As April rounds up, the weather is definitely getting nicer! We are seeing days entering the 60’s now in Southeastern Wisconsin and we’re loving it just as much as the animals!
We’re also currently on “state lockdown” due to the COVID-19 pandemic like most states. But, we don’t mind at all! While we still work as normal during the day, we have more time to work on homesteading projects and take care of our animals.
Also, we’ve found a piece of property we are interested in looking at in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but due to COVID-19, we are unable to visit it. We are remaining patient as we wait for the stay-at-home order in Michigan to be lifted. In the meantime, we will keep saving money where we can so that hopefully soon, we can move to our forever piece of land and start building a home.
If you missed the first update to our homesteading journey be sure to check it out here first: Our Homesteading Journey – March 2020.
This month mostly consisted of woodworking projects, fishing, rabbits, fencing, and getting into a routine! Keep reading to learn about each one!
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Woodworking
Landon has been working non-stop on projects to keep the homestead up and running! I love that he is so handy with tools and wood. He can fix anything with the resources he has, it is quite amazing!
First, check out this super cool paddle he made for the canoe! We were in need of an oar and he just popped this one out of nowhere one night when I came home from work. I am so proud of him!
He also made two rabbit hutches out of wood and hardware cloth so each rabbit has its own space to run around and play. They sleep up top and stay our of the elements in the boxed-in area, but most of the day they are out hopping around.
We had the hutches inside the garage for most of the month as the rabbits are still quite young, especially Alder (jump to the rabbit section to read more about him!). The temperatures at night were still hanging around freezing but now they are outside in the back permanently and love their new space.
Landon also built this handy food storage container for us. We keep on the dog food on the left and the chick food on the right. We like to keep their food inside in our laundry room so that mice and other animals won’t sneak into the garage for a midnight snack.
Next, we just need something for the rabbit food. Look for that project in the next update hopefully!
Landon has also been working on building a motor for the fishing boat from an old weed wacker motor…talk about genius! He is so inventive and creative. His problem-solving mind is so necessary for our homestead to thrive! Unfortunately, he didn’t have much success with this. It’s back to the drawing board or looking for a cheap boat motor online.
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Fishing Adventures
It was a sad month. Very sad in fact, because we ate our last piece of venison!
Here’s the story for those of you that don’t know. This past November Landon hit a 5-point buck when he was driving to pick me up from work and totaled our car. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt at all! He called me and to my surprise was so happy, saying, “Harms you’ll never believe it I hit a deer!” I was horrified and worried and trying not to be upset as I considered all the implications.
He kept talking, “We can feed our family for months now!” Hahaha I love this story because it shows that Landon is always trying to provide the best possible meat for our family. He called our neighbor who loaded the deer in his pick-up truck and brought it to our garage.
Landon figured out a way to hang the deer from the rafters and that weekend his dad came and we all cut up the deer and packaged into the freezer. For months we enjoyed having venison steaks for breakfast and roasts at night.
Now that it’s gone we can’t wait to start hunting more deer on our land up north when we move. But, for now, we will keep fishing.
Over Easter weekend and the following weekend, we went to one of Landon’s favorite trout streams. We caught several brook and brown trout and ate them over the fire. We even got to take some home for a meal later on.
For lunch, we’ve been grilling up and eating the steelhead that we have piled up in the freezer. For dinner, we’ve been eating crappie, bass, and bluegill that Landon has been catching in the lake near our house. Frying them up with some almond flour breading is our favorite way to cook these!
As it warms up and everything around us remains closed, you can find us out on the water!
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Rabbits
Guys! We picked up all our rabbits! I am so excited. Let me introduce you to them…
Alder is our black New Zealand buck. He is still so little at only about 2 months old. He is probably the cutest rabbit ever, not going to lie! I love to hold him as I work from home or do tasks around the house.
We picked him up from a family that breeds rabbits in Indiana as we were passing through. I found him and our other rabbits on Craigslist after lots of searching. I couldn’t seem to find the breed of meat rabbits we need anywhere else near us.
