Very thankful for the rabbits they were my starting point to change my lawn into a garden and now turning into a food forest not just food forest hedge :) Chickens last year did help with the bugs that started eating the bountyfull garden by having extra roosters in cages moving them around the garden and lawn after the rabbits Now this year i was getting overwhelmed by the bounty especially weeds taller than me and a burnt out lawn to a very productive hay feild theres way too much for my rabbits We found 4 goats who really needed a home quick 2 does pregnant and two weathers I found homes for a pair and i kept the other pair Nigerian dwarf goats and they are eating well :) Ive went from a family on a disability check having food insecurity to a family who can give food away to other people 💞🙏 much love xoxox thanks for your inspiring videos helping me along my journey means so much
Beautiful story! It can be done. I remember having no money for food as a young single mother and we had zucchini EVERYTHING. To this day (30 yes later) my son still won't eat zucchini 😂. Blessings to you, daughter
@@grumpygrannysgoatsngardens3185 yes it can be done all the neighbors apples i picked to make treats for the kids...all thoes apple cores are now apple trees full of apples crab apples but still very useful for apple butter or apple cider or grafting other apple branches to We need to use what we have available to make things better for the future now more important than ever.... zuchini anything is very useful like apple everything Much love xoxox thanks
I kept rabbits on the ground for awhile and a friend raised rabbits and kept them on the ground. Our experience is that they not only dig, they burrow. So if you have them "disappear", look for burrows. They will reappear. Neither of us lost rabbits because they didn't manage to dig back up outside of their pen. Just a heads-up. Great work!
I pray daily for God’s help. I’m getting overwhelmed by all of the things I have yet to do. Being 67 and a relatively new farmer, it is a struggle trying to keep up with everything - in fact, I’m falling behind in this heat and humidity in west TN. I just keep plugging away and let the Lord carry the load. I’m working on a small tool shed from scrap lumber, pallets and tin that I’ve scrounged. Right now I’m about to start in the walls, but need to tear apart pallets to make studs. Heat index is 106 right now and it’s thwarting my efforts. I need to finish the shed so I can put rabbit cages on the north wall. It’ll be much closer to my house and the raised beds. (40’ vs the present 150 yards). The raised beds are first year and not growing things very well, lacking fertility. Desperately need sheep/goats to tame the pasture area and provide their manure to it, but can’t afford them or the fencing to contain them. (I don’t have a tractor & bush hog to keep it under control, and the weeds are taking over.) I’m moving pigs and chickens through it to eat/trample it, and add fertility. Sounds like a testimonial, and in some ways it is. Writing it down helps clear my mind and helpful comments sometimes give encouragement. I have grapes growing and need to build a trellis to keep them under control. I managed to get 3 posts free from the electric company, and I have wire but no auger. The area for the posts is rocky, so digging by hand would be a nightmare. The list goes on and on. I do the small tasks to keep making progress. I see this as a learning season, finding the mistakes now so that next year will be easier. Meanwhile, I thank the good Lord for the things I CAN do. One day, I hope to look back and have a good laugh about this. I’m sure many have experienced this frustration as they began. As I’m writing this, the Lord has sent a refreshing, cool breeze so it’s time to get back to work. Many blessings to you and everyone else reading the comments. Keep your faith in Jesus, He will always help. Along the way, expect there to be lessons He wants you to learn.
I am also in west TN and couldn't work on the garden past 9am today. Started at about 630. The heat and humidity is insane right now. We shifted our work to indoors these last couple weeks and my mother and I take shifts watching my kiddos and canning meals for us all. Praying for your health and safety in this heat! Jehovah-Jireh!
