A bit too late tonight to finish – 1am now. I’m supposed to be heading to CANTON First Monday Trade Days this weekend again for a little browsing R&R. I don’t need to buy things (though I never get out of there without buying SOMEthing … maybe I’ll find willow trees on sale cheap? I’m coveting some!). We shall see.

(For those who have asked for directions, click on the link above to go to the First Monday’s website – you can get directions from anywhere and lots more good information on their site!)

Photo by Brooke Slezak for Country Living Magazine

First Monday was featured in Country Living magazine if you’d like to read more.

So, I’ll catch up as soon as I can. I haven’t had time to finish the predator/free-range chicken post, and I don’t want to publish it in it’s current poorly-written state.

Homestead happenings – I sold some of the geese today. Playgirl and Pinky will be going to a new home, as well as Josiah, Patience, and a few others. I’m keeping “The Babies” though … they STILL think I am their mama, even though they are about 18 or 19 months old now, and will probably provide me with a new little flock of goslings here in a few months. And one of the Nuggets is setting tight on eggs – in one of the goat-shed feed troughs. Fortunately the feed troughs are not in use by the goats these days, so she is setting undisturbed. I should have chicks soon. Everyone else is starting to think it’s spring, with the new growth from all the rain and slightly warmer temperatures, but I’m betting winter isn’t ready to let go just yet. Tomorrow night will be near-freezing again, so we’re not ready for too many kinds of babies for a while yet, and the garden is still sleeping.

Well that’s my quick update. Will publish that predator post as soon as I can get to it. Goodnight all!

Jakenshake writes:

As Jakenshake mentions, with free-ranging chickens your main concerns are finding the eggs and keeping the chickens safe from predators.

First, let me deal with finding the eggs. If your pullets are already laying in their nest boxes, that’s great. You’re one step ahead. As long as they like the boxes and you have plenty of them, the chances are good that they will keep using them. If they do, problem solved.

Nest box from http://www.efowl.com

If they don’t, I have found that MOST of the time, wayward hens will choose a favorite spot and lay there. When I lived in Florida, the pampas grass clusters were great favorites. The hens had little passages into the clumps, and openings that they’d trampled down into little nesting rooms. It was easy enough to see the favored location — they held those eggs inside in the morning until I released them and all made a mad dash for the pampas, then squabbled over who got to lay first, with the others lining up to wait their turn.  I had 50 or so hens at the time, so I just dealt with it by checking their favorite laying spots every day to gather eggs.

If I hadn’t wanted to deal with The Great Easter Egg Hunt as we used to affectionately call it, I could have kept the hens penned in the run in the morning. Most eggs are laid early in the day, and that would have solved most of the problem. Although hens are on a cycle and WILL lay a bit later on some days, forcing them to lay in their nests part of the time will go a long way towards discouraging them from getting into the bad habit of laying eggs elsewhere.

On the other hand, you may sometimes have a hen who really REALLY wants to brood chicks.  She may do such a great job of hiding eggs from you that one day she’ll just disappear, and you’ll think something has eaten her, only to have her show up in three weeks or so with a bunch of fluffballs at her side (assuming you have a rooster). I had a barred rock hide in a grassy field that was frequented by skunks and coyotes, then show up with 18 chicks … how she managed to stay hidden that entire time I’ll never know, but she did. I moved her and her chicks into the coop, locked them up in a broody box for about 3 days, and since then she’s caught on to raising chicks in the coop. I sold several of her pullets and netted about $30 or so, had some more young roosters for the pot, and added a few more pullets to my flock (who are willing to raise babies themselves). So all in all, it worked out well for me.

What it boils down to is making sure your girls are trained to lay in the coop. Keeping them locked in until early afternoon will help them learn faster. Making sure you have enough boxes that the hens like is important too.  If they have to wait too long to use a nest or if they really dislike the nests they are more likely to look for alternatives.

Speaking of what chickens like in a nest, it does vary a bit. Some have odd little preferences. If you start with standard boxes or something that has worked for lots of other people, you are less likely to have problems.

