Basic Rabbit Care In Season Magazine

Be sure to check out the Spring Issue of In Season Magazine. It's full of delicious recipes and informative articles. Don't miss my article on Basic Rabbit Care, pages 44 - 49. 

Photo Saturday

I usually post the weekly photos on Friday, but I had a lot to share this week and the Friday post was pushed back. Here's our week.

Emmet, our Holland Lop Bunny

Big Tom

Latest drawing to hang in our remodeled spare bedroom

Oliver

Sunday roasted chicken

New Bottle Opener design available in the Etsy shop

Thanks to the Leghorns!

Meet Emmet

I have the best husband. I can't imagine being married to someone who doesn't love animals as much as I do. But in the same breath, that nurturing spirit can be dangerous. It's good that we have each other to keep things in check. If Zach had his way, we would have a thousand goats. He loves the goats. I love the goats too, but Zach has a special bond with them.

My unbreakable bond is with the dog. I don't even really think of him as an animal, he's the closest thing I have to a child and I treat him like one. No shame!

If I had my way I would fill our home with Golden Retrievers. I may-or-may-not have a fantasy of laying in a pile of Golden Retriever puppies... letting them lick my face and snuggling all that fuzzy cuteness. Oh my gosh, just thinking about it makes me want to squeeze one. No shame!

It's the fuzzy cuteness that gets me every time! Which is why we now have Emmet. An adorable Holland Lop.

And I'm smitten.

He's the sweetest bunny I've ever met. He snuggles and cuddles his little face in my lap while we watch Christmas movies. And he loves to eat greens on my desk while I blog. His favorite toy is a toilet paper tube that he re-decorates all over his cage and he's taking to liter training already!

He's just a baby so his ears are in the process of dropping. Oh my gosh Holland's and those ears. It just doesn't get any cuter! 

  

Farm Theme Coloring Book

I'm excited to announce that Iron Oak Farm is almost ready to release it's first Farm Themed Coloring Book! It will be available in our Etsy Shop. If you've been following us on Facebook, you've probably seen the various images I've been sharing with our readers. Last night I finished the last of the 40 images that will appear in the coloring book. Subjects include chicken keeping, goats, pigs, cows, bunnies, turkeys, ducks, shearing sheep, spinning yarn, bee keeping, milking, maple syrup collection, gardening, vegetables, apple picking, canning, plowing with tractors, and much more. There's a bunch of baby animal images too!  

When I was a child, coloring was my favorite past-time. I would go through coloring books and crayons at a pace so fast that my mom would limit the number of pages I was allowed to color in a day. When I got a little older, I remember being frustrated with coloring books at the store. I still enjoyed coloring, but most of the coloring books were themed around cartoons that I was no longer interested in. If your child likes farming, gardening, or being around animals, then this coloring book is perfect!

I see the joy that children experience around farms, animals and gardening, and it's my hope that this coloring book can bring a bit of that to them. Especially in the winter months when not much is happening on the farm or outside. I tried to use realistic images and real experience to create a book that is not only fun to color, but educational as well.

The finished book should be available by the end of this week. (That's my hope anyway, I'm still working on printing issues.) But in the meantime, I welcome you to print off this free Chicken Yard image for your children to enjoy and color. (Click the link for a printable version, or visit the Coloring Book page above.) I'd love for you to share your child's coloring work on the Iron Oak Farm Facebook Page!  

How to Clip a Rabbit's Nails

We have three adorable bunnies, Wallace, Grommit and Darby. Every three weeks or so they need a nail trim, both for their benefit and ours. Rabbit's nails can grow extremely long and sharp, and when your trying to hold a large squirming rabbit, those strong back legs can do some damage. Our rabbits are fairly calm while being handled, but just to be safe, nail trimming is always a two person job. One to hold the bunny, one to do the trimming. We find that if you cradle them like a baby, it calms them and it usually doesn't bother them to have their feet touched. Be very careful when handling rabbits, they have a delicate spinal cord and can wiggle so viciously that they can break their own back. Like dogs, rabbits have a quick that extends into the nail and is the "live" part of the nail with a blood flow. It is important not to cut this or the rabbit will bleed and it's very difficult to stop. Always have styptic powder handy in case of an accident. If the quick is cut, apply the powder with firm pressure until the bleeding stops. To identify the quick, examine your rabbits nails thoroughly. If the rabbit has a clear nail this is easier and you can see the quick clearly, even if you know where the quick is always leave some space between where you cut and where it ends. If your rabbit has dark nails it can be trickier.

