A little behind...

Sorry all, I've gotten a little behind in my blogging the past two weeks.  I posted several pics today, backdating them to when I took the pictures, so be sure to look back a week or two to get caught up.  I'll try to do better staying on top of the pics.  :)

Egg count / MTD-YTD egg count

This week: Large 18, small 98 = 116.  Down quite a bit from the past two weeks.  Not sure if some of the ladies have stopped laying or if they're just laying somewhere other than the coop.  We'll have to investigate.

MTD = 538 eggs

YTD = 1430

Front walkway...

It's been so hot lately that Dan has had very little time to work on the front walkway when it's not blazing hot out.  Not to mention he discovered the front yard is nearly all rock - in fact, we're not sure how grass even grows there.  It's been back-breaking work, so today he had the tractor out to assist with the digging...

Turkeys

The turkeys are getting big.  They're about 14-weeks old now, so they only have about 2 weeks to go until time to butcher.  Here they are foraging around the yard...

Tractor or me?

Every few weeks Dan takes a picture of my progressing big belly.  Today I asked him to take a new picture of me and he says "Only if I can take it in front of the tractor".  What?  What does the tractor have to do with pregnancy pictures?  Oh, well, I gave in.  So here is a pic of me at 32-weeks standing in front of the tractor.  I'm not exactly sure which you're supposed to be looking at though.  :)

Egg count

17 large eggs, 107 small eggs = 124

Egg count

This week: large: 27, small: 106 = 133 eggs this week!  Now if we can only get the new girls to double the size of their eggs, we'd be set!

Pigs 'n eggs

Just so you know... piggies LOVE eggs!  And I do mean LOVE!

Founds eggs

Today while getting into the bunnies food bin, something caught my eye.  A secret nest.  One of our Ameraucana's has found a private hidey hole and has been laying her eggs there.  Eight perfect little blue eggs.  So they don't go to waste, I'm going to cook them up and feed them to the pigs.  Our new piggies haven't had eggs before, so I'm looking forward to see how they react.

Negative 1

Holy cow!  Just when I thought our crazy bunny weekend was over, it just keeps getting worse.  Tonight after we got home from running errands and found our last baby bunny dead, I thought all was over.  Then, Dan went to check on all the rabbits and D4 had ANOTHER baby... 4 days after she birthed the others.  This time though, she wanted to make it abundantly clear that she doesn't want babies because this poor little thing was half cannibalized.  Dan, bless his soul, only told me about it after he disposed of the baby and didn't show me.  I don't think I could take any more bunny madness tonight. 

We've decided to stop breeding bunnies, at least for the time being.  For starters, they are a lot more work then raising chickens, turkeys and pigs.  We're also not sure how we feel about raising animals in cages without access to unlimited fresh grass.  The rest of our animals seem so happy.  The rabbits however seem, well, unhappy.  Until we can find a way to raise them in an unconfined way, we'll hold off.  If we can't do it according to our values, we won't do it at all.

Down to zero

This morning I got up to feed my remaining baby bunny and now he wasn't eating well.  Acting very similar to the listless bunny yesterday, he managed to get a little milk down, but definitely not enough to sustain him.  Doing the best I could I put him back in his makeshift home.  We had errands to run all day today, but as soon as got home, Dan checked on him to find him dead.  Poor little thing!  I'm so sad to have lost all of D4's bunnies - especially the two I tried to save, but at least I can say I tried, right?  I supposed this is something I'll have to get used to with breeding and raising animals.  At the moment though, I don't have to like it.

Down to 1

This morning one of the baby bunnies at well, but the other didn't and seemed listless.  I tried feeding her again around 1pm, but didn't have much luck.  I went back in the evening to feed them both again, to find my listless bunny dead.  Sigh. 

It wasn't a surprise, but dang, that didn't take very long.  At least I feel a little better knowing she had a more peaceful death than if she had remained with D4.

Egg count

Eggs this week... large: 30, small 88 = 118

More bunny drama

This morning we woke up to only 2 bunnies.  Sometime during the night another disappeared.  By this point, we can only assume that D4 is rejecting some or all of the bunnies and taking them out of the nest box.  Baby bunnies by nature crawl aimlessly (not a surprise since they're born blind and deaf), so we can only assume it crawled out of momma's cage and fell onto the ground.  From there it's only a matter of time until a critter carries it off for dinner.  So anyway, we're down to 2.  Later I go back out and find a baby not only out of the box again, dangling 3/4 of the way out of the cage.  It's only saving grace was that it was wedged between the hutch fan and the wall.  I freed it and tried putting it back with momma.  At this, she immediately started clawing at the two bunnies.  I figured they had no chance with her, so I quickly yanked them out, made a home for them in a tub and went inside to do some quick research on how to care for orphaned baby bunnies.

After doing some research, I fed the babies some milk with a dropper.  Everything I read said the babies had little to no chance of survival, but at least they won't be clawed to death or eaten by a wild animal.

Again, we shall see.....

D4 - Not a good momma

This morning bunny doe D4 had a baby in her nest box.  Just one though; quite strange for a rabbit.  I went back out a few hours later and there was another.  A few hours later, another.  And again, a few hours later another.  This time though one of the babies was out of the nest box.  There is no earthly way the baby could have gotten out on it's own, so momma had to have taken it out.  I put the baby back in and headed back inside.  A few hours later I came back out, but there was only 3 bunnies!  What in the world happened to the fourth?  I searched the ground, but found nothing.  A little while later, I found a baby outside the nest box again.  Still confused, we went to bed with only 3 bunnies accounted for.

We will wait and see...

Egg count

Egg count for the first 3 days of July... large: 10, small: 37 = 47

Busy day for birds

We received our latest batch of broilers today.  I'm amazed each time we get baby chicks in as to how small they start out and how quickly they grow.  We'll have another butchering day about 8 weeks from now.

The chicks arrival also means it's time for the turkeys to come out of the brooder.  We clipped their wings so they can't fly as high - hopefully this will keep them on our property.  We opened the brooder and figured we would let them discover how to to get out on their own.  Several hours later, only a few figured it out.  If by tomorrow morning, they all aren't out, we'll give them a helping hand so we can clean up and move the chicks and the hover in.  Should make for a busy day.