For example, many hens don’t like to nest too close to the floor. Most of mine are willing to lay eggs in the bottom row, and a few even prefer it, but the upper row of boxes are the first choice for most of my hens. Some hens don’t like to lay in boxes that are too large or too small. At one time or another, I’ve used standard nest boxes, broody boxes (which are open-fronted wooden boxes about 2-1/2 foot square that accommodate a broody and chicks), various wooden dresser drawers, large rabbit nest boxes, 5 gallon buckets, medium sized garbage cans, milk crates, and probably a few other things for nests. Most of my chickens, both standard sized and bantam, will accept any of those.  I do have a couple of oddballs who prefer really tight spaces. They squeeze behind the broody boxes to lay their eggs. (The broody boxes used to be against the wall, but I had to move them out about 4 or 5 inches to be able to check carefully for snakes back there, and drag them out when I find them. It’s enough space for the girls to squeeze into.) For the most part though, most hens seem fairly accepting of whatever you give them.

(Just another tip, if they haven’t started laying yet, placing dummy eggs in the nest really DOES help most of them get the idea. They tend to like to lay in a place where there are already some eggs.)

I hope that helps. One thing I sometimes see suggested that I would NOT recommend is to clear your property of bushes or other places that might be tempting spots for hens to try to hide their eggs. Since that kind of cover can help protect them from predators (more on that subject next), I would NOT remove it.

And I’ll get back to your question about predators in the next post … it’s already half written, so I’ll finish it up and probably publish it sometime tomorrow. It’s almost 2 am here now, so I need to get some sleep.

Goodnight, all!

My favorite homestead tips are the ones that save money, improve health, or make life more enjoyable. This one does all three, so I was especially pleased to discover how well it works!

Did you know you can refill those electric air-freshener warmers yourself with essential oils, saving  the high costs of refills as well as exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals? And you can choose your own scents, or even mix scents, to create the environment that pleases you most.

And it’s super-easy!

First, pull the bottle out of the warmer. This one has already been used so the wick is brown.  In fact I’ve already refilled it once because I wanted to make sure it worked well before I shared it here. The wick gets darker when re-used, but that’s not a problem.

Decide which oils you want to use. I have a collection, and sniffed them, held the bottles open side by side (know which lid to put back on which bottle if you do this!), and decided on these three. I already knew I’d use lavender as the basis since this warmer is for the bedroom, so it was just a matter of deciding what I wanted to go with it.

From my collection I also considered Rose Absolute, Jasmine, Bergamot, Sandalwood, YlangYlang, and a couple of combinations. For a more “active” room, peppermint and related oils might be nice, and I am considering using one of my Pine oils in the living room for Christmas.  In an area where mosquitoes might be a problem, Citronella might be worth considering.

Next, remove the plastic top that holds the wick from the bottle. I found a small file helpful the first time, inserting it under the lip and turning it to create a gap around the bottle, then simply popped it off. After the first refill, the top became easier to remove.

I originally followed someone else’s instructions that said I should remove the wick from the holder. That is NOT necessary. As a matter of fact, the wick broke in two when I tried to do that, and I thought I’d have to buy a new one and start over. But as it turns out, if you DO break the wick, just stick it back in. When the two pieces make contact, they wick the liquid up and it still works just fine.

Rinse the bottle. I also soaked the wick in water for several hours to remove as much of the chemical compounds as possible the first time I refilled it.

Begin adding your oil. It’s a good idea to keep up with your “recipe” … you’ll have a good idea next time of changes you want to make, and when you find a mixture you love, you’ll be able to recreate it. (Believe me, that’s important. I once made a WONDERFUL spray freshener for my car, and forgot to write it down. I never have been able to make another one I liked quite as well.)

This time I added 30 drops of lavender, 10 drops of sweet orange, and 6 drops of lime.

This was the level in the bottle once I’d added that amount.

Add water to the bottle. You don’t want to fill it completely to the top (the wick is going to have to go back in), but I could have added more water. At this point, I decided it might be a little “thin” and I wanted more essential oil.

So I added the same amounts again. In total I now had 60 drops of lavender, 20 drops of sweet orange, and 12 drops of lime.

And pop the top back on. Looks a bit more “substantial” now after swirling the water with the added oil. I could have added a bit more water, and probably should have.

At this point, pop the bottle back in the warmer and it’s ready to use! If your unit has one, dial the strength to suit you. I had to dial mine all the way down with the amount of oil I used.

I have to say the health benefits are most important to me. I like for a home to smell nice, but the chemicals in some of the air freshener refills have been said to cause cancer. All I know for sure is that they give me a headache. And my dear Crystal-Kitty has asthma, and anything can set off an attack, which can be life-threatening for her.

