So glad to see your process. Well taught. I am continually amazed at how hard your family works to maintain your lifestyle and you show your experience and joy of the process. Thank you for sharing!
In some countries of Africa fermented rabbit urine is sold expensive in bottles for successful plant protection and fertilization. The farmers have special rabbit Cages for harvesting the urine. Happy New year to you and your family.
Oh how interesting. I would really love to try some other ways of keeping the rabbits....there is one method where the rabbit cages are built into an insulated hill so that they can get out of heat and cold. I would LOVE to do that, I just don't know if it would be safe from predators and bugs. Still trying to work it out in my brain.
Something I don't think people understand about cages and meat rabbits are that they are bred to thrive in a cage. Their feet are super padded with coarse fur. Of course you want to give them a place to rest their feet but they are fine. Your farm is just great. Wonderful inventive ideas you have that really help those who want to be sustainable and save money 🥰
Julie What was not clear to me is why the beds you put the cages over would not off gas. Does it have to do with the wuantity of material in the bed, Or perhaps the constituents? Thank you for the info. Love your vids!
The beds don't offgas because they are full of carbon. Lots and lots of junk wood, cardboard, paper, and spend hay bedding from the goats. The carbon soaks it all up and then when I water it in that is when it heats up and starts to create ammonia. None of it smells or attracts flies because of how much carbon I have in it.
Isn't that funny? I love your videos, you are always so kind, it makes me want to be a more patient person and slow down to smell the flowers (or mushrooms!)
@@dirtpatcheaven it seems your that way on your videos Im not patient all the time but my children are in their 20s so i have the time waiting for grandchildren and kinda spoil the baby animals:) Much love xoxox your doing a great job thanks for the support it means alot
You know that is my goal, I am trying to just get information out there and not make it too fancy or story-like to be able to do it at your own property. Glad you noticed!
After seeing how you have been working with the hotbeds, I'm looking at where I might be able to incorporate one in my garden to try since I am also in Zone 4. One thing that might help you with getting the metal roofing at a lower cost is to see if a local roofing company near you ever does an end of the year clearance of odds and ends leftovers from jobs they did that year. I saw a company advertise that on Craigslist one year where I lived in Montana and it seemed pretty reasonably priced if you weren't picky about size or color, which for the inside of a hot bed wouldn't really matter I would think. Looking forward to more from you!!
Great idea! It is $20 a sheet for second or defective sheet metal at our local roofer. I know that our local dump in Idaho Falls has a sorting systems and if people want to go and sort through it you can get roofing there too!
Love your videos. Lots of work in those beds. Fabulous kids to help you like they do. God Bless you all and Happy New Year! Been a while since I saw your channel. Peace!
Very key info at 13:00-13:20 about contamination by any other animals. I didn’t realize that. I think I’ll just do as you are now with the cages on lath. Love your channel and family! I hope to get back to building the second raised, hot bed. I have all of the materials just no time. Still trying to finish drywalling inside my very cluttered tiny house before the freezing weather comes tomorrow night. Wish I had a rocket mass heater, but just have a space heater for now. I have the rabbit cages in an old horse shed. I raised them by driving in t-posts and zip ties. This works great! Someday I’ll have quite a lot of very old horse manure and rabbit pooh to shovel out for the hot beds. Sure wish I had assistants like you, they’re fantastic and have great work ethics. Clearly, they have great parents and are well-raised. My compliments for that, too.
I think the t-posts as stands for the cages works well too. My first cages back in 2012 were done that way, not pretty but nothing I do is very concerned about pretty is it? I will pray that you get your drywall finished! Would love to see pictures when it is done! Yes, my assistant are pretty great, they can run the farm without me and that is a huge blessing!
Love your setup. A lot of work but we’ll worth it 👍. And again just love your hat !! It must take you forever to make one…. From spinning to actual finish. Maybe when I get to a point where I can crochet again I might give it a try 🤪. Comprehend things is one result of my TBI. Have a wonderful day 🥰. 👵🏻👩🌾❣️
Thank you! I think my husband would call them crazy innovations....usually I get them right the third time I make them so 2024 should be epic with these little greenhouses!
@@dirtpatcheaven Love to see more videos! :) I will watch your videos till maybe all of us get old! I got to say that watching your videos and listening to you is a best way to find calm and inner peace. I like how you seem always in control of whatever challenges and patient and resourceful, I think resourcefulness is so so important in today's world.
