Livestock New chickens

Faroe

Un-spun
Opened a new bag of rabbit kibble about 4 days ago. Bunnies weren't eating much of it - I also feed hay, so noticed the somewhat neglected bowls, but wasn't alarmed. My oldest of several years died 2 days ago, and this morning I walked in to find three dead rabbits. I'm not saying it's the food, but I think it's the food. The dead rabbits had finished the kibble. FYI: We feed/fed Purina Show Rabbit. I'm now down to one doe and two bucks. Took all the food bowls out of the walk-in pens, and gave my best hay. The three left ate that.

With two pens empty, I went straight to the neighbor's. He has chickens for sale. Returned home with five mostly grown pullets for $17.
We go through a lot of eggs. These pullets will start producing around the time that the usual Spring flush ends.

I'll miss those rabbits.
 

TxGal

Day by day
That's a great price for pullets that age, at least around here. We use a lot of eggs, too.

Odd about the rabbits....Martinhouse has been looking for rabbits, they're getting harder to find it seems....
 

Faroe

Un-spun
Yes, it is a good price. Would have been perfectly happy with just two. I wasn't expecting a "deal," but we trade back and forth with this particular neighbor.

Rabbits do seem to be harder to find. Not sure why. Maybe the butchering? I've butchered plenty. We like rabbit meat, but it never gets easier, I'm always fond of them. After hauling those bodies out to the compost bin, I wanted at least one pen filled with *something* - Just too depressing to pass that empty pen multiple times a day.

Eggs are the easiest protein to harvest. I held back from selling the pecans this year, so we have mucho buckets of pecans to crush for the chickens. They love those. Even if chicken feed becomes unavailable (or gets lethally tainted with cheap substitutes) I can still get the birds some nutrition.
 

jward

passin' thru
Sorry bout the rabbits, Faroe. That stinks. We've not had any available at the farm storm, but I hadn't thought to ask anyone why.
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
It could have been a virus they contracted... you should have opened one or two up to check their livers, white spots means that they have that rabbit fever that's contagious to humans. My dad had to kill close to 50 rabbits one year as half died within a two day period. My grandfather was a champion rabbit breeder, he came out they opened one up and said to kill them all, dad even burned the hutches (wood/wire combo). It was very sad.
 
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