Speaking of which, essential oils can be dangerous to cats, so I was concerned about diffusing them into the air. But both of the cats will approach anything with essential oil on it, take a cautious sniff, and immediately bolt from the room. They don’t react at all to the scent from the air freshener, so it must not be enough to bother them.  And it hasn’t affected Crystal’s asthma at all.

I haven’t calculated the cost, but the refills run almost $5 for a package of two, and I refilled two bottles without putting a noticeable dent in my oils. They run about $6 to $20 a bottle, depending on the oil (sweet orange is very affordable, and I buy large bottles of the lavender which is why it costs so much). I would guess I’m not spending more than 20 cents or so per refill.

And as far as making the place nicer, I have been really enjoying the scent. It’s a nice mix of feminine sweetness and masculine spiciness, and has a sort of clean, bright smell. When I uploaded the photos of the oils, I noticed they said calming (lavender), brightening (sweet orange), and freshening (lime). So I suppose I have a calm, fresh, bright atmosphere in my bedroom now!

What scents will you try in yours?

This blog has gone through several stages (in my mind at least). I started off heavily “under the influence” of my professional blogging career. But I’d like to be honest with y’all. I don’t really enjoy “professional blogging”. Creating an image, playing it up, painting a world of rainbows and roses for your readers. Maybe I’ve become just a tad cynical, but reading through two years’ worth of sugary sweet posts on some blogs makes me feel like I’ve eaten an entire chocolate cheesecake on an empty stomach – a little nauseated and hungry for real food.

And then I started thinking. I began this blog with a desire to share my world with my readers. And I don’t live in a world of ONLY rainbows and roses. Don’t get me wrong. There ARE rainbows. And roses. And sweet baby goaties. And rare finds dug out at the flea market, upcycled into I-love-it pieces for my home. Not to mention scrumptious caramel-apple pies (I really MUST share that recipe with y’all!).

But.  There are also animals that die, family members that get sick, layoffs that happen, and well, just general, life’s ups and downs. And along the way, I’ve found myself stepping carefully around mentioning anything negative, as though I was in the hospital room of an ailing relative that no one wants to upset by letting them hear bad news of any kind.

(Speaking of that, I want to tell you something. My marriage was in trouble when my mom was in hospice with cancer, and no one wanted me to let her know, so I pretended like everything was fine. But you know what? She knew … Moms are awesome like that. I sure miss her!)

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going to do what none of us “professional” bloggers seem to do. I’m going to try to just “Keep it Real” and so if you stick around, you may hear about (gasp) real life! (Just writing that makes me want to giggle though. I have an urge to insert organ music from a horror film here, just for fun!)

As my first (HUGE) step in that direction, I’m going to tell you why I was absent from my blog for so long over the summer. I disappeared from Facebook and my online forums at the same time. It’s not even something bad, but something I’ve avoided openly talking about online for years.

I had a visitor. One that was so dear to my heart, I didn’t want to miss a single minute of time I could be spending with her, so I abandoned everything else in favor of my guest.

And I’d like for you to meet her …

My daughter. Bet you didn’t know I’m Batman’s mom, huh?

Seriously though, there’s a long backstory here. Very basics, her father and I separated when she was seven, divorced a few years later, and stipulated to shared custody. He starting withholding her, the courts were not helpful, and in the end I went several years without seeing her or even knowing where she was living or going to school. She’s sixteen now, and I was finally contacted, and she spent this past summer with me.

Blogs, Facebook, forums, etc. didn’t even make my radar while she was here. Instead we talked, compared facial features, watched movies, talked, made cookies and banana pudding, talked, played video games, played with the animals, talked, laughed over silly photo manipulation software, talked, went to Six Flags, went to a water park, talked, went shopping, visited family, and talked. Did I mentioned we talked?

There was a lot to talk about. You can probably imagine the situation was tense at times as it can be when there’s a nasty divorce and kids are placed in the middle. But it went much better than I might have expected (you can’t imagine how anxious I was before she came, but how excited at the same time!). And the woman who worked for TSA probably wondered why I was peering through the crowds at the airport, looking for my daughter, not sure if I saw her or not. (They wouldn’t let me go through the gate entrance to meet her, and she had no cell phone for me to call, so I was worried about meeting up at a HUGE international airport!)  I needn’t have worried. When I did see her, I recognized her instantly.

But … THAT is really the reason for my long absence. And to be honest, it’s also why I’ve had a slow start getting back. It was hard letting her go back … and it’s been hard to adjust to my only contact being over the phone. But then again, that is WAY more than I’ve had these past several years.

