We don't have many plans for this summer regarding the farm, however there are a few things we have been considering.
Pasturing The Goats
We are currently moving our goats' fence about every other day to a new pasture. This is involving clearing paths through our very dense woods so we can put the fence up.
While this is very good for them, it is a lot of work, so, we are considering doing much larger pastures that we can leave them in for a week at a time.
We have about four acers of woods behind their barn that we could put them on, but it will possibly require renting a brush hog to clear paths for the fencing if we decide to do that.
Rabbits
We are just having a terrible time trying to raise grass fed rabbits on the ground. They just won't stop dying, we aren't sure why, but it is very likely that it's because rabbits have been bred for so long to live on pellets that they just can't raise bunnies on the grass.
We no longer have this bunny, but I think it's a cute picture :)
Many people who raise rabbits on the ground have a hard time with Coccidiosis, which is worse in warm, wet weather (exactly what we have been having lately). I don't know if that is what ours were getting, but it would make sense since we weren't losing any earlier in the spring when it was drier and colder.
We were hoping to be able to selectively breed for rabbits that would do well on pasture, but with practically none of them surviving, that isn't going to work.
Then, to make matters even worse, a few days ago something came and tore the wire off and damaged several of our tractors, and killed all our remaining rabbits except for Clover, Strawberry, and one of Palm's bunnies.
Whatever came just killed them and left them except for one of Strawberry's bunnies. We thought Palm's bunny was gone too, but the next day we found it in one of the pigs' shelters! So, it is possible that Strawberry's bunny is still alive too, we just haven't found it.
We think it may have been a bobcat, but why wouldn't have it eaten any of them? And why would it tear into almost every single cage only to leave them?
We don't know, but we are thinking of putting our remaining three rabbits into cages and bringing greens to them, to see if we are more successful that way.
If anyone has had success raising 100% off pellet rabbits, please let us know how you do it!
Thank you, Emma C., for the blog suggestion!!
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