Warm Winter Days

So for the last three or four weeks, it's been pretty cold, not like ice planet Hoth cold, but enough to freeze things over. My rabbits are comfortable with their new run that I built. It keeps them out of the elements, and my quail are O.K. too, however the cold hit about three days after I put out my barrel of trout. So the barrel froze over, and even though I would break the ice every now and then to look to see how the fish were doing, I could never see any. It appeared that it got too cold for them, and they all died. I never turned on the pump, so the water wasn't being filtered, and there was close to no oxygen in the water since it was just sitting there under a thick layer of ice. A couple days ago, it finally warmed up long enough to melt the ice layer in the barrel. I decided to check on the barrel, and I opened the lid, and much to my astonishment, all the fish were just sitting there. They must have dove to the bottom of the barrel where it was warmer. The barrel is about 1/3 buried in the ground, and probably was a bit more survivable there. I'm just surprised they did so well with so little oxygen. I suppose that their bodies slow down to conserve energy during cold weather. they don't really eat either. So things are still going well, we actually moved one of my rabbits inside as well. My wife picked out this rabbit as a baby, and has been her favorite since then, so we trained it to use a litter box, and it hops around our house. It's actually kind of fun. And since she's inside where it's warm, within the next few days, I may have her mate with one of my bucks to get some babies. That's where we're at so far.

Winter is here

So Winter is now officially here, and It kinda came all at once. since it showed up, it's been snow filled, and freezing. I foolishly have all my trout outdoors in the barrel, and it's frozen over. I can't tell if they're still alive or not. They've all gone to the bottom of the barrel to the buried portion that isn't freezing. I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point. I moved the trout out there because a hundred guppies in a 15 gallon fish tank got dirty quickly, and I was constantly needing to be cleaned. This may need to wait until spring to try again if this has killed all the trout. On a happier note, the previous owners left behind an old wooden play set that they had rigged into the crappiest chicken coop ever. It was a super eye sore, and my wife wanted it gone. I was in the process of tearing it apart when one of my rabbits escaped for a few days in my back yard. I knew she wouldn't go very far since all her little rabbit friends were still in their hutches. Anyhow, she took shelter in the old crappy chicken coop/play set that was in the processing of tearing down, and it gave me an idea. I gutted the thing, and changed it into a fully enclosed rabbit run. I moved it from the middle of the yard, and now it looks awesome. The rabbits love it, and I'm pretty proud of my handy work. I've now got seven rabbits. five females all in the run, and then two males still in the hutches. So my animal facilities as well as my back yard are looking quite a bit better. I'm pleased with it for the time being. Lets just see what I can do about the trout in the barrel.

Starting to come together

So I got all moved in to my house, and I am instantly overwhelmed with projects. It's an older house, but not too much. It was built in the seventies, and needless to say, there is a huge list of things that I want to get done. Once we got all of our boxes moved in the house, I knew that I needed to build a hutch or run for my quail. Previously, they have been in a parrot cage and I could tell they didn't like it. They didn't like walking on the bars. Anyway, so I spent a weekend making a super nice run out of 2X4s, plywood, and chicken wire. In this hutch, I have a nice place for the quail to take shelter from the elements, with a ladder for them to climb up into. I finally finished it, and put my quail into it, and all they want to do is run around on the ground. They don't fly up onto the perches I built for them, just the ground. Had I known this before building it, It essentially would have been a wooden chicken wire cage. That's the only part of the hutch they use. Anyway, so that's set up. I can check that one off the list. They should start laying eggs come spring. They may start now, but I don't really want to run a heat lamp out to the hutch. I also got my rabbits moved over. I am fairly certain that a few of my females are now pregnant, but I'm still relatively new to rabbit raising, so we'll see in about 30 days. Ok, so I also am starting my fish raising production. so far, it has cost very little, and looks promising. I bought myself a 55 gallon barrel locally for 10.00. I invented a minnow snare, and caught me a group of rainbow trout minnows from our local pond. I currently have them in a fish tank, and they've already started eating commercial fish food(I thought it would take longer for them to get it). The plan is to get them a little bit bigger, and then transplant them into the barrel. Further updates to come.

