Our Silver Marten Rabbit Adventure

Matthew has been saving his money for a long time.  In kid time, it must seem like forever.  It took two years of saving before he decided to invest in rabbits.  Once he made up his mind, we immediately started researching and looking around at what breeds were available in our area.  He wanted a duel purpose breed (pet or meat) so they would have a bigger market.  He finally settled on Silver Martens.

We found a lady that was selling out of her show rabbits.  We drove over to see them that night.  After some negotiation on the price we loaded a blue breeding pair and a black breeding pair into our truck and took them home.  I could see on Matthew's face that it was hard to let go of that money.  He invested everything he had and we chipped in some as well.  All the way home he was wondering if he made the right decision.

The next day we got their cages setup and started getting our new charges back in shape.  The rabbits had not been handled in a long time and their nails were over grown.  I could tell right away that they needed a lot of time and attention to make them into fun rabbits to have around.  Our black female, called a doe, would jump at us and try to bite.  The others were all scared to death of us.  I felt so bad for them but I knew the secret to taming them would be spending time holding them and getting them use to us.  We bribed them with carrots and brushed them daily.  Both the kids would get a rabbit out and just hold it and talk gently to it.  After about a month we saw changes in their personalities.  Now no one is afraid to go out and do whatever needs done to the bunnies.

We had not been thinking of  'show bunnies' when we started looking at rabbits but the idea of showing them sounded like a lot of fun.  I discovered that we had not missed the deadline for the Tulsa State Fair rabbit show and immediately sent in our paperwork. 

Before we knew it the weekend of the rabbit show had arrived.  We were excited and nervous.  To my surprise, there were 1200 rabbits brought in for the show.  We were trying to set our expectations low but we couldn't help but hope that we would take home the big prize of "Best in Show".  We had the best time people watching.  Let me tell you, there are people who are deadly serious about their rabbits.  They travel all over the country with them and have special stands that they groom the rabbits on.  Most of the people there were very nice and we had the privilege to visit with several of them.  They told us about their breeds and where they were from.  They shared what they knew and what they thought would help us.  I felt so overwhelmed by their generous nature and hospitality.

Toward the end of the youth show the judges finally called the silver martens.  Matthew brought his rabbits forward and placed them in the assigned cages.  We held our breath.  I couldn't hear what all the judge said about our rabbits due the volume of talking around us.  When it was all over I had to go ask where we placed.  I found out that our blue male, called a buck, had won 2nd place over all in the silver martens.  1st place is called "Best of Breed" and they go against all the other breeds in a final showdown.  The 2nd place winner is called "Best of Opposite Sex", so if the winner overall was a doe then they will pick the best buck for BOS.  BOS gets a big ribbon and that was the best part for Matthew.  When he picked up his ribbons he was grinning ear to ear.  Our rabbits took two 1st place ribbons and a 2nd place ribbon (those are different then BOB and BOS) and he had that big BOS ribbon. We had a great weekend at the rabbit show. In fact, we had so much fun that we started looking for our next show to enter.

Michelle vs. the Squash Bugs

This is WAR!  Last year I naively planted yellow squash.  Without a care in the world I watched the most beautiful plants come forth.  They were huge with equally large, orange flowers.  I was amazed and impressed with my own green thumb.  Then I saw them.  They were small brown bugs shaped like a leaf.  I had no idea what kind of bugs they were but soon I started to notice my lovely plants begin to wither and die.  What could be wrong, I wondered?  I did some research and found out those little bugs were the reason for my plants demise.  I only saved two small squash before all my plants died.  I was too late to save them.

This year will be different.  There is no way I will let those little fellows eat my plants to oblivion. 

This year's squash.  Beautiful!

I went out to do an inspection today and found squash bugs again.  This time I got moving.  I had read that one way to kill them was to pluck them off the plants and drop them in soapy water.  Wow, it sounded so easy.  I went out armed with a glass of soapy water and one yellow kitchen glove (Hey, it wasn't that I didn't want to touch them...).  Turns out that squash bugs are very fast and my hand disguised as as squash didn't help.  I was able to catch about 15 bugs and kill them.  Next came chemical warfare.  Yes, I am sure they never saw that coming.  Hopefully, in the next week we can see fewer bugs and more veggies.

PS. Japanese Beetle: YOUR NEXT!

The kids are here!

Kidding season is now officially over and the milking has began. We ended up with four beautiful goat kids. Jewels gave birth on May 2nd and gave us a lovely doeling we named Juliet. She weighed in at 8.8 lbs.

Heather gave birth on May 4th to a sweet doeling we named Tessa. She was a hefty 10.2 lbs.

Elizabeth kept us waiting past her due date. I think she was holding out for a crowd to gather:

We were so happy my mother-in-law, Ruth, my sister-in-law, LouAnn and her kids could come watch the birth. It was so much fun to get to see our niece and nephew watch the birth. I hope they had a great time and learned a lot.

We had given up hope that any of our does would have multiples, then Elizabeth surprised us again...