@@crunchycountrycatholic Thank you Ruth, so nice to know there are a few of us out here. I’m just outside of Camden. Would like to hear from you sometime. I’d like to hear what you’re growing. My name is Scot. P.S. I only wish I could can things. I know so little about it and lack the equipment. I’m afraid that if I am blessed with Homestead and San Marzano tomatoes, some will go to waste. (Composted) I have a couple of quart sized canning jars and lids but don’t have a proper pressure cooker, just a cheap Instapot knock-off. I also don’t have a stove, oven or even indoor plumbing. But I have an air fryer oven, induction cooker, rice steamer, crock pot and microwave oven. I built a grill from savaged bricks and the grate from someone’s discarded oven or camp stove.
@@Skashoon hi Scott. Heat index has been crazy the last two days, I hope you are staying safe and well hydrated. My husband, kids and I live with my mom at the moment, so I'm planting and establishing a good sized garden at her house. Today I was working on hilling up my rows for corn, okra, butternut squash and some Lima beans. I got the rows hilled, but was borderline overheated when I decided I would plant tomorrow morning. I did get my tomato beds weeded, so that was great. I used to work in a local kitchen and did a lot of water bath canning as a teenager and young adult. My mom and I are teaching ourself pressure canning now. My husband got me a canner for mother's day. A very good tool, but not entirely necessary. You can water bath can foods that are high enough acidity. You could also use the heat and sun dry some tomatoes and herbs to reheat later on in the season. You could probably find a good book on outdoor dehydration at a library or maybe some videos on UA-cam. That takes very minimal supplies. I've been to Camden multiple times. We have friends out there. Praying the weather is lovely for you and your garden is fruitful.
Even here I don't work outside once the sun is in the sky at all. I can't handle the heat. Don't push yourself too hard. Keep everything as close to the house as possible. Have your read 'Gaia's Garden'? It is fantastic describing zones and too keep your most valuable work as close to the house as possible. Don't make yourself sick. If it's too hot stop and wait for a cooler season.
@@dirtpatcheaven I’d like to read it sometime when I can afford it. Billy at PermaPasturesFarm recommends it too. I’m very careful to stay hydrated and know when it’s time to go inside because no one is here to call for help if I should collapse. I carry my phone at all times now, just in case.
We are just getting rabbits and just built a hutch and DO NOT want to raise them in cages. We made bigger cages and have a rabbit tractor but we will definitely try for this next year. Thanks Dirtpatch.
I'm old school - years ago friend of my folks would keep their rabbits in their green house in the winter... rabbit body temperature is about 101degrees - great means of heating the green house... they keep their grow beds above the rabbits - their was a pan set at an angle under the rabbit run to direct their waste to the sides for cleaning... that was back in @ 1967...
My rabbits are all rescued, and provide wonderful manure for not only my garden, but for my neighbours's too. They live inside a double garage with a big window, they have a rabbit hutch, but are free to run around in large pens with their toys, hay racks and litter boxes. They are also protected from predators, the elements, and diseases. And, no they will never be eaten!
You amaze me in all the great things you are doing! I am so very proud of you and very greatful for your real life of information you share with us!!! Blessings to you and yours in Christ Jesus name amen 🙏 🙌 ✨️
I have tried that with clover and the clover loved the hotbeds for sure. The rabbits are so voracious they will take down whatever is in the bed in a matter of hours once you put them in. All of that greenery in the garden was gone by the next morning.
I love it! My daughter got 2 bunnies and we just built a movable bunny hutch that I can move from bed to bed in the garden . We used 💯 recycled wood that I found. We will see how it goes. I am very interested in your system and beds. Thank you for all the information 💕
Looking good. I agree with your philosophy about the happiness of the animals. We're working on a rabbit garden just for them, where they can be turned out to browse and exercise. It's not full time cage free, but they do seem to look forward to being handled more since that results in hopping time. 😀
@@dirtpatcheaven We just moved here in February, so it is barely begun, but there's a recent video of some 2 month olds hopping in there on this channel 😀
Hey Julie - where - scratch that - I make my own lawn tractor cages - like the foldable panel / mobile idea that allows you to change shapes and put away easier blah blah - thanks for the ideas
Have ur bunnies ever munched on plastic? Mine ate off a rubber ring on the bottom of some steel pet bowls. I removed any remaining rubber with a paint scraper.
