firstegg

firstegg
Our First Egg!

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Meet Blue!

Blue is my senior doe, which means she is a female, over 6 months old. Blue is from Black Diamond Rabbitry here in Reno. She has had two litters thst I know of. Her first litter was three kits, or babies. None of them died. Her second litter was five kits, and none died either. So, for a rabbit, she has small litters. A buck, I believe, from her last litter went on to win Best of Breed against 16 other angora rabbits, so she produces nice show kits.

She was nervous when she first came to live with us, unlike our buck Winchester. To calm her I would hold her and pet her ears. Then I sat outside away from so much "kid" noise and let her down to run around. She found a little hidey-hole behind a stock tank up against our fence. She is making it her own by rearranging the hay, and attempting to dig a hole under the deck inside it. She is unaware that this is not going to happen. She loves to be outside, and some excercise calms her down to where she will allow me to pet her and hold her for a good amount of time. I find, with my does, in my limited experience, that they are more accepting of a snuggle when they have been out of the cage for awhile. Our buck enjoys a good snuggle anytime.

Her nickname is "Pigtails," as she has two of 'em on her ears! Her color is called Smoked Pearl.
Coming soon...Evans first blog post!
At dinner I informed my family that I had finally named our microfarm & rabbitry...drum roll please....Eggs N Sweaters! My announcement met with mixed reviews.

Why Eggs N Sweaters? Um...next time YOU name the microfarm.

I explained I was trying to think of something that we produced here. Like eggs, fruit, vegetables, and wool....um, to make sweaters with, I guess. Eggs N Sweaters seemed more catchy to me than Eggs N Scarves...or Peaches N Cowls....or Eggplants N Gloves.....or fertilizer from two types of animals, commonly known as, yes thats right, poop!

Hubs said I should name it after a geographical location. I said, "I really don't want to give the crazies and zombies any more information to triangulate my location. As we all know, soon the society as we know it will enter a downwards spiral of financial crashes, mass chaos, looting and riots, due to bacon being labled as cancer-causing by the WHO. No need to attract unwanted attention by stating the location of our stash of pastured heritage pork, humanely-killed, minimally processed, nitrate-free bacon that surely can't be cancer causing."

Yeah, right. It's just costco bacon.

Hubs then states, "Is anyone going to know from the name Eggs N Sweaters that we sell rabbits?" Well, no. Hmm. Husbands must never be allowed to be "right." I have a dilemma. But, technically, we don't have any rabbits to sell...yet. There. I win.

I also made an announcement that Evan will be contributing to this blog....and he was excited! He has a typing and computer coding elective starting this quarter, and blogging will go hand and hand with that. I said he should write about what it's like to raise chickens, and learn about rabbits, and 4-H shows. I also had to break the news that it was not a forum for elevating his Christmas list to "most read" status. No one wants to read about the merits of which Lego & MegaBlocks sets he most desires, and why. But really, who would read any of this anyways?

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

So...this is my first post. We are starting a blog to talk about and sell our French Angora rabbit kits (babies). We may or may not be interested in selling our eggs at some point. They are from partially-pastured, pampered hens.


So, what about our urban micro-farm? We raise kids, food, hens, rabbits, and one spoiled cat. From our cat's perspective, he has seen animals of all types come and go over the years. We got a dog (I was deathly allergic). That went. We had ducks, but too many, so some were sold to a farm. Then a sneaky raccoon ate the others. Those went (to duck-heaven). Now we have chickens. We did not allow him to eat them as chicks, which pissed him off. Then all of a sudden rabbits showed up in his backyard. He was ok with that, more or less.


Except for Evan's buck, Winchester. Winchester has taken a liking to our cat, Sylvester. Specifically, Winchester likes to chase him. He disrupts our cat's sleek, cooler-than-you saunter, when he all-out chases him through the yard. Winchester then likes to drop back, as if he is too tired to carry on. The cat resumes said saunter. Then, the rabbit resumes pursuit. This goes on through-out the backyard, until he finally jumps upon the wall to perch aloft and look down upon Winchester with disdain. As cats do best.


We have four hens. One of which lives in our shower due to a dog attack earlier this week, from an owner who likes to walk the dog off-leash. I will reserve comment as to what I think about this "neighbor." Hope he enjoys the first-aid supply bill coming to his mailbox soon.


As for food we grow peaches, nectarines, apples, plums, sumac, elderberry (4 types), grapes (3 types), raspberries, strawberries, & blackberries.


The Great Earwig Battle of 2015:
We also share our micro-farm with opportunistic earwigs, very grudgingly. In comes the chickens. They relentlessly search for them. Go chickens! These earwigs ate all of our vegetable starts this year, as well as some direct-sown seeds that came up. Jerks. Will start seeds earlier indoors this coming year, as they do not disturb older plants. Not as easy as direct-sown seeds.  Updates to come in February. Purchased seeds for February already. Need to collect milk carton bottoms, old plastic pots (check), soil, rabbit poop fertilizer (we now have an endless supply as far as I can tell).


And now, with rabbits!
We got three French Angora rabbits from Black Diamond RAbbitry of Reno. We wanted them to provide fertilizer, wool for spinning/selling, fun, and kits for selling and/or showing. What a great multi-purpose animal! They even eat our grass & like weeds. Bonus.


Evan has a buck, Winchester, I have two does, Pumpkin and Blue(berry). Blue is a senior doe (over 6 mos). Pumpkin is now a junior doe. Our first 4-H & ARBA show is coming up on November 14th, and we have NO idea what we are doing. Come, and learn about rabbits along with us!