Hi bunny!

After the last couple sad and negative posts, this little bunny just wanted to say hello to everyone.

"Hi!"

Bunnies Lost and Found

  When a rabbit momma kindles (that's rabbit speak for giving birth), we check on those newborn bunnies twice a day for the first few days. We actually pick up each kit and do a quick nose to tail check to make sure everything is ok. No sticky poops on the rear, no wounds, no birth defects. We also keep a count on each litter to make sure none of the little ones have fallen out of the nest box or gotten buried in the hay or stuck in a corner. Since mother rabbits really only feed their young twice a day, a baby bunny can starve to death very quickly by missing just one or two feedings.

  As the bunnies get older we don't need to check on them as frequently. By the time they are fully furred and their eyes start to open, we generally just give them a quick look over at feeding time. Well, Big Onion was feeding Thing 1 this morning when he noticed something small and white crawling on the ground underneath the rabbit cages. It turned out to be one of her bunnies that had somehow come out of the nest box and fallen through a small hole in the side of the cage.

  Thing 1 had in impressive 9 kits in her very first litter was doing a wonderful job of mothering the large group. A couple days after they were born, I did have to put down one bunny who seemed to be paralyzed from the waste down. I noticed the problem on the day they were born, but was hoping it was just a temporary problem. When the little one didn't improve and seemed to be getting thinner and thinner, I decided to do the kind thing and put the little one down before it starved to death. That brought her litter down to 8.

  After recovering the wayward little one off the ground, Big Onion decided to do a head count and came up with just six. Two bunnies were just missing. We assumed that they too had someone made it out this small hole in the cage and starting searching the ground around the poultry house. We looking under things, moved feed bins, and upended buckets. We even called the dogs in to see if they could scent out the missing kits. No luck. We assumed that the little ones had probably crawled too far from home and been eaten by something. Rabbits are basically nature's fast food, being prey to just about anything that eats meat. The dogs had been in and out of that room. There are snake and racoons all around. Heck, even chickens will snatch up a little furry thing crawling by if they get the chance.

  I patched up the hole in the pen and headed back inside with slightly heavier heart that I'd started with that morning.

  We went about out day running errands and cleaning house until it was time to head back out for chores again that evening. We put away birds, called in the goats, and fed all the rabbits. Big Onion headed off to milk the lady goats while I gathered feed for the sheep. These days the sheep are getting a mixture of alfalfa, corn, and sweet feed at night to help keep their weight up, especially with so many nursing mommas out there.

  Once the feed was mixed, I headed out with the full bucket expecting Rialey to be at my heels as usual move and hold the sheep away from me and the feeding area, but she was nowhere to be seen. I called her once, twice, a third time and I finally saw her pop out from between the poultry house and the feed shed. I could tell right away that she excited about something. It took me called her again for her to come over and do her usual job of moving and holding the sheep. As soon as I had dumped the bucket of feed and released her, she jetted back between the buildings.

  I followed and asked her to show me what she'd found. She jumped backwards to reveal a tiny, muddy white fuzz ball toddling around in the mud. I quickly scooped the little one grateful that at least we'd found one of the two missing bunnies. Then Rialey was back between the buildings again clearly indicating that the other bunny was back there. In the dark, I could barely see the little black thing trying to crawl farther away from me and from the dog. Since there was no way I could reach it, I took a deep breath and asked Rialey if she could retrieve that bunny. I knew asking a natural predator and carnivore to take something so little and so full of meat into her mouth could end very badly, but I was trusting that Rialey's nurturing instincts would outweigh her prey drive for just long enough to get that bunny to safety.

  All I could see was Rialey's backside as she followed the bunny farther and farther away from me. I would see her move forward, crouch down, then jump backwards. I could only assume that the bunny was jerking and bouncing away from her as very young bunnies tend to do do when they feel threatened. After what seemed like forever, Rialey backed out without the bunny and looked at me with a clear message that I was going to have to catch that thing myself. Luckily, all Rialey's attentions had driven the little thing far enough that I was able to reach it from the other side.

  Both bunnies safely in hand, I brought them inside to try and clean up some of the mud and dog spit before putting them back with their siblings. The little white one was a bit on the thin side, but neither kit seemed the worse for their adventure. It's truly amazing they survived as long as they did down in mud and dirt, the little things don't even have their eyes fully open yet.

