Rabbits getting ready to breed. I have an American Chinchilla buck and an American Chinchilla doe as well as three New Zealand White does. All will be ready (theoretically) to breed in June. I'm excited to get the rabbit meat in the freezer for us and our friends and family.
This is the buck. Nice shape but has dual coloring on his back. If I were trying to sell breeding stock I'd have to let him go, but since this is a family meat operation, I won't be as picky!
Here's a view of one of my cages. The first rabbit is a N.Z. White doe. The middle rabbit is the American Chinchilla doe and the buck is at the far end.
Here's a shot of the other two N.Z. White does,
Just processed 33 broilers today. What a job. Fortunately, I had lots of help. My oldest son, Michael and 2 good friends of ours, Scott and Michael (I'll call him Father Michael to differentiate) pitched in to make the process really smooth. I still have 16 left to process next Saturday and I just hatched 23 more yesterday. I'll process those in 5 or 6 weeks. That should hold us for this year.
The garden is way behind - as usual. I put 70 tomato plants in, a small bed of cabbage, beets, string beans and herbs so far. I've still got to plant, as a minimum, more string beans, lima beans, summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers. I should be much further ahead, but I took on an additional project this winter and that is absorbing some of my "extra" time. :0)
The extra project is raising Tilapia. We bought 15 3 inch fish in February this year and after they got to be about 6-7" we sexed the fish (we hope) and kept 6 females and 2 males (we think). They are almost ready to breed and we are excited. We keep the breeder operation in our basement where the temperature is easier to control and we are building a grow out room behind our greenhouse which is attached to the garage. We intend to utilize aquaponics for the vegetables and the increased filtration that we'll get for the fish tanks. In addition, I'm starting two small aquaponic salad beds in the basement to get better filtration for our breeder tanks as well as giving us organic salad all year long! Great deal!!
That's it for now. Write me and let me know if you have any questions. I'll try to include some pictures soon.
Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Wally
