Once the the weather hits the mid 80s, rabbits really start to suffer. At 85, the bucks become sterile.* And with good reason. Pregnant and nursing does suffer the worst. Keep an especially good eye on them.

When the temps reach the 90s and you notice your rabbits lying stretched out and breathing rapidly with their ears erect, it’s time to take action. If you can’t move your rabbits inside to a cool basement or air conditioned room (and we can’t), here are some things you can do to help your rabbits through this stressful time:

1. Make sure their waters are filled always. We’ve frozen partially filled water bottles before, but I don’t really think this helps. When it gets hot, the rabbits stop moving. Which means they stop getting up to drink. Rather than hassle with frozen water bottles, I stick to step 6.
2. Cut back on pellets and give free choice hay. Hay keeps the gut moving and helps relieve stress.
3. Provide lots of shade. Direct sunlight can kill them very quickly. Towels and sheets draped over the cages provide shade but still allow air flow.
4. Drape wet towels and/or sheets over the cages. The water helps cool the air.
5. Run an oscillating fan. It will help prevent fly strike* by keeping the flies down and really cools the area down. Especially if you’ve draped wet towels over the cages.
6. Provide cold. Most people say to freeze plastic jugs of water, but we’ve found that the rabbits just chew them up. Not good! I fill freezer safe canning jars (the wide mouth kind) with water and freeze them. I’ve also heard of freezing small marble slabs for the bunnies to lay on.

One of the most disturbing things you can see your bunny do is pant. A rabbit will lie there, stretched out, breathing with an open mouth, and drooling. When things have reached this state of affairs, act quickly. Wet her ears down with luke warm (not cold!) water. Do this as gently as possible to minimize stress. Keep wetting the ears as they dry. If wetting the ears does not help, you can immerse her up to the neck in luke warm (not cold!) water. Immersion should be a last step, as it is really stressful and increases the likelihood of fly strike.

Taking care of rabbits in the heat is a lot of work. Last summer was a real nightmare with temps in the 110s. We lost one rabbit to heat exhaustion and another to mastitis related to the heat. This summer is going to be a little more challenging if we have another real heat wave. Joy and I are both out of the house most of the day with school and work. We’re considering paying a neighborhood kid to come and re-wet all the towels around 3 pm when it gets really really hot.

*Don’t worry, the sterility isn’t permanent. The boys get their mojo back for a few days after it finally does cool off.

*Fly strike, or myiasis, is a condition where flies lay their eggs on your rabbits. The hatched maggots then feed on your living rabbit. Ew.

Two Gold Sex Link and one Red Broiler chicks

The Rabbit Revolution has taken on some new little birdy friends. I sent Joy to the feed store for four Red Broiler (a medium growth meat chicken) chicks, and she came home with one Red Broiler and two Gold Sex Links. Something about that being the last Red Broiler and they’d throw it in for free if she bought the two Gold Sex Links. At any rate, now we’re growing our first meat chicken and two replacement layers.

I’m anticipating a very tasty bird indeed. From what I have read, the Red Broiler is a slower-grower than the convential Cornish Cross chicken. This more natural growth leads to a bird with a smaller breast, but more flavorful meat. In case you haven’t seen Super Size Me or Food, Inc., Cornish Cross are the chickens who grow at such incredible rates that their legs often collapse and/or their hearts explode. I’m not kidding.

All this leg collapsing and heart exploding leads to birds who don’t really like to move around a whole lot. They’d really rather just lay there by the water and feed than scratch around, eating bugs and greens like a normal chicken. Not our idea of a healthy, happy, edible creature.

Also, we will know for sure that our chicken does not contain arsenic. Yes, arsenic. Poisonous, poisonous arsenic. A common additive to conventional meat chicken feed are arsenic derivitives (they go by many names) which prevent coccidiosis. Coccidiosis, a disease caused by protozoa, occurs when birds are kept in crowded, unsanitary conditions. So, if a farmer maintains good hygiene and does not overcrowd and stress his/her birds, coccidiosis can be prevented. But that’s not the way it works in large-scale agriculture, because that doesn’t benefit the profit margins. So birds are fed poison as medicine, even if they’re not sick.

A 2006 study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy found that 55% of the chicken meat the researchers bought in the grocery store contained arsenic at detectable levels. Their sample included USDA  organic chicken, which is not allowed to be fed arsenic-containing food additives.

Not all large producers feed their chickens arsenic. Both Tyson and Perdue have stopped using it in their feed. Foster Farms also says that they do not use it. The only way to really know that your chicken is safe to eat is to either know your farmer or raise it yourself. We’re doing both.

We recently acquired a fancy schmancy chicken tractor from Rois at Hrafinstaad Suburban Homestead. I need to replace the way-too-big-for-juveniles welded wire mesh with chicken wire and bleach the crap out it, and it’ll be set to go! Meaty Bird and her little layer friends will go out there in a week or two, in time for us to receive the 6 Freedom Ranger chicks we ordered through our good friend Chris Musser at Lost Arts Kitchen. From my reading, the Freedom Rangers are very similar to, if not the same as, the Red Broilers. Guess we’ll find out!

