More Critters - Burgess the Breeder Rabbit (to be)

Last week I went and bought another rabbit, before I've even gotten around to butchering the first batch. BUT this rabbit is going to be my breeder rabbit so that next year I can have a whack load of rabbits! I named him Burgess and his wife (the white Californian) has finally been named Marigold. Burgess is really scared and skittish, but he's slowly coming around. He's only about 2 months old. He's got the most beautiful colouring, he is a New Zealand Red. Apparently the new Zealand and californian cross makes a great meat rabbit - so that's what Im hoping for come spring (obviously Burgess has a bit of growing up to do before he becomes a parent haha).

The Garden Wind-Down

After all the hard work of planting, weeding, and waiting, the harvest came in a rush, and now after a heavy early frost, the garden is completely levelled and ready to be prepared for another year. Fortunately I got the main things off before the frost, tomatoes and my last zucchini. I figured the roots would be ok in the ground, so I left them (aside from my potatoes which I harvested). I left the cabbage, the vines and the beans. My beans were turned completely to slime, and some of my squash and pumpkins even took a hit, with freeze marks on the top side. I didn't get my apples picked in time, but they don't look to have suffered any. I picked them just after the frost, in case we get another frost - I wont risk it. Overall, production was good (considering the limited amount of time I put in) and we have a good store of food in for the winter. Now all I can think about is garden expansion plans...

 One and only eggplant

 Spartan Apples

 Harvested 1 bushel of potatoes off the new garden (see post on double digging!)

 My seed zucchini

 Kidney beans drying

 The frost damaged garden

 Again - more frost damage

 My bountiful squash harvest

The Great Chicken Adventure: Week 23

Wow I'm delinquent at keeping a blog!! I promise I didn't check out of chicken care the way I checked out of blogging this past month. Everything has been crazy busy between the harvest, some butchering and "extra curricular activities". As sad as I am to see things winding down, Im glad in a way. Its been such a busy and consuming first year of farming. But I am starting to see the fruit of all my hard work. Week 23 in the chicken coop brings a slightly reduced flock. We started with 33 chickens, butchered Bernie, the first troublemaker-dictator, then we butchered his "sister" who was actually a male, then we did a big lot of 5 miscellaneous roosters, bringing the chicken total to 26 birds. We didn't have a scale to weigh the end results but taking a guess they were each around 4 pounds of well fed rooster. Now its so quiet to go into the coop, theres practically no fighting, and theres no bloodspots (from stress) in the eggs anymore, yay!! We still will have another 4 or 5 to butcher, whenever we get time. We had to kill off Racing Stripe the most beautiful rooster, because he was fighting with everyone! If another rooster even looked at him, there would be an all-out-feather-flying fight. Rob is the new king of the coop and the little garden helper is still alive too. The hens are laying eggs quite faithfully, everyday there are about 3-5 for me to collect. And I haven't been in need of eggs yet. Two hens have made a habit of laying on the floor, but fortunately they haven't made the habit of eating their eggs (yet)... Occasionally I let all the chickens come outside on the grass and theyre just in their glory when I do that. They make the funniest excited noises! And eat grass like its going out of style! The chickens still get a fair bit of garden and veggie scraps. They went pretty wild over the pumpkin skin I gave them. Theyre on 100% laying mash (even the males) and they get an additional scoop of oats (when I remember to give it to them). Im going to start them on oyster shells this week at some point, that will help the hens with building their shells.
Below are some picture of the birds during the last month.