  What's even more amazing is that Rialey not only found those bunnies, but did them no harm whatsoever. She has always had a very strong mothering instinct and a very, very concerned and protective nature when it comes to the rabbits. In this case, those instincts saved the lives of two very lucky little ones.

Bunny Rearing: Part 2

  As I mentioned in my last post, sometimes our young bunnies flip and flop their way right out of their nest box. Usually this isn't a problem, but last week I was in Blackberry's pen checking on her litter. I lifted up the nest box and discovered that one little charcoal colored bunny had somehow ended up under the large wooden nest box. My best guess is he flipped his way out of the box at some point and since he was so dark, we didn't see him and put the nest box back on top of the poor little thing. 

   He was just laying there all squashed and flat and cold. He wasn't even a week old,. His eyes weren't even open yet, and his fur was barely grown in. I was sure the bunny would be dead or close to it, but as I stood there recovering from the shock of finding a bunny where no bunny should be, the pathetic little thing started moving. I scooped him up and could feel that he was cold and weak so taking a page from one of my favorite blogger friends, I tucked that little creature into a place where he would warm up quick!

  I wasn't kidding when I said the little guy was smooshed flat. He'd be stuck between a heavy wooden nest box and wire flooring for probably around 12 hours. His head was all squished, and he'd missed a couple meals from mom so he was looking thin. Once he'd warmed up, I fished him out and flipped Blackberry over to let the little guy try and nurse. He showed surprising enthusiasm, but didn't seem to be getting much in the way of nutrition. I guess his newly remodeled head shape was keeping him from getting a good latch onto his mother's nipples.

  Luckily, I had just milked the goat so had a more than ample supply of fresh, warm goat's milk. I grabbed a small syringe and somehow managed to get about 4cc's of milk into the little guy.

  Since that day, we have been syringe feeding him twice a day. He is getting a mixture of goat milk, kitten milk replacer, and heavy cream. After that first day, I attached a bit of rubber tubing to the end of the syringe to make something a little softer on his mouth.

  Since we were going to be feeding him twice a day, I decided the little guy needed a name. I've taken to calling him Jack. Short for Flapjack...because Pancake is just a terrible name for a rabbit. If he turns out to be female (I am terrible at sexing young bunnies), I guess we can call her Flap-jackie.

  I pulled one of Jack's littermates to show the size diffrence between him and his siblings. Little did I know that I had grabbed the one behemoth of a bunny in the litter.

This is a more accurate picture of the size difference.

  The little guy seems to have some damaged tissue on both sides of his face which is slowly healing, but other than that and his small stature, he seems to be doing pretty well. He is up and walking around. The last couple days he has started nibbling at the rabbit food and greens in his pen. Hopefully we will be able to wean him off the twice daily feeding very soon.

  I'm not sure what the future holds for little FlapJack/Jackie. With his small size I doubt he'll be any good for meat. He will probably end up being a pretty tame rabbit after all this special treatment . He always totters his way to the front of the pen to get his twice daily feeding. I think he would make a pretty darn good pet for the right family. Hopefully, if all goes well, we will be looking for a home for little Jack in a few weeks.

Bunny Rearing: Part 1

 The rabbits are doing what rabbits do best: making more rabbits. We've been breeding our girls in sets of two or three at a time so that they all kindle at the same time. This makes it easier to move the babies around if one doe has too many to care for herself. It also means we can wean and then join the litters together for easier rearing in the pasture pens. Right now we have three litters out in the big tractor just about ready for processing, three more in the poultry house waiting for the tractor to become free, and another set of two litters that were just born a week or two ago.

 This is Ash's litter just a couple days after they were born. She and Blackberry kindled at the same time. I love the variety of colors we are getting from these girls. In these litters we have blacks, dark charcoals, light greys, and whites.

 Ash is a beautiful silver color, but she is one aggressive bunny. Before she had her babies, she was tough to deal with. Now even walking by her pen will cause her to rush to the front grunting and stomping, "GET AWAY FROM MA BABIES!!"

 Blackberry is much more timid and calm. Both girls had nice big litter of 8-9 bunnies. This is just about the perfect size litter. Any more than that and the doe will have trouble keeping everyone fed.

 These are Blackberry's kits. When baby rabbits or "kits" are first born, they are blind and hairless. We have started pulling the nest boxes out of the pens and checking on the litters twice a day, even doing a head count, for the first week to make sure no one is getting stuck in a corner or tangled in the hay of the nest box. This has drastically reduced our early losses.

