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 :)

Meet The "Bun Buns" PART 2

Miss D choosing Prince Eric

     Everything in moderation, right? Well, with us, not so much! The whole raising rabbits idea just popped into my head in the first place one day, and the next thing I knew I was researching breeds and visiting local rabbitries. In less than a week we had our first two rabbits! Well, here we are a mere 3 months later and they have already been bred, and are both due to kindle their litters any day now. We also just added Pablo to the mix for good, so one would think that we would be all set for a while, right? WRONG!
 
     Over the past few months while I have been (not so patiently) awaiting the breeding of Hazel and Ivy, my wheels have been spinning. I haven't said much to Mr. J about this because he is just about up to his eyeballs in projects, but all the while I have been planning where the new rabbitry will go, how many cages we will need, what kind of outdoor run they will have this spring, and what other breeds we will most likely be adding to the farm in the future.

Miss E holding Prince Eric

   
Yup, I have decided that we definitely need to add MORE breeding rabbits, even before we have really gotten started breeding our Satins. Truth be told, even though we chose the Satin breed because they are a great dual purpose breed (meat and fur,) and we will most likely continue to raise them for that very reason, we are not finding them to be overly affectionate or very tolerant of being handled by our young children, and that's just no fun!

     So, when we went to my friend's rabbitry to pick up Pablo for breeding last month and she had freshly a litter of 3 week old New Zealand babies, I decided right then and there that we just had to give the New Zealands breed a try. Miss D was with me and she and I picked out a couple furry buns in hopes of one of them turning out to be a buck. At that point we didn't know we'd end up owning Pablo, so I figured we could try a Satin/ NZ cross at some point and that way we wouldn't have to keep borrowing Pablo if we didn't end up with a buck in either upcoming litter. So, in a nutshell, that is how we ended up with the ever so handsome, so very fluffy, super-duper friendly "Prince Eric."

    

Miss E choosing Ariel

 Miss D had hoped he was a girl and had planned to name her Ariel, but was quickly swayed to take Prince Eric home instead. I promised that we would visit another rabbitry later in the week that I knew had plenty of NZ and NZ crosses to choose from, so that we would also have an Ariel to join him shortly. And, making good on my word that is exactly what we did.

Miss E showering Ariel with kisses

   

      Meet "Ariel," a 12 week old NZ/Cali cross from Penny Pond Rabbitry in Berwick, ME. Miss E picked her out and although she is a tad shy right now, we are hoping that handling her on a regular basis will make her a bit friendlier than Hazel and Ivy. Of course, it's a well know fact that the Bucks are much nicer than the Does. It's really too bad that you need more Does than Bucks in a breeding program! Oh well, for now we will keep working with Ariel and just enjoy the love of Pablo and Prince Eric until those cute, cuddly little babies arrive...  
                                                                                         

Hoppily Yours, Mrs. J :)

Meet the "Bun Buns" PART 1

Ivy, our Blue Satin Doe

     Exactly 27 days ago today we borrowed a friend's Satin Buck to come "romance" our Satin Does since they had finally reached breeding age. He stayed for 4 days and split his time equally between the girls, visiting with Ivy first. He was a super-duper sweet guy. A real gentleman, in fact. We all very much enjoyed having him here and the girls got a kick out of naming him.

Hazel, our Chocolate Otter Doe

Pablo, our new Black Satin Buck

     My friend has so many bunnies that she hadn't thought of a name for him yet, so she told Miss E and Miss D that they could name him for her. Miss E first suggested naming him Borrowed since he was not ours and we were just borrowing him for a few days. I didn't think that my friend would be too impressed with that name, so I looked up names that mean borrowed and came up with a rather interesting list. Since my children can't read yet, I only shared a few of the cuter name possibilities with them and they quickly settled on the name Pablo. We instantly fell in love with Pablo and found it very difficult to return him once his services were no longer needed. Ivy and Hazel are fairly standoffish even though they have lived here for nearly 4 months, but this guy was so curious and friendly!

     Lucky for us, our friend was looking to downsize her rabbitry, so over the weekend we were able to go back and get him for good! If all went well we should have teeny tiny baby rabbits arrive any day now and we just couldn't be more excited. Miss E, who has a birthday coming up in April, has been telling us that all she wants for her birthday is a baby bunny. The good news is that even if one or both of the Does didn't take the first time, we now own a buck and can re-breed in ten days if need be. Hopefully, though, that won't be necessary and we will have cute pictures of brand new baby bunnies to share by early next week if not even sooner...

                                                 Hoppily Yours, Mrs. J :)
   

Moving Day

     The original plan was to make our own custom rabbit cages or hutches for the new rabbits but life has been quite a bit more hectic than we had anticipated lately! Mr. J has been working overtime almost every day and on the weekends, alternating between 1st and 2nd shift, so he has been just barely skating by on sleep and I just haven't had the heart to ask him to do one more thing, so...
   







