New Year

Yes I know, we are well into the new year and I haven't posted for ages. All my children and grand children came for Christmas and we all had too much fun to bore you with blog posts, so be glad of a rest from my waffle!
We now have our eldest daughter her with her two children as she needs rest and help with the children while she recovers from a recent bout of illness. Its been 18 years since I have had to worry about toddlers so I am trying to get back in my "Mr Mum" mode. Cooking the odd meal, mostly breakfast, reading bedtime stories (my favorite), washing more dishes, and having little helping hands tag along while doing chores.
The good thing is we are in a warm spell now with temps hovering around freezing but often in the pluses. That makes it easier for the children but does mean more mud about to get into!
It looks as though I will have to buy some hay as we will run out before green up. We sold down some ewes in the hope of not buying feed, but I refuse to sell any more as we now have a nice looking flock with no obvious culls to sell. Even feeding some barley didn't help as we will still need some hay. This will not happen again as with lower numbers we will be able to produce more hay. The good thing is it helped us in the decision making and we did not get soft hearted and keep ones that should be let go. Empty hay barns = Tough Love!
Our rabbit numbers increased by one after I spotted a small pet type Bunnie hopping around our yard. It went into the barn and let me pick it up, as it was a young female we popped into a pen and will breed it along with the others. It is very friendly and has been called Miss Whiskers, it will make a good addition to our petting area when we open in the spring.
I am now reading through seed catalogues deciding what to plant in our new market garden. We are some what limited as I wish to stick with Organic Heritage seed only. On our way back from returning our rented billy goat to his owners we stopped at the local machinery dealers and bought a rototiller. Although second hand it is in very good condition and an excellent make, a BCS from Italy powered by a Honda engine. It is a professional machine prized by market gardeners the world over. The tiller drops off and the tractor unit can power a huge list of attachments as well as run the plow that also came with it. I now cant wait till spring to play with it. Trouble is its still winter and there is a pile more paper work to do.
Our shearer is booked for the 3rd March and now I will have to get on and book the vet for pregnancy checking in mid February to make sure they are worth keeping and shearing. There is that Tough Love again!

Horses to Rabbits

In our old barn we have a lovely stable area with two large box stalls and two individual stalls for standing horses. One box stall I use for storage the other as a milking parlour for the goats. These two areas are as old as the barn and we keep them in original condition. The standing stalls however are a recent addition and are only any good if you own horses. Well we don't do horses and the area had no use for us. I also did not want to rip it out until I found a worth while use for the area.
Then the rabbits arrived, and not long after that the cooler weather. So we ripped out the standing stalls and made a nice open room. Installed some water proof boarding on the walls(rabbits especially bucks have a nasty habit of spraying to mark territory).We now have our three does and our latest arrival, a New Zealand buck, installed and very happy according to their behavior.
Clare my wife and rabbit herdsman is also happy with the setup but now worries they may be getting too fat. Pellets, hay, carrots, apples, and willow sticks to keep the teeth in shape will no doubt do that. Yesterday she had them out of their cages one at a time doing laps around the rabbitry on a new weight watchers program!
As a stockman with experience of many farm animals I am out of my depth with rabbits. My only knowledge of rabbits is you need a ferret to flush them out the hole into a net so you can catch them for the pot! I will admit though I am enjoying this new addition to our farm and learning from my wife a lot more about these little furry critters than I ever knew before.

Preg Checking

Jay the vet came the other day compleat with his Borg like ultra sound equipment to preg check the goats. Sadly they were all empty (not pregnant) but on reflection I was relieved and happy. Let me explain.
We could not find a Toggenberg buck any where and many breeders suggested we line breed by using one of this years buck kids. I knew this was a common practice with purebred breeders but to a commercial breeder like myself it was all a bit much. I felt very guilty turning him in with his relatives and a sence of guilt and shame came over me. though young he seemed to be doing his job and well, at least we would have kids born on time and a milk supply for orphan lambs. What you see is not always what you get, espesialy in this case. Although busy the buck was not mature and so was shooting blanks. A huge burden of guilt lifted of my Catholic consience, I felt much better, but where was I to find a buck this late.
Being late is what saved my bacon. The origional supplier of my doe's said she would rent me an unrelated Toggenburg buck who had finished his work and was keen for some overtime. So of to Lumby I went and brought home Charles who is now very busy with his new ladies. We will have the kids later and I may have to buy some milk powder to start the orphan lambs, but at least we will have Toggenberg kids with out the "goatie insence"!

New Arrivals

Long before I met my wife she raised meat rabbits for the local butcher in England. Later when logging in BC in the 80s we had some for our own consumption. Its the other white meat, and it doesn't make a noise at first light so you can produce them in town without any one knowing!
With our Harmonious Homestead agritourism business we were looking for new forms of livestock that would earn their keep but still be fun for visitors to pet and see. After much web searching and phone calls Clare came back from visiting the grandchildren in Alberta with three beautiful Californian does. Then this coming weekend we will have delivered a New Zealand white buck from a rabbitary in the next valley. Needless to say they will not be getting closely acquainted until February so we can have little bunnies galore for our open days!

Rosa RIP

After moving back to the farmyard side of the river and with access to the road our dog Rosa developed some annoying habits. It started with her collecting garbage from the road side and bringing it back into the field to chew on. Amazingly she could chew an aluminium beer can to shreds and not cut herself. Sadly it turned into vehicle chasing. Why any dog starts to chase 3 tons of Detroit steel never ceases to amaze me, I mean what do they think they will do with it when they catch it!Several neighbours said they had seen her in the act, but I had not caught her to tell her off.
One morning several weeks ago at first light I found her lying in the barn with major injuries all down one side. It was obvious she had been struck by a vehicle and had come back to the barn as it was her "safe place".The only choice was to put her down as she was in pain with no hope of recovery. I buried her next to our first guardian dog Emma in our pet cemetery who thankfully died at a much older age due to a stroke. Even though I view these types of dogs as livestock and members of the flock it is still tough and lonely doing chores when you loose one.

On Feed

Our lambs were held up in their growth this year due to extremely hot weather and so they are a month behind their normal schedule. We usually have all the lambs sold before the grass runs out, but not this year. We sold about 70 lambs to feedlots to be finished by new owners. The remaining 90 or so we will feed and market finished ourselves. We do plan to keep back 15 to 20 of our best Dorset and Romney ewe lambs for replacement ewes as our flock is rather old. If we do this for the next two to three years we will end up with a strong young flock.

As you can see by the photos it does not take them long to learn what a feed trough is. Rosa now enjoys being around the yard as she can visit the different pens, wander out to the field to see the ewes, and terrorise the barn cats when ever she catches them by surprise!

Oreo cookie lambs