Next, we have Lily and Lilac. They are our two white New Zealand/California mix does and are about a month older than Alder. And let me tell you they are a lot bigger than Alder too! They grow so fast.
I’ve found my rhythm of feeding the rabbits Timothy Hay and rabbit pellets each morning along with weeds and other veggie scraps I find. Now that it is nice, they will be rotating along the grass outside and eating more “free-range.”
The dogs are doing a wonderful job getting accustomed to the farm animals. They love to sniff the rabbits. They are so gentle around them and have never bitten or chased them. I love how friendly they are with one another.
I’ve been getting quite a few questions about why we are raising meat rabbits and how we are doing it, so here’s a quick break down for those of you interested.
These three rabbits, one male, and two females will be our breeders so I’m allowed to get attached and name them (; We’re not killing them because they will be producing the majority of our meat. At about eight months old we will begin breeding them.
A typical litter for a rabbit is eight kits. They are pregnant for 4-5 weeks and we can start eating the young babies at 12 weeks old for the freshest meat. These three rabbits will hopefully produce us with over 100 pounds of meat a year. We won’t start breeding our rabbits until they are all at least 8 months old.
And, rabbits have meat that is rich in protein. We are thrilled to be able to control the meat we are eating each day, from fresh fish, venison, and rabbit meat.
Now we just get to enjoy watching our rabbits grow for a few months before we start breeding them at the end of summer.
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Chickens
My babies are growing up! These cute little chicks are a month old already and I can’t believe how fast they are growing.
Almost all of their down feathers are gone, except for their head. Full feathers have come in and all the original yellow fluff is off. They are eating more and more.
We had to move these guys a couple of times this month to find the best set-up for them as we waited for things to warm up. They were in a large dog crate in a room in the house so that they could stay nice and toasty without any drafts. Newborn chicks need to be at about 100 degrees in their first few weeks. After that, you keep raising the heat lamp, so it cools by about 5-10 degrees each week.
Because we could move the lamp higher with the dog crate, we decided to move them into the bottom of one of the rabbit hutches in the garage. That way, the heat lamp could hang a bit higher and they could slowly adjust to the feeling of the wind outside.
We have only had one tiny scare with the little chicks so far. It was working quite well with the chicks in the garage. I purchased a new waterer and feeder for the chicks because they will need full-size ones as they have grown, and decided to give the waterer a try.
It’s called a nipple waterer because the chicks peck the silver button or nipple, and the water slowly drips out. I like this one because it will heat the water in the winter so that it won’t freeze.
After training the chicks on how to use it, they were getting the hang of it pretty quickly. One of the nipples must have started leaking and it slowly dripped all over the floor of the hutch area they were in. It soaked the straw and the chicks stayed in this back area where the water couldn’t reach.
Thankfully, they had a dry area to sleep that night but it wasn’t under the heat lamp. I cleaned it out for them quickly and they were right back to staying warm under the lamp. Crisis averted!
Now they are staying outside in the coop and we run an extension cord to the house to keep the heat lamp running. They can scratch at the ground and be in nature eating bugs and grass. It is definitely the best set up so far! I can’t believe that in a month they will be without a heat lamp and they will be laying eggs at the beginning of August.
On other exciting news, I won an Instagram giveaway with Scratch and Peck Feeds! It was such a blessing because I was able to purchase herbs and chick grit for my baby chicks with the $25 gift card. They have been enjoying their new treats for sure!
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Dogs
The pups have been doing wonderful with adjusting to the animals. They help me feed the animals every morning and night. I love seeing them perk up when I say, “Who wants to go feed the animals?!”
Landon is still training them on herding commands so that when the chickens are free-ranging in the yard, they can keep them from wandering off. This mostly involves walking around the coop area so far. It will be a lot more training in a month when they are old enough to go without the heat lamp and explore outside of the coop.
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Fencing
Setting up our fencing this last month has been quite the ordeal, so let me start with the positive!