Introducing Eowyn and Aragorn, our first set of goat twins. Eowyn, a doeling and the lighter colored of the two, weighed in at 8 lbs and Aragorn, a buckling, weighed 10 lbs. Aragorn is polled, meaning he was born without horns.

It is so interesting to me the variety in marking between all the kids. Their moms are marked similar and they have the same father. All the little girls ended up with Pepper's frosted ears. Our buckling is the only one who is a solid color.

We are so proud of our new additions. We are planning on retaining all the girls and finding a good home for our little buckling. More on the milking adventure soon.

Buzzing Into Sping

One of our bees with her pouches full of pollen

We are starting our second season with the bees. We have two hives we bought last year. Hive #1 is in great shape. It was a new hive that was started from a package of bees by a gentleman in Missouri. It has a nice queen and is packed full of bees this spring. They are really nice to work with, as far as temperament goes. Hive #2 is a different story. It is a weaker hive with an older queen. It would be considered a "hot" hive, with bees that sting you for the fun of it. I might be exaggerating a little, but my husband can testify to the difficulty of working with this set of bees. Temperament comes from the queen, so I am hoping to re-queen that hive in May.

Hive #1 is doing so well that we are splitting it. We are expecting our a new queen any day. We have set up a third hive and will take our new queen and transfer two frames of baby bees from hive #1. In a few days she will start laying and establish a new colony of bees. This is our first time to try this but I am hoping that everything goes smoothly.

Other spring happenings:  The garden has been planted. We doubled our space from last year and I am really happy with the layout. I hope we have lots of extra produce to can and eat next winter. As many green beans as our family eats, I think we could save a ton of money. We are also getting some fruit trees this spring. I would like an apple tree and a plum tree (or two). I think that would be a great start for an orchard. We can always add trees down the road if we would like more variety (like peach, cherry, apricot...I am getting hungry just thinking about it!). I would love to add a raised bed and start some asparagus. We will have to see but I am afraid it might have to wait until next year. 

1 month left to kidding

Proverbs 27:27 "You will have plenty of goats' milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls."

We have one month left until out first kids are due.  I am starting to get really excited about the thought of new babies arriving.  We need to finish the outside runs for the kidding barn.  I also need to get the rest of the items in case I need to assist in any births.

The girls are starting to look large.  I hope that means we have more then one baby coming from each doe.  I am praying for mostly doelings!

New Kidding House

My wonderful, talented husband just finished our kidding house.  It currently has two stalls.  It is still missing the outside, fenced run but that will have to wait until after Rachel's wedding and basketball playoffs.  Our girls are due the first week in May so I think we have some time.

A tough winter.

This has been a terrible winter here in Oklahoma.  We have had record breaking snows in the last couple of weeks.  I have not left the house on my own in almost three weeks.  According to our local weather people, we should have some 70 degree days coming next week.  I can't wait!

This winter has been really tough on our animals. We have lost 3 calves and have one that is still iffy. He has been off his feet for several weeks but our vet is encouraging us to not give up on him yet.  We have also lost two chickens.  One was killed by an unknown animal (though I suspect a local cat may be to blame) and the other one died from the cold or a repository infection.  Naturally, this was our youngest daughter's favorite chicken.  We had many tears shed over all these losses.

I am now looking forward to spring and the renewing it will bring.  I am thinking about the garden we will plant and all the veggies I will can.  I am hopeful that we will have new babies arrive safely.  My husband is getting the new goat house ready.  We will have two stalls for mamas and babies.  Our oldest daughter is getting married in the spring.  It will be a new beginning for her as well.

My goal is now to put one foot in front of the other and move forward.  Hopefully we have learned some lessons this winter.  I look forward to a beautiful, fun, crazy year ahead of us.

It's official: Double D Farm

Just in time for breeding season...We are now officially known as Double D Farm.  I received our notification from International Dairy Goat Registry a few days ago.  Jim thought I was crazy last summer when I was trying to come up with a name for our homestead.  I was just thinking ahead, knowing that if we registered animals we would need a name.  I also received our tattoo letters.  All our goats will have DBF in their right ear.  I am so excited.




Pepper

 We took our three girls to be bred by a handsome buck named Pepper in December.  Two of our does should have kids, or freshen, the fist part of May.  Our third lady had to have a return visit with Pepper and will deliver the end of May.  I am glad that they are broken up a bit since I have no experience if anyone needs help delivering. 

Heather, Elizabeth and Jewel are all now registered as Nubian/Boer with the IDGR.  The man we bought them from said they were Alpine/Toggenburg but when I saw them I knew they had to be part Nubian....just look at those ears!  Since we didn't know for sure, the lady at the registry said she thought they looked part Boer (with their brown heads and solid white bodies).  I can see her point so I went with it.  Their kids will be registered as 75% Nubian, so they should sell fine.

I am hoping we have a couple of pretty doelings with correct udder formation come to us this spring.  I would like to sell one of our older girls with poor udders and see if we can breed that out of our herd.  We only have one doe with just two udders.  Our other does have multiple udders which is a fault.  They will be great family milkers and if that is all someone is looking for then that would be a great match.  I will have them all trained to the milking stand so I think they will sell quickly if we decide the do that.