I love this idea!! I have learned a lot from your channel already, and appreciate the knowledge. Side note, where did you purchase your hat? In love with it.
I spun, knit, and felted this hat to keep our freezing wind out of my ears in the winter. The wool is Romney. The pattern is from the book 'Hattitude' by Cathy Carron. The Little Red Hiding Hood pattern.
Something I've started thinking about but won't be able to try due to other pressing projects (building our house) - we often see cast off washers/dryers/stoves at a county collection area for metals. I think the housings would make great free sheet metal. The guts can be taken back to the collection area or sold for scrap. If you can find a source, you might have the solutions to walls for rabbit proof, deep, self-heating bins.
I am continually fascinated with your hotbeds and the process. How low does the soil level get after a season or two? Do you every mine the bottom layers for good compost to use elsewhere in the garden when a hotbed had broken down completely?
Me too, it never gets old to see the magic of steam in freezing weather. The soil level drops about a foot over the course of the growing season from March to November. I have taken the guts out of an old hotbed and used it as the planting medium on the top for a new bed. It worked great. The problem is that they beds last so long that it takes years before one of the beds falls apart enough that I need to take it apart and start over. As long as the wood frame is lined well and doesn't get wet when you water the plants they just won't die.
Great video. I love the process you are showing. I have rabbits. Most of them are set up for clean catch of their waste. I do have a couple on straw. I'd like to use it to build up the soil in my raised bed. However, when I used in the garden this past year, the squash bugs went wild. I am afraid of creating a thriving environment in the beds. I plan to top the rabbit used straw with potting soil as you've done In the garden, I used it as a mulch. Is there anything I can add that will prevent the squash bugs from returning? Is it not a concern since it will be a bottom layer and not used as a mulch?
Heat. The hotbeds heat up completely and kill all the bugs and weed seeds. Good bugs crawl back in after the heat comes down in a few weeks. Quail LOVE creepy crawlies so in the summer the quail have free range of the greenhouse. They eat everything that creeps as long as it isn't too big to swallow. You should see them trying to eat centipedes....
I bought it at my local nursery but I have also bought a big bag like that on amazon, just not sure what the price would be? If I couldn't get perlite I would take a hotbed apart and use the guts as potting soil. Also the soil under my rabbit hutches makes amazing garden dirt.
Using wood and tin and yes wire It's so hard holding rabbits in I love pens but I have so many problems trying to keep them on the ground I have issues with my does not using nest boxes so pens it is for now for them Would love different ideas tho
We use clear rubber maid containers and train them by putting the bedding in for them and then over the course of a week before they are due to kindle we put the bedding back in when they mess with it. We drill holes in the edge of the tub and wire rings through the holes and then clip the box to the cage so they can't tip it over when they hop in and out. Since we started doing that our lives have been a LOT easier. I hate those wood nesting boxes, they get so gross!
@@dirtpatcheaven ive tried wood and rubber maid but yes they bounce everywhere They will hide in cardboard boxes but we don't use them for nesting Some of our does were able to burrow before they still try to dig when they are close to kindeling Deep pine shavings and hay usually they will nest or build something funny and nest lol I think straping a Rubbermaid would be worth a try they probably didn't use it because it bounced
Good video Juli. I would like to see a video when you harvest the rabbits. ( The process ). Also would like to know how much meat you actually get from the rabbits. And how much it cost to raise rabbits. Whew..not asking much. Lol Happy New Year to you and your family. You are a blessing to many people. I've learned so much from you.:) God Bless !
I used to make videos of harvesting the rabbits. It made UA-cam a little crazy that I had the kids doing it with us. We used to wait about three to four months to butcher but it was just too much meat for one meal for a family of four. Now I butcher between eight and ten weeks and it is perfect, about the same size as a chicken, ~3 pounds hanging weight. A six month old rabbit feeds us and company with lots of leftovers at about 7 pounds hanging weight. With feed prices the way they are it costs me about $8 for the three to four month old rabbits, about $5 for the younger ones. The babies are the ones who eat the most because they are growing SOOOO fast. The adults eat very little and are very economic to feed. The babies also make the most poop. We feed them about 75% of their food from the garden from March to November but when we are raising thirty babies every other month it is still a bag of commercial feed every other week. I will try to get more detailed about it in a video after I figure out how to show the butchering in a different way so it doesn't offend the masses! Thanks for the great questions!
