Fall: The Perfect Time Of Year, And The Perfect Time To Start Raising Rabbits

American Chinchilla Rabbit

The days are getting shorter.  The nights are slowly cooling down.  I’m loving it.  In fact, I’m taking my morning coffee out to the front porch about 5:30 a.m. and enjoying the early morning cooler temperatures.  Autumn is my favorite time of year and here in Georgia we have long, very long autumns. It’s one of my favorite things about living here.

Fall is also the time of year we start looking ahead to next year.  We review what went well, what went poorly and what didn’t go at all. It’s the season in which we breed our goats, our cows and our rabbits.

Rabbits love this time of year, too.  From September through May they are in their element.  They thrive in cool and cold weather.  Their coats take on a warm, soft extra layer and their hormones kick into overdrive.  We begin our breeding program the first week of September. That’s sort of my unofficial start of autumn.

Rabbits hate summer. They don’t do well in the heat.  We try and keep them in shady locations where they can get any breezes that might blow and we put plastic jugs of ice in their crates to help keep their body temperatures down.  Despite those extra efforts, over the years we’ve lost some good rabbits and even entire litters of babies to heat stroke. So we rarely have any litters from late May till we breed again in September.

Sure, it impacts our profits, but Our Edible Suburb is about much more than profits. Animal welfare is one of our priorities, too. Each of our does will have a maximum of three litters a year. This way they remain healthier, are less stressed and we prolong both their breeding lives and their lives in general.

Besides, meat is only one of the reasons we raise rabbits. Their by-product is as important to our operation as is their meat. Rabbits produce copious quantities of the finest manure on earth.  It is high in nitrogen and trace minerals, but is not ‘hot’ like chicken manure so it doesn’t have to be composted.  When it IS composted it is the richest, most nutritious garden food you can imagine.  You can kick it up further by using it to feed red wiggler compost worms and let the worms convert it, or at least some of it, into worm castings.  Talk about a feast for your soil!

Even in the dead of winter, the middle of the pile is toasty warm and the wigglers will keep working. We keep our compost pile going year round, so that in the spring we can add a nice thick layer of the stuff to our raised beds.  Even the most inexperienced gardener can have success by using composted rabbit manure.

If you start in the fall, one or two rabbits will give you enough manure for a couple of raised beds by the time spring rolls around.  Unless you’re looking for pedigreed rabbits for showing, you can get a pair of rabbits very cheaply at your local small animal auction, from a local breeder, or even off of Craigslist.

If you’re planning to breed, mature bunnies will cost a bit more, but will pay for themselves in just a few months in either meat, manure or both. Since most does will produce 6 to 8 offspring in a litter that are ready to be processed by 12 weeks, it won’t take long to have your freezer full of nutritious protein, or have your compost heap filled to capacity.

We started with about 12 rabbits. We had a mixed bag of young and mature.  We grew out some of the young males for the table and kept all the young does along with a couple unrelated mature males.  That first winter we had rabbits everywhere. There were weeks we had multiple days with two or more litters arriving.  It was work, but it was also fun.  That next spring we had our best garden ever.

If you have a small space, or are not interested in meat, you could consider some of the dwarf rabbit varieties.  Some of them are really cute, make great pets and can be wonderful with

Dwarf Rabbits

children.  Despite their tiny size, they do a great job in the manure department.

Fall is upon us. If you’ve been thinking about adding rabbits to your farm or garden, now’s the time to get started. If you’ve got questions, please feel free to send them our way. We’d love to hear from you.

For those of you already raising rabbits, we’d like to hear from you, too. When did you get started and why? What has your experience been? Don’t be shy now.  You’re among friends.

 

 

 

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Turkey, It’s not Just For Thanksgiving

What a tasty supper. We had a roast turkey and bbq beef stew.  Sounds autumnal, I know, but it’s one of the advantages of growing your own food and having a freezer (or 3).

Last November we took Chuck, the bull to the processor.  Being a miniature cow, he was only 300 lbs hanging weight. That’s still a lot of food for two people.  We gave a bunch away and still have several roasts, plenty of burger and some steaks left. Oh, we also have the tongue, liver and shanks.  I suspect I’ll be eating the liver alone.  In my opinion, grass fed, pastured beef is best cooked low and slow.  Grilling is ok, but crock pots, braising pans and smokers are best.  Tonight it was slow cooked in the crock pot and doused in bbq sauce. Simple, yet outstanding.

