Miss E's Birthday!

Miss E's present and birthday treats waiting for her to arrive.

     Miss E turned 6 last week!!! I honestly have no idea how that happened. I have been home with her every single day since the day she was born, so it is not like I've been too wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of managing work and home to notice her growing. I have truly been blessed to be with her to celebrate each and every one of her milestones. It just doesn't seem possible for her to be 6 already!

     Looking back on the past six years I can't help but tear up. You see, even though Miss E was our first baby and I was the typical over-the-edge first time mom, I just knew something wasn't quite "right" from the very beginning. I kept questioning some of her little quirks, but for the most part the "experts," friends, and family made me feel like I was just over analyzing and overreacting to things. She was a terrible sleeper. The poor thing just could not self soothe! I swear I broke the binding on our beloved copy of  The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Harvey Karp. We swaddled her, shushed her, rocked her, bounced her, slept her on her side and put more hours on our baby swing in the first few months of her life than we ever would again even with TWO more babies to follow!

Miss D meeting "Piggy."

     She reached most milestones (rolling over, sitting up, etc.) on the very tail end of the typical age range. She never crawled, but I was assured that crawling wasn't a measurable milestone. She took FOREVER to really walk even after making her first few steps. Her first birthday came and went, and she was really not talking at all. We had done baby sign language with her from birth and she could easily learn and use well over 50 signs by the time she was a year. After Miss D was born (the girls are almost exactly 18 months apart) it became even more difficult to help Miss E navigate her world. We were like captives in our own home, unable to comfortably (or successfully for that matter,) go out into public without the poor thing coming unglued. Any sort of deviation from her typical routine was rough on all of us! Long story short, I finally put my foot down at her 24 Mo. checkup and insisted on a referral for a speech evaluation.

     From that moment on we were in the capable and supportive hands of  her OT, PT and SLP. From the age of 3 she attended a wonderful preschool where she had the opportunity to interact with and learn from typically developing peers. She also attended therapeutic swimming classes and Hippotherapy (Therapeutic horse riding) and we eventually got an official diagnosis of Autism from our beloved Developmental Pediatrician when she was 4. Our original goal for Miss E was for her to be all caught up so that she did not require any interventions once she reached school age. She will be finishing up her Kindergarten year in the next couple of months and I must say that while she is still receiving therapies (I'm no longer concerned about that!) and has a shared one on one, she is 100% mainstreamed and thriving. I'd say that she has easily reached and far surpassed our expectations for her since her diagnosis almost two years ago, and we really couldn't be more proud of her!
     If you are like my husband you are probably asking yourself "What does all of this have to do with the blog?" and to that I will answer-"EVERYTHING!!!" Miss E is the first reason we started to simplify our lives. She is the reason I stayed home from my teaching job and have never gone back. She is the reason we decided that it was worth making the necessary adjustments to our budget to live on one household income. Because of that choice I now have the time and energy to be more creative and thrifty. Essentially, Miss E started us on the path that would eventually lead us to having this Small Farm in the Woods.

     For her 6th birthday, Miss E went with Mr. J to pick up our new piglets. She was very excited to be the first one to "pick them out!" While she was gone Miss D, Mr. T and I made her cards, wrapped her homemade present, and put together a birthday snack. We have FOUR April birthdays in our family so I had already made her cake a couple of days before when I made one for my mother. It was a Toffee Bar Coffee Cake that was supposed to be baked in a 9x13 pan so I just made two smaller cakes in pie plates. I am not typically a fan of Toffee, but I have to say it was pretty yummy. The recipe I used for the Toffee can be found HERE. I simply substituted chopped pecans for the almonds. Below is the cake recipe I came up with. It was inspired by a recipe I found on Food.com, but I tweaked it a bit to be gluten free, and we topped it with whipped cream. YUM!
   

After Miss E had introduced everyone to our 4 new piggies and they were relatively settled into the new digs, we came inside for cake and presents. Miss E had asked for a bed for her stuffed animals for her birthday. Plan A was for Mr. J to make one, but as time ran out plan B was to run to the Mill Store to get one. Thankfully, I ended up finding and old planter at my aunt's house while I was helping her move that fit the bill perfectly. I guess God had a Plan C to make our lives even easier!

