Rabbits

K, so meat rabbits is one thing I plan on raising.. I'd also like to get my oldest son into 4-h with them but we'll have to see about that.. He wants dutch rabbits.. But we're going to start with the meat rabbits since they are useful as more than just cute pets.. I was going to start with a breed called American Chinchillas.. I'd posted my interest on a forum months back and a breeder in Ohio said she was going to come down to Florida in October and would bring me a trio for a very decent price.. We'll that fell through because her truck broke down and she had to fly down instead of drive and couldn't bring the rabbits with her.. So not sure when I'll get my hands on American Chinchillas.. They are a heritage breed since they were developed in the US and are on the endangered list since there are so few of them.. But we shall keep trying and I shall keep looking..

While I was waiting for October to come around I built this..

This is as far as I got because then hubby came home from his over-the-road truck driver training and he was out of work for about a month and a half.. If it weren't for his parents we would have been royally screwed.. But since then I've been concentrating on other projects so this one has kind of fallen to the wayside.. Besides, don't have any rabbits yet to need cages.. This one is also too small according to other rabbit people I've talked to.. A doe with kits needs at least 1/4 to 1/2 bigger.. Probably twice as big is even better..

Also while I waited for October, I admired a breed called red New Zealands.. New Zealand whites are a common meat breed.. But, of course, the red New Zealands are a lot harder to find.. When I found out the lady wouldn't be able to bring the rabbits from Ohio, I put out a feeler message on a New Zealand rabbit yahoo group.. I got a response almost right away.. A lady said she knew somebody that had red New Zealands and gave me her phone number.. Now, I prefer email because I always feel like such a dunce on the phone.. So I was hesitant to call the lady with the New Zealands.. But I really loved the color of the red New Zealands so I buckled down and made the call.. I call a voicemail so left a message.. The lady called me back later that day and we talked in length about rabbits and made plans to get them from north Florida to here in central Florida.. So in January I should have some lovely red New Zealands.. They'll be young and it'll be some months before I'll be able to breed them and have the first litter.. But I can't wait to get that part of my mini farm going..

I will probably finish that cage I was building and use it for an extra or quarantine cage or something.. But for the main cages I plan on getting some tposts that have sort of hooks up the front of them.. I'm going to use the tposts as legs and use whole rolls of wire to make a sort of hutch design.. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try some sort of temporary dividers so I can make the lengths of each cage changeable or not.. Or if I'm going to just make each cage a standard length.. I'll probably have to go with a standard length because of door and feeder locations.. Maybe make each cage 3X5' since most rolls of wire are 3X10'.. 3X5' should be plenty of space for all except the biggest breeds.. And I don't plan on getting anything bigger than the amchins and red nz's, so that shouldn't be a problem..

Anyway, I need to get some sleep.. I need to go into photoshop and make up a design for my wire hutch.. I like actually creating a design.. Helps me work out details.. My next project I'll discuss is the goats.. Don't bet on seeing that before Thanksgiving.. It's going to be a really long one since its also the one I've put the most work into so far.. But you never know.. Maybe I'll get really bored one day and I'll break down and tell you all about it.. You know, I used to be able to do blog entries in my personal blog almost every day.. But anymore I'm so occupied with actually life stuff that I just don't have the time or patience to do it anymore.. Hopefully this blog will help me to get back into it since its discussing the things I'm actually working on..

Anyway, see ya next post..