It's been a while!

And heaps has happened, as it should.
But on some days it seems to be more than I can handle.
The bunnies have produced, almost to the minute of conception. With two authorized and supervised matings and two unauthorized ones we've now got 21 new bunnies. Unfortunately the majority seem to be boys. I have had a few friends asking for some girls, but I think only a few of the white ones are girls this time. It doesn't matter much with roasts, but to keep as pets girls are better.
In the first couple of weeks we lost 3 babies: one fell out of the nest and died of hypothermia and two were the victims of our adopted cat.
On a positive note, the chicks are thriving in a "new" second hand hutch which I found a couple of weeks ago at our tip recycle centre. More space for them to run around and develop their motor skills, and enough space for mum too. After all, it's 12 chicks!

And the ducklings have finally hatched: out of 8 eggs 7 were fertile, and 6 survived the hatching process. One problem now though, three of them don't exactly look like Rouen chicks. Will have to have a word with my egg supplier. ;-)

And the goats definitely seem to be pregnant!  Hehe, how definite can seem be?
I dont know, but the obliging Billy's owner reckons I'm well on my way of becoming a goat nana! She reckons our girl Poppy is way bigger then when she saw her last, so here's hoping and keeping fingers crossed!


Update done for today on the critter front, it's been a very busy school holiday too, just in the last week we're literally having visitors daily. And most of them for sleep overs too! And since they're all friends and come to see us and not the house, it's pretty casual and entertaining.

TTFN

What a start of the week :(

Right, after having fed and watered all the animals, tethered the goats to a good browsing spot, had breakfast and then went to check on our sickly rooster Rusty. He had been quiet for the past week and I had isolated him in a separate hutch to give him peace and quiet to recuperate. Unfortunately, he didn't get over whatever had been ailing him. He was lying dead in the hutch.
So I've had the enviable task of plucking some of his prettiest feathers as a memento for my boy and then bury him, next to Uno the stud bunny.

As I was digging the hole, I wondered what some archaeologist might interpret into the " random" burials of animals around our property. We've got two sites at the moment reserved for our "pet" farm animals. I wonder what someone would make of that!!! "They "worshiped" their farm animals and buried them facing the East! They must have been also worshipers of the rising sun!"

Back to the chores, making a frame for casting concrete pads for the duck run.

Critters and their nature

On Thursday we woke up to a half dead baby bunny in the kitchen. My first job was to euthanize it asap. Later on I examined the cage and found that all the baby bunnies are now mobile enough to leave their nurseries.
Our adopted cat Purdie has realised there's a mouse family living under the rabbit cage and caught a baby mouse. And after that baby bunny crawled out she's now after the BIG mice! 
I'm keeping mouse traps baited, and caught three so far, but have to make sure that in the mean time no more babies can escape or get fiddled out of the cage: I discovered another baby in that litter with a major scar under the chin and near the eye! I don't know exactly who the culprit was, but pretty sure it was one of our cats.
So, the babies are mobile, the older white ones are starting to seriously practice making babies, which meant the boys are in their own solitary cages. I will have to separate them before the hormones seriously kick in, I don't want them to get into the habit of fighting each other. And then of course the duck run will need to get started, latest due date is the 21st of October!

And to top it all off, my little girl has finally come down with a cold, again. For the past, ah, I don't know 4-6 terms, she's always come down with something in the last week of school. A day at home for her, a sleepless night for me and worrying about her state of health.

And the school PC seems to be infected with two Trojans! Which means working on the back up PC, which works just fine, but is considerably slower. Patience will be tried today!

TTFN.

Photos

And here are some photos:
our cats, Elli and Purdie, and one with our dog Tuppence.
The bunnies, the black ones are already spoken for and growing nicely!
And our two broodies sitting on duck eggs.
And my daughter's two favourite soft toys!!!!
Food chain!

  

 I'm NOT fat!

Really!

 

Showdown

Ginger's babies

 Ginger's black one.

Lavender's babies

Lavender's black one

 

Broodies

 

Unicorn

 

Enjoy.

Weigh in 4

Another week has raced by and a few priorities have changed.
I sat down and wrote down when I could be expecting my ducklings and baby goats and realized that the raised vege beds will have to wait. I've got to finish the duck enclosure in the next three weeks and make the goat fence baby proof in 6 weeks. Taking the weather variable into account, and my aging body I can't spend time getting the raised beds made. That will have to wait. So, in the past two days I've been sorting out wood and started on the fence yesterday. With the wonderfully ( NOT) incapacitating result of a pulled muscle in my back! If I can get my husband to bang in the first post, I'll be able to slowly work on the rest. Til the back is strong enough again to do some more digging.
So, to slowly warm up, I weighed the bunnies again today:
Yellow      1380g
Black        1335g
Red          1360g
Green       1210g

Mixed results, but as they are still a fair way away from decision making time I'm not even going to contemplate who will be kept for breeding and who for eating.


TTFN, photos maybe later.

Weigh-in 3

Here are the numbers:
Yellow   1140g
Black     1115g
Red       1150g
Green    1000g



And here some photos from the latest three litters, born Wednesday a week ago, and Sunday night.

Weigh in 2

I'm about to move the kits into a hutch by themselves as their mum might have another litter in the next couple of days. I want to make sure she doesn't get stressed out by these bouncy inquisitive fur balls. So, before moving them I decided to weigh them, a day early, but that doesn't really matter for me.
Results:
Yellow 844 grams
Black   838 grams
Green   710 grams
Red      854 grams


And I got myself, or rather my hens properly set up for hatching out a couple of eggs. It was supposed to be duck eggs, but the breeder down south is having a full-on time with the lambing, so I will wait another couple of months til the next one goes broody. As ducks mature a bit slower than chickens,it won't really make that much of a difference to my breeding regime anyway. And I'd rather not have him stressed out!

That's it for now, I'll be on baby watch again for the next 5 days, hopefully it'll all turn out well, and Uno's legacy will be a fruitful one!