A Treat for the Bunnies

It's only about two months past when I should've pruned my fruit trees and the muscadines, so it's time to get going on that task.  Ahem.  At any rate, this year I have a potential use for the small branches taken out in pruning: rabbits like them.

 Although my New Zealand doe doesn't look terribly impressed with the offering, she did eventually gnaw it pretty thoroughly.  Shown below are a couple of freshly-cut sticks with one that has been debarked.

I do spray my fruit trees with a variety of things, but this season all they've gotten is one dose of copper (they're due for another), and I've gotten about three inches of rain since I sprayed the first time.  So I figured it probably wouldn't hurt them to give them a treat. I have also given them some dandelion leaves, which they like (I don't spray the grass at all).

Other than that, they're still on hay and pellets.  It seems to be working well.

The End of Psycho

 As I mentioned a few months ago, my Barred Rock rooster was not behaving well.  Things continued to deteriorate with him to the point that holding him down brought no improvement at all; he'd come at me in another day or two again.  Two things made me finally pull the plug:  The first was the realization that I didn't want to propagate his bloodline (Joel Salatin, in his new book, makes it clear that animals with behavioral problems have to be culled to get improvement in whatever you're breeding).  The second (and probably decisive) element was the attack at my face that left me bleeding in several places.  Yes, I should've been more wary around him, and yes, the injuries overall were relatively minor.  But still.  I was kneeling on the ground refilling their feeder, and he came around and hit me from above and the side.  So he truly had to go.

Ultimately, the destiny of all of them is the freezer.  He just got there a little sooner than he would have otherwise.

Shown below are the breast meat fillets:

The one on the bottom is from Tyson--it's a Cornish Cross breast, so is larger, but the color difference is striking. 

The rooster was about 18 months old, so the meat was a little firm, but not objectionably so.  The Tyson breast, coming from a chicken that was about eight weeks old.  It was definitely more tender.

I processed him on a Sunday, breaking the meat down right away.  It sat in the refrigerator for a couple of days before being frozen for another few days before baking.  That should have been enough time for any post-death rigor mortis to subside. So I'm assuming the not-entirely-tender quality of the breast meat was due to age alone. However, as I do more, I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Tractor Modification Update

 As discussed in an earlier post, I made some changes to the tractor design for the second build, which is still occupied by the second group of Barred Rock birds. The main thing I was trying to accomplish was lowering the nesting boxes so that they would be lower than the roosting bars.  I hoped this would avoid the problem that developed with the first tractor, in which the chickens roosted in the nesting boxes and laid on the ground underneath the boxes.  Lowering the boxes greatly complicated the build, but last year it seemed to work reasonably well at getting the birds to lay in the boxes rather than sleep--after an initial period of them laying on the ground.

Well... this year while they have been parked, they have fallen into the same habits the first group of chickens acquired.  They're laying on the ground (again) and roosting in the boxes.  This is what I'm finding daily:

The egg in the picture is a fake one, providing a hint that is not being taken (at least for now).  I'm hopeful that this is more a product of the tractors being parked, with the resulting hay inside, that is making a little nest area at the back on the ground more attractive than the boxes.  Once I started rolling last year, the birds soon moved to the nesting boxes for their egg-laying and all was well.  I hope that happens this year, because there's no room for a nesting box under the existing nesting boxes in the new tractor--unless I cut one down.  At this point, I'd say my design modification was not worth the effort and I wouldn't do it again.  Ah well.

Meanwhile, the Delawares in Tractor 1 are mostly laying on the ground, but I've found a couple of eggs in the boxes--and not much poop.  So there is some hope.

 Update:  both tractors are rolling again, as the grass is greening and the winter weeds are abundant.  Both groups are laying in the boxes more often now, but the Delawares are still laying one or two on the ground every day.

The Delawares Are Laying

The Delawares hatched in late September (as did the Barred Rocks, a year before).  In early January, the rooster started crowing (same time frame as the Barred Rock rooster, Psycho, in 2021).  The Barred Rocks started laying in mid-February last year (which surprised me; I wasn't looking for eggs so soon).