@@dirtpatcheaven That was 60 years ago. If you look at how you put the center devider and tilyed the top toward one end then put in another tilted toward the other end then you have a V manger separating them.
Can you explain how you transitioned from pellets to forage? Did you slowly introduce the wheat and sunflower and decreased the pellets? How much forage do you usually give them each day?
I added the extras in and kept the pellets available at the same time. What REALLY helped was that the rabbits just started to ignore the pellets and wouldn't even eat them anymore. That is was not the case when I just had some hay in there as an addition. They only started to ignore the pellets when the wheat and sunflowers were added. They were timid about the extras at first but then really relished them after a few weeks. It all just took time and careful observation. We haven't lost a single rabbit since the switch and the mamas have lots of milk for babies.
I removed the pellets from their diet when they were getting wasted just sitting in the dish and never being eaten. I give them as much of the other foods as they will clean up in a day. I never let them run out of anything. There is no restriction to quantity.
If they end up burrowing just bury wire cage under the dirt about 6 inches, that should give them the satisfaction of digging without disappearing under the soil
Very good idea. So far there has been no burrowing because most of the bed is wood branches from tree clippings. There is only soil on the top two inches.
I'm just wondering if you can give your rabbits too much green food. I pull lots of weeds and garden stuff and put it into the rabbit cages and it seems like a lot sometimes. The rabbits just eat it so I think it is OK. Lots of different kinds of weeds and garden waste. We just finished making our first rabbit tractor. :). We are kinda new to the rabbits. We haven't dispatched a rabbit yet.
Yes. The cost for the same amount of rabbits on straight pellets is $17 a week. Once bag of feed a week because we breed all year round and the babies eat an enormous amount of food. We feed branches, garden refuse, good hay, wheat, sunflowers. For the hay/wheat/sunflowers it is about $1 a week? A bag of sunflower seeds ($30) lasts me for about six months, same with the wheat ($12). A bale of hay at $8 lasts me for 6-8 weeks.
Yeah..my kids didnt go.for.eating anything we.kept...and humans.are the only animal that would starve rather than eat something they had beliefs about... I will say we had coyotes who loved to raid the rabbits and u had to build fort Knox
Very thankful for the rabbits they were my starting point to change my lawn into a garden and now turning into a food forest not just food forest hedge :)
Chickens last year did help with the bugs that started eating the bountyfull garden by having extra roosters in cages moving them around the garden and lawn after the rabbits
Now this year i was getting overwhelmed by the bounty especially weeds taller than me and a burnt out lawn to a very productive hay feild theres way too much for my rabbits
We found 4 goats who really needed a home quick 2 does pregnant and two weathers
I found homes for a pair and i kept the other pair
Nigerian dwarf goats and they are eating well :)
Ive went from a family on a disability check having food insecurity to a family who can give food away to other people 💞🙏 much love xoxox thanks for your inspiring videos helping me along my journey means so much
Beautiful story! It can be done. I remember having no money for food as a young single mother and we had zucchini EVERYTHING. To this day (30 yes later) my son still won't eat zucchini 😂. Blessings to you, daughter
@@grumpygrannysgoatsngardens3185 yes it can be done all the neighbors apples i picked to make treats for the kids...all thoes apple cores are now apple trees full of apples crab apples but still very useful for apple butter or apple cider or grafting other apple branches to
We need to use what we have available to make things better for the future now more important than ever.... zuchini anything is very useful like apple everything
Much love xoxox thanks
@@wildedibles819 yep! That's how we do it!
I kept rabbits on the ground for awhile and a friend raised rabbits and kept them on the ground. Our experience is that they not only dig, they burrow. So if you have them "disappear", look for burrows. They will reappear. Neither of us lost rabbits because they didn't manage to dig back up outside of their pen. Just a heads-up. Great work!
