Rabbit Factory Revisited

It’s high time I made another entry regarding this subject, don’t you think?  Well, of course you can’t really answer me, but hey, I tried.

Rabbits, they are what makes the world go round, eh?  Of course they are.

Our herd has grown somewhat since the last post, and we’ve harvested some of those little morsels, as well.  The night before last one of the young does gave birth.  I noticed that she was scratching at the mesh I had secured over the opening to the nest box of her mother, who is about to say “Sianara”.  For some reason, I immediately thought, “She’s going to have babies,” and opened it up for her.  Sure enough, there they were the next morning, seven in all.  That is a pretty good litter.

I had not gotten around to repairing a hole that some “teenagers” had chewed through into her cage, and sure enough, she got pregnant from her cousins.  Slacker!  I need to create a better system whereby I can keep track of everything more effectively.  At this point, I don’t know who nailed her, except to say it was a cousin.  I think I’ve a couple more pregnant ones as well, but nowhere to put them.

The manure has been an issue of late, and surprisingly, my younger son jumped on it out of the blue, digging quite a lot out from the area and depositing it on our potato patch (possibly killing most of the plants in the process).  If the potato plants die, I don’t care, since it was possibly a miracle that the boy took the initiative to do it in the first place!

We have managed to build, fill and plant three nice raised beds so far.  Way fewer than I wanted to, but it’s something at least.  We had torn out 6 huge honeysuckle “bushes” last year, at the insistence of our young neighbors, and transformed the area into a combination flower garden and veggie garden.  It is really becoming quite beautiful at this point.  I’ll try to include some good photos in this post.

I’m really swamped with preparations to expand our marketing business, McAvinchey Marketing Consultants llc, as well as our lawn care business, and haven’t been able to put the time and effort into gardening that I had hoped to.  My writing has suffered as well.  The marketing company is coming along, though.  Check out our new website at www.mcavincheymarketingconsultants.com if you get a chance.

Biomass Briquette Lever Press - Fuel/feed briquette maker

I've been contemplating my rabbitry, and finding the ROI is wanting.  The cost for rabbit pellets per week is around $22, which buys me a fifty pound bag of rabbit pellets.  I've got something like 12 adult rabbits, and 9 bunnies at present.  I typically give them gleanings from the garden and yard, and was for a time putting them out in a duck tractor-ish contraption daily, which gave them direct access to grazing the yard.  This cut down considerably on pellet consumption, but still, I really want to find a way to NOT spend any money on the little things, and STILL produce at a very good rate.

I thought about the possibility of making my own pellets, using the vegetation that is available here in my own land.  So I started looking for a means of producing pellets, or something of the sort.  This is what I have found so far, a briquette maker, or as I see it, a rabbit food maker, as well as some variations on this theme:

Found at ebookbrowse.com

The mix of plants, and perhaps minerals, will have to be what I can come up with on my own land, or nearby.  I've located a section of field on the grounds of a nearby golf course that has a good mix of some sort of clover or vetch, Queen Anne's Lace, Chicory, and a goodly number of other species.  I will ask permission to come and mow that section, saving the clippings in a grass catcher, and then mix the clippings with water, put them in the press and form briquettes.  These will be able to be dropped over a pole, or dowel, for ease of feeding.

The other obvious use of this biomass briquette lever press is to create briquettes to burn as a fuel source, for cooking, heating, etc. I'm going to experiment with that side of things as well.  I've got to come up with a stove to burn use.  The folks who invented this press, also have invented a very good cookstove, made from local materials.  In a pinch, this would make all the difference, easing the toil involved with cooking over an open fire tremendously.

That's it for now.  Enjoy!

Ciao,

Panchito