What's wrong with our society when we are afraid to let our kids see, much less participate in, the process of procuring meat?! All that kids and most adults know any more is that it magically appears neatly packaged at Costco.
I noticed that you leave an approximately 1’ gap between the cattle panels. So how is it working out? Any snow load or wind issues? How about stability? This could save me buying one extra panel ($30+ 9.75% tax) for a 20’ long bed if I space them 16” apart instead of butting them together and secured them with hog rings. How deep do you push them into the bed? I could run one or more pvc pipes along the length to brace/stabilize them. Thoughts?
So far it has worked just fine. The gap hasn't been a problem even with really big snow loads. I do have to go and sweep a little bit as the panels seem to hold on to the snow a little bit. They are pushed into the bed about two feet on each side. I think a pvc pipe along the length isn't a bad idea if yours is going to run longer than mine did. For mine it was only about ten feet long so it didn't need it.
@@dirtpatcheaven Thank you! I had just noticed it this last viewing. Missed it the first 2 times. Which is why I try to view every good video more than once.
Do you add more carbon material to the hot bed before moving the rabbits? I know your goal is long-term, low heat it seems (to my limited brain) like a layer of pure manure would cook too fast.
Yes, I add a lot of carbon under the rabbits to soak up the urine until the hotbed is full. After the rabbits come off in about March I add a very good layer of sawdust to the top. Then I add the planting medium and water in.
She had 18 and then raised 14 to maturity the first time and then had 12 and raised them all to maturity the second time. She is a New Zealand with a touch of Rex.
What do you do with the fig in the greenhouse? I never saw you pulling any figs from it and you cut it back to over winter. Is it just to young to have figs growing on it?
I planted the fig last summer as an experiment. I have others planted all over the property to see if they winterkill in the ground. This one took off and got HUGE, but I didn't plant it early enough in the year to put on any fruit. I cut it back to protect it from urine and if it lives through the winter it will most likely TAKE OVER the greenhouse in 2022. I have no idea what I am going to do with it.
Julie, do you avoid getting too close to animals so to avoid bad feelings when butchering them? it is something I wonder in mind, I am perfectly happy with meat, but will find it hard to butcher ones I raised.
I get attached to our breeders but not the young animals that will be butchered for our freezer. We don't handle anything much that isn't going to be kept. We let those ones be a little wild and happy without a lot of intervention.
I've been thinking of trying to do the same thing with my rabbits make a green house move the rabbits in during the winter in raised cages, then let chickens run thru during the day to scratch up the ground have to build a green house 1st lol... check out some of my stuff on my channel when you have a chance I'm in southeast Canada there eh!
What kind of rabbit is your female? I have one that looks just like her that I think is a Standard Rex. I love your video's even though I'm in Texas with a totally different climate
There is nothing like gardening with young turkeys, they are one of my favorite tools, especially for tomato hornworms. They find them faster than I can and eat them…love it
That makes me smile just thinking about it! We loved our turkeys this year I just wish I could figure out how to keep them contained better and away from the ducks! They are like Kamikaze pilots picking on the ducks!
@@dirtpatcheaven ours grew up with ducks so no big deal, it’s the chickens that tend to gang up on them! But turkeys are the best mediators in my homestead. They know how to calm things down between the ducks and geese. Love your content, we don’t live in the same zone but I’ve gotten so many incredible ideas from your channel. And now I am stealing the idea for the quails…thanks and have a happy healthy joyful new year!
IMH, letting rabits walk on gratings is not good for them It is very unnatural and is bad for the paws. I understand, it is easier for have clean cages, but still.. It is like on mass production farms.
Did you see our last short? When we have juveniles they don't live in cages. We have to be really careful about breeding rabbits since if they pick up parasites it passes to the babies and they die. Cages protect the rabbits from parasites.
Don’t say raising meat. They’re birds you intend to eat and that’s fine but don’t call them meat. Call them chickens, quail, etc. Too many farmers call their animals something they’re not. It distances you from caring about taking good care of them and having any sympathy for their lives. They’re living beings with souls. They may become meat we eat but they’re animals with souls nonetheless.