I’m excited to start on this new project. It’s all part of our training to be real farmers!

An attendee of the seminar mentioned in the NY Times article. Photo credit: Holly Henderson.

I read a recent article in the New York Times, Hip-Hop Cuisine. The New York Times just loves rabbit. Someday I’ll collect and post all of their rabbit articles.This particular article opened with a rabbit slaughtering seminar put in behind a fancy pants restaurant in Brooklyn. The 9 attendees paid $100 apiece to learn to kill and dress a rabbit.

Part of our mission is to “give people… the tools to raise meat in their backyards.” To that end, we put on a workshop held, appropriately, in our backyard.

Since this was our first workshop and I failed to prepare in any way besides helping Joy clean the house, we didn’t ask for any compensation besides honest feedback. On a beautifully sunny Wednesday morning, our 4 adult and 1 kid attendees learned the ins and outs of caring for rabbits and how to humanely butcher. We taught the broomsticking method of stunning/killing.

We’d really like to put on some workshops somewhere other than our backyard. After the incident at Reed College involving the theft of laying hens, numerous angry vegetarian comments, and a death threat left on our blog, we’re leery of giving out our address. Crazy vegans thirsting for my blood! Ironic, no? On the other hand, it’s nice to show people how the rabbits fit in on our urban farm. On the other hand, we have no idea what the deal is with liability. In the end, we’ll probably do a bit of both. Putting on workshops for the general public at another venue and inviting friends to workshops in our backyard.

Friendly Haven Rise Farm

Joy and I recently attended a class on chicken keeping out at Friendly Haven Rise Farm in rural Clark County, Washington. Venersborg, to be exact.

Friendly Haven is past some fancy up and coming sub-divisions (which will take off as soon as the economy recovers, right?) and up into some hills. The roads are all paved, but the shoulders are narrow. The trees are old and mossy. So are most of the houses.

We spent a nice afternoon on the farm learning about chickens. I got to show off some of my diatomaceous earth knowledge. Because I am knowledgeable. Go ahead and ask. Girl with fancy chemistry degree karate chops master composter! Hi-yah!

We wound our way back down through Venersborg (there’s a store), to Hockinson, through Orchards, and to the freeway. Seeing several “For Sale” signs, we allowed ourselves to dream a little. About a real farm.

It’s quiet out there where the roads have narrow shoulders. If I wanted to insert a cliche, I’d say “a little too quiet…” But I don’t and it’s not. The neighbor’s dog still barks and cars still drive by. But the occasional noise comes without the constant noise of the city.

And as we crossed the Glen Jackson Memorial bridge (named for a big Oregon transportation planner and media mogul) into Portland, our home, we both felt the weight of the city settle over us. And it didn’t feel  like home.

The lights on all the time so it’s never dark. The people everywhere. The stink. No room to walk. The traffic.

Here, we’ve got neighbors. Lots of them. Down the street, the biker gang and their Harleys. Across the street, howling huskies. On one side, a domestic violence situation. On the other, Mr. “I Need to Warm Up My Car Every Day Right Outside Your Bedroom Window at 6 am.” It’s been 80F at the crack of dawn and he’s out there warming up his car.

Here, the city places restrictions on our farming efforts. No more than three livestock animals without a permit. No pigs (they do stink). No cows (she can’t be happy without room). No bees without neighbors’ permission. No rooster. He’s quieter than the huskies!

The Venersborg School House

And I love the city. I do. I just don’t want to live it in anymore. I kinda don’t belong here. Even if I look like I do. So we’ve decided that we’re getting out. In 7 years. These city girls are going country! Isn’t there a song about that?

To this end, we’re on Phase 1 of our 7 Year Plan. We have until New Years Day to write and refine our “Getting OUT!” plan. At which point, we will move on to Phase 2. Implementation.

Stay tuned for The Weight of the City, Part 2, as our heroines struggle with the practical considerations of leaving.

Our three does and one buck have created:

• 5 litters
• 34 kits
• 30 fryers

Together, they have eaten:

• 360 lbs of hay
• 1000 lbs of feed (approx)

Wow! We’re gonna make it. I swear.

They don’t mill organic rabbit feed. But then, neither does anyone else in the quantities we want at prices we can afford.

However. Yes, there is a however. When Joy went in to buy some pellets, she was told that they could mill an organic rabbit feed for us. They could mill a whole ton of it!

However. Yes, there is a however. They will only mill a whole ton of it. We did some fancy calculatin’ and figured it would take us (with our 3 does, 2 bucks, and various babies) 10 months to go through that much feed. (Who did the math? That’s 200 lbs of feed/month.) Pellets go stale after a couple of months. Boo.

So we need some help. Anyone? Buehler? Split an order of organic feed with us?

If we can get enough people interested, we’ll go ahead and contact them re: pricing. Please comment if you want to feed your buns organic!