  Here is a fine example of why it is important to check on the bunnies so frequently when they are young. This little guy has gotten himself out of the cozy, fur lined nest where the rest of his siblings are sleeping and into the front corner of the nest box all alone. At this age and without their fur it is easy for the babies to die from getting chilled.

  As they get older, it gets a little more difficult to check on and count the young bunnies. For some reason, they turn into crazy jumping beans when disturbed. This is not a problem when they are tiny, but as they get older they can flop around enough to toss themselves right over the side of the nest box.

  This can lead to big trouble for a little bunny out of his box and away from his brothers and sisters.....
(to be continued)

             

Rabbits on pasture

  Things are hopping along with the rabbits. The heat is hard on these furry creatures so we have set up a fan inside the poultry house. We had a little trouble getting Bigwig, our buck, to do the deed on his last go-round with the ladies. They say the heat can even turn the boys sterile. Poor thing.

   I had put Zinny, one of our older does, in with him to breed and came back to find her humping him! I had to removed her from the pen before the poor guy lost all his dignity. He was finally able to get the job done when we put the two together first thing in the morning after a somewhat cool night. If the breeding took, those buns should be due this coming weekend.

  Meanwhile both the smaller pasture pens are full of mommies and babies. Crazy T is out there with her brood of 8 (above), and Haystack has her two little black bunnies in the A-frame style pen. The turkeys have decided that pen makes a great perch for an afternoon nap.

  The big bunny tractor is back out in the pasture since the little so and so's were digging holes in our backyard. They are loving all the tall grass out there and are growing like weeds. Of this batch, we will probably be keep one of the chinchilla colored does. We will also probably keep one of Haystack's black babies if one is female.

 We are going to phase out some of our adult does. We like having the colored rabbits around. Plus some of the girls just aren't performing up to par. To that end, we are looking for a pet home for our sweet Clover. She was one of the first two does that we started with over a year ago. She's the smallest of our does, and her pregnancies were always hard on her. So, if you know of anyone in the area looking for a sweet pet bunny girl, please let us know!

Breeding like Rabbits

  I can finally say that our rabbits are breeding like rabbits! With the addition of two new (and huge!) does, we are up to six breeding females. This feels like a good number for us. The grow out pen in the backyard is full of Clover and T's last litter. Zinny and Primrose are each nursing litters of their own.

  Hopefully we can finally start to meet the demand of rabbit meat for pet food, and maybe save a few for us to eat as well! Pictured above is one of the newest does. We are calling her Haystack. All our rabbits are named after Watership Down characters, and honestly, there are only so many decent female names in that book.

This is Nyreem, the other new female. She is very, very protective of her new litter. She actually rushes the front of the cage when I just walk by. Not the most desirable of traits in a doe.

  The lady I got her from was kind enough to breed Nyreem to her big black buck before sending her off with us. The litter is an interesting combination of black and white bunnies. There is even one with a grey back, white belly, and white on this inside of his/her ears. I think our eventual plan will be to phase out some of our smaller white does in favor of a couple of larger, colored females. We may end up waiting for Haystack's litter since Nyreem's temperament is such a nightmare, and it has been our experience that this sort of thing is inherited.

 This is Primrose's litter just before their eyes started opening.

I swear this little guy is still alive, just very, very relaxed.

We are getting into a really good cycle of breeding our does in pairs, letting them kindle (give birth) in cages inside the poultry house. When the babies eyes are all open and they are starting to hop around the cage, we move momma and babies to one of the outside tractors. When it comes time to wean, the babies are then moved to the big backyard pen where they have tons of space and all the grass they care to nibble. Not only does this cut back on feed cost, but I think we are raising healthier and happier bunnies!

Hopping mad

 Today Gwen learned that getting caught jumping the net fence around the chick pen is a bad idea. She knows better than to go over that fence so when she got caught she tried to book it back on the other side only to get tangled up in the netting and face plant in the mud. I snapped this picture after I stopped laughing at her. If goat looks could kill.

Meanwhile, the latest batch of bunnies are doing well. They are about a week old so they are covered in a short coat of soft white fuzz, and their eyes should be opening pretty soon.