 I made a mattress for the bed out of the old changing table foam by simply cutting it to size and covering it in some fleece I had on hand. I used the same fleece to make a sheet set for the bed. The pillow is made out of an upcycled prefold diaper and stuffing from an old pillow. The quilt is a work in progress. It needs to be made longer and wider, but for my first attempt, I think it looks okay. I will also make a decorative pillow sham to match once I add on to the quilt in a few days. It seems to meet Miss E's approval and more importantly her beloved stuffed animals seem to love their new bed!!!
     While Miss E and Mr. J were out retrieving the piglets I realized that I had no good way of wrapping the bed, so I whipped up a simple cloth gift bag with fabric I had on hand and tied it with a ribbon. I had plenty of time before they were expected back so I decided to reinforce all of the seams with a zig zag stitch. I also pressed and hemmed the top for a neat finish. In a pinch these steps are not at all necessary but now we have a cool, HUGE, reusable gift bag that is made to last!

     Gluten Free Toffee Coffee Cake

1 1/2 C. brown rice flour                    1. Butter 9 x 13 in. pan or 2 pie plates

1/3 C. potato starch

2 TBSP. tapioca flour                            2. Beat together flour, both sugars, butter and salt until mix. 

1 tsp. xanthan gum                                  resembles a course meal. Set aside 1/2 C for topping. 

1 C. brown sugar                                  

1/2 C. white sugar                                 3. Stir in baking soda and add buttermilk, egg and vanilla; beat until

1/2 C. butter, at room temp                   just combined.

1/2 tsp. salt

7 1/2 oz. toffee, crushed                       4. Transfer to buttered dish(es.)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 C. buttermilk                                     5. Add Toffee to reserved topping and mix. Sprinkle over cake.

1 large egg

2 tsp. vanilla                                         6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 mins., or until golden brown.

*If you want to make this with regular flour use 2 C. and omit the brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour and xanthan gum.                      

All in all I think Miss E had a good day. It is nice for all of us to have her birthday on April vacation. It really is wonderful to see the young lady that she has become and to celebrate all of her success.

Make a wish, sweet girl. The sky's the limit!

One Proud Mommy, Mrs. J :)

This Year's Piggies

   We ended up getting our pigs from the same breeder as we did last year to insure we get the same quality of pig. The only problem we had was we wanted four and he only had three for us. Luckily for us, I was able to find a breeder that had the same breed of pigs and had a litter around the same age as the three. It was Miss E's birthday and all she wanted to do was go get the piglets with me. So we took the mini-van, and drove an extra half an hour past the breeder and picked up the first piglet. She got to pick which one and decided to name it Piggy. Then we went to pick up the other three, and when we got out of the van the breeder came out with the three little piglets following right behind him. One by one we picked them up and loaded them up in dog cages in the back of the mini-van, and drove away. I must say that the smell got pretty bad in the van and we deferentially had the windows down even though it was cold outside.

   I had spent most of the week prior to picking up the pigs to fix up the pig pen and put up some metal fence behind the electric fence to make sure they would stay in there. So when I got home and put the piglets in their new home, I was sure that they would stay in there.  I was wrong. As they started to test the electric fence they would get  a shock and run around. One of them figured out that if they run fast enough they can fit through the opening in the metal fence. So there I was again chasing a piglet through the woods just like last year. After running all around, I finally dived and grabbed the back legs and picked him up. I put him back in the dog cage and started to make a place for them in the goat barn. Once I  finished closing off one of the pens and I started to put the piglets in. I got three piglets in, and as turned around to get the last one he was gone. Of course it was the brown one, so he blended into the woods very well. Me and the wife walked around and finally we saw him come walking back through the woods. I turn the electric fence off to make sure we didn't get shock. The piglet ran all around and then ran back into the pen. I thought we had him cornered but he was able to get around us. As he ran through the fence one more time I was able to dive over the fence, like an outfielder catching a baseball, and reached out and grabbed the back legs. I put him back with his friends and then took a break. The piglets are happy in there new home and once they get big enough not to fit through the fence, they will go back into the pig pen. The only thing we have left to do is name the other three.