And … that’s real life around here.

 

I probably have about 80 to 100 pounds of rabbit in my freezer. Not to mention a couple of dozen ducks. Which means … I need more than a few ways to cook both of them. Up until now I’ve only had a handful of rabbit recipes, so for the past couple of months I’ve been experimenting – mostly with a lot of success.

What I’ve learned, in general, is that most recipes for chicken (so far) will work with rabbit.  My favorite rabbit recipes are barbecue-sauce-type recipes – anything with a similar flavor works well. The one real failure was rabbit enchiladas, chicken enchilada style. Maybe it was all in my mind, but it just didn’t seem RIGHT and I couldn’t enjoy it. So I haven’t done any more Mexican-style rabbit recipes.

Last night I decided to try something new. This recipe is one I found on Pinterest, and have never had chicken like this. I have never even smelled or tasted Russian dressing, so I really had no idea what to expect, but I was looking for something different. And even though it uses a lot of convenience items, I decided to follow the recipe as written, since I had never made it before and didn’t know what to expect at ALL.

It turned out great! I’d like to figure out how to make it totally from scratch, in order to save the cost of the ingredients (I got good prices and the cost of the three added ingredients was about $3 – for me that’s a bit much for what is essentially just sauce/spices for one meal). And also to make it a bit healthier — there were a few things in the ingredient list of the packaged food that I didn’t recognize.

That said, if you WANT something quick, easy, and flavorful, this is worth a try. And when I figure out how to do it from scratch, I’ll post an update.

I’m sure it would be excellent with chicken. If I do it with rabbit again (and I probably will) I would switch to the crock pot and cook it more slowly. It was good, but rabbit is less tender than chicken, so I think a slow cooker would work well.

And now for the recipe. You can click through if you like (the link will also take you to my Pinterest) but it’s SO easy, I hesitate to even call it a “recipe”. Basically, you take an 8 oz. bottle of Russian dressing, a package of dry onion soup mix, and a cup of apricot preserves or jam, and mix it all in a bowl. Put 8 chicken thighs (or whatever parts of rabbit or chicken you like) in a roasting pan just big enough for them, sprinkle a bit of pepper over the top, and pour the liquid over. The recipe says bake at 400 for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, but ok, I DID change it a bit. I lowered the temp to 350 and cooked it longer, because in general I don’t like to cook meat above that. Oh, you’ll want to baste it a few times while cooking.

And that’s it! If I had known how it would taste, I would have made saffron rice to go with it. I think that would have been PERFECT.

My thanks to Syrup and Biscuits for posting the original recipe. One more rabbit recipe for the recipe box!

UPDATE: And in the comments section for Syrup and Biscuits I found one person’s recipe for Russian dressing – made from common ingredients, so I’ll try this next time.

It’s not really procrastination though. I’ve actually WRITTEN a lot of posts, but – mostly due to photo issues – decided not to publish them until I was happy with the look. There’s some good stuff in there though, so I have decided to publish them over the next month or so. It may be nice to have posts in reserve, since the Christmas season is here with all its busy-ness.

There are several new recipe posts in there. I’ve got a LOT of rabbit in the freezer, and I only had a few ways of cooking it, so I’ve been experimenting a lot. Just last night had tried something new that I called a “Paula-Deen recipe” … it used several “convenience” items, but since I’ve never tasted Russian dressing, I thought I’d try it out. It was another keeper, though I’ll want to find ways to make it more from scratch (translation: cheaper AND healthier). I’ll go ahead and publish that one right after I post this. I’ve also made apple butter, not to mention some really yummy Thanksgiving desserts.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I got to drive over to visit with my family this year. We used to have HUGE family dinners, and then my Grandma passed away and the family seemed to dwindle. Grandma and Grandpa Peevy, Great Grandma Hall, lots of great-aunts and great-uncles, my Mother and my Uncle Terry. But now … my cousins are showing up to dinner with new boyfriends and girlfriends, and in some cases their friends. Second cousins are being born, growing up year by year. The family is growing again, and it’s wonderful to see. I love family gatherings … I wish I could see them more often. Probably one of my deepest sources of nostalgia.

And how could it not be? If you had a brother like mine (he loves to act crazy … see what I mean?)

Thanksgiving mayhem

And animal drama (I have a sad stories to tell about Pearl and Romeo, but both clouds have silver linings). I’ve written some new livestock information posts (I knew about lazy buck syndrome but because of circumstances we ended up having it happen here – what ever happened to rabbits breeding like, well, rabbits?).

