Thursday, January 14, 2010

Update Long Overdue

Well, a lot has gone on since I last updated. Much of it involving the c-o-l-d weather and having to deal with the animals in that.

I tried 3 different heaters in my barn and none of them were a go. The radiator heater was too small, the next heater (a dish heater) would've probably worked pretty well if my barn had more insulation. And, the last heater, which we thought would do the trick, was a disaster. We got one of those outdoor patio propane heaters. My brother put it together and started it up. It looked promising at first and worked pretty well for about 4-5 hours. It was up in the high 20's in the barn when it was about 0 degrees or close to it outside. But, then it tweaked and the flame was burning at the low setting when it was really on high. The propane tank & hose had ice all over it. By morning it was barely going and had used most of the propane up in the tank. So, that was a no-go, unfortunately. Praise the Lord anyways! I guess we'll just try to get the barn insulated with spray foam insulation and Lord willing that should do the trick for both winter & summer.

The bunnies have all handled the cold pretty well. Last week the lows were in the negatives and highs between 6-20. I just kept loading their cages full of hay and fed them oats as often as possible. Along with giving them hot water 3x a day. There were a few buns who I was concerned about, but they all pulled through well.

Thankfully this week it has warmed up to the 40's. It hasn't froze in the barn for a day. That's big when you've been dealing with freezing waters for the last several weeks :).

I bred Jana to Cameron this morning. Hopefully she'll take. And, we'll be working on getting some more does bred too.

Daisy is due in a week too :).

Sara's babies are all doing good and I'm hoping to get some pictures of them soon.

Yesterday I was finally able to get the trays dumped and the barn cleaned out. They hadn't been changed for a couple weeks and were long overdue. It was nice to get the barn back in shape & organized.

The buns seem to be enjoying the fresh air from having the shutters open due to the nice weather.

Well, I think that's about it for now . . .

Qadoshyah

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