We missed posting last week so we are making sure to get a post out this week. Our time has been consumed with planning some indoor winter projects. Most of them are home improvement projects.
We missed posting last week so we are making sure to get a post out this week. Our time has been consumed with planning some indoor winter projects. Most of them are home improvement projects. During the work we do on the house we plan to start growing micro greens. We will start with a variety of different seeds and figure out which ones work the best. Since we are able to grow these indoors we think this will be a good project for us and keep the growing season going in the cold.
Chickens:
Here’s a funny story for you: The chickens that we currently have in the upstairs brooder (in our house), escaped this week. As we were sitting down to eat dinner we heard a loud thud in the hallway upstairs. It was much louder then when the cat is running around up there. So we jumped up from eating dinner and ran upstairs. When we got up there we saw one of the chickens was still in the “chicken room” but not in the brooder, one was in the hallway and the other was in a spare bedroom with the cat chasing it. It didn’t take us long to catch the three escapees and get them locked back up but it was the first time that has happened and hopefully the last. If they had been out any longer then they were, I cannot imagine what the mess would be like. Luckily for us it was all contained on the hardwood floors in a small space.
Rabbits:
It was a processing week for us. We processed 10 rabbits. All of them weighed out to the packaged weight that we were hoping for. The tracking sheets that we started are proving to be quite helpful. After only tracking weights for a few litters, we were able to use the data that we collected to determine what live weight we need for the packaged weight we want. There were also some things that we decided that we don’t need to track going forward. We realized that sexing all of the rabbits took more time than the value it added for us. Going forward we will only sex the rabbits if we have a need to.
Roxanne kindled last week but I have yet to check on the kits. With it being as cold as it was I did not want to disturb them until they had some fur. Yesterday for the first time I saw one of the kits peak its head through the straw nest. Gracie also kindled and I have not checked on her kits yet either. But I did see hers moving around in the nest.
Since it was processing week, we started another batch of furs and have more feet soaking for key chains. Nine out of furs are black and one is a grayish color.
The water bottle holders that Brian built are working nicely now that we are on two a day water changes.

General/Projects:
Made venison jerky from the deer Brian shot earlier this fall. The jerky turned out great! It was a quick jerky mix and then into the dehydrator for a few hours. We also cooked another one of our chickens. The stewing hens turn out great in the slow cooker!

While working on our home improvements, we uncovered some nice hardwood floors underneath the carpet. For now we are leaving them as is. Once we have the rest of the room set the way we want we will decide if want to refinish the floors.