 Clover had 9 bunnies. T had 7. Both very respectable litter numbers. Clover had two more that she gave birth to outside the nest box. They got too cold and died before we found them. Since then we have had no more bunny losses. Always a good thing. The giant bun in the picture above is one of T's. This is her second litter and both times she had huge, monster babies.

 The older bunnies are living large in the giant rabbit tractor that Big Onion built for them. It has an extra layer of x-pens around it because certain canine miscreants decided they needed to get up close and personal with the bunnies.

The bunnies are doing a great job of mowing the backyard for us. Plus having them on the ground cuts way back on feed. Now we just need about four more tractors like this and we'll never need to mow the backyard again!

Happy (belated) Easter!

Bigwig is very concerned that we didn't wish everyone a timely happy Easter.

Here's hoping this cute picture of his offspring munching away at broccoli flowers makes up for it!

Rabbit-topia

 The last litter of bunnies is getting bigger by the minute. Our two does, Clover and Zinny, finally have this mothering thing down. We ended up with litters of 8 and 9 from the two girls. Our rabbit tractors (mobile cages) just weren't built with those numbers in mind, so we decided to circle them with a bunch of x-pens and set up what I like to call Rabbit-topia. It's a big open fenced in area where the bunnies can run around and nibble at grass all day. They get tucked safely back into their tractors every night.

 It's so nice to watch the bunnies getting a chance to act like bunnies instead of being confined to a tiny cage with a wire floor for the entirety of their 12 week existence. They run around and bounce and play with each other all day. They are much calmer and more curious about the world around them as well.

  With so many rabbits in one area, the fencing gets moved just about every day. As you can see in this pic, the chickens are very helpful in scratching at any piled up dropping to spread them and help fertilize the pasture.

  The only problem we've run into with this system is the goats. Of course they are curious about this new thing in their field. I've actually gone out more than once to find Josie IN the enclosure. Once she had bent the fencing, and there were escaped bunnies everywhere. I'm sure the neighbors got a chuckle out of watching me round up 10+ bunnies on the loose, but I managed it somehow.

 The most recent time Josie pushed her way into the bunny area, she was so mad that she couldn't get back out that I found her flipping bunnies with her horns. Not trying to hurt them, just venting her frustrations in some bizarro retelling of Little Bunny Foo Foo by scooping each bunny with her horns and tossing it onto it's back.

  Every morning the rabbits get a buffet style breakfast of pellets and alfalfa. From this group, we will probably pick out one more breeder doe, bringing out total to four.

  Right now we are doing some research on keeping our breeding females in a colony style setup on the group that would look similar to the setup above. The only big difference is that does like to dig burrows, so we will have to find a way to keep them from digging into the ground. With the high water table in this area, bunnies born underground would surely drown with the slightest rain.

Until then, we'll keep doing what we can to make sure our bunnies lead a happy life.

Happy Holidays!

 For Christmas, we decided to give the birds a little treat....

 Peas!

 The bunnies got oranges, cauliflower leaves, and carrots. 

Could you just die of cute?!

We also decided to torture/embarrass the goats by making them pose for pictures with my santa hat....

It was slightly too large for Gwendolyn....

 and it totally didn't fit Josie.

 Thea is under there somewhere. 

But Jenni totally made it work for her!

Happy Holidays from the HighTail Farms crew!!

The baby bunnies have arrived!

(... actually they arrived a few weeks ago, we've just been lazy bloggers.)

We knew they were coming soon because Zinny was getting to be about as big as a house. We gave her a nest box full of hay....

Which she promptly pulled out and turned into a nest along with a good amount of her own fur on the opposite side of the cage. Here she does her best Groucho Marx impression.

I had to run out for an errand and by the time I got back, she had had ten ugly little pink squirming creatures on the wire floor of the cage. I moved them all along with a good pile of rabbit fuzz back to the nest box. We ended up losing four of the babies. I think 10 is too many babies for a new momma to take care of...I don't even think rabbits have that many nipples! Next time we will try and breed both girls at the same time so if one has that many again, we can move them to the other mom.

After a few days, the little ones started to grow white fuzz everywhere.

Then their eyes opened and they started really looking like rabbits.

Here's a video I took just a few days ago. Pretty sure this is their first time actually eating grass.

Today Zinny and all 6 babies spent then day weeding the garden in a rabbit tractor that I hobbled together out of two old cages. These guys are bred to be meat rabbits, and you can really tell. Those little ones are beefy and round like little meatballs already.