One of the things I love about living on a farm is that we become more in tune with the changing of the seasons. When we lived in a the city or the suburbs, we would take superficial notice of changes in the weather. We might mark the nearing of a holiday associated with a season. But here our behavior is directly altered by changes in the seasons.
In the summer we are tending the garden and combating monsoons. We are ensuring pens are not turning into swamps and finding ways to keep the animals cool. In the fall we are harvesting and preserving bountiful harvests...or researching why the crops failed! We are also in constant battle with the wind. Cleaning after storms, repairing roofs and timing trees destroyed by the insufferable wind. In the winter we are calm. We research, plan, repair and prepare. We cease breeding, halt outside projects and recover.
But then comes spring! Spring is a time for hard work because with spring comes BABIES!!! Baby everything. We hatch chicks and the rabbits breed. Some years we have seen goats kid and have also purchased piglets. Baby animals are one of the most rewarding things you can have on a farm.
This year is our first year hatching our own chicks. We took eggs laid by our hens and incubated them. Today we had out best hatch. Five of six eggs hatched to produce healthy chicks. We have hatched eggs we have ordered online. We have also hatch twos and threes of our own chicks, but today's hatch was very promising!
We were also excited to see that our Californian rabbit had babies too! Rabbit babies are always a surprise. Because we raise our rabbits in a colony setting, we allow nature to dictate the breeding. (Here is an article outlining some of the benefits to colony raising.) I have a day or so notice before the birth as the mom starts to build a nest, but because of the colony setting, there is little to no work for me in order for her to kindle.
We set up our colony last fall and have not had a breeding yet. This was to be expected as breeding season for rabbits starts mid February and continues into late summer. I have a Californian buck, an American Chinchilla buck, a Californian doe and two American chinchilla does. It seems that the Californian bred with the Chinchilla as 2 of the babies were while, but four were dark gray!
That is good news because the buck was unproven up to this point. He showed dominant traits, but I was concerned he was not fertile. Those fears can rest now!
New fears have popped up in that 50% of the kits were still born. We have 3 surviving kits that seem strong and healthy. I went in this morning and momma rabbit had just fed them, so I know she is doing her part. I am looking forward to the American chinchillas kindling, however, I am not expecting their first litters to do well. It takes a time or two for rabbits to become successful mothers.
Now that spring is here (work-wise if not by the calendar) I am starting to look around and realize how much work needs to be done. A second batch of meat chicks comes on Thursday, ducklings should be hatching in seven days (our first duckling hatch) and in five weeks we will be getting a third shipment of meat chickens, five turkeys, and five ducklings. Somewhere in the next few weeks we will also be getting a couple baby goats.
It is exciting and overwhelming all at once!
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