Hanging rabbits.

Well I bred the rabbits again on November 17th. The last time I tried to breed them they didn't take. I guess I just jumped the gun and tried too early. 

I built a new processing station today. We have 4 rabbits to do soon so I needed to get it done. 

There is a hole drilled in the top for some paracord to fit through to hang the rabbits by their back legs. I will have a bucket hanging below so I can just drop the waste into it. It will be less messy to hang it rather than do it on a table. 

Aug 23

Bred the rabbits yesterday. Both girls cushed right away for him but in all that was going on yesterday, I forgot to try again. I also noticed that Harley has a sore on his foot but I couldn't look at it alone. It was bleeding and I'm not sure how he got hurt. I'm just going to have to hope the girls took because I don't have time to set them up again.

UPDATE: The girls didn't take, unfortunately. It is now November 26th and we never did get any babies. I re-bred them on Nov. 17th. So hopefully we will have some cute little babies by Christmas.  If not, we will have to find another male and put Harley down. I don't want to do that but if he can't produce, then he's of no use to us. I'm crossing my fingers. Praying for a successful breeding. 

Aug 21

Had a little incident tonight while culling. One poor rabbit wouldn't die. Jacob must have hit it 10 times, yet it still lived. He told me to just take it's head off, but I took it out to the grass and laid it down. I only had to hit it once and it was finally dead. It was pretty traumatic for me. The last thing I want is to cause more suffering than is needed.

It took from 7pm to 10pm to cull 3 rabbits. I have to get faster. 1 per hour is not efficient.  That time includes boning the meat too. Now we only have 5 to go.

I checked Harley tonight. His testicles have decended and he is ready for breeding. I am trying to decide if I should go ahead and do it now or wait until the first. I will make a note later.

Aug 20

So we didn't get to butcher last night because a big storm looked like it was blowing in. It didn't of course. So I'm withholding food today so we can do it tomorrow. It is much easier if you don't have to deal with poop while you butcher. 

I told Jacob about the hutch door. He said he would fix it. Who knows when. I'm afraid I will probably have to do it myself. Oh well, I guess that's the way things go.

I think there may be a snake burried in the pile of manure under the rabbits. I have seen some snake shed on one of the hutch legs.

I can't wait until the first of September. Harley will be ready to breed so we will have a new batch of babies in October.

Aug 19

OMG the tin foil dinners we took with the rabbit meat camping were divine!! Oh, so good.

It really is time to cull. The bunnies are acting a little crazy, running around the hutch. Besides, in a couple weeks it will be time to take Lucky and Peanut Butter out of One Ear's pen. I'm hoping to get a couple more hutches made so we can use the big hutch as a grow out pen. We have to wait until my dad's truck gets fixed, though, because we have no way of hauling the pallets back. (We need to clean up from our last construction project, too, but that's not my job.) Jacob needs to redrill the hole for Harley's hutch because I can't get the door open and closed.

As noted earlier, I payed attention this time to when I skinned the last two rabbits. I guess the ones who were hard to skin were just made that way. These last 2, a male and female, were easy. I'm getting much faster.

I did take the opportunity to kill one of the rabbits this last time but I think I will leave it up to Jacob from now on. I had to hit the poor thing 5 times. I will do all the skinning and cleaning from now on, but Jacob can kill them. That's fair, right?

Harper, my oldest girl, is totally cool about us killing and eating the rabbits. As long as we keep having new bunnies come in I guess she will be happy. We went camping this past weekend and took rabbit tin foil dinners. We all gobbled them up. Nick ate everything but his potatoes. It was so tender and the gravy made it perfect. I had 2 of the dinners myself.

You have to start somewhere...

I have been keeping a journal on raising our rabbits but it's been in written form. I'm going to type all of my entries up on here and continue online. I started this journal in August.

Aug 15

I've decided to record all of our experiences with rabbit raising. I hope to compile all of the things I learn into a book one day. I hope to take lots of pictures and record all of the things we've learned, both good and bad. It might end up being more of a comedy. LOL.

We finished the hutch for our Flemish Giant, Harley. We already had a nice wire cage I made a few months ago, but weren't using because we didn't have a stand for it or a place to put it in the shade. We salvaged 2 big pallets from Jacob's work and, after I spent an hour tearing them down (which, by the way, was a great stress reliever) Jacob built a really nice hutch. Besides the cage we already had, it only cost us $15. All of the wood came from pallets and the hinges we salvaged from an earlier piece I broke down.

Here's our boy Harley.

We are going to have to change the floor here in this section. For some dumb reason, I didn't put a wire bottom. The poop has nowhere to go. So that will be changed soon I hope.

My hubby did a pretty good job!

We currently have our male, Harley - a Flemish Giant, 2 females, One Ear (she literally has only one ear) and Oreo, and 12 babies. 10 of the 12 are ready to cull now. We are going camping tomorrow for Nick's (my oldest) birthday and will be butchering a couple tonight to take with us. I'm pretty excited about that. Our neighbor's son is going to come down and feed/water them while we're gone.

I already have 3 nice pelts in the freezer and when I get enough stocked up, I am going to tan them The 4 black ones are going to become a couple of hats (at least 1 hat, but hopefully 2). I have been giving the liver, hearts and kidneys to the neighbors dog. She loves it and is my best friend now.

*NOTE: I have noticed in the last 2 cullings there was a difference between males and females, as far as their hides and ease of removal. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the female skins just slipped off where the males were much harder to remove. I will continue to make a note of this and test the theory.

I will breeding Harley with my females around or on the first of the next month. It somewhat depends on how busy I get with school schedules and such.