My husband is in our garage, as I type, building a kidding house.  He thinks it will go together quickly.  I will post pictures and more details soon.

Pig Wrangling

Tuesday the time had come to take one of our pigs to the butcher. I must admit that I had no idea how hard it would be to get one pig in a trailer.  Maybe she knew more about her fate then I gave her credit for.  How convenient that my husband was at work and left the job of loading the pig to our older kids and me.

We entered the pig pen with few ideas on exactly how we would accomplish our goal.  Basically, we were going to just shoo her into the trailer, shut the door and pat each other on the back.  In hind sight, I now see the folly of that plan.  The reality was much different and much funnier, or so my husband thought. 

When we first entered the pig's arena they looked harmless, even friendly.  They thought they were going to be fed and left to fight over who would get the best bits, as usual.  We started by moving the feeder by the make-shift loading chute.  This chute was the outer fence and an old gate my bother-in-law had given us.  Parked at the end of the gate was our cattle trailer.  It looked like they would eat as we opened the gate and then we could gently encourage them toward the trailer.  If only that plan had worked!

We had three pigs; Becky Bacon, Penelope and Hammer the Ham.  Penelope, was by far, the largest of the three.  We zoned in on her as we moved closer to the unsuspecting pigs.  Unfortunately, instead of moving them toward the trailer they got spooked and ran to the other end of their rather sizable pen.  Now the fun began.  We spent the next 45 minutes getting the pigs close to the chute and then watching them run as we tried to get them in the trailer.  The pigs suddenly looked different to me.  They were no longer the cute little piggies that followed us around and snorted for food.  When I looked at them now all I saw was dumb, obstinante swine.

Finally, in desperation, I called for our seceret weapon...dog food.  Dog food is like "piggy crack", they will do anything for it.  I stared throwing some by Penelope, hoping to make a trail of dog food she would follow right into the trailer.  We made a path to the trailer and then when she felt the least little bit confined, she would bolt.  We went through three cups of dog food before we started feeling like maybe we could do this.

I must admit that I did picture myself having to call my husband and tell him we just couldn't do it.  Would he be mad, diappointed, not care?  I thought, "One more try, then if we fail I will call him."

Finally, we got Penelope in the chute.  She was facing backwards but I was hopeful that she would back inthe trailer on her own.  No, that was not to be.  We had to give her a little space to turn around but not so much she would push her way out.  Our youngest daughter had a broom to "encourage" her to move.  When she finally turned and saw I had dog food left, she hopped right in.  We closed the doors and collased in a pile of smelly, dirty pride. 

I am voting that my husband gets in on the fun next time a pig has to be loaded.

Chicken's to love or chicken's to eat?

That is the real question isn't it?  My youngest daughter would say we need to keep them to love.  My husband would say they are to eat.  I am somewhere in the middle.  I love our hens and the fresh eggs they give us.  The roosters (or "roos" as some people call them) are a pain.  I wish I could say something nice about them but they are mean.  They also fought with each other and hurt our hens.  We found hens missing feathers and bloody from their roo encounters.  Several weeks ago, I had had it with them.  I informed my husband we would be butchering the roos ASAP. 

Once I made the announcement I started hearing stories.  Stories of horror and gore.  What had I gotten myself (and the rest of my family) into?  I can now say it was not as bad as I thought it might be.  Here are some of the stories I heard and what our experiences were:

1. Blood squirting EVERYWHERE:  I can say that the way my husband put down our boys, there were no headless chickens flopping around.  In about 2 minutes it was all over and the roos didn't act like they felt a thing.  We did have to remove the heads once we were sure they were dead but that was very quick also.

2. The stench:  I think people have memories of being at Grandma's and smelling the hot, wet feathers.  I have to say, there wasn't a lot of odor when we plucked our fellas.  Part of the reason could be that it was fall.  It might be a smellier job in summer.  I also made sure we did almost everything outside.  I did not want a bad odor in my house that seemed to hang around for days.  What we did had to get over, was the feel of the feathers and how they stuck to our hands.  Yuck. 

3. Dealing with the insides:  My husband gutted the boys for me.  I had heard that we needed to be careful when cleaning the innards out as not to contaminate the meat.  My hubby made it look easy and did a great job.  We saved part of the innards but I am not sure what we will do with them.  (Maybe that can be a post in the future...how to cook with chicken guts.)

Overall, the job wasn't bad.  Next time, I will get a different breed of roosters that fattens up faster.  We got very little meat for the amount of food our roos ate through the summer.  We will also try skinning them so we can save the plucking step.  I think they will be cleaner when we are done if they are skinned.  We will also do all of the work outside next time.  This will help save my kitchen from most of the mess.

If you are thinking about getting some chickens to butcher my best advise is don't be afraid.  Go to YouTube and watch videos on "how to butcher chickens" and you will be able to move forward and feel prepared.