Down to zero

This morning I got up to feed my remaining baby bunny and now he wasn't eating well.  Acting very similar to the listless bunny yesterday, he managed to get a little milk down, but definitely not enough to sustain him.  Doing the best I could I put him back in his makeshift home.  We had errands to run all day today, but as soon as got home, Dan checked on him to find him dead.  Poor little thing!  I'm so sad to have lost all of D4's bunnies - especially the two I tried to save, but at least I can say I tried, right?  I supposed this is something I'll have to get used to with breeding and raising animals.  At the moment though, I don't have to like it.

Down to 1

This morning one of the baby bunnies at well, but the other didn't and seemed listless.  I tried feeding her again around 1pm, but didn't have much luck.  I went back in the evening to feed them both again, to find my listless bunny dead.  Sigh. 

It wasn't a surprise, but dang, that didn't take very long.  At least I feel a little better knowing she had a more peaceful death than if she had remained with D4.

Egg count

Eggs this week... large: 30, small 88 = 118

More bunny drama

This morning we woke up to only 2 bunnies.  Sometime during the night another disappeared.  By this point, we can only assume that D4 is rejecting some or all of the bunnies and taking them out of the nest box.  Baby bunnies by nature crawl aimlessly (not a surprise since they're born blind and deaf), so we can only assume it crawled out of momma's cage and fell onto the ground.  From there it's only a matter of time until a critter carries it off for dinner.  So anyway, we're down to 2.  Later I go back out and find a baby not only out of the box again, dangling 3/4 of the way out of the cage.  It's only saving grace was that it was wedged between the hutch fan and the wall.  I freed it and tried putting it back with momma.  At this, she immediately started clawing at the two bunnies.  I figured they had no chance with her, so I quickly yanked them out, made a home for them in a tub and went inside to do some quick research on how to care for orphaned baby bunnies.

After doing some research, I fed the babies some milk with a dropper.  Everything I read said the babies had little to no chance of survival, but at least they won't be clawed to death or eaten by a wild animal.

Again, we shall see.....

D4 - Not a good momma

This morning bunny doe D4 had a baby in her nest box.  Just one though; quite strange for a rabbit.  I went back out a few hours later and there was another.  A few hours later, another.  And again, a few hours later another.  This time though one of the babies was out of the nest box.  There is no earthly way the baby could have gotten out on it's own, so momma had to have taken it out.  I put the baby back in and headed back inside.  A few hours later I came back out, but there was only 3 bunnies!  What in the world happened to the fourth?  I searched the ground, but found nothing.  A little while later, I found a baby outside the nest box again.  Still confused, we went to bed with only 3 bunnies accounted for.

We will wait and see...

Egg count

Egg count for the first 3 days of July... large: 10, small: 37 = 47

Busy day for birds

We received our latest batch of broilers today.  I'm amazed each time we get baby chicks in as to how small they start out and how quickly they grow.  We'll have another butchering day about 8 weeks from now.

The chicks arrival also means it's time for the turkeys to come out of the brooder.  We clipped their wings so they can't fly as high - hopefully this will keep them on our property.  We opened the brooder and figured we would let them discover how to to get out on their own.  Several hours later, only a few figured it out.  If by tomorrow morning, they all aren't out, we'll give them a helping hand so we can clean up and move the chicks and the hover in.  Should make for a busy day.