Chicks and Baby Goats

  It's been really busy around here down on the farm, between chicks hatching and catching kids as they come out of goats. A couple of weeks after Leroy started crowing, which means he is sexual mature, we decided to try to incubate some eggs and see what happens. We didn't put a lot of effort in to it because we weren't sure that he was making the rounds. We just grabbed some the eggs that looked like the came from the other Buff Orpingtons and put them in the incubator. Sometime we remembered to flip them, sometimes we didn't, we even forgot when we put them in there. My wife told me to go head and throw them out because she didn't think anything was alive in the eggs, and she stopped turning them three days ago. I never got around to throwing them out luckily  because as she was chasing the kids around the house getting ready for bed time she heard a strange peeping sound coming from the kitchen. A bunch of chicks were pecking they were out of the eggs. 

My wife has a very good maternal extinct, you are supposed to stop turning the eggs three days before they hatch and that's what she did, accidentally  We ended up with thirteen chicks all said and done which we will use to replenish the flock as the older ones pass on.

  When we brought over a buck to breed with our does, we didn't think Aspen ever mated. Then she started to develop an udder to our surprise. We thought she would kid after Montana but on Monday she started acting weird. I was outside doing some work on the pig pen and she was screaming really loud at me and pawing at the ground. She seemed really restless,so I went inside and told the wife to get ready for some more kids. Three hours later I went to check on her and she was lying on the ground with a little bubble starting to come out. I yell for the wife and told her to hurry or she was going to miss it. This time the baby came out front feet first, like they are supposed to, but as the the head started to come she seemed to stop. Being new to this we thought we should help and pull with her. I wasn't come easily, so I put my fingers inside and could feel the head kinda face backwards causing the log jam. I tried to re-position the head a little bit and we both pulled as she pushed. Eventually we got the kid out. After doing some research, I found out that had we just given her time she would have probably pushed it out just fine by herself. We thought she would only have one, due to this was her first time having babies and she looked on the smaller side. As we dried the first kid off one more popped out. She had one buck and one doe, not bad for a first freshener.

   

Three days later Montana started to act like she was getting ready to have her babies. Being pregnant was hard on her due to the fact that she looked like she swallowed a kitchen sink, so she was more then ready to get those kids out. I put her in the kidding stall and let her have some alone time. Nothing was really happening so we put the kids to bed and I did some work in the shop. As finished up at 10:30, I checked on her one more time thinking that it probably wouldn't happen tonight, but I found her lying on her side starting to push. I called the wife out over the monitor and she came running out. We let her do her thing and she pushed out one kid and then another, and then another, and then another. Two does and two bucks, very good for a first timer. We dried them off and got them under the heat lamp and then waited for the placenta  to come out. When I went into work the next day, I told everyone "I was pulling out a placenta at 2:00 in the morning. How was your night?"

The older bucks are starting to get mischievous.

Making Maple Syrup

   Living in the woods does have some advantages, one of which is having plenty of maple trees to tap. This is our second year making syrup and we wanted to speed up production a little bit. Last year we used just to pans over an open fire, but this year I made an evaporator that holds three pans. The evaporator worked great, although the sides got a little bit warped it still kept a lot of the heat inside to boil the sap.

   Instead of using the metal spike and metal buckets we use a plastic tap, vinyl tubing, and a five gallon bucket. The tap and tubing are a lot cheaper then the metal ones and we have plenty of buckets to use. We just drilled a hole in the top side of the bucket, then drilled a hole in the tree. Next we put the tap in the tree, hook up one end of the tubing to the tap and pushed the end into the bucket. We ended up using a scrap piece of wood for the top, because the plastic tops were too hard to keep taking on and off .All we did then was wait for the nights to be below freezing and the days to be above 40 degrees.