About the same time we had Chuck butchered,  we processed our turkeys.  Several customers cancelled orders on us a the last minute so we had an abundance. No problem, that’s what freezers are for.  On a whim, B thawed one and roasted it so we could have sandwiches over the weekend.  I’ve been standing over the poor bird off and on all evening picking at her (it was a hen).  Its a real treat to have something as awesome as a roast turkey on a week night in July that’s usually reserved for Holidays and special occasions.  Again, it’s one of the pleasures of raising food.

If you could raise your own food, what would be your favorite thing to grow?  Or, if you do farm and/or garden, what are some of your personal favorite treats that are made possible by canning, drying or freezing?  I’d love to hear your story.

 

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Refocusing and Making Some Tough Choices = FOR SALE

Periodically, we have to take inventory of what we have and where we want the farm to go.  This always results in some difficult decisions, because the heart and the head are not always aligned.

We have come to the conclusion, that we are primarily a meat goat and dairy goat farm, with pigs and pork as our secondary livestock and product.

We will continue to raise chickens for eggs, but as mentioned in an earlier post, we are out of the broiler business.  It is not profitable and not sustainable.  We’ll still do a few turkeys every year.

Beef is a difficult one.  We will stick with our two Dexter cows to provide us some meat and some cows milk for cheese.  Our mixed breed heifer will be processed this fall and our bull calf will be processed next year.  We don’t have enough quality pasture to raise large feeder steers for either ourselves or customers.

So, having thought this through, and sitting in my chair praying for wisdom, we are going to make some outstanding animals available for sale.

1.  Our two beautiful Belgian Draft Mules, Laverne and Shirley.  These girls are awesome, but just too much animal for our little place.  They need to go to someone who can work them in harness or ride them.  They are green broke and will need an experienced hand to get them back in practice, but they love attention, stand well for the farrier and load easily. They must go together as they have never been separated.  We paid a handsome price for them, but would let them go for $2,5oo total.  That’s a steal.

2. We are getting out of rabbits.  We have two breeding pair of registered American Chinchilla bunnies.  These are heritage rabbits, barely a year old.  They are worth a great deal and will produce outstanding offspring.  We’ll part with them for $100 a pair.  Again, I know we can get more, but we want to move them.

3. We have some super Nigerian Dwarf Goats we need to sell to make room for bigger goats.  We have some babies, some older girls and even some does in milk.  The milk is awesome, BTW.  We have a couple males as well, one of which has horns, but is positively gorgeous.  If you’re just getting into goats, or have a small place, Nigerian Dwarf Goats are the perfect breed. Prices vary according to age, gender and blood line.

4. We have a one year old pair of Black Spanish turkeys.  These two birds are delightful.  They hatched 14 live poults this spring.  They are good parents and pretty well mannered.  Our place is too near busy roads, though, and they are good fliers, so they need a home somewhere more remote.  They have always been free range.  Call me crazy, but I’ll let them go as a pair for $60 and we get more than that for a Thanksgiving bird.

5.  We have a yearling female Vietnamese Pot Belly Pig.  She is a fantastic mother and had no trouble birthing.  Patty probably weighs a little over 100 lbs. She’s a little bit wild, but if you can catch her, you can have her for $50.

We have three or 4 two year old Buff Orpington hens that can go for $15 each.  They will lay for another year or would make great stewing hens now.  If they don’t sell, we’ll put them in the crock pot ourselves.

I think that’s it.  Our miniature donkeys are not for sale at any price, so no need to ask.  They are expecting a foal again this winter, but we will be keeping it to train in harness.

An opportunity like this will probably never happen again from our farm.  These are quality animals at crazy bargain prices.  Our sacrifice is your gain.  Let us know if you’re interested or pass the word along to someone you know who might be.

 

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It’s Kid Season!

Baby goats are everywhere.  You all know about Curry and Zorro, our two early bird Nigerians.  What you need caught up to date on, is the wild week we’ve had.  I use we, quite liberally.  Apart from my being around to do some bottle feeding and serve as a human hot water bottle, the lion(ess)’s share has fallen to Brittan.

