I wrote this a week ago and never hit post.  I have been inspired by another blogger to do weekly updates, so this week you get a two for one deal! 

Weekly update, even though for us this is really a monthly update, maybe even bimonthly update! I know eventually my life will slow down and I will be blogging more, now is just not that time. So let’s catch up

The meat birds…
The meat birds are ready to go to slaughter any day now. We learned a very important lesson, do not plan on having your meat birds slaughtered during deer season. All of the small scale processors in this area are processing deer this time of year. They have no time to process our chickens. The birds that we choose to raise this time around are ready to be processed between 12 and 15 weeks.  They are ready now, if we wait too long the meat will become chewy and we do not want to see all out hard work be for not. If I can not find someone to butcher them this week, we will have a butchering party a get it done in an afternoon. Hopefully that will be this week.

The laying hens.
We have now have 20 hens. Eight of them are not mature enough to start laying yet. We get on average about 11 eggs a day. We have some consistent customers so eggs don’t gather in my refrigerator for very long. We have had some cold weather this week and some snow, the chickens have done pretty well. We have been feeding them some freezer burned veggies (note to self do not use cheap freezer bags) and food scraps to keep them busy.  They also love cracked corn, shelled sunflower seeds and flax.

Our rabbits.
We now have two senior bucks and 2 senior does, all with different blood lines!!! This makes us very happy because that means we can now sell mating trio’s and pairs. We are doing our part to save this amazing breed! We have Jr does that will be ready to breed around Christmas and other Jr does and bucks that are ready to sell. 
Our two senior does both kindled this week. Bella is doing great and had a litter of 7. Aurora who is normally our great mommy did not have a very good week. She kindled 7 kits all together with one being stillborn. Over the last couple days four more kits have died. We have no idea why. It was cold this week but the other mama and babies were in the same barn and did fine. We know some of them got to cold because she removed them from the nest but no idea why she would do that. We are very upset by this and feel like we have failed these poor babies. I hope that it is not something that happens again.

Aquaponics system.
Most of our plants froze. We have since put a light in the greenhouse that keeps everything above freezing. We are hoping to start seeds this week, but with everything else going on, that might just be wishful thinking. This year with the system has been such a learning experience and I honestly am enjoying every minute.

Well that is what is happening on your backyard farm. I hope everyone has a good week and I hope to post again next week.