Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Ahhh!!!! Baby bunnies on the wire!!! She wasn't supposed to be pregnant!! Parsley had 7 kits, 5 are dead and the last 2 look ok but the white one looks like the tail is missing and face is scratched. Had to scramble for stuff for a nest, we were out of hay but I scrounged up a few handfuls and picked up the few pieces of fur Parsley pulled to make a nest. I gave her two comfrey leaves and some oats. An hour later and the kits are still alive, I'm hoping she takes care of them and pulls a bit more fur.

The dad has to be one of her sons from the prior litter. Clearly I waited a bit long to take them out. Now I'm concerned there are more does who could be pregnant. I was holding off on breeding till fall because of the heat, guess I ended up with a litter anyway.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Baby bunnies are still alive at 6:30pm. She hasn't pulled more fur yet.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The bunnies are still alive but still no fur pulled. I moved more of the hay around the bunnies.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Baby bunnies are dead. I don't know if she killed them and ate them, or ignored them until they passed and then ate them. Not happy with her right now but realistically it's my fault because she wasn't supposed to be pregnant in the first place. Ugh.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

On a happy note, I moved an iris and tried to move a fig from the old garden to the new garden, and discovered the iris had a tag with a name! The fig also had a faded tag, but the part still legible I remember what it was so I can make new tags for both. The fig had grown through the pot so will need some shovel work to get it out and moved to a bigger pot. Right now I'm trying to get all the figs into fabric pots so they can get a bit bigger but still be contained until I figure out where the fig orchard is going.

 

[Ridgetop]

Shame when you lose kits on the wire, probably too late to palpate the daughters, so put nest boxes in with them just in case. Take them out 40 days after last date bucks were in with them.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

New garden fence is still not done. Hard to get two person jobs done when one person is pregnant and there's an active toddler running around requiring supervision.

The deer attacked the potted plants on the patio, the mulberry was trimmed and they ate the entire top off the loquat I babied all winter. It's a stick now. Not sure if it'll come back, but I'm going to keep watering it and hope for the best.

I got my new banana plants potted up and they look like they are starting to grow now. They have a chicken wire cage completely around them. The baby loquats from the garden have a mesh trash can over them, there's two in the pot and they need to be separated, fertilized, and protected. The smaller one can still use the trash can for now but the bigger one is already pressing against the top.

The tomatoes and peppers that got potted up two weeks ago are mostly looking great, once the new garden fence is done they will go into the ground. There's a bunch of extra tomatoes I'm going to give away. Only one tomatillo made it and it's pretty small. Might buy a started one. I'd like to make tomatillo salsa this year.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

We are at 26 weeks now, this coming week I have a Dr appointment with the glucose test, not looking forward to that. I did fine last pregnancy so I think it'll probably be ok this time too. I feel like I'm eating less junk food overall, at least since last November. COVID messed up my taste buds for quite a while and peanut m&Ms just didn't taste right. Plus I'm trying to model better eating habits for the munchkin.

 

[Baymule]

DEER!!! Destruction machinery has nothing on deer! All that work and care, eaten to nothing in a night!

Better eating habits are good. Raising a garden will sure help with that.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

DEER!!! Destruction machinery has nothing on deer! All that work and care, eaten to nothing in a night!

Better eating habits are good. Raising a garden will sure help with that.

I really want to try to can things and grow a lot of our own food. My husband eats a lot and with two boys I know they are going to eat a lot.

I think I'm going to take the plunge and try to water bath something tonight. We are going to the store so maybe I'll get a bunch of bananas. I talked about the recipe for monkey butter and a lot of my family were interested. I need to see if I can make it without coconut, or at least one batch without coconut since half the family doesn't like coconut. I think there's a recipe for banana jam too.