I love my animals and let myself get attached to my breeders and they have names. Their comfort is of paramount importance to me and I believe a person that allows their animals to suffer when they could give them peace and comfort is building a lot of bad karma for themselves. It is bad for anyone's soul to see suffering and do nothing about it. I eat the flesh of animals if you prefer that to saying meat. Because I eat the flesh of animals I must be realistic about the process that they go through to become food. We give them a good life and then we make their passing as peaceful and pain free as possible. It is a death no matter what you call it and I take responsibility for that myself instead of buying it plastic wrapped at the grocery store. I get blood on my own hands and I accept that. If not calling animals meat makes you feel better or differently about them then I nod in respect at a fellow animal lover and meat eater. If you don't raise your own animals for meat like I do then I am not sure that it matters what I call them if you are just trying to learn from me and how I accomplish my own mental gymnastics around the sacrifice these animals become in my own survival and that of my family. Interesting philosophy and I appreciate you sharing it.
If she says vegetable instead of specifying that it is a squash, is that offensive? This is a farming channel and she is showing how to raise your own meat. We can’t get too offended with what things are called. She cares for her animals as most with homesteads do. I raise my birds for eggs and meat and they are well cared for and my children hold them and love on them and they are tame and beautiful. Just enjoy the education and stop regulating other people’s choice of wording.
So glad to see your process. Well taught. I am continually amazed at how hard your family works to maintain your lifestyle and you show your experience and joy of the process. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks Mom!
you should make some youtube videos...world in trouble
In some countries of Africa fermented rabbit urine is sold expensive in bottles for successful plant protection and fertilization. The farmers have special rabbit Cages for harvesting the urine.
Happy New year to you and your family.
Oh how interesting. I would really love to try some other ways of keeping the rabbits....there is one method where the rabbit cages are built into an insulated hill so that they can get out of heat and cold. I would LOVE to do that, I just don't know if it would be safe from predators and bugs. Still trying to work it out in my brain.
It's crazy how fast lambs quarter spreads when it goes to seed I have it everywhere
Our pigs and ducks and turkeys LOVE it!
Something I don't think people understand about cages and meat rabbits are that they are bred to thrive in a cage. Their feet are super padded with coarse fur. Of course you want to give them a place to rest their feet but they are fine. Your farm is just great. Wonderful inventive ideas you have that really help those who want to be sustainable and save money 🥰
Julie What was not clear to me is why the beds you put the cages over would not off gas. Does it have to do with the wuantity of material in the bed, Or perhaps the constituents? Thank you for the info. Love your vids!
The beds don't offgas because they are full of carbon. Lots and lots of junk wood, cardboard, paper, and spend hay bedding from the goats. The carbon soaks it all up and then when I water it in that is when it heats up and starts to create ammonia. None of it smells or attracts flies because of how much carbon I have in it.
You are so kind! Thank you!
My birds love my ring lol they chill out when they see it too especially the chicks seeing mostly hands lol
Isn't that funny? I love your videos, you are always so kind, it makes me want to be a more patient person and slow down to smell the flowers (or mushrooms!)
@@dirtpatcheaven it seems your that way on your videos
Im not patient all the time but my children are in their 20s so i have the time waiting for grandchildren and kinda spoil the baby animals:)
Much love xoxox your doing a great job thanks for the support it means alot
love what you do, you are so smart and curious. love and best wishes from south ouest france
Well thank you!
Julie, Creative resourcing and awesome knowledge. We love learning from you🎄🌲🥗🥗🎄
Hey thank you! What a lovely comment on this incredibly cold winter morning! Warmed me to my toes.
Happy new year! I so appreciate you & your videos...much love 😊💝🌟
Happy new year!! Thank you for your kind words!
Hey, @dirtpatcheaven, can you please do a video showing how you prepare rabbit meat? Or store it? Do you use the organ meats? Etc..
I love your straight forward content. Helps me learn and gives me ideas for my own home.
You know that is my goal, I am trying to just get information out there and not make it too fancy or story-like to be able to do it at your own property. Glad you noticed!
After seeing how you have been working with the hotbeds, I'm looking at where I might be able to incorporate one in my garden to try since I am also in Zone 4. One thing that might help you with getting the metal roofing at a lower cost is to see if a local roofing company near you ever does an end of the year clearance of odds and ends leftovers from jobs they did that year. I saw a company advertise that on Craigslist one year where I lived in Montana and it seemed pretty reasonably priced if you weren't picky about size or color, which for the inside of a hot bed wouldn't really matter I would think. Looking forward to more from you!!
Great idea! It is $20 a sheet for second or defective sheet metal at our local roofer. I know that our local dump in Idaho Falls has a sorting systems and if people want to go and sort through it you can get roofing there too!