There are also some household tips I’ve picked up recently, and some family stories mixed in there.

But a good many of the posts are about crafts, turning trash to treasure, home decorating, and DIY projects. The readers have spoken … the greatest interest you all show is in these kinds of posts, and I really don’t mind. Those are the “fun” posts for me too, so I’ll be happy to share plenty of them along with the rest.

Stand by for the first held-over post … a yummy rabbit dish!

Yes, my name is TrishAnna, and I am a Procrastinator. Not by choice, but I see it as a pattern in my life. It just seems that even though I have a long list of things I need to be doing, there is always something else calling to me, or more accurately, shouting at me, since it’s usually something that can’t wait. So I rush around, doing what is most urgent, putting off everything else, until it also become so urgent it can’t wait. “Putting out fires” is what my Grandma called it, and sometimes it feels that way!

Of course, you can’t help it when there’s laundry to be done, but the goat goes into labor. Laundry has to wait. But I suspect that better planning and time management might improve matters, if I’m going to be honest. You know, prioritize. Do the important stuff. Don’t put more on the list than is humanly possible to accomplish (that last one gets me all the time).

I found this one myself and uploaded it, from the decoist.com

So … flying in the face of all that reasonable-ness is my sudden desire to decorate for fall. I’m not sure if it’s because Autumn is my favorite time of year, or the “Pinspiration” I’ve been getting from Pinterest lately (have you been there? LOL, speaking of time management – that site can whisk away an hour before you know it!). Or maybe I’m feeling inspired because of an online course I just started.

The course is being taught by an online friend and looked very promising – a course in becoming a “Fascinating Woman” that seems to encompass a lot of areas. I can’t comment too much on it yet, since I just started (and my book hasn’t even arrived – I, uh, put off ordering it). But it HAS made me aware of some changes I’d like to make in myself. No time like the present … Maybe there’s hope for me and I’m not such a procrastinator after all???

OK, just to have SOMETHING in this post on topic for Homesteading, I offer you the following.

Mysti the llama

In other news today, Mysti the llama escaped through a gate that failed to lock this morning. Fortunately she was easily escorted back to the feed stand — unlike the last time that happened. That escape resulted in me, wearing much boots and swinging a bucket of feed from one arm, running through fields up and down a half-mile of our country road  (a ridiculous sight I’m sure!). Not only ridiculous, but completely useless in catching a long-legged llama who has decided the grass is greener … somewhere … over … there!  I was also glad to discover the Nuggets are all safe this morning.  Apparently the chicken scream I heard during the night was the result of one of them being stepped on by a goat or something minor. None of them are so much as limping this morning.  Everything else is is business as usual.

Fitting in with my desire for a new me … this post means I’m being more diligent about keeping up with my blog (and I promise, I’ll be more on topic from now on), and keeps me accountable to someone (you – my dear readers!), and I’m also going to end it here, and keep it as is, to fill my goal of moving on to other things I need to do. Laundry calls my name, the dog needs his food prepared, it’s almost time to lock up the chickens, I’d like a fresh pitcher of tea with dinner, and so on (and on and on).

If you have the time, visit me at Pinterest. If you don’t have a lot of time, might be better NOT to visit, LOL.

Until next time!!!

Rabbits are more sensitive to heat than cold, so living here in the south I have to take that into consideration. I build open wire-on-all-sides rabbit cages with a high roof that keeps off rain, in order to allow maximum air circulation. The cages and placed in deep shade. When the temperature is over 76-78F, I turn on high powered fans. Anytime it gets over 85 or so I usually turn on the misters attached to the fans.

The misters are part of a cooling system I bought at the hardware store. They attach to a regular water hose, and have about 5 feet of tubing with mist nozzles set in the tubing, producing a fine mist when the water is turned on very low pressure. I attach the misters to the front of the fans using cable ties, allowing the mist to be blown on the breeze to the rabbits. I’ve stood in front of the rabbit cages, about 8 feet away from the fan and it feels as cool as standing in front of an air conditioner. The rabbit’s water bottles that are directly in the path of the mister have COLD water in them at the end of the day, even if the temps are near 110 degrees F. They work amazingly well, and I allow the llama to come into the rabbits’ yard so she can take advantage of the coolness as well. At any given time, there are usually a dozen or so chickens stretched out somewhere within the cool zone, chilling out. I’ve measured the water consumption, and our misters use about 2-1/2 gallons of water per hour.  They don’t use any power other than what is already going to the fans, since the mist is produced with very little hose pressure.

