My Rabbits, or "On Raising One's Own Meat, With Some Discussion of the Attendant Pleasures and Dilemmas"

[chromedome]

A brief update, because I haven't been keeping up on this as well as I might have. 

 

All of the little "princess" bunnies shown above have now been sold. Four of them went to Nova Scotia with me at the end of June, to buyers there, and the fifth was taken home by a local family this past week. One of the princess' brothers has also been spoken for, and will travel to NS with me at the end of this month. Since then we've weaned Hazel's litter, so we have a dozen new 4-week weanlings now in their own cage. They're a cuddly bunch as well, and terribly cute (I think they're at their most engaging at 4-6 weeks). 
 

Yesterday both Hester and Ivy gave us new litters, which we'll count this afternoon. Ivy's last litter gave us 7 kits, IIRC, and Hester's ill-fated first litter was 15 kits (of which none survived). This time she seems to have a better grip on how things are supposed to go, and of course in July the risk of the kits becoming hypothermic is much lower than it was in February or March.

 

We've just moved a third batch of young chicks out to the main chicken run, where we have them sequestered inside their own little cage until they're big enough to not need the brooder any more (it's a heating plate that serves mama hen's role of giving them a warm place to sleep). We also have one hen (Miss Prissy, a Leghorn) who's broody and sitting on a clutch of eggs, which we're permitting just 'cause it appeals to my GF to see if she can successfully hatch them for us. There's also a clutch of quail eggs in our incubator, which are due to start hatching out today (we're seeing some of the eggs wiggle, but nobody's poked their little beak out yet to have a look around). 

 

On the other side of the whole "circle of life" scenario, our older white hen Flossie just...died one day, of old age as far as we can tell. We'd deliberately taken an older hen (her) to socialize the younger pullets, so this is not entirely a surprise. She'd served her purpose well, and was "boss hen" of our little flock in its early days, and we have a steady progression of ages so the socialization will continue. 

 

We've also harvested one of the surplus roosters, just last night. It was originally going to be both of the Wyandotte roosters, but one of them wasn't buying my "nonchalant" act for a second and wouldn't let me get within 10 feet of him. I'll get him in the next day or two with either a hook or a net. The hook is a sort of long, skinny shepherd's-crook arrangement of wire (I've improvised mine from a coat hanger) that slips around the chicken's leg, but which won't let the foot slip through. 

We're still going back and forth on the fate of our hybrid rooster, Chico. I posted upthread that we'd likely be keeping him, but my GF's been going back and forth on it. My stepdaughter is very fond of him, because he's attached to her and comes to her hand. They'll sit on the back deck sometimes, and she'll chat with him and he'll chuckle and cluck back at her. I rather like him myself (chickens do have personalities, though it takes a while to get a feel for them). Here you can see him following me to the rabbit pen an hour ago, rather like a dog (screencap from our security system): 

 

 

I think stepdaughter and I will probably carry the day. As for the two Wyandotte roosters I won't miss them at all, they're both just jerks. One of them (I think, but don't know for sure, it's the one who's already plucked and in my fridge) attacked my GF pretty regularly. It's probably her red hair, which I suspect made her look like a REALLY BIG WYANDOTTE in his eyes. 

We also have a cage of surplus male quail to be dealt with in the next few days, and a handful of bunnies from the first couple of litters. So it's going to be a busy week, above and beyond my actual "work, work" (ie, my writing workload). 

 

GF found a farm not terribly far from here where they slaughter and clean rabbits, chickens etc for a fairly reasonable $5/ea, which is not worth the drive for small quantities but absolutely will be late this summer/early autumn when we have 60-ish chickens to be dispatched. Still figuring out the logistics of getting 5 dozen chickens into the back of my Subaru, mind you...

[Ddanno]

I love these posts, particularly the details in how caring and loving you are for your livestock (even if some of the roosters are barstewards). Thank you

[chromedome]

A quick late-day update: Ivy gave us a litter of 10 kits, and Hester popped out 13. 

So far we're at 6 quail and counting, so we'll see what the morning brings (it typically takes a solid 24 hours or so after the first one hatches before we know how many will make it).