Meat chickens

Ok, so we have a website here that is very similar to craigs list. It's called KSL. It is simply a place where people can sell stuff online locally. There's a free section that I always keep a close eye on (cause I'm a cheap bastard), and the other day, I saw that someone nearby was giving away FREE meat chickens! I called the guy up, and he said that he had five available. I told my wife I was going to go pick some of them up. She looked at me and said "Cam, only get two." She said this because she knows better than anyone that sometimes I can get over my head with my dumb little projects. I agreed, and left to go get the chickens. I showed up at the guy's house, and we walked into his back yard, and upon seeing his chicken coop, I saw the biggest chickens I have ever layed eyes on. He started loading them into the large box that I brought, and I told him that I only wanted two (secretly I wanted 3 though), and he said "Well, I kind of want to get rid of all of them at once. It's ok, I'll give you another box". He gave me all five, and loaded them into boxes. I could seriously barley lift a box with 3 of them, and I'm a fairly strong person. I came home and sheepishly told my wife how in a moment of weakness, I took all five. She was annoyed at first, but it was a bit playful, so it was ok. So I've never actually butchered a chicken before, and now I have 5 nearly turkey sized chickens that I have to dispose of. So after watching a few YouTube videos I dove into it. I took a while, and I called in a friend to save me some time. Needless to say he had never killed/butchered chickens either, but it's really not that difficult. When all was said and done, I ended up with about 30 lbs of straight chicken meat. It was too much to even fit in my freezer. I had to enlist the help of my parents freezer. It took a while, but now I have some good experience with butchering chickens, and a whole ton of meat, and it was all free. It was great.

My Homestead....almost

My Homestead....almost First of all, let me tell you a bit about myself. I'm what you would call a fairly normal guy. I've got a wife, a young son, and currently live in a Two bedroom apartment in Utah. We have very hot dry summers, and very cold winters here. My Views: I think that we should all attempt to be as self sufficient as possible. I think that we have all become too dependent on commercially provided food and other supplies. I not so much a SHTF prepper person, however I'll be honest, I fit the profile fairly well. I've got a fairly good food storage, and a good amount of emergency supplies, however what motivates me is to simply be self reliant. I hate having to rely on commercially prepared goods. I want to be able to do most things for myself. This takes me to my backyard homestead. As I stated earlier, I am living in a two bedroom apartment, or duplex. Fortunately, it's in a small town where most people have a yard of some kind. In the back of my apartment, there are two large pecan trees, the largest apple tree I've ever seen, and two not so great peach trees. Aside from the trees, I was allowed a small garden area in the back. In this area, I have built a rabbit run along with a few hutches. I also have a parrot cage in my driveway with a few quail in it. Soon, I will be moving into my own home a few cities over. I will have my own yard It won't be a huge plot of land, the whole plot is just under a quarter acre. This blog will pretty much be a journal of my adventures in making it as homestead-esque as possible while still trying to look like a normal home, and not driving my wife crazy with all my antics. Here's my plan, or at least what I want to accomplish with my new home. 1: I currently have 5 female rabbits, and two male rabbits. I've only gotten a successful litter out of one of them. I want to be able to get them all on a routine where they are producing litters alternately and I will have a constant supply of rabbit meat. 2: My quail will begin producing eggs within the month. The eggs are much smaller than a chicken egg, but as far as the feed to egg ratio go, the quail is actually more efficient than a chicken. not to mention they are pretty delicious. I butchered a few up and fried them on my grill. 3: Since I won't have my fruit trees any longer, I will actually be needing to plant some, although I won't get good harvests for a while. I want to have at least two apple trees and a peach tree. 4: I want to dig a well in one of the far corners of the property. I shouldn't have to go down very far where I'm going to be living. I imagine about 25-30 feet should be plenty. I'd build me a pump, and that could supply the garden and animals with water. 5: I attempted a garden where I live now, however the work it took to get water all the way back to where the garden was wasn't worth the effort. In my new house, I'm putting in my own sprinkling system, so I'm going to add in a watering attachment into the system so that it automatically gets watered. 6: I want to get a few egg laying chickens. Not a ton of them, only around three or so. 7: The last thing that I want to implement is......my wife isn't quite sure of this idea, but I want to use a couple of 55 gallon drums and raise some fish in them. I've been doing a lot of research on the subject, and most people do it to aid in an aquaponics system. At this point, i'm not really interested in it. I just want to raise some Tilapia, and/or catfish. We'll see how it goes. So here it is. I'll update whenever I get to work on my homestead. We'll see how it goes.