On Monday night, we got to the farm later than normal to do evening chores and were met with a big, er, small, er, plentiful, surprise.  Nya, one of our Nigerian does, had delivered triplets. There were two bucklings and a stillborn doe.  The boys were quite cold, having been born in the pasture on a very chilly night, and one of them was quite feeble.  I put them inside my jacket to warm them up and went to dispose of the little girl’s body, while Brittan worked on milking Nya.  Since she is a first freshener, that was easier said than done and the stanchion was put away for the winter.  So when I got back, I used my knees to hold Nya’s head in place, while Brittan milked out some colostrum.

We raced the boys back to the house and got some of the colostrum down them, but the one little one was still too feeble to eat or stand.  We had real doubts about him making it.  Brittan slept on the couch to keep him warm and feed him a few drops now and then.  Fortunately, he has pulled through like a champion.  He’s still not as strong as his brother, but he improves a little every hour.

This morning, as I’m beginning a meeting here at the office, Brittan calls me. I answered and mostly all I could hear was a goat screaming.  Brittan said it was one of our Kikos in labor.  She gave birth in about one minute while I was still on the call.

I had to rush off of the call for my meeting and tried to call back as soon as I was done.  No answer. I left a message. For two hours I couldn’t get an answer to phone or email, so I high tailed it to the farm on my lunch break.  I found Brittan shivering in the barn with two mamma goats and 4 kids.  It seems that the Kiko had twins, a boy and a girl.  As soon as she was done, Zeta, on of our Nigerians, also went into labor.  She had twin  black and white girls.  Since Brittan had no towels or rags, she took off her shirts and used them for clean up.  She had on a thin jacket and a cold wind was blowing directly on her.  On top of everything, her phone had gone dead so she couldn’t call.  Not a good morning for the woman I love.

I rushed sped home (any excuse to break the speed limit) and got her a sweatshirt and a heavier jacket along with some cloths and her phone charger.  Unfortunately, I had to dash back to work for some mandatory afternoon meetings.  I got an email from her eventually, saying all was well with the new mothers, except Zeta wouldn’t let down her milk, so she had to feed the baby girls regular goat’s milk.  We’ll try again this evening. I suspect I will be on nursing duties tonight. Fair’s fair.

The Kiko babies (father is a Boer, so they’re really crosses) are feeding nicely and will stay with their mamma.  The Nigerians will come home for a couple days and be bottle fed.  Their mother will join the dairy herd.

Our living room now has 4 goats in residence.  Two boys and two girls.  We will wether the boys and probably offer all 4 for sale.  I’m thinking we will keep both of the meat goats since they have outside bloodlines.  We still have three Alpine does and one more Kiko still to kid.  It’s been quite a time.  Did I mention that we love it?

 

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The Perfect Family Cow?

Every breed of cow has its strengths and weaknesses. Every breed has its proponents and detractors. Popularity of breeds waxes and wanes like the tides, or the phases of the moon. In my lifetime, beef breeds have come and gone like the flavors of the month at Baskin Robbins.  At one time, it was Herefords, then Charolais. For a while everyone who cared about beef wanted a mighty Simmental. These days, Angus are en vogue.

Dairy cows have pretty much gone the same route, with Milking Shorthorns, Brown Swiss and Guernseys having their day. Those who are big on butterfat, swear by Jerseys. For sheer volume, nothing beats a Holstein.

Across the country, there are dozens of other breeds who have a following; Brahman, Longhorn, Pineywoods, Murray Grey, Belted Galloway and many more have found a place in the pastures and barnyards of America.

There is one breed though, that stands head and shoulders above the crowd as the ideal family cow.  The Irish Dexter has functioned for centuries as a beef, dairy and draft animal for small farmers, crofters and homesteaders in its native Ireland. For nearly a century and a half, the Dexter has served a similar purpose here in the USA.

Saying Dexters stand head and shoulders above other cattle, is a bit of a stretch as they are the smallest Heritage breed of cattle, standing only 36 to 44 inches or so tall.  A mature female will top out at 600 – 800 lbs, while a bull might tip the scales at 1000 lbs.

Dexters are outstanding foragers and can thrive on the best or even the most marginal of pastures. They are a great choice for those who want to supply their families grass fed beef, but have only a few acres of pasture available. It is fairly easy to keep two Dexters plus their calves on a good acre of grass.

High producing Dexter dairy cows will give up to 2 gallons a day in sweet, rich milk. A 100% grass fed cow will provide ½ to 1 gallon a day; more than enough for most families to drink and to have extra for butter and cheese.  The leftover whey and buttermilk will be a fantastic supplement for chickens or a feeder pig.

