Baby bunnies!
We bred our New Zealand white rabbits on September 23, 2018 with hopes that the end of October we would have some new baby bunnies.
We had no idea what we were doing, I was holding the rabbit book reading out loud to Darrick as he placed our doe in the bucks cage. The doe has been a feisty one. We had no idea a rabbit could be aggressive, lunging and biting even when we tried to put food and water in her cage so getting her out of the cage, into the bucks cage, was no easy task. A helpful hint: wear thick gloves when handling feisty rabbits.
The book said the doe should be submissive, raise her tail, and let the buck mount her. That wasn’t the case as she scratched at him, lunged, and ran in circles around him in the cage. We let the buck mount her 3 times like the book said and got her out. That night Darrick did the second breeding by himself as we had guests over.
During her pregnancy she really calmed down. She let us touch her, no longer lunging or biting, even coming to the cage door to greet us. This is a picture of a very pregnant Gloria just days away from having her kits.
On October 24th she got feisty again and started lunging, but she was also carrying straw around in her mouth. According to the book it sounds like she was getting ready to have her babies!
October 25th was a wet rainy day and Bee and I went outside to check on them and our doe had pulled out her hair into the nest and she was acting very friendly again. The hair in the nest was moving so I peeked under and there were 3 tiny babies squirming around. We are rabbit breeders!
Some things we learned in this process is…
*If a mom rabbit smells human on her babies, she may kill them. Don’t touch the kits.
*A mother rabbit builds a nest by pulling out her hair and hiding the babies in it. A female rabbit has extra skin and hair called a dewlap under her chin for nesting purposes.
* A mother rabbit leaves her babies alone all day and will only feed them in the dark of night 1-2 times a day. This is to avoid drawing attention to predators.
*Kits will start growing fur about day three, open their eyes at day 10, and jump out of the nest box at day 16.
We are so excited to begin this journey of raising baby rabbits. It’s just proof to us that we, a pair of city folks, CAN do this. It’s such a big accomplishment for us. We will keep you updated on the baby bunnies as they grow. Thank you for following us and if you have any rabbit questions post in the comments and we will do our best to answer.
God bless,
Darrick and Kay
Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.
Genesis 8:17
We have rabbits!
We’ve planted the garden, but getting our first Homestead animals has been the biggest step for us to having the life we dreamed of. We decided on rabbits over chickens as our first animals because they require less space (as we don’t have a barn yet) and we would be keeping them in the shed until a more permanent structure is built.
We researched, talked to breeders in our area, and spent weeks discussing the best breed for us and decided on New Zealand’s for their meat and fur. We found a reputable breeder close to us who uses his rabbits for meat and show. We also discovered we liked the breed champagne de’argent (grey) because their fur is incredibly soft. In the end we decided to get two white New Zealand’s and two champagne’s to start with, with the idea of adding black New Zealand’s at a later date. A big undertaking for us since the most we’ve owned is a dog or a cat and know nothing about rabbits.
We also had no clue how expensive getting rabbits would be either. The cage, nesting boxes, food, water bottles, hay, all the way to nail clippers. It all adds up. Plus, my wonderful husband built the permanent outdoor hutch and the cost for lumber, roofing, and siding adds into that as well, we will release a post on the hutch coming soon. The rabbits themselves are also pedigree rabbits so they were a pretty penny per bunny. Start up costs are not cheap so buy quality stuff that you know will last and be worth it.
We are planning on evening out the start up costs with the long term investment with the meat we will get from them, keeping the best breeding stock, and selling the kits as meat or show rabbits. We had looked into doing pelts, but found that process to be an undertaking we aren’t quite ready for yet.
We allowed Bee to name one rabbit as she will be our breeding doe “Gloria” and will be kept longer. We don’t plan on naming the rest but we will see. In the end, we all know that the rabbits are for meat so although we take care of them daily, we try to keep our attachments to a minimum and remind ourselves that they are animals we will use.
