Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

Larsen Poultry Ranch

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Played around with the baby bunnies again today, the two light bunnies I think might be the same color, just one has regular fur and one has rex fur. The other two kits in that litter look rex, an opal and a castor.

The litter with two kits looks like a chestnut regular fur and castor rex.

Willow's litter looks like opal regular fur and three chestnut/castors, couldn't see fur type since they were all hiding from the scary human.

Munchkin 1 came out when I was trying to feed and water the rabbits. He is very pushy and demanded I let him help feed the rabbits. So I helped him scoop the scooper full, then had to lift him up so he could dump the feed in the j feeder. Then repeat down the line, two scoops per rabbit. I ran out of patience but he was excited to help. It will be less frustrating when he's taller and has better scooping skills.

He enjoys helping Grandma feed the chickens and gather eggs, plus Grandpa on the other side has him help feed the horse and goats.
 

Larsen Poultry Ranch

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Second one this week! Last one was smaller, didn't get a picture though. Both found inside the bunny shelter.

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Larsen Poultry Ranch

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First group of baby bunnies (10) are doing well, second group keep popcorning out of the nest boxes. Willow daughter has 8 and is doing fantastic, Lefty had 7, lost 1 at birth and lost a runt last night. The remaining 5 are doing well. Last two does are due today and one already pulled fur.
 

Larsen Poultry Ranch

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We are up to 5 rattlesnakes killed in the rabbit/former garden zone.

First group of 10 bunnies (3 litters) still doing good, pretty sure they're over 8 weeks, need to weigh and butcher soon. Two of the kits in Parsley's litter are pretty, almost thinking they are the same color except one has rex fur and one is regular. I think it's a weird chinchilla color variant? Need to look it up. Possibly keep the rex, haven't decided yet. Going to try to tan the regular fur version.

The middle group with Willow daughter (WD) and Lefty ended up combined. WD died from the heat but all 8 babies survived. Lefty lost all but 1 (castor) of her babies from the heat as the idiot kept pulling more fur. She's got huge bald spots on her sides. I ended up taking most of the nest box fur out several times after she kept trying to refill it. I gave her the 8 WD babies and she's kept all 9 alive so far. WD had 2 chestnut/castor babies, so I'm not sure which is which so not planning on keep any of those. One WD is chinchilla and one is a blue, so I'm hoping those are girls.

The last two litters were Juniper and Maple Daughter (MD). MD had a litter of 5, not sure if she didn't care for them or they had heat issues, but they were discovered dead in the nest box within 2 days old, the day after hubby shot a rattlesnake literally underneath the cages. Possibly the gunshot may have been a factor. Juniper had a good litter, 8, but lost a few a day several days in a row due to heat because the idiots kept burrowing. She has one remaining and it looks rex furred castor.

Fans are going full bore and misters are going. Shade structure has additional shade cloth over it. Not sure what else I can do. It's going to be a hot week.

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Larsen Poultry Ranch

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Both pretty buns let me pet them, although they were quite grumpy with me chasing them with the camera phone trying to get a good picture. The normal fur one feels softer than a regular normal fur rabbit.

Rex fur:
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Normal fur, with molting Mohawk:
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Both:
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Lefty and the nine. Four kits are black so they are harder to see.
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