Grommit has dark nails so to be safe, we only clip a tiny bit every three weeks. If you cut the first nail and all goes well, we use that as a measure of how much to take off the rest. If your rabbit's nails are really long cut tiny amounts more frequently. As you trim, the quick will slowly recede and with each session you should be able to get them back to a reasonable length. Wallace and Grommit are Angora Rabbits so their feet are especially furry. I brush the wool backwards to expose the nail. If you gently press the pad of each "toe" the nail will pop forward making it easy to see. We use a guillotine type clipper where you insert the tip of the nail and a rounded blade slides up and slices the nail. Make sure the blade is sharp so you get a nice clean cut. If the nail shatters or if you're unsure as to where the quick is, you can also use a tool called the Pedi Paws, which I really like. You insert the nail into the rotary sander and it sands off the nail like an emery board. It leaves a nice clean edge. The only draw back is that you can't do a lot at a time. If the nails are really long you would have to do it everyday. It also heats up if you keep it on the same nail too long due to friction. But it is definitely a useful tool. If you're really unsure, take your rabbit to your veterinarian and have a professional clip their nails or show you how to trim your bunny in particular.

Caring for the Tools that Care for Our Animals

Well, we've come a long way as a society in the tools we use to care for our animals. I swear, my dog has a more thorough health screening every year than I do. And while I love to do things the old fashioned way, and would love to tell you that Zach and I use these old sheep shears to shear our goats and rabbits, alas, I cannot lie. These beautiful antique hand shears hang in our laundry room, and the only use they have in our house is to look rustic and charming.
There is however, a whole group of people who still use hand shears to shear their animals, and they do it faster than Zach and I with the electric ones.
As quaint as the old shears are, I find them incredibly daunting. We opted for the electric ones, more modern, but not nearly as scary.

  This is our collection of tools that we use to take care of our animals. It includes shearing tools, grooming tools, and nail and hoof clippers. We also keep a good grease cutting soap like dish-washing liquid on hand, small machine oil for shears or sewing machines, styptic powder, peroxide and triple antibiotic ointment.






Many of these tools are a considerable investment, it's important to take good care of them, not only to protect our own expenses, but so that they work properly and will do the job they're made for without injuring us or our animals.

 Shearing season is done for us for a while, and other than trimming up our Golden Retriever now and again, cleaning his ears and feet puffs etc. (he gets these pom pons on his toes and he looks like he's wearing fancy lady slippers), we will be packing up the clippers for a few months.

We have two sets of shears, our large electric sheep shears, and a smaller pair of animal clippers. They both work in basically the same way. They have a stationary row of angled teeth, then the lower section that slices back and forth.

The teeth on the sheep shears are spaced much wider than the animal clippers this is necessary because wool is much more dense than fur or hair. The head base is also wider which allows the fleece to come off faster, therefore putting less stress on the goat. These however, are a more dangerous set of clippers because it's easy to get your finger or the animal's skin in between those wide spaced blades. Unfortunately, someone always seems to get nicked. Either one of us or one of the goats. If the goats get nicked, we clean the area well with Peroxide, and smear triple antibiotic ointment on the wound each day until it's healed.

The animal clippers have a more narrow head, smaller teeth and spaced more closely together, but not too close together to where they wouldn't be able to get through the fur. Human clippers like the ones used in barber shops are meant for hair and will not work on animals with wool or an under coat, the teeth are too close together. We use the animal clippers on the rabbits and for our dog because they are safer and more easily manipulated for smaller areas.

This is what the clippers looked like after we sheared the rabbits.
I take the clipper head off, and brush out much of the wool and debris with an old recycled dog brush. It has soft bristles that work like a tooth brush and get between the teeth of the blades.

Then I brush the blades with grease cutting soap

and rinse under very hot water so much of the moisture evaporates and will not cause rust. Dry the blades well and oil well.

Our sheep shears have oil ports,

where the clippers I just run a bead of oil down the blades and turn them on for a minute to spread. They are now clean and ready to be stored.

We also use a collection of different brushes on our dog and the rabbits. We have a soft slicker brush which is the main brush for removing snarls and everyday combing on the rabbits. Slicker brushes have different bristle types, this is a soft brush used for cats or rabbits and won't scratch their delicate skin. The dog slicker has more firm bristles for removing his undercoat. We also use this great little tool called the Furminator, each of the teeth has an angled blade that removes mattes and loose fur extremely well. Ceddie also has his comb for after his bath and a shedding loop with teeth that draw out loose fur. It's also important to have a nice pair of scissors designed for cutting hair or fabric. These are quilting shears but they slice through fiber with no problem. Using dull scissors on a squirming animal can be extremely difficult and somewhat dangerous.

The last collection of tools we have are used for clipping nails and hooves. We use these large clippers for trimming the goats hooves, about every three weeks, see January 26th post Trimming Goats Hooves.

After each use we clean them with soap and hot water, dry thoroughly moving the clippers back and forth, and oil. It's important to keep them clean as to not pass bacteria between each goat causing hoof root etc.