I pray daily for God’s help. I’m getting overwhelmed by all of the things I have yet to do. Being 67 and a relatively new farmer, it is a struggle trying to keep up with everything - in fact, I’m falling behind in this heat and humidity in west TN. I just keep plugging away and let the Lord carry the load. I’m working on a small tool shed from scrap lumber, pallets and tin that I’ve scrounged. Right now I’m about to start in the walls, but need to tear apart pallets to make studs. Heat index is 106 right now and it’s thwarting my efforts. I need to finish the shed so I can put rabbit cages on the north wall. It’ll be much closer to my house and the raised beds. (40’ vs the present 150 yards). The raised beds are first year and not growing things very well, lacking fertility. Desperately need sheep/goats to tame the pasture area and provide their manure to it, but can’t afford them or the fencing to contain them. (I don’t have a tractor & bush hog to keep it under control, and the weeds are taking over.) I’m moving pigs and chickens through it to eat/trample it, and add fertility.
Sounds like a testimonial, and in some ways it is. Writing it down helps clear my mind and helpful comments sometimes give encouragement. I have grapes growing and need to build a trellis to keep them under control. I managed to get 3 posts free from the electric company, and I have wire but no auger. The area for the posts is rocky, so digging by hand would be a nightmare.
The list goes on and on. I do the small tasks to keep making progress. I see this as a learning season, finding the mistakes now so that next year will be easier. Meanwhile, I thank the good Lord for the things I CAN do. One day, I hope to look back and have a good laugh about this. I’m sure many have experienced this frustration as they began. As I’m writing this, the Lord has sent a refreshing, cool breeze so it’s time to get back to work. Many blessings to you and everyone else reading the comments. Keep your faith in Jesus, He will always help. Along the way, expect there to be lessons He wants you to learn.
I am also in west TN and couldn't work on the garden past 9am today. Started at about 630. The heat and humidity is insane right now.
We shifted our work to indoors these last couple weeks and my mother and I take shifts watching my kiddos and canning meals for us all.
Praying for your health and safety in this heat! Jehovah-Jireh!
@@crunchycountrycatholic Thank you Ruth, so nice to know there are a few of us out here. I’m just outside of Camden. Would like to hear from you sometime. I’d like to hear what you’re growing. My name is Scot.
P.S. I only wish I could can things. I know so little about it and lack the equipment. I’m afraid that if I am blessed with Homestead and San Marzano tomatoes, some will go to waste. (Composted) I have a couple of quart sized canning jars and lids but don’t have a proper pressure cooker, just a cheap Instapot knock-off. I also don’t have a stove, oven or even indoor plumbing. But I have an air fryer oven, induction cooker, rice steamer, crock pot and microwave oven. I built a grill from savaged bricks and the grate from someone’s discarded oven or camp stove.
@@Skashoon hi Scott.
Heat index has been crazy the last two days, I hope you are staying safe and well hydrated.
My husband, kids and I live with my mom at the moment, so I'm planting and establishing a good sized garden at her house.
Today I was working on hilling up my rows for corn, okra, butternut squash and some Lima beans. I got the rows hilled, but was borderline overheated when I decided I would plant tomorrow morning.
I did get my tomato beds weeded, so that was great.
I used to work in a local kitchen and did a lot of water bath canning as a teenager and young adult. My mom and I are teaching ourself pressure canning now. My husband got me a canner for mother's day. A very good tool, but not entirely necessary. You can water bath can foods that are high enough acidity.
You could also use the heat and sun dry some tomatoes and herbs to reheat later on in the season. You could probably find a good book on outdoor dehydration at a library or maybe some videos on UA-cam. That takes very minimal supplies.
I've been to Camden multiple times. We have friends out there. Praying the weather is lovely for you and your garden is fruitful.
