All God's Creatures

So much to keep up with, our mini-farm is really coming along and this week we had a SUPER exciting new addition.  American rabbits!

Jennifurr the blue steel doe

Jefferson the white buck

Our beautiful little Americans are just that little. They were born on January 14th and weaned this past week.  I wanted to get them as young as possible so that I could become comfortable handling them before they reached full weight (a whopping ten pounds).  They won't be ready to breed until May at the earliest and until then we will be working on acclimating them and taming them down.  We are planning for a trio but wanted a little diversity so in a month *fingers crossed* we will be going over to Flying Fossil Farm to check out a litter of brand new Champagne D'argents. 

Rosey, Melanie and Betsy our amazing Ameraucana layers

Ken, Candace and Lucy our Muscovies (in the terrible early morning light)

And just because I was out there with a camera I took a couple shot of our other backyard companions.














In other animal news our quail are officially a week old and beginning to feather out.  All four seem strong and are growing fast.  Soon I will have to move them to a larger brooder!

And a larger brooder will soon be an unequivocal necessity. While scoping out quail online I perused many a hatchery, searching for one that did not require the minimum purchase of 50 quail.  I did not have luck with that but I did fall prey to Cackle Hatchery "Cackle Hatchery Surprise".  For $60.95 you get whatever they send you. But... they guarantee a sweet deal.  How could I resist? Only after submitting my order did I have the sense to consult Backyard Chickens (the best farming forum IN THE WORLD).  There was a "Cackle Hatchery Surprise" thread with over 80 pages and I read all of them.  Most people reported 40-42 birds, with a varying assortment mostly, of course of chickens, but with a few geese, ducks, turkeys and guinea fowl thrown in.  One person reported 82 birds were delivered. To my dismay, people said that they requested specifics in the comment section of their order form and most people said that it was honored.  One woman got seven turkeys!  I requested the shipping date of March 31st because according to the hatchery's calendar ducks, geese and turkeys are all available in March and according to my Google search a Thanksgiving turkey needs six or seven months to fatten up.  Part of me hopes that I am that lucky that I get a pair of geese and five turkeys and a dozen ducks and the rest a happy handful of meat chickens, layers and cute bantams.  But the sane part of me yells WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO PUT THEM?!  Luckily I did just buy a dog run (in hopes that we will get a duo of mini Manchas in the future), I guess its time we set that sucker up!