After traveling down to Landon’s dad’s house to pick up some old dog kenneling for our chicken run, we found some old picket fencing that wasn’t being used. Landon spray painted it white and now we have a cute picket fence in the front yard. I can’t wait to share pictures when wildflowers are bursting all around it! I’ll share a photo of it then.
After hauling the kenneling to our backyard, purchasing some bird netting, and finding as much cheap, used fencing on Facebook Marketplace that we could we came to the day where we were ready to assemble everything.
Until we realized how hard it was going to be to secure all the mismatched fencing to a large area for the chickens. We don’t have a lot of money and I quickly learned how expensive fencing really is! And, to really protect your livestock from predators you need the good stuff dug deep into the ground held by concrete.
Unfortunately, we just can’t do that right now. First, because this isn’t our permanent home. We’re going to be buying land up north soon, Lord-willing, and so it doesn’t make sense to set up anything permanent. We also still live in a neighborhood so do not expect too many predators that will try to get into our hen house.
After a day of assembling everything, we finally have everything connected and zip-tied together! It’s not pretty but it is functional and safe for our animals right now.
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Gardening
A few trips to Home Depot happened this month. We bought the wood we needed and tools to complete our rabbit hutches and other projects. I also found some wildflower seeds that I can’t wait to plant after our last frost date in the front garden. They will look beautiful around our new walkway.
As for the seeds I am starting indoors, they all seem to be growing just fine! I’ve decided I don’t want to use egg cartons again for my seed starting process indoors. They ended up very moldy and I had to move to larger containers sooner than I would have liked.
In the future it looks like I will be purchasing a grow light. That seems like the best solution from the garden blogs I have been reading.
I’m also reaching aquaponics and greenhouse ideas for when we move up north. We’ll have even a shorter growing season then so I am preparing now.
We also had free woodchips our neighbor, who purchased a wooded property next to our house, is clearing out. We asked them to drop the woodchips on our driveway for us. It was a huge blessing.
The dogs have a doggy door they use and with the rain, it has been getting muddy inside our house. We laid woodchips all over their fenced in area and they quite enjoy it. And we enjoy not having to clean the floors as much.
I also used the woodchips to lay a path between my 4×4 garden squares. I also finished layering the garden with a layer of bar litter (hay and chicken poop, and now some rabbit poop) and a layer of peat moss.
It’s still sitting under a tarp “cooking” but in this next month I’ll put on a layer of wood ash to finish the lasagna garden and begin planting. I honestly can’t wait to give this whole lasagna garden a shot. We’ll have to see what happens!
Thanks for reading this month’s update! Next month we’ll be touching up our pathway with concrete, planting the garden, and getting the chicks ready to leave the coop!
Don’t forget to share this post if it inspired you in any way, drop a comment below so I can connect with you, and follow me on social media so you can be notified when next month’s post is released. Until next time!
-The Alberts
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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You are a stronger woman than I, that’s for sure. I’d never be able to 1) handle that many animals, 2) know I’m gonna end up killing and eating them at some point, and 3) be happy about being outside so often haha. But it’s cool that you’ve found a lifestyle that works for you! Sounds like it’s going quite well.
You are so kind Stephanie. It doesn’t feel like a lot of work because I love it so much (:
I’ve always wanted a rabbit, they’re so so cute!
Yes, they are!!
So many animals! Your dogs, and chickens, and rabbits are all so cute, but it sounds like a lot of work to take care of them all. I am interested to see more about your garden, since I’ve never seen the lasagna technique before.
Ah thanks, Kait…just hope it doesn’t completely fail (;
That’s great! I love all the woodworking projects – my dad is very into woodworking so he made lots of stuff for us growing up (and still makes me things for around the house!). And the chicks and bunnies are all too cute!
That’s amazing! I love all the things my husband has made for us!
Wow! This is so cool! My husband and I have talked about possibly doing something like this in the future, but we aren’t ready yet (and I’m not super great with animals) but, it’s a possibility and I love reading about your journey!
[…] whole reason my husband and I decided to dive into the idea of raising meat rabbits was so that we could become meat self-sufficient. Between hunting deer, fishing, and a chicken here […]