Category: Livestock Page 1 of 2

Rabbit sits where it fits

This is Ting Ting. Ting Ting is a stubborn hardheaded brat at times….like when it comes to leaving her resting mat alone.

She apparently found this very comfy! The mat wasn’t so happy and took a week to flatten back out :).

New babies! Rex rabbit aka velvet bunnies

After months of only 1 small rex litter…we finally got 2 litters! Both moms delivered 9 babies. One is a first timer and one is a first timer fir me (second for her). So far so good!

Baby rabbits are hard to take pictures of because as soon as you disturb the nest they pop up and start looking for mom…but I promise they are all in the picture.

It will be a few days before I can pull them to check colors..so for now they just get daily welfare checks (while mom is distracted with a tidbit or two).

Quail experiment…aka things the videos leave out…

I raised cortunix quail several years ago and impulsively bought a bunch of young chicks from a fellow vendor at a farmer’s market. So cute! So small!

I already had a brooder setup, using a watering trough plus cover plus light. Puppy pads were bedding because the first few days I like to make sure they don’t eat the bedding. Chick sized feeders, quail sized waterers (shallow and narrow so they can’t drown). They were quickly snuggled into their spot, shown the water and food, and seemed happy for a couple of days…

….and then they started dying off. Day 3-5 I lost almost half the group. No particular reason! I started asking around and apparently that’s the norm now? Seems they don’t transition to feed and once the yolk sac is gone, so are they. I do NOT remember that from all the babies I raised! I hatched out almost a hundred and didn’t lose that much…so it appears the lines are weaker now.

And the SMELL. OMG. I thought the ducks were bad as babies…but these were worse. Yes, it’s possible. Ducks smelled like wet feed, these smelled like rotting feed. And the FEATHER DUST…my allergies said no more. They were dustier than all the chickens and ducks combined. Below is a picture of the mess from two days…and not that many birds for the area. Ugh.

Found out the breeder I got mine from had lost a bunch due to power outages from a storm…half jokingly offered to sell back the ones I had left. They accepted and a day later…I’m done with quail. Experiment over.

Unless I can find a line that doesn’t have 40-50% chick mortality, and raise outside on wire bottoms, they are not worth it for me…chalk this one up to experience! A disappointing one…but last I checked they were happily being used as breeders so it worked out.

So all those videos claiming how easy quail are? They leave the hard stuff out. You’ve been warned!

White rabbit in christmas stocking, only hind leg and tail sticking out

Holiday photo fun with bun….nies ! Three good pictures and a bit of story.

I had to make it rhyme, right?

The weather was nice and the lighting was good so I decided to set up a little studio outside and try and get one good holiday rabbit picture to send out. I ended up with a couple of cooperative subjects (kinda) so I decided to post the results on the blog!

This is Cyndi Hopper. She’s a young black otter Rex I got from one of my several Rex breeder friends, Georgia’s Farm and Rabbitry is how she’s listed on Facebook. I snapped this picture right before she decided to taste test the feather boa…but not to worry, I was faster than she was. She didn’t care for the bow and would not even let me put it on her for a second!

Next up we have Scarlet. She is one of the Rex babies I had to hand raise and force feed off mom (write up on that coming soon). They’re a sweet bunch, although you wouldn’t know it from the side eye I’m getting in this picture! Scarlet kept grabbing the jingle balls and throwing them around or nosing them off the table…hilarious to watch!

Last up for this post is Anabelle. She’s another of the hand raised Rex babies and the only REW (Red Eyed White) in the litter. In this picture I wanted to put her tail first in the stocking for a cute “rabbit head popping out of stocking” picture, but she was having none of that! Instead we went with “rabbit investigating stocking and then backing out” image. Next time I might toss some treat of some type in the stocking and have more time to get an even cuter picture !

*No rabbits were harmed in the making of these pictures and everyone got one on one cuddles after their photo sessions*

Please note all pictures are copyright Susan L. Marsh and not for distribution. Thank you!

