Living and learning about a sustainable life!
Lots of excitement….4 of our 5 does have kindled and we have oodles of adorable baby bunnies! Check out our videos showing the babies born to our 3 mamas living in the hutch and our babies born in the colony!
Here are the babies at 3 days old. They’re soooooo stinking cute!
We finally have our first batch of baby bunnies! The kids are sooooooo excited and OMG they’re pretty stinking adorable! Check them out! Then go check out their first video!
We had a busy weekend out at the farm. Unfortunately, not busy doing the things we had intended to do…
We arrived at the farm to find the electric poultry netting shorting out due to standing water in the run. There was also standing water in the chicken coop. Talk about a nasty (and smelly) situation for the chickens…
Unfortunately we had to leave the fence off overnight but Sunday the water was down enough that we were able to get it back on. It was a pretty frustrating weekend as we had big plans to make lots of progress on the perimeter fencing. We’ve got some exciting things coming to the land but first, we need a fence!
We have some friends keeping our goats for now but we want to be ready to bring them to the farm by Thanksgiving. That means the fence and a shelter have to happen now!
Other exciting news…. We’re expecting! That’s right, we’re fairly certain that all three of our hutch rabbits at the house are expecting and due this week! Stay tuned for baby bunnies! Unfortunately the land bunnies don’t seem to be expecting anything….they may find themselves in a pot if they don’t do something soon!
Check out the latest video for updates on the farm, and stay tuned for baby bunnies! 😍
This weekend we had a very busy and productive weekend. We spent a lot of time pulling up the chainlink fence that ran through the middle of the property. We got the back half cleared out but there’s still quite a bit that needs to be removed. It’s crazy how trees can just grow through fencing, check this out!
Our next big project once we get the fencing up is to create a large paddock in the cleaned out portion of the property. We’ll need a goat shelter and some hay storage but then we can get some goats!
The chicks also got to come out of their coop this weekend and although they were skittish, they seemed to enjoy getting to explore a little. Although one would sternly get scared and go running back in the coop, then the rest would follow. It was pretty hysterical! 🤣
Check out the latest video to see the chicks and rabbits exploring their run, and some VERY entertaining antics from the Taylor kids! 🤣
So last weekend Johnny and Natalie were in Indiana for a wrestling tournament. The other kids and I went out to the land and we’re able to add on a second poultry net to make a larger enclosure for the rabbits and chickens. We also added a dividing hot wire partly to keep them in their separate areas and partly to test how well a wire will contain them (as opposed to the much more expensive netting).
We also added this super cool gate so we can go in and out without having to shutoff the electric fence every time. Oreo KNOWS when the fence is down and is constantly looking for an opportunity to bolt! I used vinyl lattice and ran hotwire thru the slats so the gate is hot too.
We also got the feeders and waterers hung in the chicken coop so they can’t knock them over now that they’re getting bigger. The chicks are getting sooooooo big and they love the sun. They want to go out so badly!
Check out Johnny’s latest update video. There’s some cute footage of the animals. I have to say I’m really enjoying seeing the rabbits get to live in a colony instead of wire cages all the time. We’re waiting to see if we get some baby rabbits soon…if so we can hopefully move all the rabbits out there to live in a more natural environment. It makes me happy seeing them so much more relaxed and content! These are like, completely different rabbits from how they were living in the hutches.
So we had a very exciting and very productive weekend at the Taylor farm. We’ve been looking for some replacement rabbits as the Californians we started with just weren’t very friendly. The kids really want to be able to pet them and interact with them and those rabbits were just downright MEAN. In fact, the other day the meanest one (we call her Karen from all the mean Karen memes) – went and bit the crap out of Sarah while she was filling her feeder. Who does that???
Anyway so I found a lady who was looking to downsize her rabbitry, so we met up with her on Friday and picked up four new rabbits (3 does, 1 buck). The fourth one is a black & white dutch doe but she likes to hide in her little hidey hole and wouldn’t let me take a pic…
So our new acquisition put things into high gear as we had to figure out what to do with the mean rabbits. Eat them….or not? I’ve been researching for months about a colony setup for rabbits but I have a hard time wrapping my head around how it would work. We DO however want to raise our meat as ethically, humanely and naturally as possible so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with a colony setup and see if it was a feasible option. I figured if these rabbits were destined for freezer camp anyway, might was well give them a chance and see if they can survive out on the land and make us some baby rabbits to help eat up all that poison everything out there! (BTW – they LOVE all that crap – they couldn’t wait to eat it up!)
So Friday night we made due with some exercise pens and some pallets laid on top of them to keep them contained and Saturday morning we hauled them out to the land in some gray plastic totes. They were all pretty agitated by the time we let them out as it took us a bit to re-situate the electric poultry netting and set them up some shelters but they seem to really like it. There’s definitely been some scrapping between Karen and Chocolate….Karen was always the meanest rabbit at the house so we were VERY surprised to find that Chocolate was the alpha female. She let Karen know what’s up and Karen has been MUCH more docile since arriving at the land.
We set them up with gravity fed feeders and waterers as well as shelters using their gray totes. We’re hoping they can figure out the poultry nipples on the extra chicken waterer but just in case, we made a gravity fed waterer with the orange bucket and a pan.
We also rented a uhaul for the day Saturday and managed to get our 4 IBC totes hauled out to the land along with some free pallets and a big wooden pallet box we found!
We turned the pallet box into a rabbit bunker with a tarp over it and drilled some large holes in each side so the rabbits have a place to hide if predators come trolling.
We also got our girl chicks moved out to the bug shack. So that makes 50 chicks and 3 rabbits out at the land now! It’s finally starting to feel like this is really happening. Check out the latest video here!
