Kidding Pen Complete

Stef finished the kidding pen today. I had a scare that Holly was in labor when he was gone last week so we figured we better get it done. We fenced in the back of our shed and cut a hole in the shed. Then made a nice little cubby hole for the new mama and baby.

Stinging Nettle

I believe this is Stinging Nettle or Urtica Dioica. This is horrible, awful, unholy stuff. Well I just found out this stuff is fantastic food for animals and humans alike!! Who Knew? Well, Chickenista from Homesteadingtoday.com knew. Only problem is getting around the stinging part to harvest them. I guess as soon as they are picked the sting starts to dissipate. We have this stuff EVERYWHERE! I am not exaggerating.
I can't go in the back without jeans on. I hoped the goats would trample it or something but they stay far from it. I don't blame them, when I do get caught by it it can sting up to 12 or 24 hours depending on where you touched it. Fingers are the worst place to get it. Anyway, now I'm actually trying to figure how to really grow this stuff for feed for the animals. I think I'm going crazy! We also have Bull Nettle, cnidoscolus stimulosus, not sure if it has as much good stuff in it.

Randy Rabbit!

We put one of our bucks in with the girls today. Everything went great. No fighting at all, though he did get a bit of dirt kicked in his face when he was sniffing around the girls privates. Unfortunately for him they are playing hard to get.

You know how rabbits multiply right?? I looked at my pictures today and thought this was hilarious:





Also the girls have been busy bunnies. They are putting a basement in under the Bunny Cabana. They are actually digging some of the Cabana out so it is not so stable anymore. Looks like they may have gotten past our buried chicken wire and are on their way to the goat buck pen. I'm not sure though, guess we will find out. Hopefully we will be seeing baby bunnies poking their heads out of here in a little over a month!

Chicken Tractor - kind of

I, well it ended up being mostly Stef, threw this together the other afternoon. This is a chicken tractor. It was much more functional in my head. I can put wheels on the back to make it move better. I don't know, I've never been too crazy about the chicken tractor idea, doesn't seem too practical to move chickens around all of the time. It works out nicely now to brood in, but when they get older I will allow them to free range and put them up at night.

Stef put a "pond" in for the ducks.

Happy Bunnies

The buns are enjoying their new home. We had an escapee this morning. She found a crach in the door to get out of and then tried to dig herself back in. We found her huddled up in a corner on the outside of the pen. She is happy to be back with her buddies now.

New Grazing Area

This week I put up a temporary electric fence around the entire back yard up to the dojo. We want them to eat up all of the weeds back there. Here are some happy grazing pics.

Mineral and baking soda feeders

Made these from PVC piping. After a trip to the hardware store I will put tops on them so the don't get rained in.

Chicks and Ducklings

Here they are.

Yes, there is a blue chick and a purple chick. Hold on you haven't seen the ducklings yet...

Yes, they are red and orange. HAPPY EASTER!
The 'normal' chicks are Araucanas. They will lay pretty green and maybe some blue eggs.

More on New Goats

The concencus is they are a Nubian/Boer mix. The black one is the wether (castrated male) and the brown and white one the doe. The wether is scared to death of dogs and electric fences. I have to take them to the vet today because the wether escaped his quarantine yesterday and got in with my other goats. Hopefully they don't have anything contagious. While on the loose he also visited our new chicks and ducklings we are brooding on the porch. He knocked the heat lamp off of one of the cages and this is what the boys and I came home to came home to...

The porch was actually on fire! The scary part is we were actually planning on picking Stef up at the airport much later in the evening and were going to stay at Mom and Dads about 6 more hours. The house would have been up in flames by then! Niko wanted to name the wether Midnight, but I think Firestarter or Trouble is much more fitting.

New Goats

I was at the feed store today and a lady renting a U-Haul (yes, they do that too) asked if anyone was interested in some free goats, a doe and a wether. She had been evicted and had nowhere to take them. She said they were meat goats, I asked Boer, Spanish or what? She didn't know. I went to look at them and they looked pretty rough, matted hair, a bit skinny, eating a box off cereal. They were super friendly though... I couldn't just leave them like that... They look more like my Nubians than my Boer or Spanish goats. What do you think? They are in quarantine right now, who knows whats wrong with them. I just noticed the doe has blood on her vulva, I hope I didn't bit off more than I can chew.

What do you think? What kind are they?