Love your videos. Lots of work in those beds. Fabulous kids to help you like they do. God Bless you all and Happy New Year! Been a while since I saw your channel. Peace!
Thank you! We are trying something new this time around and we hope it works!
Very key info at 13:00-13:20 about contamination by any other animals. I didn’t realize that. I think I’ll just do as you are now with the cages on lath. Love your channel and family!
I hope to get back to building the second raised, hot bed. I have all of the materials just no time. Still trying to finish drywalling inside my very cluttered tiny house before the freezing weather comes tomorrow night. Wish I had a rocket mass heater, but just have a space heater for now. I have the rabbit cages in an old horse shed. I raised them by driving in t-posts and zip ties. This works great! Someday I’ll have quite a lot of very old horse manure and rabbit pooh to shovel out for the hot beds. Sure wish I had assistants like you, they’re fantastic and have great work ethics. Clearly, they have great parents and are well-raised. My compliments for that, too.
I think the t-posts as stands for the cages works well too. My first cages back in 2012 were done that way, not pretty but nothing I do is very concerned about pretty is it? I will pray that you get your drywall finished! Would love to see pictures when it is done! Yes, my assistant are pretty great, they can run the farm without me and that is a huge blessing!
Love your setup. A lot of work but we’ll worth it 👍. And again just love your hat !! It must take you forever to make one…. From spinning to actual finish. Maybe when I get to a point where I can crochet again I might give it a try 🤪. Comprehend things is one result of my TBI.
Have a wonderful day 🥰. 👵🏻👩🌾❣️
Lambsquarter is edible. We use it in our salads all the time.
Yep, the turkeys thought the pigweed was good too!
Nice
Wow I can't believe you have this down to a science...Happy New Year to you and your Family..
Thank you!
You have such interesting innovations! I love your channel.
Thank you! I think my husband would call them crazy innovations....usually I get them right the third time I make them so 2024 should be epic with these little greenhouses!
Here in Georgia we havent seen snow whole year~
We just had a massive snowfall last night. In some spots it is up to the seat of my pants where it has drifted.
@@dirtpatcheaven Love to see more videos! :) I will watch your videos till maybe all of us get old! I got to say that watching your videos and listening to you is a best way to find calm and inner peace. I like how you seem always in control of whatever challenges and patient and resourceful, I think resourcefulness is so so important in today's world.
great info and video,
Glad you enjoyed it!
I love this idea!! I have learned a lot from your channel already, and appreciate the knowledge.
Side note, where did you purchase your hat? In love with it.
I spun, knit, and felted this hat to keep our freezing wind out of my ears in the winter. The wool is Romney. The pattern is from the book 'Hattitude' by Cathy Carron. The Little Red Hiding Hood pattern.
Something I've started thinking about but won't be able to try due to other pressing projects (building our house) - we often see cast off washers/dryers/stoves at a county collection area for metals. I think the housings would make great free sheet metal. The guts can be taken back to the collection area or sold for scrap. If you can find a source, you might have the solutions to walls for rabbit proof, deep, self-heating bins.
Great idea! I hadn't thought of that!
Maybe off topic, but freezers and refrigerators minus freon make raised beds.
I am continually fascinated with your hotbeds and the process. How low does the soil level get after a season or two? Do you every mine the bottom layers for good compost to use elsewhere in the garden when a hotbed had broken down completely?
Me too, it never gets old to see the magic of steam in freezing weather. The soil level drops about a foot over the course of the growing season from March to November. I have taken the guts out of an old hotbed and used it as the planting medium on the top for a new bed. It worked great. The problem is that they beds last so long that it takes years before one of the beds falls apart enough that I need to take it apart and start over. As long as the wood frame is lined well and doesn't get wet when you water the plants they just won't die.
Respect! You rock!
Hey thank you!
Great video. I love the process you are showing. I have rabbits. Most of them are set up for clean catch of their waste. I do have a couple on straw. I'd like to use it to build up the soil in my raised bed. However, when I used in the garden this past year, the squash bugs went wild. I am afraid of creating a thriving environment in the beds. I plan to top the rabbit used straw with potting soil as you've done In the garden, I used it as a mulch. Is there anything I can add that will prevent the squash bugs from returning? Is it not a concern since it will be a bottom layer and not used as a mulch?
