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Got a surprise this morning when I went to feed the rabbits. Our Rex doe, Bon-Bon, had a fifth kit 16+ hours after the others were born. It was stillborn and she made sure not to birth it in the nest but in her litter box. I cleaned it out and gave her some raspberry leaf. I thought she killed one of her live kits but they were all fat and wiggly in their nest when I counted. The stillborn kit was much larger than the others so I think he got stuck and it took her some time to push it out. She didn't eat much yesterday because she was still in labor and I thought she was depressed so I gave her rosemary. She gobbled it up! No baby eating which I am happy about.

EDIT***

A second stillborn kit. This one I got to it before she started eating it. She was eating the placenta and licking the kit. I might not breed her again if this continues.
 
@zannej - My dad went out today and bent down the metal roofing. While he was up there he noticed some other bad spots in the roof so this year his project will be to ripe up the entire roof and put a new one on. He's going to dismantle an old machine shed and use that wood for it.

Grimm, sorry about the stillborns. Someday I want to have a pet rabbit. Lol.

Not doing much today. But I think I'm going to attempt to go outside. It's miserable out, but I'm getting jittery. I've been in front of the computer like all day.
 
@zannej - My dad went out today and bent down the metal roofing. While he was up there he noticed some other bad spots in the roof so this year his project will be to ripe up the entire roof and put a new one on. He's going to dismantle an old machine shed and use that wood for it.

Grimm, sorry about the stillborns. Someday I want to have a pet rabbit. Lol.

Not doing much today. But I think I'm going to attempt to go outside. It's miserable out, but I'm getting jittery. I've been in front of the computer like all day.

These are meat rabbits. First litters for both does. Since the first stillborn was large I am assuming this was a fluke. My Rex doe is still caring for her 4 live kits and being a good mommy. I did a kit count after both stillborns and they are still there happy and warm. I did get some rabbit formula and feeder bottles a few weeks ago just in case.

I did give her lavender to help if there are any more still in there. (It induces labor and helps with strengthening contractions) She gobbled it up so I think she was hoping to be done with this labor.

I might have to stay away from Rex does in the future. My mixed doe seems to be the way to go. I'll contact her breeder in a couple months to see if she will sell me another doe (or two, or three).
 
These are meat rabbits. First litters for both does. Since the first stillborn was large I am assuming this was a fluke. My Rex doe is still caring for her 4 live kits and being a good mommy. I did a kit count after both stillborns and they are still there happy and warm. I did get some rabbit formula and feeder bottles a few weeks ago just in case.

I did give her lavender to help if there are any more still in there. (It induces labor and helps with strengthening contractions) She gobbled it up so I think she was hoping to be done with this labor.

I might have to stay away from Rex does in the future. My mixed doe seems to be the way to go. I'll contact her breeder in a couple months to see if she will sell me another doe (or two, or three).

I thought they might be meat rabbits, but. . .I still want a pet rabbit. Lol.

I have found mixed usually do better as far health, pregnancy, labor and over all temperaments.
 
I thought they might be meat rabbits, but. . .I still want a pet rabbit. Lol.

I have found mixed usually do better as far health, pregnancy, labor and over all temperaments.

This is our first time raising meat rabbits in hutches. I grew up raising them in a colony setting with several breeds together. I also had pet rabbits one being a Rex doe. She had a litter by accident when she was older and she was a baby eater.

I like my Rex bucks. I might just have New Zealand or mixed does with my Rex boys. I found another meat breeder who has NZ/Rex mixed rabbits. I'll have to contact them.

I do what to add our breeders are loved like pets.
 
@Grimm We have a pure-breed Tonkinese cat. Drug lords bought her and ditched her. When we found her she was pregnant and she went through labor, but the babies had somehow died inside of her. She gave birth but it was just condensed flesh, like her body was breaking it down / reabsorbing it? Weirdest cat pregnancy ever.

The vet said she had two kittens, but they never manifested. We thought maybe she ate them, but we couldn't figure it out because we were with her the whole time and then later we found the blob of deformed fleshy material. In all mom's days on the farm, she never saw a pregnancy like that cat's pregnancy. There were some other weird things that happen to that cat, but the miscarriage was weird and explainable.
 
More of the remodel house to run supply lines through the house.

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.next up is plumbing a hot water heater.

Ben
 
Getting mom's paperwork in to get her apartment in assisted living, so hoping in a week or so it'll be a go and we can get her moved. I'll be breathing a sigh of relief because she really needs the step up in care. Her apartment now in independent living is a nice one, but this one is nicer, too. Brought her some groceries, we had lunch with her, and sis said her goodbyes. Took sis to the airport, and just found out her flight is delayed an hour so she will be stuck most likely in Houston for the night. The neighbor's guinea killer dog came by early this morning, locked her up in a cage in the garage (we have snow again) and got the mom to come get her. Husband gave her a talking to. Told her we would be driving her into the pound in the other town if she's here again. Last count...down 15 guineas. I really hate that dog. All is quiet, no company. The twins have the dentist tomorrow for a ton of fillings (appt 3 out of 5 maybe) and then we have school conferences in the after school hours for them. Older granddaughter can explain her two F's she thinks we don't know about. How can you get A plus on every homework assignment and an F on every test? Well I can guess.
 
