Bunnys Bunnys Everywhere

We had not initially intended to start raising meat rabbits so quickly.  It was in the long term plans to have meat rabbits, however we were still in the research stage when a family member asked me if we would like the two that she had purchased for her kids as pets last Easter.  Being who I am, I said yes of course (I have great difficulty saying no).  When they purchased them I had attempted to sex them and thought that she had two males and one female, she lost one along the way.  Since she had them for about eight months and had not had the pleasure of having babies I assumed that I had been mistaken when I sexed them.  It was after all the first time I have ever attempted to sex rabbits.  She said that she thought that she had two females, so our plan was to purchase a male this spring and breed them.  There turned out to be no reason to get a male as I was actually very accurate when I had sexed them.

And so the rabbits did what rabbits do best...

On the morning of January 26th while doing chores, we discovered six tiny babies.  Having never seen a new born rabbit I was surprised at just how small they are.  And then just as surprised at how quickly they grow.  We now have 6 beautiful babies.

5 weeks old

Needless to say the male rabbit "Thumper" was quickly removed from the hutch and given his very own bachelor pad.  However we discovered this past Friday afternoon that he had not been removed quickly enough because we found six new born baby bunnies. 

And that is how easy it is to go from 2 rabbits to 14 in just over two months!

Eggs, Eggs, Eggs

As the days are getting longer and warmer, at least we hope they will stay warmer, We have seen an increase in our Duck Egg production.  We have a flock of 12 ducks.  Our flock includes a variety.  We have Mallard, Welsh Harlequin, Cayuga, Pekin, Muscovy, Runner, and Swedish, to name a few. We have enjoyed the variety of eggs that they provide us.  Just this week one of the Cayuga's started laying and to my amazement she laid a dark gray almost black egg.

Gray/Black Egg from our Cayuga

We also are getting green tinted and white duck eggs.  See photo below.  Cayuga's will lay a very dark egg at first and each day the egg will lighten in color some.  In the photo above you see the first egg she laid is very dark while the second egg (in the photo below) is slightly lighter in color.

A gray, green and white duck egg with a large brown chicken egg.

 In addition our Ducks, who have turned up the heat on their eggs, we are also getting a large number of chicken eggs.  We also have a large assortment of chickens.  Some of our chickens lay very large eggs, almost as big and some actually bigger than the duck eggs.  Our Chickens really started laying in large quantities around November and have not slowed down all winter.  We are currently getting on average 30 eggs a day. 

Beginning of a Blog

Today I have made a decision to try to document some of our hard work and progress through a blog.  I am no writer, I am a mother, wife, and co-owner and co-operator of a small farm in Downeast Maine. I have 3 children, 17, 14 and 9.  I have been married to my husband for almost 18 years now.  It is our dream to run this farm.  We currently both work full time jobs as well as working the farm, parenting children and attending a variety of events.  So we started this farm in 2010 with one beef critter and 2 dairy goats.  Today we have 8 dairy goats, a dairy goat buck, a Jersey heifer, a bull, a steer, an assortment of Ducks, Chickens, and Guinea Fowl as well as meat rabbits.  In the past two years we have raised 2 steer and 4 pigs for food in addition to what we currently have.   Our goal is to raise healthy hormone and chemical free food for our family.  There are other long term goals but all in good time.
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