So far Bee has done really well with the idea, is open to talking about it to others, and understanding that they are not pets.
It is an adventure and we will learn a lot in this process as we shift from city folk to country folk. We will make mistakes, the google machine will be our best friend, but in the end- we know we have this and we will succeed.
God bless,
Darrick and Kay
The righteous care for the needs of their animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
Proverbs 12:10
God’s masterpiece: a blank canvas
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the beautiful future home of our tree orchard, berry orchard, and our garden plot.
It doesn’t look like much, but to us it is a dream come true. A land of possibilities just waiting for us to start working it. We’ve spent a lot of time walking this area, planning it out, drawing it up, and are excited to start our dream.
In this blank canvas we plan on having an apple tree orchard, berry orchard, a small corn field, and large variety of vegetables. We question ourselves daily if we are doing too much, we probably are for our first year, but in the end we want to see what will work and what won’t so a large variety gives us a lot to work with. As we expand further we would like to add various berry bushes, grapes, and refine our crop varieties to our favorites.
On the other side of the field we will build a barn. We’ve discussed cows, rabbits, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and ducks but we will be going over the discussion figuring out which animals will work best for us. We want to get animals with the intention of using them for meat, eggs, fiber, and milk but cost, health, and time each animal needs will be weighed into the final decision. We will keep you updated as we get further into our dream come true. It will be a lot of work, but so worth it in the end. It is only the beginning!
God bless,
Darrick and Kay
Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.
Proverbs 12:11
Spring 2018
Spring has sprung…finally!
This winter was a long one. With apple trees in a garbage bin and newly sprouting plants we witnessed over a foot of snow dump onto our nearly melted land.
April 2nd our apple trees came in the mail. Better yet there was so much snow the mailman dropped it off at the bottom of our driveway (which is about 1/4 of a mile long) so I got all bundled up, grabbed a sled, and went to fetch the trees that we hoped hadn’t frozen. It was a month before we could plant anything with hopes that the ground would thaw in time so we called the nursery and asked what to do. They suggested we plant them in a large pot and put them in an unheated basement to keep them dormant.
April 15 we planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet peppers, luffa, and eggplant seeds in some little indoor planters. I also got my lavender planted in several small pots.
The next week we had planned to leave on vacation so we figured out how to rig up a self watering planter for the lavender.
During our vacation we all came down with a cold and came home early. Kay made some pine needle tea (packed with vitamin C) and a few other cold recipes she threw together. We will get a post on those too so you can check them out.
Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.
Hosea 6:3
Intro
Hello everyone and welcome to our blog!
Our story starts as two city folks dreaming of more than city traffic and green lawns that don’t grow anything but weeds. God knew our dreams and set in His ways to bring us together. After getting married, we bought our dream property with some land in the upper midwest, and started our little family. We are Darrick and Kay: City Folk Goin’ Country.
We are strong believers in God and in all aspects of our lives pray for His will for us. He has given us many blessings, including but not limited to, our children, home, family and friends that love and support us in every crazy adventure we choose to take on!
We have two wonderful children: Bee who is eight, and Jr. who is, at the time of this post, six months old. We homeschool and love the family time we get together everyday.
We both have many hobbies, and many more we are looking to learn. We both love gardening, being outside, hiking, and swimming. Kay loves doing various crafts like crochet, sewing, cooking, cleaning, planning and organizing. Darrick loves everything to do with hunting, fishing, and has a great love of big trees (we have several on our land we can feature in a future post). We are interested in learning more about self-sustainable living, financial freedom, and giving more to God through missionaries and raising our children to do the same.
Our future garden and orchard
Our goal of this blog is to connect with other homesteaders, to learn from those who’ve gone before us, and someday teach those who dream of homesteading too. It is also a way to connect to family and for us to be able to go back and see our family and dreams grow and take fruit (no pun intended, maybe).
Thank you for joining us on this journey,
God bless,
Darrick and Kay
This month shall be into you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you.
-Exodus 12:2
cityfolkgoincountry.com 