well, the roller coaster went down the hill again

Sadly, I woke up this morning and all the baby bunnies had died. I checked on them last night before bed and they were all in the box with fur and straw on top of them and moving around...so I could count them without touching them. There was extra straw in the cage, straw in the pan below and they are in one of the warmer areas of the barn. This morning they were all completely exposed and dead.

I am very sad...very upset. I don't know why she would let the babies become exposed like that, it had to be almost deliberate because there was no covering at all on them.

*sigh* back to square one. :-(

Roller coaster homesteading

Today has certainly been a roller coaster in the homestead.

Part of the day was reserved for harvesting my extra roosters and Tom turkey. For most homesteaders I it's very important that the animals have a good life and good death. Sometimes it doesn't happen exactly as you hoped. Today was like that...it was time for these birds to go to freezer camp, they had lived good lives, running around and acting like what they were supposed to...like chickens and turkeys. Sadly the killing did not go as well as I had hoped....so it makes me very sad. It was as quick as we could but not as smoothly as we want it to be. It bothers me a lot and I know it was nothing I did on purpose and it is a learning experience but it is still very hard to deal with.

So I was dealing with that when I had a feeling I needed to check on my rabbits...there was just a bit of odd sounds from the rabbitry and my new doe had been pulling fur this morning. She had been bred by the original breeder on the 20th so was no where near term and I hadn't even palates her yet. Well I went in to check in everyone and there she was with 6 live babies!

Then the roller coaster went down when I realized one of my grey turkeys was totally missing. I had named her Thelma and my buff Louise because they were two trouble makers constantly finding ways to escape. However, they always stuck around the pen and eventually went in roosting for the. Igot. Louise was in the pen and it was sunset and Thelma nowhere to be seen....I looked around for her and no luck. :-(

So it has been one of those emotional up and down days.