A family raising two cows can plan their breeding so that one of the cows calves early in the year and one late in the year so that milk is available year round.  The calves can be raised as beeves or sold for extra cash.

Did I mention that I don’t think any breed of cattle comes close to matching the Dexter for temperament?  They are easily trained to halter and rope. They enjoy being petted and handled. Ours will follow us anywhere as long as there is a treat at the end of the journey.

We are slowly building our herd of Dexters. For a while, we’ll still be buying feeder steers from the auction, but within a couple of years, we expect all our beef and dairy to come from Dexters.  Whether you have just a couple acres and want to raise a cow, or have hundreds of acres and want to be an honest to goodness rancher, you should give Irish Dexters a serious look.

If you want to learn more, you might want to check out this website.

 

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Farewell Sweet Blondie, We Hardly Knew Ye.

Blondie

One of my daily joys this last year has been driving up the driveway to the farm to be greeted by Blondie the chicken as she ran to meet us.  Blondie is a Dixie Rainbow laying hen.  She was our first genuine free range bird.  She was the first to fly out of her pasture and roam the farm freely.  She never missed a day of coming to meet us.

I knew something was wrong when she didn’t come running this afternoon when we arrived to feed and do chores.  She wasn’t in the barn, either.   The moment I stepped into her pasture and saw the pile of feathers I knew what had happened.

First, I know it sounds funny to say I recognized her feathers, but she was very distinct.  There was no doubt.  Sometime this morning or early afternoon the hawks came hunting.  It was Brittan who found the headless body lying in the pasture.  My day has been shot ever since.  I know she was just a chicken and I’ve killed hundreds of them with my own hands on processing days.  I’ve carried out dozens more that have been victimized by predation or just died from an accident.  I’m no stranger to poultry mortality.  But Blondie was special.  I committed the cardinal sin of getting attached.  This is a very sad day for me.

I could not save her, but I CAN avenge her.  Can and WILL.  But for the rest of this evening I will grieve.  Farewell, Blondie. I will miss you, little bird.

 

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Agriculture Myth Busters: The Vegetarian Chicken

We get asked a lot of questions by customers, neighbors, readers of this blog and other curious sorts, about the diets of our animals.  Mostly they are regarding soy, antibiotics, growth hormones and corn.  Some are from people genuinely interested in facts.  Some are from people who’ve recently watched Food, Inc. and are looking to change their eating habits or want to make sure we aren’t cruel to animals.  Some, though, are well meaning, but misguided.

One of my favorites is from people looking for eggs, “Do you feed your chickens an all vegetarian diet?”

“Umm, no, why would we do that?”

Usually, that’s followed by an indignant, “You don’t?” and a rapid end to the conversation.

I always hang up the phone with an amused shake of my head.  The question is so bizarre, that it makes me wonder about the American Public School system.

Ok, to be fair, the marketing of some supermarket eggs, labeled, “fed all vegetarian diet” contributes to the confusion.

The simple fact is, chickens are omnivores just like most other birds, pigs, dogs, cats, grizzly bears and humans.  Ever heard the phrase, “The early bird catches the worm”?  Note: worms are not vegetables.  Chickens love worms, bugs, slugs, ticks, grasshoppers, milk and even meat.  If a chicken dies in the pasture, the rest of the flock will usually eat the thing pretty darned quick.  I’ve seen a carcass picked clean as a whistle by a flock of hens.

A vegetarian diet is not natural for a chicken.  They want to roam the pastures finding goodies hiding in the grass.  Sure, they eat the grass, too, along with corn, oats, wheat and almost anything else that will stay still long enough.

There is nothing noble or healthy about a vegetarian chicken.  We find that our chickens are happiest when they are allowed to free range and eat whatever they can find.  Even after a day of foraging, they clean up their chicken feed and still have room to muscle their way into the pig trough for a bite of whatever goodies the porkers are chowing on.

Admittedly, B and I have only been raising chickens for a year and a half, but we’ve had several hundred pass through the farm and we have yet to meet a vegetarian among them.

Cows are vegetarian. So are sheep, goats, mules, donkeys, rabbits and horses. Chickens and yes, turkeys, are omnivores.  Don’t tell PETA, it will ruin their delusion.