Gate latches and a creative post

One of the hardest things for me to make is gates. Buying them costs a fortune for what you get and the store bought ones still need more to make them animal resistant. So do it yourself is the theme for most of the gates we have!

This article is focusing mainly on latches with a bit about posts thrown in. I’ll detail some of the latches on gates around my animal areas and where they came from/ how they were made.

Some of my latches are as simple as a piece of wire with a snap clip on the end. Below I used two pieces of wire, bent the ends and put them through each other to make a latch between the gate and the fence post (which is an old cut down branch.

Detail of the post. The bottom 2 feet is in the ground, and the wire fencing is wrapped around the branch and secured to itself. This piece of fence does not have a lot of tension on it, I would go further in the ground if it did.

This gate is the spring portion of a crib that a neighbor was throwing out. I used the “piece of wire and clips” method for a latch here as well.

And the third “wire and clips” latch is on another gate that leads into a duck area.

For this latch, it’s an actual gate latch. I screwed the part that flips down and holds the arm onto the wood post. I then had the arm welded onto a piece of cattle panel for me, and tada! Gate!

A caveat on this style gate…I don’t recommend leaving the wire ends sticking out like this. I caught myself on them a few times until I got used to it. When you cut the panel, measure and cut so you can end at a flush vertical bar. I was trying to use what I have around. I plan on gluing wood beads to the ends of the bars soon .

Gator vs goose :( Very sad situation for all involved.

WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC PICTURES AT BOTTOM!!!!!

A good sized (6 foot plus) gator managed to get into the pond without me noticing. Had I know it was there, I would not have let the geese in the yard-but they were free ranging on the property that day.

The gator snuck up on and grabbed one of my geese! Someone was outside and got me after noticing the goose flapping frantically across the pond…and then noticed the gator following it.

I ran outside and grabbed the goose out of the weeds at the pond’s edge, less than six feet away from the gator who was still coming for its dinner! Too late though…the gator had already torn large chunks of skin off my poor baby. Luckily for me, the gator stayed in the water.

After getting the rest of the flock to go into the fenced area (not an easy task while holding one of them), I took her inside to try and treat her. I sprayed her wounds with Vetericyn Wound Spray and put gauze pads dampened with the same spray over the open areas. She ended up with 2 large areas and several smaller areas down to the muscle

I then wrapped her with vet wrap to hold the gauze in place and put her in a plastic carrier with puppy pads in it (bedding would stick to the wounds). She was in the shower enclosure and I closed the door so she’d stay warm, leaving the light on for her and checking her every 20 min. I offered her a bowl of warm water with a little molasses in it, she drank about half of it during the rest of the day.

A couple hours later on one of my checks I noticed she was breathing heavily. My heart sank as I somehow knew this was the end. I picked her up and held her and comforted her the best I could, tell her what a good girl she is. She laid her head on my shoulder and calmed down…and then shortly passed away.

RIP girl…you were loved.

I hate this part of having animals.

(and no, no animal is allowed to free range any more until I figure out how to keep alligators out of a pond)

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For those who may be trying to figure out what got their animal, I’m including her injury pictures. Please do not share without permission.

What magic device do I use to trim rabbit toenails?

Stay tuned for the secret, magical instrument that keeps my rabbit’s nails from being the Destroyer of Human Flesh (TM)!

I will soon unveil…right here…right for you…my secret. And no books to buy, subscriptions to start, videos to watch (yet).

Are you ready?

Got your wallet out?

Because …it’s….toenail clippers!

Wait…what??? Just regular human toenail clippers?

YES!

But seriously…I prefer the heavier duty nail clippers (like for men’s toenails) to any guillotine type animal clippers. Easier to handle and they don’t slip while you’re halfway done cutting.

My current set is these from amazon…because…they’re cheap enough in price that when I lose them (and I will), it won’t be a huge drain on the finances!

