in the mail. We’ll be growing a bunch of greens, mainly for the rabbits, and a compost cover crop for the garden as a whole. After most of the plants are out of the garden we’ll cover the garden with the hay and manure from under the rabbit hutches as a fertilizer-rich mulch layer.

What did you do?

What We Did This Week To Prep 10/5/12

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Monday morning I bred our rabbits for the first time; it was relatively uneventful and went, essentially, as one would predict. We should have babies about November 1st, and then harvest them about February 1st. We’ll bred Mom #2 December 1st. This should establish a cycle where we bred one of our two mothers and butcher a litter, of approximately eight off-spring, ever eight weeks. If things go as planned, that will provide one rabbit to eat (approximately 2 1/2 pounds of meat) a week.

I ended Monday by going to my friend Rob’s house (where I got the female rabbits from originally and where I helped butcher more last month) to again help him butcher the current litter and to continue developing my skills and knowledge. I brought my son, Ryan, and had Rob teach him the process. After watching Rob, Ryan did three of his own; since there were fewer in this litter I only did one. Ryan and I are feeling relatively confident in our skills, we’ll probably help Rob another time or two before we do our own.

That day had a “Circle of Life” type feel to it: breeding to create life in the morning and ending life to provide food that evening. It was interesting to view, and participate, in the cycle first-hand.

Several months ago Sarah, along with her cousin, set a goal of getting in better shape. To do so they decided to challenge themselves by signing up to run a half-marathon. Sarah has never been a runner, and though she works out on a regular basis, this was a new thing for her. This past Sunday she/they achieved the goal by successfully competing the Bellingham Half-Marathon. She trained regularly and was well prepared for it and did very well, including accomplishing it within the time-goal they had set. Afterward, and in the days following, she felt pretty good; we attribute that to good sleep, nutrition, and especially hydration leading up to the race. Is this a prepper topic? I believe it is. A lifestyle that includes healthy and consistent: exercise, nutrition, sleep, hydration, learning, and achieving goals is the key to success now and will be even more important in a collapse.

Property update: We got the septic inspection (passed, all looked good), well inspection (passed, also looked good), and the home inspection (there are several things that need done, but the house is structurally sound) done this week. We approached the Seller with some items that needed repaired so  the house would appraise, and we were told they didn’t have the money or time to get it done and were unwilling to do it. This essentially stopped the process and at that point we chose to walk away. Maybe time, and lack of success, will make them more willing to negotiate in the future. We still love the property, the location, and the pole barn, and believe the house is fine for now and has potential for the future. But we want to be smart about this decision and approach it logically and as unemotionally as possible.

What did you do?

What We Did This Week To Prep 9/21/12

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Last weekend, Momma Bear went to a party at a friend’s house and met the woman who writes the aGirlandherGun.org blog. Neither knew the other was a prepper, until they started talking. This Tuesday aGirlandherGun wrote about the experience, on her blog, and mentioned that Momma Bear wrote for us here at TraceMyPreps.com. That day I got the second most hits ever on my site; then Wednesday topped Tuesday and became my ‘top hits day ever’ (previously my top day had been back in February when the blog was mentioned, and linked to, on The Survival Podcast). Since then I have been enjoying reading her blog. I’d specifically recommend her post, The Story which tells of her “conversion” to personal self defense and prepping. I have added aGirlandherGun.com to my blog roll and I’d encourage everyone, but especially my female readers, to check out her blog and see the passion she has about protecting herself and her family, and why.

Also, Sarah and I went to the Washington State Fair. We always enjoy seeing the livestock, but this year we especially enjoyed seeing the rabbits. Prior to getting ours (American Chinchilla Rabbits) we knew nothing about rabbits; the reason we got that kind is because we were given the name of a local breeder and that’s what he had. But as we looked at the ones at the fair, we were very happy with how ours compared in appearance, size, and temperament. We were also able to talk, somewhat intelligently, with a couple of the 4H breeders there. In addition to the rabbits we saw the momma pigs and their young piglets. We talked with the 4H girl who was with them and, after asking some questions, determined that in the future we will consider getting a couple of piglets in the spring and raising them to butcher the following winter.

