Rabbit Update

The rabbit operation is in full swing.  Well, almost.

I now have the permanent rabbit cages built.  I have a steady residence of 3 does and one buck.  Of those, one doe and one buck are the original brother/sister pair.  I did attempt to diversify my bloodlines and bought another unrelated doe.  She turned out to be crazy, an attack rabbit. More on her later.  See a future post entitled "The Story of Lady B."

I started the build of the cages as soon as I could.  Little did I know this was somewhat urgent.  Just as I had a couple of the cages barely usable, I hear a loud "bang."  I look over and all four rabbits were sitting on the ground.  The floor of their hutch had rotted and had fallen out onto the ground with all of them still sitting on top.  It was really quite humorous to see all of them just sitting there looking at each other like they were still trying to figure out what had just happened!  After quite a frenzy with the help of my wife, we were able to round them all up and relocate them into the two cages I had completed.  I  built rather simple, but I think durable rabbit cages out of hardware cloth and inch and a half PVC.  Here is a picture of the cages once they were usable, but not quite finished:

To the picture above, I added plastic corrugated roofing material at an angle between the two levels to prevent bunnies from having droppings fall on their heads.  Also, the cage at the lower right in this picture didn't have it's feeder or water bottle, but you get the idea.  This design is simple, easy to build, durable, and portable.  I even left the PVC unglued just in case I wanted to bring the entire assembly into a shed (a future project) and reassemble.

New Zealand Whites continue to be difficult to find in the area.  I have been able to pick up two more does, but had to drive two hours away from home to get them.  That's ok, though.  I've met many good people and had many great experiences in the world of rabbits.

The doe has been bred to her brother for a couple of weeks now, and should be ready to kit soon.  One of the other does was bred yesterday and is due to kit May 15th.  I am planning on putting all rabbits out of the first kittle into the freezer.  The next kittle will go up for sale, and whatever doesn't sale will join their frigid brothers and sisters.  So if you happen to be in the market for some good meat rabbits (or pets, of course) around mid-June, let me know!

Starting the Garden

I feel so much better now that I have some plants in the ground.  I used 2x12's from the local home improvement store to make two raised beds.  The lumber cost around $40, which kinda hurt to shell out just to make some garden beds.  I decided to go that route after considering several options of using different types of scrap.  I decided that the number one thing to keep in mind the whole time is keeping the neighbors happy.  The minute they are not happy, it could be the end of the line for sustainability.  So, I decided to go with what I thought would be the best compromise between looks and cost.  $40 is not a bad price, and they don't look bad enough to complain about.  I added some cheap stepping stones in the middle, which I will continue to do as I add new beds.  I started with two for simplicity's sake.

The bed on the left is all the cold weather crops that have been in the ground for several weeks.  On the far side is broccoli, then some romaine lettuce.  A little bit closer, you'll see some cabbage and a couple of sprigs sticking up which is onion.

The bed on the right was just planted last week.  Unfortunately, the last couple of days has been a torrential downpour here locally.  My young squash, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and cucumber were absolutely pounded.  I have gone through pulling leaves out from under the dirt, but I am concerned about many of them making through this test.  All of these were started from seed indoors, but many may have to be replaced with plants from the store. 

Both of these beds are 4x8.  I built the beds by first scalping the sod with a flat shovel and sitting it aside.  I then used a fork I found that has thicker tines than a pitchfork to stab into the soil and loosen it up.  After the soil was aerated well, I replaced the sod upside down. I then poured in some composted manure I purchased from a lady for a good price consisting of rabbit and several birds (I won't need to do this again, since I have built up my supply of rabbit manure).  I mixed all this up with a small borrowed roto-tiller and covered with cardboard to keep the weeds from growing back.  All of this sat for several weeks before the cold weather crops were planted and a couple of months for the warm weather bed. When I planted the cold weather crops, I left the cardboard down for weed control.  I cut holes in it and inserted the plants.  When planting the warm weather bed, I decided not to do this, as it seems to be blocking some of the water.  It will be interesting to see which one worked better by the end of the season.

There is definitely a difference between the two as of now.  The cabbage and lettuce are taking off, and there are quite a few heads of broccoli ready for harvest.  All plants in the other bed are struggling to survive.  This is a lesson learned: wait until plants are big enough to withstand Georgia thunderstorms before planting.

The First Rabbits

I had no idea that New Zealand White rabbits were so difficult to find in this area.  Couldn't find anything on Kijiji.com, Craigslist, local paper, or any other standard source I'm used to using.  I finally find the Georgia Market Buletin online.  Tons of rabbits available.  Only problem is, they tend to be 100+ miles away.  I finally find a guy who was advertizing for $15/each.  I made contact with him a couple of times and had some pretty in-depth and informative discussions on rabbits.  After a couple of weeks, he has some rabbits come available.  What beats it all is that even though he lives 30 miles away, he happens to be visiting about 2 miles away from my house that day.  HOME DELIVERY!  So I had a $20 on me, expecting to only get one since they were brother and sister.  Then his wife informed me that the price was $7/each!  So I just handed her the $20 and plan on having some rabbit for supper somewhere around the middle of Febuary.