Heat. The hotbeds heat up completely and kill all the bugs and weed seeds. Good bugs crawl back in after the heat comes down in a few weeks. Quail LOVE creepy crawlies so in the summer the quail have free range of the greenhouse. They eat everything that creeps as long as it isn't too big to swallow. You should see them trying to eat centipedes....
I couldn't find not even a tiny bag a perlite in my town this yr at all. Now that was a glorious bag of perlite where can one of them be found at?
I bought it at my local nursery but I have also bought a big bag like that on amazon, just not sure what the price would be? If I couldn't get perlite I would take a hotbed apart and use the guts as potting soil. Also the soil under my rabbit hutches makes amazing garden dirt.
beauitful!
Thank you!
Using wood and tin and yes wire
It's so hard holding rabbits in
I love pens but I have so many problems trying to keep them on the ground
I have issues with my does not using nest boxes so pens it is for now for them
Would love different ideas tho
We use clear rubber maid containers and train them by putting the bedding in for them and then over the course of a week before they are due to kindle we put the bedding back in when they mess with it. We drill holes in the edge of the tub and wire rings through the holes and then clip the box to the cage so they can't tip it over when they hop in and out. Since we started doing that our lives have been a LOT easier. I hate those wood nesting boxes, they get so gross!
@@dirtpatcheaven ive tried wood and rubber maid but yes they bounce everywhere
They will hide in cardboard boxes but we don't use them for nesting
Some of our does were able to burrow before they still try to dig when they are close to kindeling
Deep pine shavings and hay usually they will nest or build something funny and nest lol
I think straping a Rubbermaid would be worth a try they probably didn't use it because it bounced
Good video Juli. I would like to see a video when you harvest the rabbits. ( The process ). Also would like to know how much meat you actually get from the rabbits. And how much it cost to raise rabbits. Whew..not asking much. Lol Happy New Year to you and your family. You are a blessing to many people. I've learned so much from you.:) God Bless !
I used to make videos of harvesting the rabbits. It made UA-cam a little crazy that I had the kids doing it with us. We used to wait about three to four months to butcher but it was just too much meat for one meal for a family of four. Now I butcher between eight and ten weeks and it is perfect, about the same size as a chicken, ~3 pounds hanging weight. A six month old rabbit feeds us and company with lots of leftovers at about 7 pounds hanging weight. With feed prices the way they are it costs me about $8 for the three to four month old rabbits, about $5 for the younger ones. The babies are the ones who eat the most because they are growing SOOOO fast. The adults eat very little and are very economic to feed. The babies also make the most poop. We feed them about 75% of their food from the garden from March to November but when we are raising thirty babies every other month it is still a bag of commercial feed every other week. I will try to get more detailed about it in a video after I figure out how to show the butchering in a different way so it doesn't offend the masses! Thanks for the great questions!
What's wrong with our society when we are afraid to let our kids see, much less participate in, the process of procuring meat?! All that kids and most adults know any more is that it magically appears neatly packaged at Costco.
I noticed that you leave an approximately 1’ gap between the cattle panels. So how is it working out? Any snow load or wind issues? How about stability? This could save me buying one extra panel ($30+ 9.75% tax) for a 20’ long bed if I space them 16” apart instead of butting them together and secured them with hog rings. How deep do you push them into the bed? I could run one or more pvc pipes along the length to brace/stabilize them. Thoughts?
So far it has worked just fine. The gap hasn't been a problem even with really big snow loads. I do have to go and sweep a little bit as the panels seem to hold on to the snow a little bit. They are pushed into the bed about two feet on each side. I think a pvc pipe along the length isn't a bad idea if yours is going to run longer than mine did. For mine it was only about ten feet long so it didn't need it.
@@dirtpatcheaven Thank you! I had just noticed it this last viewing. Missed it the first 2 times. Which is why I try to view every good video more than once.
Can you tell me What breeds or cross breeds are your rabbits ????
Do you add more carbon material to the hot bed before moving the rabbits? I know your goal is long-term, low heat it seems (to my limited brain) like a layer of pure manure would cook too fast.
Clarification: I’m asking about recharging existing beds. New beds are a different story.
Yes, I add a lot of carbon under the rabbits to soak up the urine until the hotbed is full. After the rabbits come off in about March I add a very good layer of sawdust to the top. Then I add the planting medium and water in.
What breed of rabbit is that that had 14 babies?
