Friday, June 24, 2011

I'm a failure at rabbit raising...

I'm so sad. I am failing in the rabbit area. This spring we started out with 21 baby bunnies. I'm down to one. My Breeding Buck died, which is all my fault. I wanted to brood the turkeys in the shed I had the rabbits in over winter. So, I had the Boys pull the rabbit pens out and put them against the shed. I figured it was nice out and they would be fine. Did I think about the fact that they didn't have cover? Nope, never thought that if it rained they would get wet. And it poured. The one set of pens was on the front of the shed and didn't get hit too bad with the rain. But the buck was on the side of the shed, and he got soaked. We came out the next day and he was dead. Then my bunnies started dying, each day another dead bunny. I don't know what happened. We had moved the rabbits into another pen and the goats got into it and ripped the wiring apart. So then I had escaping rabbits. Hubby is working so much he didn't have time or energy to fix them and apparently my attempts were futile. Yesterday morning I went out and found one of my breeding does dead. But she seemed to have a broken back. I don't have a clue how that happened.
I quit. I am finding a happy home or butchering the rabbits I have left and I am not doing this again until I have a proper place and proper housing for them. It's alot of work and money for nothing to show for it. I am going to tag this as experience and move on.
I'm also looking into selling my two dairy goats and two of the kids and using that money to buy one proven milker. I'm feeding two goats to get the same amount of milk one goat should be giving. So if I can sell these goats I can spend the extra money on one with a record of heavy milking. Hubby wants a Saanan or as he says, a white goat with ears.
Farming is challenging. I have a new respect for the "real" farmers who do this on a bigger scale and rely on it to provide for their families. Something always needs to be cleaned or fixed. Feeding has to be measured correctly. Ordering feed has to be done on time, Then there's hoof care and udder care and wings to be clipped Oh My...
I'm tired too tired to sleep and tomorrow will come soon. I'm listing off all the things that need to be done. Barn swept, Milkstand scrubbed, garden weeded, weed eater needs to be run, grass mowed, plus the everyday stuff...
I'm going to try and sleep or I won't have the urge to get stuff done while it's cool in the morning.

1 comment:

  1. Don't feel too bad about the bunnies. I raised them when I was younger and they can be very touchy. They can die from just stress or anxiety from a scare or a big change. Don't forget about the warbles...yummy. My first experience with those was one of the bunnies had what I thought was a scab on it's neck...so one day I put peroxide on it and when I did it moved!!!! The scab was the outside of the warble. It had the diameter of a quarter. Another one had a sore above it's eye that looked like a small hole. Thought maybe it was a puncture wound from one of the other bunnies. I put peroxide on that too and out crawled a small warble. Still gives me the willies when I think about it. :-S

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