The same thing has now happened with the Delawares--also in mid-February.  As with the Barred Rocks last year, the first eggs have been small.

 

In the picture, an egg from the Barred Rocks is on the left, and the rest are from the Delawares.  As happened last year, I expect the egg sizes to gradually increase.  Even though they're small, they're fertile:

The white spots on the yolks show that.  So the rooster is doing his job.  I'm not hatching any out now, but that may come at some point.  For now, it's nice to be getting eggs in quantity again.

Cardinals in Heat

 The seasons progress.  Although it is still winter--trees are still dormant and it was 18 two weeks ago, the daffodils are up (though not blooming yet) and we're entering a sort of peri-spring period. The roads are covered with dead skunks--they mate mid-January to mid-February--and squirrels have been getting active.

Another early-season mating period is apparently that of the cardinal.  For the last couple of weeks, I've noticed a bird fluttering around the mirrors on my truck, and then I noticed this:

Somebody has been spending an awful lot of time on my front bumper.  I then started to pay attention and saw the cardinal (or maybe there's more than one) flying away from the front of the truck every time I walked nearby.

The picture isn't the greatest--massively digitally zoomed and through a not-so-clean window--but you get the idea.  He's seeing himself in the chrome and in the mirrors and fighting his own reflection, trying to drive the presumed rival male out of his territory.  Not surprisingly, this hapless soul doesn't have a female with him--which is doubtless part of the frustration.

All birds apparently are prone to this, and the impact of a mirror on a male betta fish is well-known.  Cardinals may be more susceptible than most other birds.  There are plenty of pictures online of the phenomenon.  Hopefully this soon passes--then we'll be progressing to male woodpeckers and carpenter bees.

Hay, Bunny!

 As is generally recommended, my rabbits are getting pellets and hay.  Although websites usually mention Timothy hay as the most preferred, that's pretty pricey (Tractor Supply sells a 50-pound bale for $23.99 as of this writing).  Bermuda and alfalfa hay are more available.  The link above suggests that rabbits don't like Bermuda grass as much, but the nutrition profile of Bermuda and Timothy are essentially identical (see Table 1 of the linked PDF). One note is that alfalfa hay has more calcium and is usually contraindicated for rabbits in most articles I've read (e.g., this one). This is not a problem; alfalfa costs more.  On Craigslist, alfalfa bales are usually about twice the price of Bermuda, which are the only two readily-available options other than the prepackaged and expen$ive route from a Tractor Supply or similar store.

When I got rabbits, the only hay I had on hand was some Bermuda bales from the previous winter--I park the chicken tractors in late November and don't move them again until March.  I tossed some in the cages and the rabbits immediately began nibbling at it.  They may prefer Timothy to Bermuda, but they seem to go for Bermuda with enthusiasm nonetheless.

I'm not sure exactly how much they actually eat vs. lose through the wire bottoms of their cages.  Some people have built little hay racks in their cages, but I just dump a bunch on the floor of the cage.  Sometimes there's still some left the next day; sometimes not.  Some of the rabbits seem to get into playing with it:

In the foreground is the red New Zeland buck; the TAMUK buck is in the background.  The one in front often burrows into the hay as soon as I put it in his cage--but he eats it, too.  Tossing his hay around though is bound to make more fall through. Alas.  He has gained weight very well, and rapidly, so he's getting enough to eat one way or another.

Snow, 2022

 It happens sometimes.  The mountain counties probably get snow every winter, but elsewhere, it's not an every-winter thing.  I got snow in mid-January this year for the first time since February, 2020. 

The total amount of snow was probably around three inches, but there was rain in between two bouts of snow, so the amount at the end of it all was less.

Southern lore holds that if the snow stays on the ground three days, another snowfall will occur soon--and it did, sort of.  I got a few flurries about a week later, but there was minimal accumulation.  The cold is not done for the year, although the snow may be / probably is.  Although snow is possible into early March, that is very rare.  March is early spring around here.