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Post by woodeye on Aug 7, 2022 20:43:18 GMT -6
I know, I feel the same way. I was thinking awhile back about having rabbits in cages again like I used to have, for the fertilizer mainly. I pretty much talked myself out of that, but then I saw how you raise them and I'm back in thinking/scheming mode.
I got over the notion of having goats again, my friend in Seminole that has all the goats kept telling me to start back with those. At the time, the price was sky high on goats of any kind, so I didn't want to invest at that time. Now, according to her the price is falling fast. That's my only source of prices though, I haven't checked with anybody else.
But back to rabbits, I'll put it this way. I need a good source of manure for the garden, be it chicken or rabbit. As of right now, I believe the rabbits would be the best way for me to go. I'll continue to think about it, and see how everything goes in the next few months. I'll either do something to get started, or buy a super-sized NO! button...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 7, 2022 21:01:32 GMT -6
woodeye, when I lived in Virginia, I used to dream about having rabbits in our little suburban backyard—bunnies for pets for the children, and bunny berries for the (tiny) garden. Now that I live in Texas, I think it would be too hard on them to live in this climate, but I still dream about it sometimes. My substitute for manure in the garden is cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets from the feed meal. I mix them into my soil or into my compost bins. We do also buy aged manure compost in bulk at times. I understand wanting a good source of manure, though. Have you ever dreamt of alpacas? My ten year old does, and I hear their manure is really good stuff.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 7, 2022 21:15:21 GMT -6
The trouble with the way I'm raising rabbits is that the bunny berries are spread all across the dirt floor. There's no good way to collect them, other than maybe a broom and a dust pan. Maybe, if they were in a mobile cage (rabbit tractor) it could be moved around in the garden, but otherwise, the bunny berries are mostly wasted. A few times per year, I use a rake and wheelbarrow to gather all the old straw, sawdust, and droppings. Still, most of the goodies are probably leached out by rain, trampling, and sunlight.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 7, 2022 21:19:51 GMT -6
chrysanthemum I like your thoughts on the alfalfa pellets & cottonseed meal. And true, the heat is very tough on rabbits. To compound things, I have to prioritize my next steps of next year's garden. The very first thing I must do is get my enclosure built for the garden so that it is virtually deer-proof. If I don't do that job first, none of the next jobs have any meaning at all. Once I get that done, I can concentrate on secondary projects, and your ideas about the alfalfa pellets and cottonseed meal would enable me to get a jump start on fertilizing the garden, whereas if I was to start a rabbitat, it would be a somewhat slower process to begin with.
I haven't had any alpaca dreams that I can remember, but I do know of some people about 20 miles from me that raise them. I imagine their manure would be great for a garden. But I also imagine that goats or rabbits would be more in line with my budget.
Speaking of exotics, back in the 80's I had an ostrich. I imagine ostrich manure would be powerful stuff, I fed him trout chow and seems like the feed was near 35% protein.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 7, 2022 21:22:49 GMT -6
The trouble with the way I'm raising rabbits is that the bunny berries are spread all across the dirt floor. There's no good way to collect them, other than maybe a broom and a dust pan. Maybe, they were in a mobile cage (rabbit tractor) it could be moved around in the garden, but otherwise, the bunny berries are mostly wasted. A few times per year, I use a rake and wheelbarrow to gather all the old straw, sawdust, and droppings. Still, most of the goodies are probably leached out by rain, trampling, and sunlight. Okay, good info. As much as I adore the rabbitat, it wouldn't make sense for me to have one for fertilizer...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 8, 2022 6:21:36 GMT -6
woodeye, an ostrich? Wow. I’ve seen an ostrich once or twice in a zoo, but that’s the extent of my experience with them.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 8, 2022 6:49:49 GMT -6
woodeye , an ostrich? Wow. I’ve seen an ostrich once or twice in a zoo, but that’s the extent of my experience with them. Yes, I had an ostrich for about 2 years. The one I had was the red-necked variety, there is also a blue-necked variety. I couldn't afford to buy him any girls, and build bigger pens, incubator, etc., so I ended up selling him back to the breeder I had bought him from. He was about 3 feet tall when I got him, but every bit of 8 feet tall when I sold him. Big ol' legs on him, sure would have been painful to get kicked. He was not particularly fond of being loaded into a horse trailer when I sold him, but I guess he got over it. I broke even on the deal, but got to watch him grow, I suppose that's worth something.
Later on I grew out some Rheas for a man in a trade deal. I raised them from chicks, then when they got about 4 feet tall, he came and took them back, but brought me 25 goats in the deal. I liked raising the goats much better than raising the big birds...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 8, 2022 12:39:37 GMT -6
We raised a couple of Emus here. We found a man selling the chicks for $15.00 each after they had been going for about $5,000. That should have been a sign to us, but we had 4 kids and wanted to add the emus to their 'petting zoo". We had pigmy goats, pot-bellied pigs, Indian Runner ducks, rabbits, geese, chickens, a horse, a couple of calves, dogs, cats, pet snakes, a road runner, and pet lizards, a pet squirrel, and a cockatiel that rode on our shoulder outside.