While we do sometimes get snow and ice here, and temperatures can drop below freezing, the rabbits are well suited to our winters, since they aren’t that harsh. Further north, rabbits may require more protection, but I keep mine in the same cages year-round. If there is a particularly bitter storm expected, I will temporarily put a tarp and/or heavy wool blankets on the frames to protect the rabbits from having rain blow in on them. But as long as they stay dry and have a way to get out of the wind, their fur coats insulate them perfectly well in the temperatures here.

Another piece of equipment that should be in your rabbit cage is a resting board of some sort. You can buy a plastic board for this, but we usually give them sheets of wood we have on hand. So far none of them has done more than gnaw the corner slightly. The resting boards allow the rabbits a chance to get off the wire and help prevent damage to hocks. Our rabbits are fairly large, and their weight could easily lead to hock sores if they were forced to live on bare wire all the time.

You will also need a water crock and/or bottle. Crocks may work better in the wintertime when water tends to freeze, since you can knock the ice out of them and refill. As a matter of fact, if you live where it freezes for long periods,  you may want 2 crocks per cage, so you will always have an unfrozen one. They should be un-tippable, which may mean you’ll have to wire them to the cage. Some people use large coffee mugs for a crock, since they have a handle, but they don’t hold much water and will require refilling often. At our place, while it may freeze overnight, the daytime temperatures usually melt any ice that forms pretty quickly, so I use the same quart bottle with a ball mechanism that I use in summer.

The amount needed for each rabbit varies a lot. Igor drinks over 1 quart per day right now, while Flower drinks only 1/3 that amount. When the weather gets colder, they will drink even less. If you have many rabbits, you might want to consider an automatic watering system. I’m planning to convert mine to a very simple gravity system with a 5-gallon bucket gravity feed for every pair of cages. I’ll write a post on that when I actually do it.

Home Rig House rabbit water bottle

Most of my rabbit water bottles are the Home Rig House 32 ounce bottles. Around here, Tractor Supply has the best price on rabbit water bottles at about $4 each. Wal-mart offers a lower quality but still workable bottle for a few cents more. The feed store sells the same bottle as Tractor Supply for about $5-6. I’m sure rabbit water bottles can also be ordered online for probably the best price of all.

I started out using metal J-feeders. Tractor Supply sells a good enough metal J-feeder for the best price I’ve found locally, and the feed store sells one that costs several dollars more, but theirs is a slightly better quality with a flap on top (helps keep chickens from stealing rabbit food, but wouldn’t prevent the llama or goats, so I have a home-made solution). If you’re going to be buying a quantity of them, it’s best to shop around. I actually don’t use many J-feeders anymore. Eventually the rabbits pull the wire screening out of the bottom and then food will be wasted. I debated repairing them or replacing them, but in the end I did neither. I use my old tupperware-style bowls permanently attached to large ceramic tiles. I was afraid I’d be scrubbing them constantly, but they actually stay very clean, and are easy to wash. My rabbits either eat the fines or they blow away, but there are never any in the bowl (and I don’t see ants or any other insects getting them). My bowls also don’t tip. Most importantly, none of the other animals can get the rabbits’ food, though they are slightly less convenient since I have to open each cage to feed them. But it gives me a chance to check them over daily and give them some attention (especially Buddy, who won’t eat until he’s been thoroughly petted).

Of course when you get ready to breed your rabbits, you’ll need the kindling boxes. I don’t worry about having a particular box for each doe as they don’t seem to mind getting a different one next time. Mine are made of plywood according to dimensions I found online, and are starting to loosen after 2 or 3 years’ use. I’ll have to replace them soon. I’m considering replacing them with boxes made of the 1/2×1 wire. I talked to one breeder who uses wire boxes because air circulation is better, and places only a cardboard in the bottom under the nesting hay. I’m not sure about that, since many does will use the box as a bathroom before they kindle, and the kits will as well. When the box is stuffed with hay and fur, there is probably not much air circulation anyway. But I can’t really comment on them, since I haven’t tried them yet. I’m still weighing the pros and cons, but I don’t want to breed too late in spring anyway, so air circulation is less a concern for me.

a wire hayrack for rabbits

Another thing you may want to outfit your rabbit cages with is a hayrack. This can be as simple as a section of wire bent in the shape of a long “V” with one arm attached to the side of the cage. When you fill it with hay from the open top, the rabbit can pull the hay through the openings in the other side. This keeps most of the hay off the bottom of the rabbit cage, making it less likely for them to poop on it, dirtying the hay and clogging the wire of the floor.

