 New life Brandie took this shot late in the evening, using her headlight for illumination. The babies (one boy, one girl) are a few hours old at this point.
 Codie, Avalon, and babies Brandie's daughter Codie the next day, holding the twins, as mother Avalon looks on.
The Toggs were bred to one of Brandie's cashmere bucks. He's a solid black, so I suppose that's where their body color comes from. The light-colored stripes down the face and pale feet, though, are pure Toggenburg.
Was just in communication with Brandie from Idlewild Ranch, where my milk does have been bred and wintered. Avalon just gave birth to twins!
Aieeee! I have goat babies! :D
Down in Denver, I got a call from Greg. The gist of it was this:
Um. Your turkey laid an egg, and I don't know what to do.
Like I do? o.O
Apparently, he put the egg in a Rubbermaid bin with some sawdust and put the heat lamp on it, as both turkeys were completely ignoring it. Guess it's time to research homemade incubators! In talking with my friend John, he asked, "What makes you think it's fertile?"
Um . . . the ongoing presence of giant fucking male turkey in the same coop as the female? The obnoxious teenage calling and strutting?
Upon further reflection, it's unlikely that the egg is viable, due to the fact that it's February (and thus still cold and snowy as fuck) and that the hen doesn't seem to have any maternal inclinations whatsoever.
Know what this means?
BREAKFAST!
Turns out, of the three rabbits left in the double-decker cage, one was a female.
I was greeted this morning by the sight of a bunch of rabbit fur and several dead wee ones. They were good-sized, but cold and stiff. Unfortunately, mother rabbits don't sit on their young like hens.
She'd plucked a good-sized bald patch on one of her hindquarters. I'm temped to keep her, because I know she'll at least be a prolific breeder.
So sorry, mamacita. :(
We decided to go ahead and breed the rabbits today. This was partially inspired by coming home and finding one of the juveniles humping his sister. *facepalm*
We pulled the caramel one out to breed and put her in the cage with the other females we were breeding. We turned Thutmose, our buck, in with them, and he promptly went to town. After mating with each of the females (a couple of times each), we pulled him out and put him back in his cage.
A few minutes later, we turned around to find the caramel one busily humping away at Hatasu (a confirmed female). We're not sure what is going on with the caramel one. Dominance? Hermaphrodite?
Whatever the answer, we pulled the caramel one and segregated him/her/it in a cage of its own. I guess we'll know the answer in a month. o.O
When I went outside to take care of the animals, I discovered that one of them, our cinnamon-gray harlequin (as we call her, even though, technically, she's not) had given birth during the night. Into her food dish. There was only one baby--and rather large at that--but it hadn't lived. The mother had unceremoniously chewed off three of its legs (both hind, one front) in vexation. Or something.
Now, here comes the weird part. She's been in a cage, completely alone, for nearly two months. We've shifted her around so she's currently a few inches away from the buck, but I wouldn't think that he'd be that well-endowed.
We did breed that doe and two others . . . back in late August/early September. Gestation is 30-35 days or so. Ovulation is stimulated by breeding, so rabbits catch pretty easily. Nearing the end of their gestation, living quarters for the rabbits were a bit full and harried; none of the does gave birth, and we figured they'd all just been too stressed and had either miscarried or hadn't caught in the first place. We'd given up on young and had been meaning to rebreed them. After all, nearly double the gestation time is a little long, innit?
Maybe we'll name her Mary.
 Hatasu and babies, day 14 Yesterday, checking on the baby rabbits, we noticed that their eyes were juuuust beginning to open. Ridiculously adorable. :) We think Nefertari is continuing to pluck herself bald, which is rather distressing. She looks pretty moth-eaten. Good thing it's summer.
All the adults are loving the fresh grass. Yay, happy bunnies!
We got the four Toggenburgs from Casey today. Two proven milkers, a yearling doe, and a yearling wether. We'll butcher the wether come fall, but looks like we'll be heading into the milk goat biz next year. *facepalm* What are we (I) getting our(my)selves into?
 Erica & Ben Ben came over today, too. He's a big Akbash/Turkish Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. It's been a while since I've seen him, and he's HUGE, even though he's a bit over a year old (I think). Although he's bred as a flock guardian, he's also kind of a big doofus. He likes to lean against people and enjoys having his hips rubbed. He's currently in dire need of a bath and a good brushing.
Unfortunately, he's also barking like hell a lot tonight. Every time Greg or I went to go see him, he'd be fine, nothing there. Ben's gone off several times this evening and I keep going outside to shush him, but it's late and I'm tired. Hopefully, he'll calm down soon.