I've actually gotten quite a lot done today - wahoo! It's nutso here. We've given 2 bids in the last 2 days. I tell Hubby bid high - we are swamped. Both responded promptly "Yes, get us on your schedule." It's good but. . . . We haven't been bidding much because it's been a case if you bid it you get it. (More money than workers.) We want to ride the wave as long as we can.
I might try to kidnap Hubby this weekend and make him go fishing. He's been working 7 dpw. We were going to try to go skiing in Idaho last weekend, but it was raining on the slopes so nixed the plan. We are not downhill ice-skaters.
 
I did stuff in the shop, got annoyed cause the junk I scavenged isn't co operating, figured out how to link youtube stuff, so my pedal powered chain (bucking) saw is post 5 of the pedal powered generator thread,.
 
Just returned from picking up dad's prescriptions. Of course one wasn't ready, so I went to kitchenware to see if they had a "fry daddy". They didn't but $140 later I was still in kitchenwares. All were things I needed, just not today.

I had a set of pot holders, the silicone ones, they were old, stained. Last week I soaked them in a bucket with Tide for 3 days, stains still wouldn't come out. Then they wouldn't dry, still damp after 2days. So today I bought new pot holders. I needed some new dish towels, a rolling pin, new measuring cups. Needed more plastic rolls for the food saver. Even bought the 800cnt box of tooth picks.

Stopped at the mexican place for dinner, pretty good. Their in-house salsa has always been good but they changed it, a lot more cilantro and red onion. Made it taste like a cross between salsa and pico de gallo. It was actually very good, great flavors and different than a hundred other mexican restaurants.

Now I'm in my chair with the dogs watching me through the glass door, hungry. So I have two more chores, feed the dogs and get the extra 50lb bag of dog food from the truck.
 
Katie, it sounds to me like the kitty miscarried due to birth defects then. Might have been related to drug exposure or stress. I hope repairing the garage goes well. Lumber and metal prices are through the roof (no pun intended) right now.

Grimm, sorry about the stillborns but glad the others are fat and happy. At least when they have multiples it is less stressful for them to lose babies. A cat we were fostering got pregnant twice (right after giving birth she got pregnant again while we were waiting for the vet to say it was safe to spay her). She had about 2 stillborns from each litter. With one she gave birth to only one kitten first and then the rest were born 24+ hours later.

Tossed and turned last night bc it was too hot. Woke up and it was too cold. Had to go clean up puppy crap, let puppies out, unjam float lever (had to do this 2x already today and need to go check it again in a few minutes). Chased puppies around trying to get them to stop eating cat food as they have now both figured out how to get through the broken back door.

Picked up mail and took my brother to the courthouse to try to get a public defender.

Popped in to visit his friend. The woman he has a crush on came over so we were hanging out with her and getting along well. We like her-- my brother used to work with her.

Watched my friend's ex have a complete meltdown as we were leaving. I told him he needs to give her a deadline on getting her stuff out. He said the deadline was 2 months ago. So, legally, he can put her stuff out now. I offered to do it if he gives her a specific date of removal.

I'm about to go check that float lever and scrounge up some food.
 
Just returned from picking up dad's prescriptions. Of course one wasn't ready, so I went to kitchenware to see if they had a "fry daddy". They didn't but $140 later I was still in kitchenwares. All were things I needed, just not today.

I had a set of pot holders, the silicone ones, they were old, stained. Last week I soaked them in a bucket with Tide for 3 days, stains still wouldn't come out. Then they wouldn't dry, still damp after 2days. So today I bought new pot holders. I needed some new dish towels, a rolling pin, new measuring cups. Needed more plastic rolls for the food saver. Even bought the 800cnt box of tooth picks.

Stopped at the mexican place for dinner, pretty good. Their in-house salsa has always been good but they changed it, a lot more cilantro and red onion. Made it taste like a cross between salsa and pico de gallo. It was actually very good, great flavors and different than a hundred other mexican restaurants.

Now I'm in my chair with the dogs watching me through the glass door, hungry. So I have two more chores, feed the dogs and get the extra 50lb bag of dog food from the truck.

A soak in some hydrogen peroxide seems to clean up my silicone baking mats.
 
Noticed the local grocery store was having a secret sale on Bumblebee tuna. Twenty-five cents a can! Limit 4 cans. I made a run and made sure I got the tuna. I had intended to go anyway for canned beets. No one else has them around here and I can't order them from Target anymore. I shopped the sales and only got what I could not order online for less- fresh produce and the beets mostly. Lots of manager specials on things no one wants or can afford. Prices were not too bad this trip. I may have to re-evaluate renewing Costco in July.
 
