Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

They are so cute! Chinchilla color?

Yep. These are half Rex, with normal fur. The mom is my first rabbit and she is a PITA to breed. I'm planning to keep a daughter and get rid of her. I'm hoping the kits will socialize easily and be affectionate like some of the other rabbits, instead of wild things like their mom. It was cute, yesterday morning I walked up and was talking to them and they ran to the front of the nest box. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

These kits are A_, B_, cchd c, D_, E_. So if I breed a daughter to Expresso, I will get kits who will be full color C, and carry either chinchilla or REW, plus 50% should be Rex fur. I might need a different buck... Maybe I should get a new REW buck. A lot of my herd is now related to Frost.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

A weird goal I have is to raise a rabbit with every possible coat color. It's also teaching me the rabbit coat genetics.

 

[Bruce]

These kits are A_, B_, cchd c, D_, E_. So if I breed a daughter to Expresso, I will get kits who will be full color C, and carry either chinchilla or REW, plus 50% should be Rex fur

Somehow that all went straight through my brain with no understanding at all.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Somehow that all went straight through my brain with no understanding at all.

Lol, yeah the genetics can be difficult to learn. I just hope I type it right each time. The genetics can help you figure out the possible colors of kits in a pairing, so you can make better choices for pairings to get the results you want.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

So we might be taking a bunch of quail and some extra cockerels to the poultry auction on Sunday. I really need to downsize my quail as we aren't eating the eggs as quickly as they are being laid and I am not doing well selling them. The extra cockerels are from my parents flock, purchased/hatched last year. I also need to go through their flock and decrease the freeloaders but I doubt we'll find time for that this weekend.

Still trying to re-floor two double rabbit cages, once that is done I can get the oldest litters separated and determine if they are big enough to harvest yet. The youngest litters are starting to move around more, it won't be long before they are out of the nest boxes.

Hubby and I are working on making some raised beds. We are making the bed panels out of aircrete and have the prototype mold built. We have to get some more lumber so we are going to raid my parents scrap wood pile. Once we have the molds, we'll need to create a foam generating tool to use with the portland cement. I hope it works like the YouTube video.

 

[Baymule]

This will be a hard year because you have so much to do all at one time. ANYTHING you get from the garden will be a huge victory. Do not get discouraged, it will keep getting better.

Our soil is white sand. A cardboard box has more nutrients. This year will be out 7th garden and I can honestly say the dark rich soil is now over a foot deep.

With y’all building raised beds, you will be way out front because you can better control the fertility of the soil. I can’t wait to see pictures!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Argh! Coffee and Vanilla were/are due this week. Last night I checked rabbits and Coffee had dead babies in her nest box. She hadn't pulled any fur but the babies looked like she cleaned them off, at least partially. I counted 5. There was also what looked like probably the placenta?

Spoiler: Cold dead baby bunnies

I kept the box in hoping maybe those were just born too early? Maybe I or something else disturbed her?? This morning there were 5 more dead babies. She had pulled fur and two were in the back but not covered with anything. The ones at the top of the picture were the ones in the right spot in the nest box.

Spoiler: More cold dead baby bunnies

It's been raining for 1-2 days now, is it because of the storm? A fluke? Should I see if Vanilla gives birth and maybe split her litter between them or just rebreed Coffee? Vanilla has had a nest built for the last two days but no action that I could see.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Vanilla's nest:

 

[SA Farm]

Sorry about the losses. They look fairly developed from what I could see in the pics, but obviously something went wrong along the way 😕 Personally, I’d rebreed at this point. If Coffee had pulled fur, the kits were definitely stillborn, and Vanilla had hers shortly after with too many for her to easily care for, I’d consider fostering, but not under the circumstances you’ve described.

Hopefully Coffee does better next time