Kicking it off with chickens. I'll need to get these girls a nesting box set up soon. You'll like my idea, it's an improvement on my friend's design, which is an improvement on my old design.
Plum tree chookins
This morning was pretty productive for a Monday morning. Hearty discussions at the end of my work day had me pumped up and excited at a point in the week when I'm usually very very tired.
Strawberry blooms
I fed the rabbits this morning. Exclusively the weeds from Saturdays garden work, and they had leftovers this evening when I left for work. Encouraging. I need to mow the yard again, which will yield either a couple days feed or another excellent compost pile. And feed will just turn into another excellent compost pile anyways. Actually, I'll probably stop composting now and just convert to free rabbit feed. Our feed bill is getting ridiculous, and that trend will only continue moving forward. With that in mind, it's time to cycle out some rabbits to cut the feed bill. Our older rabbits, Buddy Boy, New Buddy Boy, and New Mombun are getting too old to produce and I can use their cages for new does. A breeding program is a nice, busy, constant project I'm finding.
New Mombun with a new litter
New Mombun gave a new litter yesterday. I got home in time to see her pulling some fur and passing her afterbirth. There's 3-5 babies in the best, but that was hard to confirm. I'll confirm in the coming week or so. This is all coming just in time and as anticipated. The other three does should all throw the season's final litter this week as well. I've read that you don't want to breed rabbits when the temps are consistently 80°F, and we're now at that point.
Blackberry with a nesting bucket now!
I made Blackberry a nesting bucket, considering that she'll give birth very soon and doesn't have a place to put the babies. The girls all like getting in their buckets and trying to dig a hole down in them. They dig ferociously for a few seconds at a time, making me wonder how quickly they would dig holes in soil.
A few people I've been networking with have what's called rabbit colonies. It's a more natural approach to rabbit husbandry than battery cages, where the rabbits are kept in a large enclosure in deep bedding. Their life cycles and harvesting happens in a much more natural setting, which is appealing to me. It's also lower maintenance.
Growouts with a mountain of weeds
After the main outdoor chores were done, it was time to work with seedlings. We planted out two more tomatoes and two more jalapenos to the garden, and we uppotted 24 tomatoes, peppers, okra, and moonflowers. I think we're now up to twelve tomatoes outside. They still require watering every couple days because their roots aren't yet into that yummy soil, so that's usually a morning or evening chore. Today I did it in the evening, even though it's supposed to rain for the next week.
Oh yeah, it's supposed to rain for the next week. Much excite for that. While everything is mulched and green, we could definitely use the rain.
Well, that's a wrap for today. It was a great morning, and I think tomorrow I'll try and focus on the pig gate and the cage I'm bringing the pigs home in. It's almost pig time!
Love from Texas
Nate 💚
P.S.
Changing topics abruptly, are y'all watching ARRR? Pirate chain is a badass privacy crypto that's getting pretty popular, going from $0.30 to currently nearly $3 in just a few days. I'm excited to be in on it, especially as it is growing this week. If it hits $1k, I'm paying off my house, selling the house, and buying land. @senstless, if you're still here, this one may be worth a look for you old friend.
Thanks brother - I am on the pirate ship already. Not as much as I wanted originally, but I am working on getting more. Tell me what is next before it does the 700% so we can all retire
Next? Hell, I don't know. I don't pay enough attention to these things to know what's next. I dont even know what was last, I skipped the last three lasts I think 🤣
Rabbits are doing awesome! I've heard of people doing the more natural rabbit enclosures and even rabbit tractors, but how do you keep them from burrowing out?
I couldn't say, I haven't tried it yet or seen a setup myself in person. At first I wondered if they'd be a cool addition to the food forest, but they'd eat my everything, so I don't think that's the best idea.
You got me at ARRR 🙈 Yasss have you seen! @ravenking13 and I jumped on ship a couple of days ago! It's a craaze! See you on deck hehehe ⚓️
ARRR mateys! There be rough seas ahead, but we be a hearty crew that can weather it through!
Yup, livestock feed bills were real high here from May through October. One reason we only did weaner pigs and most of the chickens went to freezer camp. The beef was done in early Nov. After that we had high freezer bills, but the solar panels fixed that.
It almost seems like all the bills are being manipulated to hurt folks that are trying to do things differently...
Well, feed comes from farmers, but usually big ag, unless you do organic feed, then that is less so.
We've got a couple local feed houses. I need to look into that, and maybe look at starting to buy a bulk container like a drum at a time... I wonder how much that costs and how much I'll need. Oh boy, this is gonna be a fun learning experience!
Bear in mind that ground feed loses all of the soluble nutrients in 3 weeks, faster if it is hot outside. If you want healthy animals, this is important....
Ah, so don't buy more than a couple weeks worth at a time.
Correct. Or use whole grains, but then you have to know a LOT about different animals needs and nutrition. That was far beyond my capability, so I just didn't buy a lot at a time.