The cage on the left in the pic that I included in the last blog post needed some work done to it, so I stuck them in the other one.  I found out real quick that the floor of that one had openings that were too small to allow the droppings to fall through, so that made the repairs to the other one urgent.  After repairing it, (it's really the better cage anyway) and moving the rabbits, I set my mind to fix the other one so it would be usable.  My first idea was to flip it over and cut the holes bigger so that the droppings could fall through.  It didn't take me long to decide that was not the time-prudent thing to do.  So I grabbed a hammer to remove the old hardware cloth, inteding to replace it and use it for something else.  After I found that too to be too much work, I just decided to leave it alone and go get a couple pullets to through in there.  Hey, you call it indecisiveness, I call it rolling with the punches!

So now I have one rabbit to breed and one rabbit for dinner.  Not a huge step toward my goal, but a step nonetheless.  I am still in need of another 2-3 rabbits, and hopfully will find them before May when this one will be ready to breed.  It's a slow start, but at least I am moving ever closer to that self-sufficient life of which I dream.

Rabbit Cages

Rabbits are a great form of livestock for the suburban "farmer."  They don't make any noise, so the neighbors won't complain, they take up very little space, and are easy to breed.  Rabbits are considered companion animals, so you can have them anywhere you can have a dog.  This same thing goes for goats in most areas too, but goats need more land, are louder, and smelly.  If your neighbors don't mind, having a goat is great for milk and meat, but in most cases this is not reality.

Believe it or not, one rabbit produces more meat in one year than any other meat animal available.  One ten pound doe can produce 320+ pounds of meat annually.  That's an average of more than 6 pounds a week!  Keeping two does and one buck around can produce way more than one family can eat, so there is leftover to sell as meat or as pets!  Another money making prospect is tanning the hides and making crafts or garments from them or even just selling the hide by itself.  Find out more than you ever wanted to know about rabbit meat (including how healthy it is) by clicking here.

So here are the new rabbit cages I bought off Craigslist for $40.  As seen in the picture, the one against the house has a hutch high up accessible by a ladder.  This will be the bucks cage so the babies, aka "kits," won't fall out of the hutch.  The one to the left has the hutch on the floor and has storage space for food on top of the hutch.  These are just a temporary solution for right now.  Wood cages aren't ideal for rabbits as they will chew on the wood.  I will be building simple wire cages for the rabbits and laying hens will be going in these.  The wire cages I will be building are similar to the ones seen in this video.

After I get a privacy fence, I will be moving the chickens out of these cages into a free range type cage with no floor and very portable, most likely with wheels on one end.  It will be similar to this:

This will allow me to move the chickens around the yard to fertilize certain portions of the garden.  This most likely will not be able to happen in my type of neighborhood until my privacy fence is built.  When I move the chickens out of them, the cages I have right now will be going on Craigslist for $40!

For more information about raising rabbits, I recommend this book.

The Goal

I am starting this blog to track and publish my progress in my overall goal to become self-sufficient.  I have had this goal for many years, but have been discouraged because it usually requires much more land than I had at my disposal.  I have, however, decided to go forward with the plan and just become "as self-sufficient as possible."  My modified goals are as follows:
1) To buy no more than 20% of all consumed food from outside sources.  This will accomplish several smaller goals.  One being that if I am cutting my grocery bill by that much, the money I do spend can go toward higher quality food.  This includes buying local (farmers market and meat processors), less processed and more organic.  I expect an overall improvement in health of my entire family. In the event of a disaster, my family should be able to survive on food produced on the property.
2) To use as little electricity from the grid as possible.  This goal is expensive, therefore will be accomplished in small, gradual steps over time.  Options include solar and wind and will require much less usage of power than we have now.  Overall goal is 100% energy independence, which may take 7-10 years.
3) To be prepared to any emergency situation that may arise.  Those of you who lived here during the blizzard of 1993 know why.  We had no power for many days and that meant no heat for us.  Food was very limited because most of the food we had depended on electricity.  I will be stockpiling food to use in emergency situations, have auxiliary heat (hopefully two forms), and many other forms of preparation.  Emergencies to be prepared for include anything from natural disasters to national economic collapse.

The main overall goal here is that when something happens and I can't afford to, or otherwise don't have the ability to acquire/buy food and supplies needed to keep my family going, we will be able to survive relatively comfortably under most any condition.  This blog is here for others to keep track of my progress and to encourage others to do the same.  I am not a professional writer, so you'll have to look over my mistakes.  I just hope to show people that preparation to this extent is easier than you may think and the chances of you needing it are more likely than you may think.

I hope you enjoy the updates and it gives you motivation and ideas to help your own family.  If you have any ideas or suggestions that may help in my situation, please feel free to let me know.