Before you get your rabbits, you’ll want to have feed on hand. It’s a good idea to get some feed from the seller if you’ll be using a different kind, so that you can switch them over gradually by mixing the feeds. If you’re going to be raising rabbits, go ahead and buy your feed in 50 pound bags from a feed store, if you’re going to feed commercial rabbit pellets. Most pelleted feeds are based heavily on alfalfa, so when you get hay you should consider timothy or some other type, if you’ll be feeding alfalfa pellets. Otherwise you will probably get too much alfalfa in the diet.

My word-counter is telling me that my post is far too long, but everything here is essential, so I can’t cut it down. I hope this helps any of you looking to get started with meat rabbits!

When we found that a single round of rabbit breeding here on the homestead was producing about 80-90 pounds of meat, we decided to reduce our herd. As tasty and healthful as rabbit meat is, that’s just more meat than we need to harvest every few months. Not to mention it takes about 70-ish pounds of feed per week during the growth spurts to feed all those kits.

California Bunnies

But I was faced with a dilemma. Buddy (my original buck) has become a pet. Every day when I feed him, he rushes to the front of the cage and begs to be petted, and won’t touch his food until he has had a thorough scratching. When children come to visit, he will gladly come up and stand very still as long as they will pet him, his eyes half-closed with a dreamy expression. The young man I bought him from raised show rabbits (and Buddy was on his way to earning a championship) and made a pet of him. And since he was my breeding buck and destined to be here for his lifetime, I continued to spoil him.

Buddy - as always, looking for attention

In order to slightly diversify my genetics, I kept one of the sons of Marshmallow, a New Zealand doe, as a backup breeder buck. Now, the dilemma is that my FAVORITE doe prefers Igor (the other buck) instead of Buddy. So … unless I want to sell Buddy, I have to sell my favorite doe.

Because she was my favorite, I called Louis. His family lives down the road and they are friends, and had talked about getting started with meat rabbits. I offered him my favorite doe, another very good doe, and Igor the buck for a greatly discounted price. He wanted to buy them, so set about building rabbit cages and getting ready.

They keep chickens, and are planning to get various livestock. Louis never asked about rabbit cages, so I figured he already knew what he needed or was researching it. Then a few days ago when he showed up to pick up his rabbits, he asked whether they would be unhappy being moved into much smaller cages. After a quick discussion, he realized the rabbit cages he had built would not be suitable, and he’d have to build more.

I felt really badly. I try not to give advice where no one is asking for it (unfortunately I don’t always succeed there – much of the time I’m alone with the animals so when I get around other people I tend to talk).  But in trying to be polite, I guess I never told him how to build his rabbit cages.

What I should have told him about rabbit cages …

The basic question was cage size, and I told him that he did NOT need to build rabbit cages as large as ours. Most of my newer cages are about 28×60. They give the doe space to get away from her kits, and the kits room to run laps if they want. I wean later than some breeders, so I like to have a lot of space in the doe cages. But the standard recommended size for Californian or New Zealand rabbit cages is usually 24×30 inches for does, and as small as 24×24 for bucks, with an 18″ height. You can get by with cages of that size, but if your does have litters of 7 or more, I really like to see them in larger cages. A dozen growing bunnies take up a lot of space.

I still use the first rabbit cages I built, which are 30×36, and that’s a good compromise for a large doe who kindles large litters.  (Incidentally, I built the height on those to 24″ because I thought the bottoms might wear out faster, and I could just cut the cages down along with the bottom 2″ or so and attach new bottoms for longer wear. That turned out to be pointless, since the walls ended up needing patching as much as the cage floors, but that was partially because of my choice of wire).

Speaking of wire, that was my first real mistake in building my cages. I listened to the salesperson at the hardware store who told me that the 19 gauge 1/2″ galvanized (before welding) wire was what I needed. I’ve learned that this wire is not strong enough for large meat rabbits. Bucks especially tend to pop the welds and pull the wire off in long strands, and can quickly open large holes. This wire is also harsh on their feet, and easily causes sore hocks.

