The Boys Club
Well, we’ve caught the livestock bug. Now that we’ve gotten a taste for it we decided we needed to add even more to our family. Starting with rabbits.
Do we have any business raising rabbits? Probably not but we figured we should give it a try. We found a guy over in the nearby town with several California rabbits for decent price so one day after work we loaded up and headed over to pick two out. We got a buck and a doe and brought them home. We used our old covered dog kennel as a exterior fence and then set up two rabbit cages on a table in the middle. They seemed cozy as could be so we let them relax for a little while before attempting to breed them. The first breeding attempt was very stressful and unsuccessful. The doe tried to castrate the buck and he was terrified so we quickly separated them and waited a while before trying again. The second time they didn’t even acknowledge each other so we are slightly concerned they wont turn out but that wont be too big of a deal. We’ve got plenty more to keep us busy.
Like the goats. We decided it was time to get a billy goat. It has been long enough that if our girls were pregnant they would be showing and so far they have not given any indication they could be pregnant. Thus we decided to add a buck to the goat pen. Ironically enough when we started looking there just happened to be a Nigerian Dwarf buck literally right down the road. We had already decided that was the kind of buck we wanted as they are good crosses with Nubians and Alpines for milk quality so we loaded up a large dog kennel and drove one minute down the road to get him. He is a nice fawn color with dark ridges and lovely curled back horns. The owners had used him for showing and breeding which he managed to do several times. He seemed like a great fit for our farm so we brought him home and put him in the pen. For the first night we put the lady goats in the electric netting with the sheep so that he could get accumstomed to his new surroundings without everyone feeling threatened. Turned out to be a completely pointless endeavor though as he managed to get out of the permanent fence, unplug the electric fence, and get in with the girls and sheep. We found them all chilling together the next morning so guess they got acquainted quickly. We then moved the three goatmigos into the perma-fence and left the sheep in their electric netting.
Next our focus shifted to the pigs. Our sweet Kitty Wells and Mrs. Stella have grown up rather nicely. We had them over at Kristen and Steven’s but once the ground in their yard was basically all mud we decided to move them onto the ranch and give theirs a break. At first we put them where the garden was but they managed to increase the disarray in that area even more and then when a torrential downpour came the whole area flooded over a foot deep so we quickly moved them to a higher part of the yard over by the barn. They seemed to like this area decently well and didn’t do as much damage to it as the other locations. We did however notice Mrs. Stella starting to get a cough and acting a bit lethargic so we gave her some medicine and wormed them both. After a couple days she was back on her hooves and going about her business as normal. With her recovery and their new location we decided it was time to bring them in a boyfriend.
We found a farm a couple hours away who specialize in breeding registered Kune Kune hogs and have maintained several different bloodlines. They still had one boar from their May 2022 litter which lines up nicely with our females ages so we jumped on the opportunity to buy him. We loaded up the dog kennel yet again and hit the road for a two and a half hour drive there. Once we got there we saw they have a beautifully organized operation and several Kune Kune boars and sows and even some new babies. It was so neat to see all the different color combinations and how large the parents had gotten to gauge our future boars size. We met the little guy we would be bringing home with us and he was even more handsome in person. Long vibrant red fur with black spots dotting his sides and eyelashes that would make any girl jealous. He laid down for us to give him some scratches before we filled out the registration paperwork and loaded him up for the long drive home. Once home we got him into the netting with the ladies which we had doubled the size of to give them more room and he immediately went and buried himself in the little house we have for them. Guess he will take a little time to get used to his new home but we think he makes a fabulous edition to the ranch.
Next week we’ve got big plans of the sheep kind!