We're not sure if the mother (Hatasu) caught when we originally bred the rabbits, but the baby (Nefertari) is due any day now. She's made a nest of cardboard scraps and fur, and when Greg brought down some strips of rags, she practically grabbed them from him to add to her nest. It's yucky and wet outside, but they're under shelter and each have a nesting box.
As for timelines . . . When we got home from Denver last week, the mesh between the two halves of the cage had been knocked askew and all the rabbits were running around together. The male, Thutmose, kept chasing Hatasu around and humping her, so if she wasn't bred before, she's bred now!
EDIT: WE HAVE BABY BUNNIES! Nefertari had three (Greg saw them <i>right</i> after they were born) and Hatasu, from what I could tell, had five. Greg is bursting at the seams with pride and excitement, and we have champagne chilling in the freezer. :)
EDIT: Hard to tell how many each has, but it looks like Nefertari had four and Hatasu had six or seven. Sooooooo cute! Each of them has a full-black baby, they all have wee little rings around their eyes, and at least one has the full speckled stripe down its back. We attempted pictures, but the flash whitened everything and panicked the new mamas.
Productive day today. I tilled the garden, including burying shrimp shells and stripped bones left over from stock. Watching the ground steam was a trip and a half. Dumped ashes on top. Greg mucked out the shed and reloaded it. Even with two applications of sunscreen and a hat, my face still wound up red.
We rearranged the rabbit hutches and I nailed backing onto them (feed bags and a vinyl-backed tablecloth) to keep the rabbit urine from eating into, oh, the side of the house. Scooped up all the rabbit poo from under the hutch and pitched it into the compost. Discovered 3-4 baby wasps' nests in the new hutch; promptly cleaned those out. Moved the butchering station to the back of the house near the hose outlet.
Discovered that the old turkey pen had become OMG Lord of the Flies. o.O Seriously. That shit was gnarly as all hell. Decided that we need to get out the flamethrower and bake the fuckers out. That will have to wait for another day, though. In airing out the turkey coops (which, sadly, had not been cleaned since their last inhabitants), I discovered . . . a bucket of feathers, guts, and blood. From Thanksgiving, when the last three turkeys met their match. *sigh* I remember telling Uncle Mark to just chuck the bucket into the coop and we'd deal with it later. Y'know, after it froze. Well, it froze. And then unfroze. I have no idea how much of the fly issue is due to rancid turkey entrails and how much is due to rancid turkey excrement. *hangs head* I did give the contents of the blood bucket a good burial and rinsing, though.
Since we started up the fire pit with the first bonfire of the season, we decided to invite several people over for dinner. About half bailed, meaning that we wound up with the boys: Pete, Kevin, and Casey. The latter two had been trimming horse hooves all day and Casey had been checking on whether or not two of his mares had caught. One of his gloves broke during the process.
For what it's worth, you do not test a mare's fertility by going in vaginally. Nope, it's back-door rectal lovin' all the way, baby! Casey brings up this topic of conversation as we're sitting around the bonfire at dinner, then proceeds to smell his hand. There was also a significant amount of gas passed, and I was the recipient of some serious reverb. *facepalm*
But hey! This wasn't just dinner--it was dinner and a SHOW. Utilizing the bed of Kevin and Casey's pickup, we chucked the rabbits in the back and watched 'em fuck. Errr . . . "breed," that is. Casey had mentioned earlier that in his 4-H childhood he had bred rabbits; without knowing the ins and outs (so to speak) of reproduction, he noted that rabbits breeding smelled like French toast.
Yeah, I know.
There were plenty of jokes made about French toast, getting pregnant from sex in the back seat, and much cheering on of the rabbits. The male (Thutmose) is perhaps a bit dense, as he kept aiming for Hatasu's head, or side, or back, or anywhere that wouldn't do any good. He did successfully nail his daughter, the younger rabbit, two or three times.
Finally, at the end of the rabbit lovin', Thutmose curled up next to Hatasu and flopped down. (There were jokes made there, too, but Pete did point out that the rabbit had come something like seven times in the last twelve minutes, so we gave him a break.) I climbed into the back of the truck to fetch out the rabbits and wound up with a damp wrist for my troubles. Casey sniffed it in order to discern whether or not it truly smelled of French toast. (The answer, for those of you breathlessly awaiting, was No.)
We rounded out the night back in front of the bonfire again. Greg tossed a few remnants of snow on top to tamp it out, and we all went our separate ways. I sent leftovers home with Kevin and Casey, gave Pete's greyhound a farewell ear-tousle, and cleaned up from dinner.
A good beginning to spring, methinks. :)
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