Even here I don't work outside once the sun is in the sky at all. I can't handle the heat. Don't push yourself too hard. Keep everything as close to the house as possible. Have your read 'Gaia's Garden'? It is fantastic describing zones and too keep your most valuable work as close to the house as possible. Don't make yourself sick. If it's too hot stop and wait for a cooler season.
@@dirtpatcheaven I’d like to read it sometime when I can afford it. Billy at PermaPasturesFarm recommends it too.
I’m very careful to stay hydrated and know when it’s time to go inside because no one is here to call for help if I should collapse. I carry my phone at all times now, just in case.
We are just getting rabbits and just built a hutch and DO NOT want to raise them in cages. We made bigger cages and have a rabbit tractor but we will definitely try for this next year. Thanks Dirtpatch.
I'm old school - years ago friend of my folks would keep their rabbits in their green house in the winter...
rabbit body temperature is about 101degrees - great means of heating the green house...
they keep their grow beds above the rabbits - their was a pan set at an angle under the rabbit run to direct their waste to the sides for cleaning... that was back in @ 1967...
That is so cool!
@@dirtpatcheaven
Lived on a chicken ranch back in those days... Cowboy boots, cow pies and chicken coop shit on the boots 😉. Great time to be a child!
U are the hardest working person on u tube.....and most clever.
My rabbits are all rescued, and provide wonderful manure for not only my garden, but for my neighbours's too. They live inside a double garage with a big window, they have a rabbit hutch, but are free to run around in large pens with their toys, hay racks and litter boxes. They are also protected from predators, the elements, and diseases. And, no they will never be eaten!
You amaze me in all the great things you are doing! I am so very proud of you and very greatful for your real life of information you share with us!!! Blessings to you and yours in Christ Jesus name amen 🙏 🙌 ✨️
Love this! I think there is a big need for innovation in the rabbit world. So exciting to see this.
Thank you! That is so encouraging!
Great set up! Can we please see an update? 🐰🌿💜
Wow that's an awesome set up, I love that.
Me too!
😀🌱🐢
I love your rabbit content. Where do you get your music square cheaply? After a few weeks how is the predator security working?🐇🐇🐇
Maybe i could throw alfalfa seed in beds before growing season is over. Once alfalfa has grown i could put them in. More cheap feed?
I have tried that with clover and the clover loved the hotbeds for sure. The rabbits are so voracious they will take down whatever is in the bed in a matter of hours once you put them in. All of that greenery in the garden was gone by the next morning.
Should work well! It's nice to get a break from farming and watch your farm projects for a bit!
I love it! My daughter got 2 bunnies and we just built a movable bunny hutch that I can move from bed to bed in the garden . We used 💯 recycled wood that I found. We will see how it goes. I am very interested in your system and beds. Thank you for all the information 💕
You are such an innovator! Thank you for the demonstration! Those bunnies look so happy in their new habitat!
You are so sweet. I really appreciate your kindness.
Looking good. I agree with your philosophy about the happiness of the animals. We're working on a rabbit garden just for them, where they can be turned out to browse and exercise. It's not full time cage free, but they do seem to look forward to being handled more since that results in hopping time. 😀
Good job! I would love to see pictures!
@@dirtpatcheaven We just moved here in February, so it is barely begun, but there's a recent video of some 2 month olds hopping in there on this channel 😀
Nick from Hostile Hare and Casa Grande Quail lives like 2 miles from me. Good guy.
That is the coolest thing ever! He makes great cages
We got two holland lop bunnies. The breeder told us to put their water in a glass or ceramic dish. Plastic will leach into the water.
We really like our ceramic and metal waterers. They working great in the winter too because they don't break.
Love your creativity
Looks great
You're always full of great ideas. Giving me lots of ideas too.
Thank you!
Question were did you get your Raspberries from? You seem to find the best deals on plants.
Hey Julie - where - scratch that - I make my own lawn tractor cages - like the foldable panel / mobile idea that allows you to change shapes and put away easier blah blah - thanks for the ideas
I will have to go look at your channel and see your cages!