We kept the two emus for about two years. They grew fast. After two years, they were tall enough to look me in the eye. I'm 6'-0" What made me get rid of them was that one day, out in the milking shed, one of them kicked me so hard that it slashed my pant leg about a foot in length. Its toenail ripped my thigh pretty good too. (They have giant toenails.)
It was a male and was getting aggressive, kind of like a rooster does when it wants to flog you. I didn't want it killing one of our kids, so I roped its feet with a lariat and loaded it into the back of our truck. (I didn't have a horse trailer). Talk about a fight! I got them both loaded up though and traded them off to a guy who thought he needed them.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 8, 2022 16:32:25 GMT -6
All the big bird hoopla made a lot of money for a few people, but drained the pockets of a lot of people. There's a processing plant that used to butcher ostriches at Perkins, I don't know if they still do or not. For the experience of having something different, I suppose it was okay. But yes, they have the potential of being a very dangerous critter.
That's true, take the size of an ostrich or emu, add the attitude of a banty rooster, and you have a killing machine. My life is enough of a gamble without that...
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 19, 2022 15:12:07 GMT -6
I should have baby bun buns by now. I do not have any baby bun buns from either the new or the experienced doe or from the new or the experienced buck. Dog food is expensuv. A 50# bag of food stretches to three months with rabbit. I need more bun buns!
I overheard someone say they pressure cook their rabbit to soften the bones. Then, they grind it up with the offal and some carbonaceous ingredients and bake up righteous dog muffins.
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Post by macmex on Dec 20, 2022 6:37:43 GMT -6
I know someone near Tahlequah who raises rabbits for feeding their dogs. They raise hunting dogs. They managed a deal, swapping bunny manure for hay, from a neighbor, which really helped. My dogs get the remains when I butcher but that's about it. I don't raise enough to think about feeding rabbit meat to dogs.
My rabbits are refusing to have/raise babies. One had them and let them die. I'm pretty sure it's because we have a mouse infestation in their area. I just need to make time to dig all the debris out of there. I suspect that will solve the issue.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 20, 2022 8:01:39 GMT -6
It was such a rough summer for us all. Hope next summer will be easier.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Jan 7, 2023 7:21:21 GMT -6
A few months back, I put the chicken tractors atop the garden soil and ended up with an unusually long stretch of bed with fine soil. Then I heard ALFALFA.
I didn’t believe it at first, but got to thinking about it. That bed would, indeed, be ideal for alfalfa seed. But I just sat on the idea for a while.
Yesterday, I drove to retrieve some bags of rabbit feed from the mill in Stillwater. They were out of rabbit feed and wasn’t sure when they would have more.
I headed straight to Atwood’s to pick up a bag of 13% all stock and vowed to pick up a bag regularly and stock up.
I’ll be trying my hand at alfalfa this year.
The Dino kale and White Russian kales were exception in extreme weather until the deep cold hit us. At dressing time, I noticed one of the kits was stopped up from the kale. I’m wondering if dehydrated kale would be a good supplement as well. Suppose if the alfalfa works out, it will be sufficient aside from some regular hay.
While the chickens are in the redneck run, Black eye and others have enjoyed spending time in the empty tractor. He’s doing well and still viable.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Apr 1, 2023 19:13:54 GMT -6
My old dough is 15lb’er. She’s retired. Black eye is big but smaller, maybe 12 being on the lean side.
But I have a new doe, not a cross from my retired doe but from black eye and regular NZ mutt. This doe is even bigger than my retired doe. I don’t have a scale at the moment.
Some time back we had a giant buck with NZ traits. He was so big, I had to cull him because I didn’t have enough cage to keep him clean. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done that, but he was so big he sprayed everyone, all over the other cages, etc. He would spray his feed trough and then his face would be dirty because it was too narrow for his snout and he’d develop eye infections no matter what I did. Curious stuff.
But this time, I have a very large doe, solid black with NZ traits just like her old cousin but not quite as big and very clean and does not over eat. She recently kindled a second time with 10 kits and 3 are surviving. She finally figured things out and those three kits are very large at ten days old - the size of blackeye’s average child at 2 weeks. I am assuming the extra teats come into play, but I’m excited to see where these go. They will all be potential breeders if they do not display any unwanted traits.
I usually end up with mostly males. If that’s the case, line breeding is in order. This stuff gets very exciting sometimes.
I only have the three from this winter. Pushing the envelope with the weather.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Apr 2, 2023 9:19:15 GMT -6
I know, I feel the same way. I was thinking awhile back about having rabbits in cages again like I used to have, for the fertilizer mainly. I pretty much talked myself out of that, but then I saw how you raise them and I'm back in thinking/scheming mode.
I got over the notion of having goats again, my friend in Seminole that has all the goats kept telling me to start back with those. At the time, the price was sky high on goats of any kind, so I didn't want to invest at that time. Now, according to her the price is falling fast. That's my only source of prices though, I haven't checked with anybody else.
But back to rabbits, I'll put it this way. I need a good source of manure for the garden, be it chicken or rabbit. As of right now, I believe the rabbits would be the best way for me to go. I'll continue to think about it, and see how everything goes in the next few months. I'll either do something to get started, or buy a super-sized NO! button... Toss a small feed bag or container in your truck, and I’ll try to fill it each time we meet. Actually, I have a small feed bag that would work.
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