So we FINALLY got to bring out baby chicks this weekend. The kids were soooooo excited. We got quite a bit done on Saturday, as you can see here. We got our roosting bars built and assembled some pretty cool gravity fed feeders that hold 25 pounds of feed. It was definitely a neat project and I’m hopeful they work well to minimize waste and keep the food nice and clean for our babies. Make sure you watch till the end so you can see the next YouTube star! 😉
Then Sunday we brought out baby chicks and progress came to a screeching halt. We did however establish who the best racing chickens were, so there’s that. Johnny and I however managed to still have a productive day….we got all the automatic waterers made and filled up for the chicks. Taught the chicks to use the feeders and the waterers. Got the coop secured with cloth wire over the window, lock on the door, and electric poultry netting installed around the building along with a fence charger and grounding rods. All in all it was a productive day and the kids were super excited to finally see some progress and get to bring animals to the land.
You can check out the baby chick compilation video here. It covers their arrival at the post office up to their delivery to the bug shack. They seem super happy and excited about their new accommodations – fingers crossed they don’t all get slaughtered!
Next week’s big project will be getting IBC totes out to the land to store large quantities of water. Ultimately I’ll add gutters to the bug shack to replenish the IBCs with rain catchment. The IBCs will be connected to one of the 5 gallon bucket waterers for the chicks to access. If you don’t know what an IBC tote is, it’s this thing:
So we’ve finally gotten the bug shack cleared out and will be setting it up for the chicks this weekend. We still need to get the building secured, setup feeders / waterers for the baby chicks, and build roosting bars. Lots of big plans so I’m hoping things go smoothly so we can move them out there Sunday!
Here is our latest update video showing where we’re at with things currently. Johnny’s been working on clearing a perimeter fence-line area so I can come through and install the electric fencing once we’re ready to do that. He’s also been wood-chipping up a storm out there with the copious amounts of trees and limbs he’s piling up! Luckily for our baby chicks that means a nice layer of freshly made wood-chips for their new-ish house! The kids are soooooo excited to finally be bringing some animals to the land. Really hoping they fare ok with the transition and aren’t immediately eaten by predators!
Jacob sure looooooves his baby chicks! He’s smitten!
As always… STILL plenty of bugs in the bug shack! Chicks are gonna LOVE it here! 😉
We should have a big update after this weekend with lots of new pics assuming things go smoothly…fingers crossed!
So Johnny and I have been needing to get this old pump out of the well….however it was piped with galvanized steel….of an unknown depth. After calling multiple well companies who pretty much refused to touch that with a ten foot pole (and told us we just needed to drill a new well) – we buckled down, did a BUNCH of research, and pulled it ourselves. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures as I was the one in charge of most things needing to be done. But we did take a super cool video of the last bit of piping and ultimately removal of the pump.
I researched this for sooooooo long, trying to figure out the best way of accomplishing this feat…and unfortunately, most discussion boards on the internet just chastise you telling you DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS – CALL A PROFESSIONAL. Yeah well, I tried. They wouldn’t come. I called three different companies and none of them would do it.
So here’s what I ended up doing…in my searching I came across suggestions for several different knots to use to hold and pull the piping. I tried a couple (testing at home using yarn and a pen) – and neither held. Then I tried a knot called a pipe hitch. This is the knot that held the piping, it’s finished with a clove hitch and then I even added a square knot on top of that, just cuz I’m paranoid!
At this point, I had to figure out how to attach my pipe to a hook to pull it. Then I came across the bowline. This is the part to hook onto the hoist.
Last but not least, something to pull it and do the heavy lifting, quite literally. We’re talking about roughly 75′ of galvanized steel piping, filled with water, a big ass pump on the bottom of all that, and the copper cable all the way down. This thing was HEAVY. We used a 2 ton haul master chain hoist from Harbor Freight (mainly cuz the 1 ton was not in stock). This thing was only about $60 with a nice coupon they had, and it had no issue pulling this rig up.
It took us 8 hours, but we got it up, and saved a load of money (assuming we could have ever gotten a well company to come do it for us). Check out our latest video to see our rig in action! We’re super proud of ourselves and this opens things up to be able to get animals out to the land once we get water established! There’s something to be said for self sufficiency!
So this weekend we worked hard on the bug shack. There was crap chest high in there. We’ve decided we’re going to turn the bug shack into our new chicken coop. While the bugs may not appreciate their new neighbors, we feel confident the chickens will be quite happy with their new accommodations! 😉
We’ve ordered baby chicks and they are set to ship out on 9/11. Who knew you could mail order baby chicks?!?! We have some family friends who have agreed to keep our babies until they’re old enough to be transferred to the land (3 weeks). So if you’re following along, that means we have roughly a month to be ready for chickens! That includes cleaning out the bug shack and then reinforcing and securing it where needed. Don’t worry, our friends have agreed to take lots of videos and pics of our new babies so you guys won’t miss a thing!
This is what we started with (after we’d already dug in a good bit):
Also, Emily won’t stop collecting dead animal bones. She finds them everywhere and then wants to carry them around all day and would totally bring them home if I let her. Yesterday she was fussing at me about her “head bone” – yeah….a SKULL. So gross. She told me I needed to be gentle with it because one of the teeth had already fallen out. Ugh!
We’ve pulled so much crap out of the bug shack it’s not even funny. Check out this stuff!
The coolest thing we saw this weekend, by far, was this huge spider, getting hauled off for lunch by a wasp! Check out the latest video if you don’t believe me! It’s crazy!
The Taylor Family Farm