     I have been checking on Craigslist and Uncle Henry's daily since we got Hazel an Ivy hoping to find exactly what I envisioned for exactly the right price and I finally found a deal I just could not pass up. It is not exactly what we would have built but the price was right and now the girls can get out of the basement and outside near the other farm animals where they belong.

 
      I had to do some scrubbing, but we got 3 hutches, 4 water bottles, 2 heated water bowls, 4 misc. hook on dishes, almost an entire bag of feed,  2 gravity feeders, and 2 hay holders (?) all for about half of what the price of the supplies would have been, not including the hutches!!! I'd say that's a pretty good deal, and the best part is that all Mr. J had to do was help me pick them up, wait for the kids and I to clean them, and then move them to the back yard near the goat pen/shelter. Now I don't have to feel quite as guilty for adding rabbits to the farm, and one more thing to his "To Do List!"
  Right now we only need to use one hutch for the two girls but in a few months when I breed them, we will need a place for the buck, as well as a way to separate the mothers while they're nesting and tending to their babies.

 

     As you can see, the goats were just a little bit curious about their new neighbors' house. Aspen thought the hutch was for her and climbed right in! She did the very same thing all summer with the temporary duck/chick house. Any chance she had, she would jump right in!

     Even though Mr. J had to work overtime today, we had a bit of family fun carting the hutches and rabbit supplies to the back yard with the tractor in the morning before he had to leave. We even took the scenic route back through the woods a few times, which was just as much fun for me as it was for the kids, I think.

     As for the rabbits, I don't think they're all too impressed with their new digs. I'm sure it will just take a little time for them to get used to the hutch, fresh air, and noisy neighbors. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the hutch is well protected from the elements under the lean-to part of Mr. J's shop, and will only be more protected from drafts and cold once the goat shelter renovations are completed in the next few days or so.

Hoppin' on the Farm Wagon!

   Montana is not the only new animal who joined our farm recently. Meet Hazel and Ivy, two Satin Rabbits that we plan to use as breeding does once they reach maturity. 

   Hazel is a 12 week old brown seal doe and Ivy is a 10 week old blue doe. They have been living in our basement in a temporary enclosure for several days and are definitely starting to warm up to everyone already. The girls are going to properly socialize these young ladies in no time! 
   We were supposed to get a buck as well, but the one we had picked out ended up being another doe after all, so we are going to wait a month or so for the next litter to be ready and hope for a buck that meets our needs. We are in no real hurry to start breeding as this will mainly serve as a hobby for Mrs J and the kids with the hope of many added benefits (but there will be more on that in later posts...)
   In preparation for starting this new endeavor we did our homework and visited several local rabbitries before settling on a breed. Satins are beautiful rabbits and are a fabulous dual purpose breed good for meat, pelts and as loving pets. They tend to eat less feed than the common meat rabbit breeds such as the New Zealand and Californian rabbits and in our humble opinion are much prettier to look at. That being said, because of how beautiful they are, it is definitely going to be a challenge to follow through with our intentions to slaughter them. Thankfully our hunter friend is willing to help us with this part in exchange for some healthy, all natural, (and delicious) rabbit meat.
   Before ultimately making the decision to raise rabbits on our homestead we bought some rabbit meat from a local rabbitry in order for everyone in the family to decide if they even liked the taste. 

   I simply seasoned the meat with salt and pepper, massaged it with olive oil, and marinaded it for 12 hours or so in the fridge in the olive oil and salt and pepper mixture. I peeled and cut up some of our garden fresh potatoes and carrots to roast along with the rabbit, sliced 1/2 sweet onion and minced 2 cloves of garlic,  mixed them with the juice of one lemon and used this onion, garlic, lemon juice mix to stuff the cavity of the rabbit. I then topped the rabbit with 3 strips of bacon for added fat (rabbit meat is very high in protein but has a very low fat content,) added 1/2 C. of water and 1/2 C. of apple juice to the roasting pan, topped the entire roast with rosemary and a little more salt and pepper. I roasted the rabbit at 350 degrees F for approx. 45 mins. In order to ensure that the rabbit didn't dry out I tented the rabbit with foil for the first 20 minutes and then removed the foil for the last 25 minutes. I removed the rabbit from the pan once it was done and returned the pan of vegetables to the oven to broil for about 5 minutes until the veggies were good  crispy! After EVERYONE in our family savored this delicious meal, the decision was essentially made and we found ourselves not 2 days later out "shopping" for our new rabbit friends. 

   It was a little weird to handle, season and cook a little bunny, but once I got past the idea, it really didn't feel much different than preparing chicken for dinner. It really helps that our little farm children seem to have a healthy handle on the "circle of life." In addition to being able to provide their growing bodies with nutritious, clean food, we are continually amazed by the countless life lessons that they are learning on our small farm in the woods.

Mrs. J :)