Year of the Water Rabbit 2023

[Heartbased Homestead]

Hi rabbit folk! My name is Renee, I am the matriarch of a millennial family with three gen alpha children and a husband who supports us so I can waste more time taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy. Half traditional, half trend setter; almost no one approves yet almost everyone follows suit eventually. Such is life, other's validation usually means you're playing too small anyways.

I've been planning for meat rabbits since last year. Had a few pet rabbits in my childhood, always a pleasure to deal with such gentle, loving, and easy creatures. In many ways, they must be the perfect livestock. But I know nothing, I've never done any other husbandry before. When I had pet rabbits I had mini lops, for a few years I had 2 in an outdoor hutch with a hedgehog! They got along surprisingly well, and it was very much a source of therapy for me to nurture those sweetie pies and see them nurture each other across species. Now that I'm in my adulthood, pets are a luxury I can't afford - not in this economy with a young family, anyway - and I haven't issue with dispatching and cooking these childhood favorites (Cali's rather than lops this time). The kids don't seem too worried about it either, we watched many dispatches and cleanings online, and the first handful were difficult but now we are weathered to the idea.

I cleaned our first chicken as they watched (they wanted to) but without a plucker we had to skin it. Removing the skin on an old chicken - whew. Our PTSD is healed now (I kid) and we have a bit of mental callouses developed. I know rabbits are easier to skin, and I plan on doing strictly fryers so it should be simpler too. We got the chickens to go with the rabbits and make it cleaner, they do well together but I wish I would've down about the different chicken breeds being lower on the pecking order, the low pecking order breeds work smoother in a rabbit colony.

Anyways! I can't wait to post my colony build, it's one of those cattle panel greenhouses and I'm so pleased with how well it held up in mountain snow and wind. I video'd a lot of the production so I could condense it in a youtube short, but yall can search 'cattle panel greenhouse' to get the idea for set up, then build it out as you would a normal rabbit colony with wired bottom and a shade. So simple and cheap, really good option to consider for a colony.

OK well this is enough for now. I'm excited to be a part of this community and meet y'all! Thanks for being here at the start of my journey ♥

 

[Alaska Satin]

Hi rabbit folk! My name is Renee, I am the matriarch of a millennial family with three gen alpha children and a husband who supports us so I can waste more time taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy. Half traditional, half trend setter; almost no one approves yet almost everyone follows suit eventually. Such is life, other's validation usually means you're playing too small anyways.

I've been planning for meat rabbits since last year. Had a few pet rabbits in my childhood, always a pleasure to deal with such gentle, loving, and easy creatures. In many ways, they must be the perfect livestock. But I know nothing, I've never done any other husbandry before. When I had pet rabbits I had mini lops, for a few years I had 2 in an outdoor hutch with a hedgehog! They got along surprisingly well, and it was very much a source of therapy for me to nurture those sweetie pies and see them nurture each other across species. Now that I'm in my adulthood, pets are a luxury I can't afford - not in this economy with a young family, anyway - and I haven't issue with dispatching and cooking these childhood favorites (Cali's rather than lops this time). The kids don't seem too worried about it either, we watched many dispatches and cleanings online, and the first handful were difficult but now we are weathered to the idea.

I cleaned our first chicken as they watched (they wanted to) but without a plucker we had to skin it. Removing the skin on an old chicken - whew. Our PTSD is healed now (I kid) and we have a bit of mental callouses developed. I know rabbits are easier to skin, and I plan on doing strictly fryers so it should be simpler too. We got the chickens to go with the rabbits and make it cleaner, they do well together but I wish I would've down about the different chicken breeds being lower on the pecking order, the low pecking order breeds work smoother in a rabbit colony.

Anyways! I can't wait to post my colony build, it's one of those cattle panel greenhouses and I'm so pleased with how well it held up in mountain snow and wind. I video'd a lot of the production so I could condense it in a youtube short, but yall can search 'cattle panel greenhouse' to get the idea for set up, then build it out as you would a normal rabbit colony with wired bottom and a shade. So simple and cheap, really good option to consider for a colony.

OK well this is enough for now. I'm excited to be a part of this community and meet y'all! Thanks for being here at the start of my journey ♥

Welcome! Your start-up story sounds similar to our family's. Although I have always been knee-deep in any animals I could get away with having, it was raising/showing/training but no harvesting. (Childhood in San Diego, CA, so the goat kid in the city only lasted for a few days! )

Same experience here when we began raising rabbits for meat 13 years ago. I figured I'd just process and pressure can it while all the little ones were in bed and call it "meat," but it turned out that the kids were just fine with eating rabbit once we established for my 4-year-old daughter that we weren't going to be eating "babies!" Emotionally healthy kids are a lot less fragile than we sometimes give them credit for. Like yours, they were always interested in the butchering process. (Not so much the dispatch; not sure if it was necessary, but when they were young I usually made them wait till my husband was done with that before letting them watch the "disassembly.") Surely these kids know a lot more about avian and mammal internal anatomy and physiology than most. (We homeschool, so everything's a "teaching moment!")

That's really interesting about the chicken breeds natural dominance affecting how well they get along with cohabitating rabbits. Never would have occurred to me either, but now that you say it, it makes perfect sense!

 

[Heartbased Homestead]

turned out that the kids were just fine with eating rabbit once we established for my 4-year-old daughter that we weren't going to be eating "babies!" Emotionally healthy kids are a lot less fragile than we sometimes give them credit for

I guess my post never went through. Sorry for the extremely late reply!

Yes you hit the nail on the head. The helicopter parenting has crippled kids, neither will I participate in the opposite - which was my parents' method - hands-off authoritarian. They seemingly expected us to be emotionally healthy while remaining fragile themselves Parentification/enmeshment to the max combined with neglect. Ugh!

I don't mind though because I was able to see all sides and find a balanced middle of authoritative and benign neglect. I take care to not coddle their feelings nor project helplessness onto them, at the same time I try to remain open and accepting if they are having a struggle, just enough to help them to sit with the emotion and discomfort while providing loving support to work their own way through it. It's a rough balance, isn't it? And I fail often, while authentically apologizing and getting back up on the parenting horse.

This comment absolutely made my day when I first read it months ago! One more apology for not giving it the deserved attention.

Oh and about the chickens (pardon the formating, on mobile):
"That's really interesting about the chicken breeds natural dominance affecting how well they get along with cohabitating rabbits. Never would have occurred to me either, but now that you say it, it makes perfect sense!"

I almost want to take it back! As my supposedly "low pecking order" breeds are running the show and they're technically still pullets. Had to take the chickens out of the rabbit coop a while back since we had so many newlings running around. Every time I put them back in they have to reestablish a pecking order and it's a mess. I'm working on a new system right now but we'll see if I can continue to make this work! I'll update

 

[ladysown]

welcome, you sound like a fascinating member to add to our small family here.