Have ur bunnies ever munched on plastic? Mine ate off a rubber ring on the bottom of some steel pet bowls. I removed any remaining rubber with a paint scraper.
Yep, they will munch on everything. It helps to put a nice piece of wood in there to chew on. Like an apple branch.
👍 you can raise older baby rabbits on hay, wheat, sunflower seeds and veggies instead of pellets
Yes. I also raise the babies on the same. All of my rabbits are fed like this now.
I did not know that rabbits like sunflower seeds
I just make V manger with the wire squares between the 2 halves of the cage so it serves 2 purposes.
I would love to see a picture.
@@dirtpatcheaven That was 60 years ago. If you look at how you put the center devider and tilyed the top toward one end then put in another tilted toward the other end then you have a V manger separating them.
You are awesome!!!
Thank you! That makes my day brighter.
Can you explain how you transitioned from pellets to forage? Did you slowly introduce the wheat and sunflower and decreased the pellets? How much forage do you usually give them each day?
I added the extras in and kept the pellets available at the same time. What REALLY helped was that the rabbits just started to ignore the pellets and wouldn't even eat them anymore. That is was not the case when I just had some hay in there as an addition. They only started to ignore the pellets when the wheat and sunflowers were added. They were timid about the extras at first but then really relished them after a few weeks. It all just took time and careful observation. We haven't lost a single rabbit since the switch and the mamas have lots of milk for babies.
I removed the pellets from their diet when they were getting wasted just sitting in the dish and never being eaten. I give them as much of the other foods as they will clean up in a day. I never let them run out of anything. There is no restriction to quantity.
If they end up burrowing just bury wire cage under the dirt about 6 inches, that should give them the satisfaction of digging without disappearing under the soil
Very good idea. So far there has been no burrowing because most of the bed is wood branches from tree clippings. There is only soil on the top two inches.
I'm just wondering if you can give your rabbits too much green food. I pull lots of weeds and garden stuff and put it into the rabbit cages and it seems like a lot sometimes. The rabbits just eat it so I think it is OK. Lots of different kinds of weeds and garden waste. We just finished making our first rabbit tractor. :). We are kinda new to the rabbits. We haven't dispatched a rabbit yet.
Thankyou
You’re welcome 😊
What type of hay do you feed your rabbits?
What kind of hay do you feed them
How long do you plan to keep them in their or are you turning your razed bead to a permanent cage
Good question. I am not sure. This is a big experiment and I am watching to see which parts of it work.
Enjoyed it . Thanks
You are welcome! Thanks for watching!
Legend
Please could you tell me what breed of rabbits you have
Have you done a cost comparison between using pellets and your method?
Yes. The cost for the same amount of rabbits on straight pellets is $17 a week. Once bag of feed a week because we breed all year round and the babies eat an enormous amount of food.
We feed branches, garden refuse, good hay, wheat, sunflowers. For the hay/wheat/sunflowers it is about $1 a week? A bag of sunflower seeds ($30) lasts me for about six months, same with the wheat ($12). A bale of hay at $8 lasts me for 6-8 weeks.
Does the rabbit urine stay with the manure or do they separate it?
For give me but the last look this is usa and there no laws keeping rabbits in cages it safer in long run for them
So is this bed for the rabbits to eat?
They can eat it down and we will feed them as usual. They are used to eating garden extras so it won't hurt their bellies to eat it all.
Yeah..my kids didnt go.for.eating anything we.kept...and humans.are the only animal that would starve rather than eat something they had beliefs about...
I will say we had coyotes who loved to raid the rabbits and u had to build fort Knox
The best set up for a colony I've seen is a video titled How to Build a Rabbit Colony on the channel Survival HT, check it out.
Do you eat them?
These ones are for manure. We sell them as breeding stock as well.
Those rabbits are just destroying your vegetables. Its insain to let them run around like that.
This is a bed that I already took all of the vegetables that I wanted out. They are eating the veg that I want them to eat.