She had 18 and then raised 14 to maturity the first time and then had 12 and raised them all to maturity the second time. She is a New Zealand with a touch of Rex.
What do you do with the fig in the greenhouse? I never saw you pulling any figs from it and you cut it back to over winter. Is it just to young to have figs growing on it?
I planted the fig last summer as an experiment. I have others planted all over the property to see if they winterkill in the ground. This one took off and got HUGE, but I didn't plant it early enough in the year to put on any fruit. I cut it back to protect it from urine and if it lives through the winter it will most likely TAKE OVER the greenhouse in 2022. I have no idea what I am going to do with it.
Julie, do you avoid getting too close to animals so to avoid bad feelings when butchering them? it is something I wonder in mind, I am perfectly happy with meat, but will find it hard to butcher ones I raised.
I get attached to our breeders but not the young animals that will be butchered for our freezer. We don't handle anything much that isn't going to be kept. We let those ones be a little wild and happy without a lot of intervention.
😎👍
I've been thinking of trying to do the same thing with my rabbits make a green house move the rabbits in during the winter in raised cages, then let chickens run thru during the day to scratch up the ground have to build a green house 1st lol... check out some of my stuff on my channel when you have a chance I'm in southeast Canada there eh!
Oh I will come and look! Thanks for the heads up!
What kind of rabbit is your female? I have one that looks just like her that I think is a Standard Rex. I love your video's even though I'm in Texas with a totally different climate
Mine are New Zealand with a touch of Rex.
There is nothing like gardening with young turkeys, they are one of my favorite tools, especially for tomato hornworms. They find them faster than I can and eat them…love it
That makes me smile just thinking about it! We loved our turkeys this year I just wish I could figure out how to keep them contained better and away from the ducks! They are like Kamikaze pilots picking on the ducks!
@@dirtpatcheaven ours grew up with ducks so no big deal, it’s the chickens that tend to gang up on them! But turkeys are the best mediators in my homestead. They know how to calm things down between the ducks and geese. Love your content, we don’t live in the same zone but I’ve gotten so many incredible ideas from your channel. And now I am stealing the idea for the quails…thanks and have a happy healthy joyful new year!
First
Wow! You are up early!
you are very beautiful wonderful
Well thank you!
IMH, letting rabits walk on gratings is not good for them It is very unnatural and is bad for the paws. I understand, it is easier for have clean cages, but still.. It is like on mass production farms.
Did you see our last short? When we have juveniles they don't live in cages. We have to be really careful about breeding rabbits since if they pick up parasites it passes to the babies and they die. Cages protect the rabbits from parasites.
@@dirtpatcheaven parasites? my father bred rabbits for more than 50 years..never had parasites. What kind of hutches are you using?
Don’t say raising meat. They’re birds you intend to eat and that’s fine but don’t call them meat. Call them chickens, quail, etc. Too many farmers call their animals something they’re not. It distances you from caring about taking good care of them and having any sympathy for their lives. They’re living beings with souls. They may become meat we eat but they’re animals with souls nonetheless.
Only humans have souls
I love my animals and let myself get attached to my breeders and they have names. Their comfort is of paramount importance to me and I believe a person that allows their animals to suffer when they could give them peace and comfort is building a lot of bad karma for themselves. It is bad for anyone's soul to see suffering and do nothing about it.
I eat the flesh of animals if you prefer that to saying meat. Because I eat the flesh of animals I must be realistic about the process that they go through to become food. We give them a good life and then we make their passing as peaceful and pain free as possible. It is a death no matter what you call it and I take responsibility for that myself instead of buying it plastic wrapped at the grocery store. I get blood on my own hands and I accept that.
If not calling animals meat makes you feel better or differently about them then I nod in respect at a fellow animal lover and meat eater. If you don't raise your own animals for meat like I do then I am not sure that it matters what I call them if you are just trying to learn from me and how I accomplish my own mental gymnastics around the sacrifice these animals become in my own survival and that of my family.
Interesting philosophy and I appreciate you sharing it.
@@edhollingsworth2335 you’re wrong
If she says vegetable instead of specifying that it is a squash, is that offensive? This is a farming channel and she is showing how to raise your own meat. We can’t get too offended with what things are called. She cares for her animals as most with homesteads do. I raise my birds for eggs and meat and they are well cared for and my children hold them and love on them and they are tame and beautiful. Just enjoy the education and stop regulating other people’s choice of wording.