For Ceddie and the rabbits we use a guillotine type clipper. We keep a vile of styptic powder on hand in-case someone get's clipped below the quick.     

Shearing the Angora Rabbits

Knit and Purl weren't the only ones who've received a hair cut lately. Wallace and Grommit our two Angora rabbits were also sheared.

They are a mixed breed of Angora and Thrianta. Wallace is a Chestnut and Grommit (shown here) is a Black.

You can shear Angoras up to 4 times a year, so long as the fiber is over 2 inches or so. But I've been having a really hard time spinning the Angora at that short of a length on its own. It slips apart and the yarn breaks. The Angora is very soft and slippery. Many spinners blend it with other fibers that have more of a tooth, like wool or Mohair. I've not tried this yet, instead I let Wallace and Grommit grow for six months to see if a longer fiber would take the spin better.

Their wool is a little over 6 inches and it is beautiful! I was thinking about having it commercially blended with the Mohair, but it's so long and gorgeous that I might give it a go again, alone.

We use electric clippers which makes it easier and faster, which I feel, places less stress on the rabbit.

 They are surprisingly calm throughout the whole process. I think they're getting used to being handled all over because I brush them at least twice a week with a slicker brush.










I think they are sort of relieved to get all that wool off. We let them run around outside after they were sheared and they were jumping and running and kicking their legs sideways. 

When we were done we had more fur on us than the rabbits, it's very feathery and fluffy and seems to stick to your face, nose and clothes.

The poor rabbits look like skinned rats,  but they'll fill in very fast. If it gets too chilly at night, we will put a heat lamp on them. They are already making little dens in their wooden cave boxes, they must know winter is coming.

Do Your Ears Hang Low?

Meet Darby O'Gill, our Holland Lop Earred Rabbit. Granted, "O'Gill" isn't really Dutch in origin, but we liked it just the same.

Darby breaks my own rule of only buying animals that are useful in some way. Besides the dog, Ceddie, who really isn't an animal, he's a person trapped in a Golden Retriever's body.

Darby is our indoor, pet rabbit, whose only usefullness is looking adorable, eating bits of apple, cleaning a papaya pit of every remaining bit of fruit, taking naps in the sun and cuddling on our laps while he trys to turn the folds of my nightgown into a rabbit hole. Yes, it's true, most farms could not function without one just like him.

Darby followed me home one day, near Easter, from Tractor Supply Company, but this was no spur-of-the-moment compulsive rabbit purchase, no, no. You see Darby and I had a history.

Once upon a time Zach decided to build a tumbler to clean the scale off his blacksmith pieces. (he'll blog about it someday) This project required about 3 trips to TSC per day, for a week or more. I would volunteer to go because TSC is one of my favorite places to go. (Seriously, somtimes when I've had a bad day Zach will take me there to cheer me up.)

Anyway, it was rabbit season, not in the hunting, shooting and skinning kind of way, but in the Tractor Supply gets rabbits in for sale and I get to go there and stare at them, kind of way.

The first trip to TSC, Darby started out as any other baby rabbit in the bin. He was white with tannish, grey spots and his ears stood on end like all the other rabbits.

The next day, one ear was up and one was down. He looked as though he was questioning everything. Like a person might, with one raised eyebrow.

By the next day both ears were down, and I was in love. (You see, I have a weakness for animals with ears that hang down. The goats, the dog, and now this rabbit.) I needed him, and he OBVIOUSLY needed me.

Then the clincher, the lady at TSC suggested that I hold him. WELLLL, that just seemed like about the best idea I had heard all day. Darby and I toured all of TSC. By the time we got to the boot department, he was named.

The next day we brought my Mom up to TSC so she could fall in love too. (My Mom has a weakness for bunnies) and home he came.

Truth is, Darby is a wonderful addition to our home. He is extremely easy to take care of and his little personality is adorable. Not to mention those ears!!

Angora Rabbit Fiber Coming Soon!

Meet Wallace and Grommit. Yes like the Brittish claymation cartoon, named after the movie "Curse of the Ware Rabbit" which we highly recomend, wity English humor, cute to watch around Halloween.

Anyway, Wallace and Grommit are our new additions to the farm. They reside in their cages in the barn with the goats, (we want to put up a sign "Fiber Barn") Wallace is a chestnut and Grommit is a black.

They are part Giant Angora, part Thrianta, but they inherited the Angora coat so we are excited to shear them.

We brush them every other day or so to keep away matts and keep their coat smooth.

Here is what they looked like when we got them. They're fur was starting to grow out and they look like giant cotton balls. We trimmed them up on April 3rd and their fur is about an inch now. On nice days we let them out to run, like the goats, they can't get wet. The fenching in the goat area is also rabbit proof.

They both do this strange thing with their chins. They rub them on branches, rocks, trees etc. I assume it's some sort of territorial scent marking, but why their chin?