   We ended up taping ten trees and most of them gave us at least 5 gallons of sap each. When the time was right we fired up the evaporator. I started around 8:30 in the morning by lighting the fire and then filled up each pan with sap. About every half an hour or so I would pour more sap in as it boiled off. The center pan seem to boil off faster , so I made sure to fill that one up a little higher. Once I ran out of sap, I poured the end pans into the center one and boiled the sap tell it got to color I wanted. At 6:30 in the afternoon, I got the color I wanted. Next I poured the syrup through some cheese cloth to strain out all the particles in it and then put it in our large pot. 

The next morning I fired up the wood stove in the house and then put the pot on top of the stove to slowly bring it to the color of amber syrup  To make sure it was right, I would scoop out a little and put in the fridge to cool. After about ten minutes in the fridge, I would try it to make sure it was the right consistence.  Once I was happy with it, I poured it into canning jars and sealed them. We ended up with about a gallon and a quarter.

   Just like last year, after making the syrup we want to put more buckets out next year, but just like last year I'm sure we'll run out of time.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

***WARNING!!! GRAPHIC PICTURES TO FOLLOW!!!***

Me and Miss E keeping Meadow company during labor

     Meadow finally went into labor last night around 5:30pm. The kids and I were inside having dinner and I could hear her lower, quieter cry happening more frequently over the baby monitor so I slipped away quickly to take a quick peak. I figured I had about two minutes MAX so I made a quick assessment, and just happened to witness her having a contraction. I had the same ah-ha moment that I had with myself each time I finally went into labor. For days I'd question "Is this it? Could this be the beginnings of labor?" But when it is finally really happening I just know, and at this moment I just knew.

Meadow having a contraction during early labor

    
     I called Mr. J at work and told him that I was finally certain that Meadow had gone into labor. While he was wrapping things up at work to come home for our first kidding EVER, I was trying to calmly allow the kids to finish eating their dinner so we could all bundle up and head out to see Meadow. I hadn't even put my dinner on the plate yet and at this point I was too excited to eat anyway so I just put all of the leftovers in the fridge, wiped up the kids and the table and left the dishes in the sink to do later. 
     Mr. J arrived around 6:00pm and by then we were already out with the goats. Meadow seemed to be progressing nicely and was getting more and more vocal. By 6:30 Miss D and Mr. T were cold and bored, so Mr. J took them inside and agreed to let me and Miss E stay out with Meadow. I will forever be grateful for his willingness to let me stay by Meadow's side throughout her entire labor. Miss E has been obsessed with kittens and puppies and how they are born for quite a while now, so she and I had already talked about her desire to watch the baby goats come into the world. 
     We sat right in the kidding stall with her petting and comforting Meadow and she licked and sniffed us in between contractions and "told" us all about the pain as she contracted. Miss E was a little grossed out by the "goo" that came out of Meadow with each contraction, but otherwise seemed quite happy to be with me during this special occasion. We had a great time guessing how many kids Meadow would have, what colors we thought they might be, and whether we thought they'd be boys or girls. We told Meadow that we couldn't wait to meet her babies and even though, as Mr. J likes to inform me often, goats do not speak English, I am certain that she understood us. 

Right before Meadow began to push

     At one point Miss E told me that this was going to be "the best day of her life!" We had quite the tender moment together when she asked me if it was going to be mine and I told her that while this day will always be special to me, my favorite day was the day she was born. Upon hearing this she declared that this would be her favorite day as a kid but as an adult her favorite day would also be the day she becomes a Mommy! You just gotta love that kid. She is so wise beyond her years and this conversation is actually quite typical of ones we have on a regular basis. I will always remember and treasure our special one on one talks. 
     By now it was probably 7:15 and even though we were bundled, had a heating pad beneath the stall  and a heat lamp all set up, it was definitely getting cold! I half expected Miss E to run out of stamina, but she was still insisting that she was not too cold and wanted to stay to see at least one baby be born. Mr J. was listening to everything over the baby monitor from inside with the other kids and kept coming out to check on things every 10 minutes or so. I honestly have no idea how he was able to stay away as much as he did, but I will forver be grateful for him doing so and allowing me to "steal his thunder" and stay right by Meadow's side throughout her entire labor. It was truly an awesome experience and I will never forget it as long as I live.               

