Monday, May 20, 2013
Lost all our video updates!
The videos I've made in the past couple of months have all mysteriously disappeared, so I will write a bit now about whats been going on.
Quails
We mostly solved the pecking problem with one male to the rest of the females. The other male was taken by the nieghbours cat, returned will a bung leg and was then sacrificed to the fridge. Andrew did the cutting off of the head and I did the butchering. The butchering was pretty easy, less than 5mins to do and not to fiddly for a little bird. I would definately like to have quails for meat in our farmyard. The idea of having a chicken sit on the eggs and raise the babies has so far been unsuccessful with a friend's very broody silkie hen. The only other alternative I think is to get an icubator (or to make one) which requires some investment in equipment.
We are getting 2-4 little eggs a day that I have been recently pickling. They are delicious.
Chickens
We added three gorgeous bantam hens to the farmyard for the purpose of eggs and to raise babies hopefully in the spring. They are awesome. They are pretty much self caring, make a great alarm for spying cats and clean up the bugs well. Also they are so cute. Andrew thinks they are his favourite member of the yard.
Rabbits
We added Hazel who is a 2 year old standard rex doe to the colony. I wanted her for her amazing smooth pelt, and also so we could get on and breed before winter. She has previously been a show bunny and is quite jumpy, but she has done a super job with her first litter to Alfie (REW angora). She had 4 kits, 2 REW, 1 black and 1 grey with otter colouring I think. I havent kept any of her lovely pelt genetics with these kits (which is whatt everyone told me before I bred her of course) and they are not very meaty so we will try and sell them as pets first off to recoup some money for feed, and if noone wants them they will be up for the chop.
Another angora is coming to the farm tomorrow. He is bigger and much meater than my current bucks and much more suitable for breeding for meat. This. of course means I will have far too many bucks. Not sure what I will do about that yet- perhaps castrate my pet boys so they can live happily together and only occupy one cage. This also means that we will now have three wool producing rabbits. Anyone need wool???
The NZ girls are huge now and have appetities like a horse. I think they are coming into their teenageness as they have started fighting and I have had to separate them into separate cages. This ruins the plan of having multiple girls in the one big cage, so now I have two huge two story cages with one rabbit in each. Perhaps they will be grow out cages for the meat babies when I breed them. Plan is to breed them both soon and impliment a touch more science and note taking to the project.
We were given an old playpen that I have made into a run for the lawn. Its nice to take them out of thier cages for a run around every day. Everyone except Alfie has taken to digging holes in the farmyard and I am a little nervous they will get under the fence one of these days so they have been in their cages a bit more than I had thought they would be.
Worms
The worm farm is super! I'm harvesting heaps of worm pee and saving it for the garden in spring and they are making delicious looking soil that I will use to grow my seeds in.
I have had moments lately of realising the insanity of this project. I really do appreciate why northwood folks dont all set up a farmyard in thier backyard.
Quails
We mostly solved the pecking problem with one male to the rest of the females. The other male was taken by the nieghbours cat, returned will a bung leg and was then sacrificed to the fridge. Andrew did the cutting off of the head and I did the butchering. The butchering was pretty easy, less than 5mins to do and not to fiddly for a little bird. I would definately like to have quails for meat in our farmyard. The idea of having a chicken sit on the eggs and raise the babies has so far been unsuccessful with a friend's very broody silkie hen. The only other alternative I think is to get an icubator (or to make one) which requires some investment in equipment.
We are getting 2-4 little eggs a day that I have been recently pickling. They are delicious.
Chickens
We added three gorgeous bantam hens to the farmyard for the purpose of eggs and to raise babies hopefully in the spring. They are awesome. They are pretty much self caring, make a great alarm for spying cats and clean up the bugs well. Also they are so cute. Andrew thinks they are his favourite member of the yard.
Rabbits
We added Hazel who is a 2 year old standard rex doe to the colony. I wanted her for her amazing smooth pelt, and also so we could get on and breed before winter. She has previously been a show bunny and is quite jumpy, but she has done a super job with her first litter to Alfie (REW angora). She had 4 kits, 2 REW, 1 black and 1 grey with otter colouring I think. I havent kept any of her lovely pelt genetics with these kits (which is whatt everyone told me before I bred her of course) and they are not very meaty so we will try and sell them as pets first off to recoup some money for feed, and if noone wants them they will be up for the chop.
Another angora is coming to the farm tomorrow. He is bigger and much meater than my current bucks and much more suitable for breeding for meat. This. of course means I will have far too many bucks. Not sure what I will do about that yet- perhaps castrate my pet boys so they can live happily together and only occupy one cage. This also means that we will now have three wool producing rabbits. Anyone need wool???
The NZ girls are huge now and have appetities like a horse. I think they are coming into their teenageness as they have started fighting and I have had to separate them into separate cages. This ruins the plan of having multiple girls in the one big cage, so now I have two huge two story cages with one rabbit in each. Perhaps they will be grow out cages for the meat babies when I breed them. Plan is to breed them both soon and impliment a touch more science and note taking to the project.
We were given an old playpen that I have made into a run for the lawn. Its nice to take them out of thier cages for a run around every day. Everyone except Alfie has taken to digging holes in the farmyard and I am a little nervous they will get under the fence one of these days so they have been in their cages a bit more than I had thought they would be.
Worms
The worm farm is super! I'm harvesting heaps of worm pee and saving it for the garden in spring and they are making delicious looking soil that I will use to grow my seeds in.
I have had moments lately of realising the insanity of this project. I really do appreciate why northwood folks dont all set up a farmyard in thier backyard.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
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