Progress and loss

Well, it has been one of those weekends...take one step forward and couple back.  The end of the week I noticed that Berkana was losing weight.  I upped her food and added treats (yogurt and oats) and apple cider vinegar to her water.  It was too late though. Saturday morning I knew I was losing her.  I have had this happen twice before, the first time I lost my original Silver Fox buck about a year and a half ago within a couple days.  The second time about 6 months ago I nursed Rowan back to health and she is doing great now.  I try to run my hands over the rabbits every couple days so I can see if there are any troubles. I am very sad I did not catch Berkana in time.  She was a good girl and a good momma. I am not even sure what was wrong, I can only think maybe cocci.  But I have been very careful to make sure their food and water was clean.  I can only think that maybe it is because of the chickens.  I have been trying to figure out how to deal with that for awhile now.  I tried netting off the tops of the cages in the rabbitry so the chickens couldn't roost on top but that didn't last long, they found ways around and through the netting.  So, I have been converting the shed to a coop for the past couple weeks but it has been taking awhile with the amount of work to get it done and the amount of time I have between school and nasty weather.

So, this afternoon, after picking pumpkins for sauce and butter, I finally finished the new coop door and moved all the hens in there and locked them in for the next couple days. Wednesday I will put the doors on the barn and lock everyone out of the rabbit barn and then let the hens out of the coop.  By then they should be used to it and go back there to roost.  Some of the hens already lay their eggs there so hopefully it will be good.  It is actually more space than in the rabbit barn. So, that is the progress.

The second step back was that 2 of the baby bunnies died.  Four of them are very fat and huge and the two that died were about half their size so they obviously were not competing as well for milk.  I know it means the four will be healthier most likely but it is sad. 

Every loss is hard for me to take emotionally.  Financially it is also rough, I am really trying to keep my babies (the breeders) healthy and to have their offspring feed us or sell to bring money in to feed the rest of the animals, particularly with such high feed costs now, so every loss puts me back in that goal. 

One step at a time though and I will hopefully get there. 

Rest in peace sweet Berkana.