Meadow pushing. You can see the tail if you look closely

     Within the next fifteen minutes it became quite obvious to me that Meadow was in "transition." She was clearly unable to get comfortable, had begun moaning, rather than simply crying, and was starting to push a bit with her contractions now. By 7:30 she began to push consistently with each contraction and that's when I really switched into "Goat Midwife" mode. I was cheering her on more and more, rubbing her neck in her favorite spot and encouraging her as best as I could all while making sure that I didn't forget to alert Mr. J over the baby monitor to come once I could see a baby getting ready to come out. 
     I honestly completely lost track of time at this point. it was as if the clock just stopped. If you have ever been in labor (or been part of one I imagine,) you know exactly what I am talking about. Anyway, she only pushed 3 or 4 more times before I could see something coming and I called over the monitor for Mr. J to come out NOW or he may miss it. He soon appeared, with camera in hand just in time for the bubble to emerge and then a quick moment of panic rushed over me when I realized that what I saw inside that bubble was a wagging tail! I looked to Mr. J and said "I think that's the tail, what do I do?" In his ever calming way he replied "just let her do it." 

Sweet William entering the world backwards!

     It was at this moment that I doubted our judgement in encouraging Miss E to be a part of this. Was she ready to handle the harsh reality of this not ending well? Was I? Ugh! Too late to worry about that now I guess. With the next contraction, Meadow pushed and moaned with all her might and as I watched her struggle I thought to myself, "there's no way I am just going to sit here and watch her try to do this on her own. What does he know anyway? He's never given birth!"  So, with her very next contraction, I just went for it. I grabbed that slippery little bubble, yanked along as she pushed, and within seconds the first baby was out. 

Meadow meeting Sweet William

     As I was trying to get him to breath and help Meadow dry him off, the second baby just fell right out in the correct position onto the hay. I grabbed him, set him next to his brother and we started drying him off as well. Then, moments later a third black bubble emerged and I announced excitedly, "oh my gosh, there's another one...and he's black!" He came out in position right into my hands without a hitch and I broke the sac, got him breathing and put him next to his brothers as I dried him off as well. 

Sweet William, Timothy & Sawyer

     I was so in awe of how tiny they were. I don't know what I was expecting, but THEY WERE TINY...and skinny!!! I was actually a little freaked out when I pulled out the first one that he might not be alive or fully developed because he was so small and skinny. The only indicator that I had to let me know he was indeed alive and well before I broke the sac was the tiny rapid heartbeat that I could feel against my hand. Now I know what a healthy, live, newly birthed Nigerian Dwarf kid looks like.

Meadow is such an attentive Momma!

     By now it was probably close to 8:30 and Meadow was busy licking her babies and crying a constant, happy cry in between licks. It was so cute to see her with them. I sneaked a peak at each one two or three times not 100% sure of what I was looking for, but from what I could tell they all looked like Bucks to me. Miss E was pretty quiet and obviously still absorbing all of what she had just witnessed. She joked about naming the little black buck Aspen (one of our other doe's) since he looks so much like her. I suggested the names Sweet Wlliam and Timothy for the two white boys since they look so much like Meadow Sweet, their mom. Sweet William is a meadow flower and Timothy is a meadow grass. 

Timothy in front, Sawyer snuggled up in the back

     Once things settled down and it became obvious that all of the babies had been born (the afterbirth was hanging out,) Miss E finally decided that she was cold and tired, so Mr. J took her inside with the others to get ready for bed while I stayed in the kidding stall to swoon over the new additions to our farm with their very impressive mama. I was not about to leave her until I was sure everything was fine and that both she and the babies were healthy and comfortable for the night. I got the little black buck to nurse right away, but the other two were not showing any interest. 

The white boys look just like their Mama.