(Because I don’t want to jinx us) I’m not going to say much about the house we made the offer on in Quilcene, except to say that an offer was accepted and everything is moving forward. Though there have been some rocky parts (and likely will be more) things are moving in the right direction.

Finally, we went to Costco. As we were unpacking I realized, that other than just back filling some things we had used in our store what you eat (SWYE) food storage, we didn’t get anything to add to our preps. This made me realize that, though we’re by no way done adding to our preps (is that possible?), we really have got most of the things we need and a lot of the things we want — at least that are available from that venue.

What did you do?

What We Did This Week To Prep 8/10/12

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Prior to leaving on our vacation to Colorado last month, Ryan and I tried to get an automatic watering system for the rabbits in place. While I had never worked with PVC piping before it didn’t seem like it would be too difficult. The concept was easy enough but we didn’t take enough time to ensure everything was properly glued and that led to it leaking. We reverted back to the water bottles for a couple of weeks until we could get it fixed/redone. This week, with the benefit of our previous experience (isn’t everything easier the second time around?), we re-did the project using new PVC, better glue, and clamping the spouts in place while they dried; this time everything worked flawlessly. The project still isn’t done, I plan on putting “gutters” on top of the rabbitry roof to collect rain water, and eventually extend it to the lower level (when we add a second row of hutches). But the rabbits now have plenty of water and the 5-gallon bucket will only have to be refilled every week or so.

Ryan also made two more “pasturing hutches”. Essentially the same thing as the hutches they live in, but these were made without bottoms so the rabbits have access the grass, clover, and other assorted things growing in the back lawn. Previously we only had one so I’d get each rabbit out, one at a time for an hour each, to let them each graze. It was a bit of a hassle because I pastured them each day before I’d give them their store-bought feed (so they’d wake up hungry and maximize their opportunity to eat fresh greens), so I had to be around and move along each morning to get them all out and fed. Now I can just take all three of them out and let the eat at the same time. Much easier and smoother.

Per Momma Bear’s recommendation we ordered a new prepper book: Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation.

Amazon describes it, in part, as:

Typical books about preserving garden produce nearly always assume that modern “kitchen gardeners” will boil or freeze their vegetables and fruits. Yet here is a book that goes back to the future—celebrating traditional but little-known French techniques for storing and preserving edibles in ways that maximize flavor and nutrition. . . this book deliberately ignores freezing and high-temperature canning in favor of methods that are superior because they are less costly and more energy-efficient. . . says in his foreword, “Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern scientific methods that remove the life from food, and the natural ‘poetic’ methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. The poetic techniques produce… foods that have been celebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights today.” . . . offers more than 250 easy and enjoyable recipes featuring locally grown and minimally refined ingredients.

For those of you, okay mostly us, that were worried that we wouldn’t get tomatoes this year — we finally have a bunch of green tomatoes on our vines! We’re pretty excited about it and keep telling ourselves that our patience – in our temperate growing region – will pay off. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll be eating fresh tomatoes and maybe even canning the extras!

What did you do?

 

What We Did This Week To Prep 8/3/12

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Still not a lot of success in the garden, though our raspberries and snap peas are doing great. The tomato plants never got very big, but finally have a lot of buds on them and a few even have small green tomatoes. The sunflowers are doing well–though we didn’t plant sunflowers–we have several of them in the back corner;  I can only guess they made the “leap” from the neighbor’s garden (they had them against the adjoining fence last year). The squash plants also have buds and a few small squash growing, but they still have a ways to go also. I try not to compare our garden to the ones I read about in other parts of the country, summer here really doesn’t start until the first week of July and typically continues through the end of September. So we’re only a month into our “summer”.  I’m still hoping for some good things from the garden.