This 19 ga GBW 1/2" wire is not suitable for rabbit cages - notice the tendency to bend, the sharp points, and the overall weakness of the wire

 (Just a quick note about galvanizing … you want galvanized AFTER welded wire. These are welded together, then the whole thing is galvanized, sealing and strengthening the entire wire mesh. The wire that is galvanized and then welded is not as smooth and thegalvanizing process can’t protect the whole thing, so it is much less durable.)

The 1/2 x 1″ 16 gauge galvanized after welded wire is much better for rabbit cages, and will hold up much longer. It is also kinder to the feet, and the holes are small enough to keep even newborn kits inside. I now use only this wire when making floors, and it’s also the best wire for cage walls, though not the most economical option.

This 1/2 x 1 GAW 16 gauge mesh wire is much stronger and more durable

For the sake of saving money, I built a number of rabbit cage walls from a strong 2×3 opening wire I had on hand. It’s fine for the bucks and grow out cages (as long as the kits are not too small when I wean them), but younger kits can easily slip through. So if I put a doe in a cage made of that wire, I line the outside with the otherwise-worthless 1/2″ galvanized. I have to put the galvanized pretty much all around though – you’d be amazed how high tiny kits manage to climb!

As far as rabbit cage measurements, one more thing you want to be careful of is the door opening. It needs to be large enough to let you put the nest box in. Also, I like for the buck’s cage to have a large opening as well just in case there is any kind of disagreement when you bring the doe to him for breeding. A doe can injure a buck if she really does not want to breed with him, and you want to be able to intervene quickly. As a matter of fact, I put two large doors on my 60″ long cages so I can reach all parts of it easily.

Next time I’ll finish up on weather considerations, where to put your rabbit cages, and other equipment you might need. And the next time I sell rabbits to a new breeder, I’ll have all this to point them to, in case I forget anything. I hope it helps some of my readers too!

Until next time, Happy Homesteading!

In going through my comments, I’ve found a lot of requests to share information, copy posts, exchange links, and those kinds of things. Instead of answering each one individually, I’ll just point everyone to this post regarding our policies for now.

Do you see information that’s helpful that you want to share? Information is freely shared online, and anything I share here is meant to help others, so if you want to talk about anything I write, as long as you put it in your own words, please feel free to pass it along.

As far as copying blocks of text, I would ask that you not do that. The main reason for this is that, while the policies change, right now it seems the search engines may penalize websites that copy other websites. My web gets crawled pretty much constantly, so if you copy anything from my site, the search engine is going to “know” that mine is the original and yours is a copy, and you can lose rankings. But it really isn’t good for either of us, and isn’t the right thing to do, so please don’t copy blocks of text. If you want to share a sentence or two as a quote with a link to my article (just so nothing gets taken out of context) that’s fine and you don’t need to ask further permission.

Regarding photos, please ask before sharing. Most of them are my own, and I wouldn’t mind most of them being used. A few of them don’t belong to me, and I always ask for permission to share, but I can’t grant that permission to anyone else, you’d have to ask the original owner. The Resurrection Sunday craft picture is the only exception, it was sent to me by a friend but when I tried to trace it back, I couldn’t find the person who took the photo. A few of the photos cannot be shared. Just check with me first, and if I can give you permission, I’ll be happy to.

And finally, regarding link exchanges. I don’t intend to have a “links” page on this site, as I used to do with some of my websites in the past. If you have a relevant site, drop me a comment and I’ll see what we can work out. Maybe I can look at your site and mention you in a post, or maybe we can swap guest posts.

Speaking of guest posts, I’ve had a few requests about that. Again, if your site is relevant, drop me a comment and I’d most likely be able to publish something on topic for you. If you’d like me to guest post, send me your site’s URL, but I’ll have to get a bit caught up here first.

And this site is a family-friendly, homesteading site. There are certain things I don’t think my readers would respond to, and I don’t want the search engines associating me with. So if your site is about or has a connection to pharmacy, dating sites, adult sites of any kind, or gambling, please don’t ask, since I won’t be publishing any articles or links from sites in these categories. I’ve also had a lot of requests from Zune and hotel websites, and to be honest, while there’s nothing wrong with those, they just aren’t relevant and you’d be better putting your efforts somewhere else and I won’t be hosting those either.

I realize this is totally off-topic for most of my readers, except those that have related blogs of their own. I hope you won’t mind this “administrative” bit — it saves me a lot of time over replying in detail to each person who asks and will get me back to homesteading topics all the sooner.

Happy Homesteading!