     At one point a little before 10pm I went inside to console Mr.T, who was just not settling down for the night without me, and that's when Mr. J saw Meadow finally pass the afterbirth. He got her cleaned up and also freshened the hay in her stall, and was able to get the other two kids to nurse. 
     We left mama and her three little boys all snuggled together on the heating pad under the heat lamp for the night and then I finally made it inside for dinner and a hot cup of cocoa before bed. I was so tired that you would have thought I'd birthed the three kids myself! But, it was a good kind of tired and even though we left the baby monitor on in our bedroom and I definitely slept with one ear open all night, I slept much better knowing that all was well. I find it very fitting that Meadow had her babies on the first day of spring and I couldn't be more pleased with our first kidding experience. I can't believe we get to do this two more times within the next month. It's certainly going to be a busy spring here on the farm! Now, our next adventure will be learning how to milk. I can't wait!

Blissfully Yours, Mrs. J :)

Patience is a Virtue!

Doing our early morning rounds in our PJs.

     When we made the decision to start homesteading, if you can even call how this all happened a conscious decision, one of the major driving forces was our three young children. The bottom line was that we wanted to know what was in the food we were feeding our growing children and feel good about it at the end of the day. 

Patiently waiting to hold baby bunnies.

     We started raising chicks and expanding our garden before Miss E was even a year old and it quickly became evident that this lifestyle would have many more benefits than we had ever imagined! Mr. J planted, watered, weeded, and harvested with her right by his side and as a result she LOVED our fresh picked produce! She LOVED playing in the dirt and being outside. We raised our chicks from 2 days old and she LOVED them too; giggling with glee at the sigh of their tiny, fuzzy bodies. She squeezed them, and loved them to pieces (almost literally!) When they finally started laying eggs, she had so much fun helping us collect them, wash them, and in turn eat them! It was truly amazing to see how she was growing up with this as her norm. Eggs didn't come from the supermarket, they came from the "Bock Bocks!" How brilliant! She was automatically learning what had taken me a good 20 years to wrap my brain around. I loved it. In fact, we all loved it. Our simple life was just what the doctor ordered. 

Miss D and Aspen

Meadow Sweet, our first Doe due TODAY!!!

     Fast forward five years and add Miss D and Mr T to the brood, and we now have the makings of a full-blown farm on our hands! We still have a HUGE garden and our egg layers, but we have also added ducks for eggs, meat birds, pigs, goats, rabbits, and plan to add turkeys this spring. We also make a lot of our food from scratch. By utilizing our pantry and the two deep freezers and root cellar in our basement, we have been able to greatly reduce our grocery bill (I only shop every 3-4 weeks,) and eliminate many processed foods from our home. This probably would have sounded like a lot of work to me a mere 5 years ago, back when I was buying everything all natural and organic from the store, but I bet I never would have imagined that I would be able to spend LESS on groceries with a family of five than I did when we first got married nine years ago! 

Helping Daddy move the Rabbit Hutches.

     But for me, right now, the savings aren't even the biggest pay off. I simply LOVE being in my kitchen. I LOVE making healthy food for and with my children, and I LOVE that they enjoy it too. We have special cooking/baking days on a regular basis in our home and I LOVE that I can teach my children the skills of survival all while having a fun time! The teacher in me also loves all of the teachable moments we have. Counting, reading, fractions, and the list goes on, and on, and on... Overall, I think that our simple lifestyle is going to give my children the edge they will need to grow in to strong, capable, cooperative members of society no matter what they choose to do with their lives. The benefits are just too many to count! They are learning to love and appreciate the people and things we have in our lives, to take responsibility, to have respect for life as well as for our environment. They also understand where our food comes from. Green beans grow in the garden. When we eat meat, an animal must die. And on, and on, and on...
     I too, am learning more than I ever thought possible; from simple cooking skills, to animal anatomy :). Recently, I have begun to learn a little bit about having patience...

Miss E watching over Ivy's kits while I clean the cage.

     Awaiting the arrival of our first two litters of Satin rabbits was almost more than I could handle! As their due dates got closer the anticipation was so distracting that I found myself almost unable to do anything else but check on them all day. It was really rather childish and I was quite frustrated with myself. I obviously had not had much practice at exercising patience thus far.   
     And the thing is, it got even worse as our first goat's due date came and went. I spent almost an entire week checking on Meadow 6-8 times per day before Mr. J realized that he had miscalculated her due date which is actually today! I even put a baby monitor out in the barn so I wouldn't miss anything at night while Mr. J was at work. Well, the good news is that now I know I was worrying for nothing. 