After I butchered rabbits with Rob, he gave me some meat to take home. We do a lot of cooking in the crock pot and decided we’d try rabbit stew. We put the whole butchered rabbit into the crock pot, bones and all (per the recipe), and added fresh vegetables and let it stew. Dinner was tasty and we were pleased with the results. Once we start breeding rabbits, we’ll average about 60 rabbits a year; so we need to find good, varied ways to prepare them. I had thought about grilling it, but Rob mentioned it dries out easily. He offered to have us over for dinner and show me how he cooks it.

Having helped Rob butcher the rabbits, and sharing his skinning knives, I decided I needed to get a set of my own. I picked up a 3-piece set made by Buck that has a light-weight knife, a heavier knife, and a guthook. They come in a durable, washable soft case. I probably won’t use the guthook for the rabbits, but it’ll be there in the future for larger game.

We made our monthly trip to Costco. After being sick last week I was motivated to continue stocking up on OTC meds and vitamins. We got guaifenesin (cough expectorant), multi-vitamins, Vitamin C, and Vitamin D. (I later picked up some Sudafed at another pharmacy.) Costco also had a good price on a 50-foot ,12-gauge extension cord for $20.

What did you do?

(Monday: Sharpening Knives, Part 2)

We’re Raising Rabbits

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We began raising rabbits yesterday. We now own two eight-week old, American Chinchilla Rabbit does (female). We will get a buck (male), of the same breed, from another nearby breeder soon. We weren’t completely ready for rabbits, but the opportunity presented itself and we decided to take advantage of it. The hutches were all assembled, but we hadn’t build the covered area to put them in yet. So the two does are staying, temporarily, in one of the completed hutches in the garage. We put blocks underneath the hutch to raise it off the floor and cardboard underneath to absorb the urine.

Actually they could stay there for a while, we aren’t really in a hurry. Females can’t breed until six months of age (males at five months). The gestation period is 31 days; the kits are typically butchered at three months. So we need to get a mature buck not later then the beginning of October; then the soonest we could have our first litter would be the beginning of November; and the soonest they could be butchered would next February.

Part of me wishes we could have gotten older ones, to be able to move the process along faster. But I think we’ll appreciate having the extra time to learn about our rabbits, before we have to worry about breeding them and dealing with the litters. There’s times we feel impatient, but I think this is a good time to move slowly and deliberately.

We’ve only got the one hutch, that they are in, fully set up. Last night we just put water and food into bowls. Today I made a trip to the feed store and bought a feed bin, a water bottle spout/holder (that works with a two-liter plastic bottle), a 25-pound bag of rabbit feed, and a bale of grass hay (I commented to Sarah that’s the first bale of hay I’d ever ‘owned’).

As far as the breed we didn’t go looking for Chinchilla Rabbits, we actually didn’t go looking for any specific breed. We were given the name of a reputable breeder, and that’s what he had. But I had seen them before and thought they were a very attractive breed. Apparently they are considered a rare breed rabbit (threatened with extinction); so it’s kind of neat to be able to help a threatened species. They are considered excellent for both fur and meat, they quickly grow to a good size, breed large litters, and are good mothers. Apparently their “demand” has dropped since we now rarely use rabbits for their pelts, and white rabbits are the most in demand for meat.

Our goal of becoming more self-sustainable has taken another large step. By bringing in rabbits we’ll be able to produce a high quality, quickly regenerating source of protein. While they’re alive we’ll give them the best life we can, and in death we’ll quietly thank them for what they give us.

We know nothing about raising rabbits, but we will learn. We’ll keep you posted on our successes, failures, and learning experiences along the way. For anyone considering getting rabbits I highly recommend RiseandShineRabbitry.com (also like him on Facebook, he puts out lots of tips and info on rabbits) and the book Story’s Guide to Raising Rabbits by Bob Bennett.

(Wednesday: Sarah’s View)