29 January 2019

First goat kid of 2019

Tangie standing guard over baby

Baby spends a lot of time like this

Baby beginning to explore as Tangie watches
Saturday kicked off kidding season here at the Homesteade!  Like last year, Tangie signaled she was in labor by "talking" to her yet-unborn kid in the morning, but as the day went on and no baby, I began to wonder if she was having a false labor.  I decided to check on her around 1600 (4 P.M.) as the next-to-last check, and by the time I walked around the house to the pasture, she had started to call for help.  Baby was a single, which meant she was big.  I had been hoping Tangie would have twins again.  I had to pull pretty firmly, as baby had herself wedged in with her shoulders square, just like Sweet Pea in 2017.

Sunday it started raining before we got up, and rained continuously until after we went to bed.  Goats and cats began to complain about the weather by the afternoon ... for some odd reason they all seem to think we can do something about that.  Yesterday and this morning were downright chilly - below 40F and hubby and I both sound like bowls of Rice Crispies with our "Snap! Crackle! POP!" as we get out of bed.  I did make the comment Sunday evening, "At least it ain't snow!"

Enjoy the pictures.

22 January 2019

Random rabbit stuff

So, it's what passes for winter down here.  Yesterday's high was only 50F, up from upper 30s in the morning, while today it's supposed to get up in the mid-70s with an overnight low of mid- to upper 50s.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be a bit warmer, and more humid until it starts raining overnight through Thursday morning, then the temperature will drop again to upper 30s for overnight lows again for a few days.  I had acupuncture last Thursday, but by Sunday night it lost to the cold front that rolled in.  Ah well, we did get some garden stuff accomplished (more on that later).

While my back was just screaming yesterday in protest, I did a bunch of reading about rabbit breeding and general feeding and health, and found a couple nice little nuggets of useful  info.  One I had seen previously, and now saw confirmed is that rabbit pellets may be complete in nutrition at the feed mill, two vitamins are not shelf-stable in the pellets: vitamin A and E.  Since they degrade in storage, supplementing goes a long way toward willingness to breed.  Black oil sunflower seeds (usually abbreviated as BOSS) will provide stable vitamin E, and in general green vegetation has vitamin A, along with of course carrots.

I found another little gem in a forum thread I intend to try, likely starting tomorrow, and that is the mineral supplement that's best for bunnies is sheep mineral.  One sheep-and-goat block, coming home tomorrow.

I've also noticed bunnies are bored.  I have golf balls in there for them to roll around, and the boys in particular do that a lot.  In fact, we figured out that Larry has been rolling his out of the cage, through a bent section of the door frame.  Shalimar has been rolling her food dish around, which is a bit of an effort considering I bought no-tip dishes for the rabbits.  Chew toys are recommended, in addition to cat toys to roll/throw around, so as a chew I plan to get the girls some alfalfa/timothy hay cubes.  Another option will be to put in pieces of cardboard for them to shred.

On the breeding front, at least three girls are definitely bred.  Shalimar kicked things off with the eager-breeder routine, which Lacey did a little less than a week later (and remember, this is her first time breeding).  Brooke had been bred by Jack, but when I put her in with Larry the other morning, she willingly lifted for him, whereas she made Jack really, really work at less success.  I'm wondering if it was a timing thing, or if Brooke simply likes Larry better.  Since Shal kindled at 30 days last time, I estimate her to kindle on February 9th.  MaryAnn has not been very enthusiastic about the breeding idea, but Jack acted like he made contact while she was on the run.  Gracie has been in George's cage for over a week.

Finally, I'll be getting a new bunny boy from Frank and Caroline.  Caroline said a friend of hers gave him and a couple girls away for free, because she couldn't keep them anymore.  This fellow is a Dutch (breed) rabbit, may even have a pedigree, and has a lovely, solid, and thick body.  Hubby has a pic of him on his camera, so at some point I'll post up what he looks like.

15 January 2019

Fruit crisp

No pictures, as it's in the oven right now, but here is a recipe for fruit crisp I tweaked:
Preheat oven to 350F
generously butter medium glass baking pan (7x11?  8x??)
5 Gala apples, cut into bite-sized pieces
enough dried cranberries to almost cover bottom of pan
approximately 3/8 cup juice (I had cranberry-pomegranate open in the fridge)
in smallish bowl mix together
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2-3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt if using unsalted butter
cut in 1/4 cup (half stick) butter
add 1/2 to 1 cup oats (recipe I started with calls for 1/2 cup, but hubby asked if we could have more this time) mix and spread on top of fruit
bake 35-45 minutes ... we do 35 because we don't feel like waiting longer

I have apples on hand since they were on sale the other week, but this will work with just about any kind of fruit you could care to put in crisp.  We're pretty much going to eat this for "dinner" plus the leftovers will make a nice warm breakfast tomorrow.

Can anyone tell we're kicking off another "cold" snap here?  Overnight low is forecast to be 41F.  It only got up to 60F today - which was our overnight low for Sunday.  I do not exaggerate when I say we can go from 80+ daytime high to frost overnight in 36 hours down here in the winter.