Miss E and Prince Eric

Miss D and Ariel

     I also know that this WILL get easier for me. We have three goats that will kid this spring, and I fully intend to continue breeding the rabbits, so it's not like this whole "waiting for spring babies to arrive" ordeal will be a one time gig. I'm certain that this will get easier the more we do it. I have already begun to start directing my nervous energy in a positive way. I have begun "nesting," or what most people would call Spring Cleaning, in anticipation of the new, furry kids' arrival because I know that once those cute, little jumling beans arrive I will want to spend as much time with them as possible! We have already moved the rabbitry to it's new location and I have grand plans to deep clean the house from top to bottom. 

      So, maybe this is also a lesson in preparedness. That being said, I still hope we have pictures and the story of our first goat kidding experience to share sooner rather than later...
                                                

The new location of the rabbitry. It's kind of a hodge podge right now but we have big plans for many more cages like the ones Mr. J built in the front hung back to back under a large aluminum sided roof.

Patiently yours, Mrs. J :)

The Kits Have Finally Arrived!!!

The nest that I almost didn't see moving!

     This morning I did like I've done each morning since last Wednesday; my feet hit the floor and I rushed right outside to check on Ivy and Hazel who are due to kindle any day now. To my surprise Ivy's cage was strewn with fur and she was gathering it up, and had clearly been busy making a nest before I arrived.
     I was so excited that she was showing signs of kindling her first litter that I skipped back inside to tell the kids that I was certain that Ivy would be having her kits some time soon. We ate breakfast and got dressed, and about a hour later Miss D and I decided to go see if she was making any progress. I opened the nest box to show her the fur and quickly realized that the nest was moving! I couldn't believe it! I carefully uncovered the babies and counted 7.

Taking our first peek at Ivy's new kits.

     We immediately ran inside to get the rest of the family and I instructed Mr. J to bring his camera. Upon further inspection I counted one more kit, making for a total of 8 in her litter.

Ivy's Kits Born 3-3-13

 Ivy watching over her kits from afar.

   



   

     While we were all admiring Ivy's new babies, giving the new mam some love and a few special treats, and commenting on the amount of fur that she had pulled from her underside Miss D noticed that Hazel was carrying hay around in her mouth. I decided to check out what she was doing a bit closer and I noticed that she was also beginning to remove some of her fur and was very busy building a next in her nest box. Wow, this was almost too good to be true! By yesterday when it appeared that neither doe was preparing for kindling I had pretty much convinced myself that neither of then had gotten pregnant and had already planned to re-breed them with Pablo in 10 days. We went inside to give Hazel some privacy in hopes that her babies would arrive shortly as well.

Miss E decided to collect some of  Ivy's "extra" fur that fell on the ground outside her hutch. 

There's even more where this came from!

Mr. T collecting some of Ivy's fur like his big sisters.

      Another hour or so later Mr. J and Miss E went outside to check on Hazel and she too had kindled 8 kits! Since this is my first time breeding rabbits, I am not sure if this is typical, but I do know that rabbits have 8 teats so litters of 8 are ideal. Since both does are first time mothers I was assuming that their litters would be smaller.

Hazel's kits born 3-3-13

Hazel pulled out far less fur than Ivy, but somehow her nest still seems warmer, deeper, and a bit safer. 

A close up of Hazel's bald, blind little kits.

     So far both Hazel and Ivy seem to be very attentive mothers. They are not about to let us take a peek at their new kits without keeping a close eye on us and that's just fine with me! As a mother of 3, I completely understand and respect their concern. Although it has been tough to refrain from peeking at their kits all day, we have tried to give them the privacy they need to stay calm and warm. I am just tickled pink that both girls took at our first attempt to breed them. Maybe Mr. J was right. He keeps reminding me that the saying "they breed like rabbits" came about for good reason!  

Hoppily Yours, Mrs. J :)