Rabbit Move In Day

We finished the colony today and moved them in. The trees don't have leaves on them yet and the rabbits don't have much cover from hawks. I read some where that I could run twine over the top of the rabbits and it would deter the hawks and owls from swooping in. I can see the logic in it, we will see. You can just barely see it in this picture.

We had two different groups of rabbits. Two 5 month old Californian does and four 4 month old New Zealand does. They did pretty good together for their first time. The fur only flew a few times. I mean this literally! I watched them for a little over an hour and I think they will all be fine.


When we put them in everyone came to watch. I think the goats were just interested in the rabbit food. Lala wanted in with them so badly. She actually got in once when I went in, she was very well behaved and just wanted to hang out with the new members of her flock.

Not so helpful goat

Goats are not helpful! Especially not rambunctious year old bucks. All the boys had to do was move the siding about 10ft and stand it up. Do you think they could do it? Not till mom got involved.

Rabbit Colony

We are Making a colony for our rabbits. We don't keep any of our other animals in small cages and would rather let the bunnies run around too. The males will have to be kept caged but the girls can run free! Well sort of. First we had to dig an almost two foot trench. NOT FUN! It took 3 days going back and forth about renting a trencher to dig this sucker out.


We buried chicken wire in the trench so hopefully the rabbits will not burrow outside of the colony. Yeah, yeah, the whole time we were digging I was thinking, I know they are still going to get out. We'll see, I hope not. Then we thought the baby kits would be able to fit through the chicken wire and outer fence so we ended up putting the old siding from our house on the inside of the chicken wire.


Okay, I know it is looking a bit...hmmm...trailer parkish (heehee, get it, siding from the trailer?). Just wait you haven't seen anything yet. This is the Bunny Cabana. I will put a ramp up to the platform and put their feeders and a hay silo in here for them.

Not exactly 4 stars, but I don't think they will complain. In fact, as far as rabbit accommodations go...

Birthday Barn

Here is the beginning of the barn Stef is building me for my birthday.


Here it is a few days later.

Garden Trellis

I know this is silly but I'm excited about my garden trellis for the peas. We have Yaupon trees all over in the woods. I like to cut it down because it makes the place look alot more cleaned up. I used to just burn them, but now i have the boys strip the branches off the main trunk. We use the branches for the sides of the goat shelters and I'm starting to use the main trunks and some of the more substantial branches for trellising in the garden. This is my first one for the peas. I'm going to make the next one for cucumbers. This is exciting because a year ago I wouldn't have thought about being able to make my own trellis, I would have went looking to buy one. It feels so good to use free, available, natural material for so much of the stuff we are doing now.">

Goat Shelter

I built my first shelter all by myself! It's not much to look at yet, but it is very sturdy and functional! Stef taught me well. I will put sides of Yaupon branches on it when it stops raining.

The Animals and Projects

First, I need to introduce you to our animals and projects. First we have 5 goats. Two beautiful Nubian dairy girls, Frosty and Holly. Frosty is pregnant and due in the middle of April. We are not sure if Holly is bred or not. We also have 3 meat goats. The 1yr old buck, Elvis, is purebred Boer and so cute and friendly. He always comes around for a quick pet. The two does are Spanish/Boer crosses and both may be pregnant. We have only had this trio for a week now. All three have been living with each other so there is no way of telling who may have been bred when. I wish there were goat pregnancy tests!">

We also have 9 rabbits. Four of the rabbits are Californians, 2 male, 2 female. We bought them from a breeder nearby. The other five rabbits are New Zealands. I'm not very good at sexing, but I believe 4 of them are female and 1 male. We acquired these bunnies from a mom whose daughter wasn't taking care of them. We will start breeding them next month when they are 5 months old.

">To guard this livestock we have Lala and JD. They are Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mixes.

Other miscellaneous animals I may talk about are the ferrets Daisy and Peanut, the cat Keiska, and our 9 yr old German Shepherd, Ama.

The garden is also a major project this year. We trucked in 13 yards of soil and semi-cleared a rock bed to achieve a hopefully decent garden this year. All the rabbit poop will be sure to be helpful in this venture!

Introducing Rockin' Rabbit Ranch

As we start out on our homesteading adventure, I find myself wanting to share it with the rest of you.  Instead of sending an email every time I want to share I have decided to start a blog.  Also, my grandma said I should write a book about my experiences or at least keep a diary so I think this will take care of that also.