 

 

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Meet Curry

We were expecting him, just not quite so soon.  B and I had discussed the fact that Sunny was getting close to giving birth, but was probably a week away.  We talked about getting a stall ready for next weekend.  We were wrong.

On Saturday, I noticed Sunny laying down in the field shelter, but it was a warm day, the shelter was comfortable, so I gave it no more thought.  Sunday morning, when we went out to do chores before Church, she was up at the fence hoping for some grub.  She still looked pregnant.

Sunday afternoon, Brittan and I were in the pasture picking up what mules leave behind, when I heard B exclaim, “Sunny has a baby!”  I dropped my manure fork (I don’t need a lot of encouragement to do that), hustled over to the shelter and sure enough, a little agouti buckling stared up at us from his little napping spot.

What a little cutie.  We noticed, though that he limps on his left front leg.  I don’t know if it was a problem from birthing or if Sunny stepped on him, but he is a bit gimpy.

Brittan picked the little man up, I hoisted Sunny and we took them to a nice stall in the barn.  We got some fresh straw down and settled everyone in.  We didn’t leave until we saw the little man nurse.  We had a bottle ready, just in case.  Once we witnessed him getting a good meal, we felt we could safely go back to other chores.

The limp wasn’t any better yesterday.  He doesn’t like walking around, but will do it.  We are not confident he is eating enough, but he won’t take a bottle, which suggests he is nursing.  He is as cute as a button, but doesn’t look as robust as we’d like.  Time will tell.  Nature has it’s ways.

Sunny is a good mother and very experienced.  She will do what’s right.

We will keep you updated on his progress.  Oh, we named him Curry.  I know, it’s ironic and a little twisted.  What did you expect from us?

 

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The Downside of Draft Mules

If you’ve been by the farm lately, you know that our Belgian Mules, Laverne and Shirley, pretty much dominate the skyline.  Surrounded by miniature goats, miniature cows and a miniature donkey, not to mention a handful of laying hens and 11 turkeys, the girls tower over everything like skyscrapers in Lilliput.

The mules are positively gorgeous and can be quite fun, though they do get moody from time to time and want to be left alone.  They are powerful, energetic and offer a kind of interaction you can never get from a tractor or an ATV.  We love them.

There are, however, some downsides to owning draft mules.  First, they eat like horses. Sorry, couldn’t resist.  Seriously, though, these girls can put away some grub.  The two of them go through pasture grass like a mower.  And they are chowing down a big round bale of hay about every two weeks.  That in itself is no big deal, but what goes in, must come out.  Wow, can those ladies produce manure.  We will have enough fertilizer in the spring for every organic garden in metro Atlanta.  I could spend hours every day just cleaning up after them, never mind the rest of the chores.

Another downside to owning draft mules is the cost of horse drawn farm equipment.  Frankly, we can’t afford to buy it new and haven’t found any used equipment in decent shape.  Not true, we did get one saddle from a cousin of Brittan’s.  And we did buy harnesses with the mules. There’s just nothing to hook them to. So until we can come up with the coin to get a wagon or at least a fore cart, the mules will be merely very large pasture ornaments and fertilizer factories.

Owning draft mules is cool and practical, but as you can see, the start up costs are a bit steep and the maintenance has a bit of a sweat equity price tag.  I’m not complaining, just pointing out the downside to getting started.  I wouldn’t trade them for the world.  B and I are pretty attached to them, but we have a favor to ask.  If you run into Santa Claus when you’re out and about,  please ask him if he could put a mule cart in his Sleigh when December gets here.  We’ve been awfully good little boys and girls….

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Her Name is…..

You met her the other day.  I must confess that I am a bit jealous that the cyber world took more interest in the pics that Brittan put up on Facebook than the ones I posted here, but I guess that’s life.

The wee girl is doing well and already likes snuggles and having her nose rubbed.  We moved her, along with her mother, to their own pasture for a couple weeks.  They will be alone except for a half dozen hens who monitor that pasture.  We think Shylo was getting weary of warding off curious goats and piglets, so we let them move to their own space.

Oh, the name, I almost forgot.  We tossed around maybe 300 names and finally came up with one we agreed on.  Our little, spotted, spice colored girl will go by the name, PUNKIN.  Not PUMPKIN, that sounds way to Yankee.  She is a southern girl and down here they are punkins.  Anyway, Punkin is now officially a member of the East of Eden menagerie.

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