First thing we had to figure out was the cages, I got the design job and my wonderful husband, Bryan, did the building. I read all the books I could find and looked at tons and tons of websites to figure out the best design for the rabbit's home. I wanted it to have solid floors, it seemed that standing on wire floors all the time would be miserable. I wanted lots of room, I don't like the thought of caging animals at all but free-ranging rabbits doesn't work very well. And for the nest box, I wanted one that was "underground". Rabbits usually give birth in the deepest part of their burrows for warmth and security. The cage that we ended up with has the solid wood floor covered with sheet metal to keep the wood dry, it is about 6'x30" with a door at each end, so it is all accessible, and, of course, the nest box. The nest box has been my source of consternation with the mama rabbit. With the floor being solid we filled the cage with shavings to absorb all the urine. All went well in the beginning, but as the due date approached and Valentine (the rabbit) began pulling fur and making her nest she also began filling my wonderful box with all of the shavings from her cage. The box was completely full. I couldn't figure out what on earth she was thinking, so I pulled a large percentage of the shavings back out. Next day the box was full again. Ok, I thought, shavings rationing it is. This worked really well, except that now all the shavings that had been absorbing wet stuff were now in the box and the cage was no longer pleasant. I relented and gave her more shavings. Shortly thereafter her babies were born and again she had completely filled the box with shavings. I finally came to the conclusion that she has been a rabbit all of her life and I haven't even tried it, so maybe I should stop interfering and just observe. And wouldn't you know it, they have all done really well. The babies all have nice, fat bellies, they can climb right out of that box to eat and then snuggle deep down in there to stay nice and warm. We ended up with 4 babies out of this litter. We will be keeping two of them to increase our breeding stock.
The Blue Slate Turkeys started laying their eggs about a month ago. Of course we were really excited about this development and waited anxiously for them to decide to set on the eggs so we could have baby turkeys. The orders for Thanksgiving turkeys have been coming in and we were counting on these birds to get the show on the road. And so we waited and waited.... We left the eggs in the nest and hoped they would hurry up and figure out what they were supposed to be doing. But no such luck. We had found a local hatchery that has Bourbon Red poults available and, as we had received a special request for a Bourbon Red, we decided to go ahead and order 10 poults to ensure turkeys ready for the holidays. I called the hatchery, placed the order and scheduled the time to pick them up. We got everything under control! And wouldn't you know it, the next day I was missing a turkey hen. I went looking for her and there she was, happily ensconced on her nest of eggs. I guess we will have plenty of turkeys available this year. What would be really great is if her eggs hatch about the same time we bring the other ones home and we can get this mama to raise them all for us. Fingers crossed!Annie, our beautiful Berkshire pig, is preparing for her second litter. Her due date is April 21st and she is sure looking large. She is not moving around much and has to work harder to get comfortable. There has already been quite a bit of interest in these babies and we are already putting together a list. The 5 that we raised from her first litter are getting ready to go to processing next week and we are really excited about trying the meat. But already we are trying to figure out how to do it better. We had a call from a really nice guy asking about how we raise the pigs, what we feed, etc. He was interested in organic pork. I told him that we would dearly love to feed the pigs organic grain, but they eat ALOT, and feeding organic grain would nearly triple the cost of raising them. There are no local sources for organic pig rations, the only grain available locally is commodity grain. We have tried to get the best feed that we can for the most reasonable cost. But this conversation made me think. Is better than the big guys really good enough? Just because we are doing better, the animals are treated well, we are not feeding them garbage, we are not pumping them full of antibiotics, etc. should we be satisfied? And the conclusion that we have come to is that we really need to try harder. We have been reading everything that we can find on alternative feeds and looking for local sources of non-gmo, poison free feeds. Of course we are at a bit of a disadvantage in Southern California. There is not a lot of agriculture here 90 miles east of Los Angeles and we are in a desert with very little rain. We have learned that pigs do not require grain, in the latest Acres magazine there is a reprint of a 1997 article written by Charles Walters and he writes about his dad producing hogs on alfalfa or peas, and never feeding more than 10 percent corn. The article is fascinating, and for us, timely. After all that we have read some of the things that we are planning to try are planting oak and mulberry trees, getting more dairy goats, feeding the pigs some of our eggs, finding quality, high-protein alfalfa hay, and planting lots of extra stuff in the garden. Of course most of this will take time to get off the ground, some of it will implemented sooner. We may be able to get some freshened dairy goats in a few weeks, the local feed store just got a shipment of high protein hay, we have stopped feeding soybeans, and we will begin scrambling eggs for the pigs daily. We will also be ordering organic grain to supplement them until we can get the rest of this figured out. I would love to hear from anyone with more ideas or suggestions. And if you know of a local farmer that would be willing to grow some feed for us, let us know!
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