So you don’t need anything fancy. Just grab some nail clippers and go for it!

Hinges and more hinges-odd solutions for tricky spaces too!

This post will be a post about posts….well, at least ones with hinges attached :). I snapped a few quick pictures to show some of the different ways I’ve attached gates to posts around the homestead.

First up is a galvanized tubing gate attached to a round wood post. I used an inexpensive (Harbor Freight) strap style hinge here. Drill holes through the tubing and put bolts with nuts on the gate side. For the post, the hinge is made out of a soft enough metal that you can bend it round with your hand or gentle taps with a hammer. The star head wood screws also help pull it in.

Next is one that was done for me. This is a gate that is simply a cut up piece of cattle panel. Another strap hinge was welded onto the panel for me. Then this time the flat part is simply screwed onto the post-this was a landscape timber so it had a flat face.

Third in the line up is another cattle panel gate. This hinge is actually designed to be welded on both sides…again, I had it welded onto the cattle panel for me and then a hole was drilled into the flat part and a lag bolt put on. As you can see, the zinc hinges start rusting almost immediately after being welded (the heat destroys the coating).

Last but not least, this required no welding at all! The gate is actually the spring base to a baby crib that I found by the side of the road. The square tubing it is made out of is thin enough that self tapping metal screws went right in. To attach the other side to an existing post with layers of fencing on it, pieces of #9 galvanized wire (fence repair wire) were put around the existing post and twisted together. This gate is a little floppier than the others, but since it only divides duck pens there’s not much pressure on it.

Goat raising house – some fun progress pictures

I thought I’d share some pictures from when I built the goat raising house. I say “goat raising” because they will be outgrowing it, and I plan on using it as a nursery in the future.

The basic idea is an old chain link dog pen (10×10) that used to be my rabbit “barn”, a tarp roof, and pallets around 3 sides to prevent predator break ins.

Here you can see the basic house. I’ve put up the chain link pen, the roof, and half the sides. Missing in the picture is the shadecloth and the raised sleeping area I built out of pallets and cinder blocks.

I used landscape timbers and 2×4’s to build a roof frame work over the pen. This supports bent cattle panels which in turn support a tarp. I’ve found that just a tarp sags when it rains and seems to wear out faster.

The wood is held together with strapping, plates, and lots of screws. the cattle panels are tied to each other and the frame with UV resistant zip ties. I like to leave the ends long to discourage things from roosting/building nests there.

Against the sides I added wooden pallets, screwed together with 2×4 pieces and other cut up pallets. This stops the goats from pushing the fencing too far out and things from pushing the fencing in, as well as providing shade and a wind/rain break. View from inside:

And how it looks outside:

Once everything is tied/screwed together, tiedowns are added over the tarp (shown above is the roof to pen ties, not shown are the augers). So far this type of building has done well in storms.

Issues I’ve had are the rain blowing sideways into the sleeping area and not being able to cut the grass that’s growing between the pallets. I’ll eventually add another tarp for a bigger weather resistant area , and the grass is being handled by the geese for now.

I wouldn’t be able to figure out an exact cost on this one since I already had most of the materials. The tarp was $100. Pen cost me $300 new, I think they’re $400 and up now. Pallets were free. I didn’t count screws but I easily went through a box of those, and probably a dozen plates and different hardware. I already had the landscape timbers and 2x4s , also from the old rabbit pen.

So far, the goats love it!

New collars for mischievous baby goats with cool feature

Decided to start collar training the baby goats because of how hard they are to snag when they don’t want to be caught (aka any time there isn’t food involved). As they tend to get themselves into everything, I ended up buying cat collars that have a breakaway feature. Inexpensive enough that if (when) they lose them, replacing won’t cost a fortune. Multi colors to tell everyone apart, although they are pretty obviously not the same. We’ll see how long these last!

The little cat head is the breakaway feature.

(Update: Two days. They lasted…two days. Still looking for two of them….Time for plan B.)

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