First night back to work since mid-July. It was a good night. On my shift there are 2 people who were there when I left last summer and the other 4 are new hires. Fortunately everyone on the freight unload team actually did work. No standing around or creating ways to waste time or venture off to hide from work. This is actually the first time everyone on the team actually tried to do work. Now, no one was working faster than average but I paced myself to work even with the others so I didn't mind and the supervisor didn't say anything so I guess it's OK to work half-fast.
Now,if I can just get a new password for the company computer system I can log in and get more work done.
 
Slow day today. Taking the motorhome to a RV repair shop. No 120 VAC when unplugged from shore power and generator is running. I'm having the shop test the generator 120 VAC output. My trouble shooting leads me to the generator but I don't have the required third hand to test by myself. I know the problem isn't the shore power to generator transfer switch (replaced), circuit breaker on the generator(replaced) nor the fuse to the generator's exciter circuit.

Check the motorhome's tire pressure and add air as need before leaving. It's been sitting all winter.

The drive to the RV repair shop will be a good test drive after "fixing" the fuel pump wiring again.

The only concern I have is that the drive to the RV shop will be using the $2 gasoline in the fuel tank. Should I leave the tank at half full or fill it with the today's $4.19 gas?
 
Slow day today. Taking the motorhome to a RV repair shop. No 120 VAC when unplugged from shore power and generator is running. I'm having the shop test the generator 120 VAC output. My trouble shooting leads me to the generator but I don't have the required third hand to test by myself. I know the problem isn't the shore power to generator transfer switch (replaced), circuit breaker on the generator(replaced) nor the fuse to the generator's exciter circuit.

Check the motorhome's tire pressure and add air as need before leaving. It's been sitting all winter.

The drive to the RV repair shop will be a good test drive after "fixing" the fuel pump wiring again.

The only concern I have is that the drive to the RV shop will be using the $2 gasoline in the fuel tank. Should I leave the tank at half full or fill it with the today's $4.19 gas?
It will probably be 5.00$ soon, ?????
 
Taking the granddaughter to pick up the little Ford Focus (36 mpg car) .

Will have lunch in the big town.

May look at a Prius (50 mpg car)

Cold again today , snow by weekend, temps down to the teens.

Nice to be retired to help the kids and grandkids.

Still gotta start to remodel the laundry room.
Soon.

Great day to be alive.

Jim
 
@zannej - We didn't know she was pregnant and got her her rabies and distemper vaccine, and we think that's what might've caused the kittens to die while in the womb. It was sad, but she was kitty #9 at the time and we didn't really want to have two more. And seeing that we have 10 cats now, had she given birth we'd have 12 right now.

Dad paid the dog license yesterday and said it was a good thing there's no such thing as cat license or it would be $80!

Probably going to write today. Then window-shop on Wal-mart.com and Amazon. Lol.
 
Taking the granddaughter to pick up the little Ford Focus (36 mpg car) .

Will have lunch in the big town.

May look at a Prius (50 mpg car)

Cold again today , snow by weekend, temps down to the teens.

Nice to be retired to help the kids and grandkids.

Still gotta start to remodel the laundry room.
Soon.

Great day to be alive.

Jim
You get that house done so there is no excuse at Christmas about decorating!! We are all waiting for spectacular decorations inside and outside!!😁🎄🎄
 
My brother picked up hot water (gas) 40 gal. He made me guess how much. $450 no $800. I have 2 that are ages old now so I will have to gird up my loins when that time comes. He worked to get water turned on while I worked on replacing the outside outlet on the front of the house. The one that was there was a bit of a hack.

20220308_164235.jpg


It took some fiddling to switch from a horizontal box the vertical and have something left to secure the new box to. The siding will replaced so I am not worried about that for now.

Tomorrow I will run power and get that outlet working.

Making progress and happy getting things done.

Ben
 
Got a surprise this morning when I went to feed the rabbits. Our Rex doe, Bon-Bon, had a fifth kit 16+ hours after the others were born. It was stillborn and she made sure not to birth it in the nest but in her litter box. I cleaned it out and gave her some raspberry leaf. I thought she killed one of her live kits but they were all fat and wiggly in their nest when I counted. The stillborn kit was much larger than the others so I think he got stuck and it took her some time to push it out. She didn't eat much yesterday because she was still in labor and I thought she was depressed so I gave her rosemary. She gobbled it up! No baby eating which I am happy about.

EDIT***

A second stillborn kit. This one I got to it before she started eating it. She was eating the placenta and licking the kit. I might not breed her again if this continues.

If the big one got stuck and caused the second to die, I wouldn't count that against her. Sometimes it happens.
 

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