Hello everyone!
Sorry I haven't been as active. It has been SO crazy around here lately!
This post is just going to be a mesh up of everything going on.
First lets start with the trees. -_- We have about 13 pine trees in our yard. Pines are pretty for me personally they serve no purpose. A while back my husband, and I decided that we will be staying on this property, and working with the land we have. So our first step was to hack down all the pines, and a few other dead trees, and we will be replacing them with varies fruit trees. So last weekend we had a friend come over, and he cut down 6 trees in the yard. Spent an ENTIRE day chopping up, and dragging 2 trees to the burn pile, because those 2 trees fell onto the farmers lot that he uses to get his tractor into the field, and to be perfectly honest the farmer is quite the royal :evil: Haha. We've had the neighbors helping us with the trees, and are trading their "labor" for whatever amount of wood they want. We're still chopping up trees daily, and STILL have 7 additional trees that need to be cut down, but they need to be pieced out, because some are too close to the power lines, and house, and the last ones, while far away from the house they have a really hard lean towards the house so they would basically fall right in front of the back door, haha.
On top of the trees, and along with choosing to stay where we are my husband threw me some options, it was either in the future we could go by a piece of land with a barn, more land, and trees on it, and have to give up all, but 2 of my rabbits while we lived here, OR I could choose to stay here, and keep ALL my rabbits, but I would need to get a job to start making this place more of what we wanted, and by a temp shed to put my rabbits in since my husband wants them out of the garage. I gave everything a weeks worth of thought, and weighing out all the pros, and cons, and I decided that I do not want to lose my rabbits, or move. We have a beautiful house, and property, and with a bit of work it would be easier, and cheaper to work with what we have. I went, and applied at the gas station literally right up the road from my house, and got hired. It's only part time, and I work 5 to midnight, but it's enough to give us the extra that we need. I got my 3 days of training on the register, and feel like I did quite well. By the second night I was doing almost all of it on my own. The lotto, and lottery still get me though, haha. They are 2 different things, and need to be ran differently. It was not "hard," but more like it's tedious, and there's A LOT to remember. I work tonight, Thursday, and Friday being trained in the kitchen making pizzas, and such.
New additions, and bye byes. I FINALLY got myself a sweet little 8 week old Magpie, and she is to die for!!!!! Love her to death! Her name is Clarabelle. We picked her up Sunday, and so far she is doing great. Along with getting the new bunny I had to say bye bye to one. Not for the need of cage space, but due to illness. Bertha the Lop I had, had been I don't know, different? Since I had gotten her. Bred her 3 times, and she would not take. I had planned to pet her out after the third breeding didn't take. I had started to notice litter things about her health that I was not happy with. 1 being that she had cataracts in one of her eyes, but I could deal with it. I palpated her after the second breeding, and while I did not feel any kits I could feel a lump in her side. She was always a decent size, but it took her 3 whole days to finish a feeder of pellets, and bottle of water. All my other rabbits sucked theirs up in a day. She was also rather laid back. Almost too laid back? She was quite calm, but it more so seemed just overly tired, and unwell? With all that going on I still thought I could work with it. Yesterday while giving the rabbits some love I picked her up out of the cage, and while she did "seem" big still she was pretty boney. A lot more than when I had first got her, and it concerned me, because she had finally started eating a lot more than she did before. While looking over her I noticed her nose was crusty with green, and white crust, and a bit of wet white snot on one nostril. I quickly checked her front paws, and the paw that was on the same side as the snotty nostril was a bit crusty as well. Worried about her, but more so about the health of the rest of my herd I called EnglishSpot, and told her what was going on, and she confirmed what I was thinking. Bertha had to go. I called my husband to tell him, and he said that he was far too busy today to stop, and butcher (working on the trees again!) he said I could call our friends son who helps us when we have a lot to butcher, and I told him that while it was a good idea I just didn't want him to do it. I told him I'll figure something out. After a few minutes of staring at Bertha I decided to do it myself. (This was a first for me.) I gathered all my tools, a gut bucket, bucket of water, and knife. I cleaned off the homemade rabbit wringer, and got Bertha from the garage. I sat with her in the grass for a moment, gave her a hug told her I was sorry, and also thanked her. Getting her into the wringer took a little longer than I would have liked, but when I finally did her get in there I was SO happy with our smoothly, and quickly it went, and also VEEERYYYY happy that I got it in one shot, and did not put her through anymore stress than needed. While I KNOW I got her done on the first try she had harder death throws than I thought she would have. She literally flung herself over my head.
I quickly hung her up, and got to work cleaning her out. Skinning her was very easy came off quickly, and cleanly, but a lot of fat under her skin. That through me off as her feeling SO boney yet so fatty underneath. I got the skin down to the legs, and began to open her up. Boy it was weird in there... 2 bladders... She had these 2 white things with black dots on them. Not sure what that was, but did not see that in the other rabbits we did. Her gallbladder was so greed it was almost black. Liver had 1-2 white spots on it, and while her lungs were a nice pink color they were covered in purple spots. I am usually out with my husband when we butcher, but I had never done it myself, ALONE, or on a sick rabbit so I just describing what I found to be "odd" in hopes you guys can help me maybe figure out what was going on with her.
Sorry I haven't been as active. It has been SO crazy around here lately!
This post is just going to be a mesh up of everything going on.
First lets start with the trees. -_- We have about 13 pine trees in our yard. Pines are pretty for me personally they serve no purpose. A while back my husband, and I decided that we will be staying on this property, and working with the land we have. So our first step was to hack down all the pines, and a few other dead trees, and we will be replacing them with varies fruit trees. So last weekend we had a friend come over, and he cut down 6 trees in the yard. Spent an ENTIRE day chopping up, and dragging 2 trees to the burn pile, because those 2 trees fell onto the farmers lot that he uses to get his tractor into the field, and to be perfectly honest the farmer is quite the royal :evil: Haha. We've had the neighbors helping us with the trees, and are trading their "labor" for whatever amount of wood they want. We're still chopping up trees daily, and STILL have 7 additional trees that need to be cut down, but they need to be pieced out, because some are too close to the power lines, and house, and the last ones, while far away from the house they have a really hard lean towards the house so they would basically fall right in front of the back door, haha.
On top of the trees, and along with choosing to stay where we are my husband threw me some options, it was either in the future we could go by a piece of land with a barn, more land, and trees on it, and have to give up all, but 2 of my rabbits while we lived here, OR I could choose to stay here, and keep ALL my rabbits, but I would need to get a job to start making this place more of what we wanted, and by a temp shed to put my rabbits in since my husband wants them out of the garage. I gave everything a weeks worth of thought, and weighing out all the pros, and cons, and I decided that I do not want to lose my rabbits, or move. We have a beautiful house, and property, and with a bit of work it would be easier, and cheaper to work with what we have. I went, and applied at the gas station literally right up the road from my house, and got hired. It's only part time, and I work 5 to midnight, but it's enough to give us the extra that we need. I got my 3 days of training on the register, and feel like I did quite well. By the second night I was doing almost all of it on my own. The lotto, and lottery still get me though, haha. They are 2 different things, and need to be ran differently. It was not "hard," but more like it's tedious, and there's A LOT to remember. I work tonight, Thursday, and Friday being trained in the kitchen making pizzas, and such.
New additions, and bye byes. I FINALLY got myself a sweet little 8 week old Magpie, and she is to die for!!!!! Love her to death! Her name is Clarabelle. We picked her up Sunday, and so far she is doing great. Along with getting the new bunny I had to say bye bye to one. Not for the need of cage space, but due to illness. Bertha the Lop I had, had been I don't know, different? Since I had gotten her. Bred her 3 times, and she would not take. I had planned to pet her out after the third breeding didn't take. I had started to notice litter things about her health that I was not happy with. 1 being that she had cataracts in one of her eyes, but I could deal with it. I palpated her after the second breeding, and while I did not feel any kits I could feel a lump in her side. She was always a decent size, but it took her 3 whole days to finish a feeder of pellets, and bottle of water. All my other rabbits sucked theirs up in a day. She was also rather laid back. Almost too laid back? She was quite calm, but it more so seemed just overly tired, and unwell? With all that going on I still thought I could work with it. Yesterday while giving the rabbits some love I picked her up out of the cage, and while she did "seem" big still she was pretty boney. A lot more than when I had first got her, and it concerned me, because she had finally started eating a lot more than she did before. While looking over her I noticed her nose was crusty with green, and white crust, and a bit of wet white snot on one nostril. I quickly checked her front paws, and the paw that was on the same side as the snotty nostril was a bit crusty as well. Worried about her, but more so about the health of the rest of my herd I called EnglishSpot, and told her what was going on, and she confirmed what I was thinking. Bertha had to go. I called my husband to tell him, and he said that he was far too busy today to stop, and butcher (working on the trees again!) he said I could call our friends son who helps us when we have a lot to butcher, and I told him that while it was a good idea I just didn't want him to do it. I told him I'll figure something out. After a few minutes of staring at Bertha I decided to do it myself. (This was a first for me.) I gathered all my tools, a gut bucket, bucket of water, and knife. I cleaned off the homemade rabbit wringer, and got Bertha from the garage. I sat with her in the grass for a moment, gave her a hug told her I was sorry, and also thanked her. Getting her into the wringer took a little longer than I would have liked, but when I finally did her get in there I was SO happy with our smoothly, and quickly it went, and also VEEERYYYY happy that I got it in one shot, and did not put her through anymore stress than needed. While I KNOW I got her done on the first try she had harder death throws than I thought she would have. She literally flung herself over my head.
I quickly hung her up, and got to work cleaning her out. Skinning her was very easy came off quickly, and cleanly, but a lot of fat under her skin. That through me off as her feeling SO boney yet so fatty underneath. I got the skin down to the legs, and began to open her up. Boy it was weird in there... 2 bladders... She had these 2 white things with black dots on them. Not sure what that was, but did not see that in the other rabbits we did. Her gallbladder was so greed it was almost black. Liver had 1-2 white spots on it, and while her lungs were a nice pink color they were covered in purple spots. I am usually out with my husband when we butcher, but I had never done it myself, ALONE, or on a sick rabbit so I just describing what I found to be "odd" in hopes you guys can help me maybe figure out what was going on with her.
