Cuter by the Day?

Padfoot's babies are coming up to a month old by now and are getting cuter by the minute. They are also getting more adventurous and brave as they wean off Mum's milk and start to share in the 'grown'up feed mix (called Meusli) and in greens and carrots which they have to come out of the little 'bedroom' bit of the hutch to eat.

We therefore see them every day and get a chance to photograph them. We are now fairly sure, as the brown and white one looks so much like Rogers, that these babies could be by Rogers rather than the meat-breed (New Zealand White) buck, Peter, which we visited at our Friends and Mentor's (Anne and Simon's) place. Anne's not so sure because Peter has 'thrown' babies in all shades and hues from a wild-rabbit brown to pie-balds and pure whites and we did actually see Padders successfully mate once with Peter but, what ever, we will probably never know. If they are by Peter, they should grow fast and put on meat quickly, where as if they are by Rogers, they will presumably grow at standard bunny rate. Could even be some and some, I guess.

The fate for these guys is probably going to be the freezer and some kind of rabbit stew, but just in case there's a market, we have put them up on the Irish "classified ads" website DoneDeal.ie at €15 a pop. If we are lucky enough to sell them as pets then the €45 will have paid for all the meusli we have had to buy since owning Padfoot, Ginny and Rogers and probably a bit of the chicken wire that's gone into their runs and hutches. A rabbit's not just for Christmas?

Meanwhile, the baby chicks are growing fast and starting to put on real feathers on tail and wings. If anything, baby chicks tend to get a bit less cute as time goes by, changing from the almost spherical cartoon chick shape to more of a chicken shape as they go through the adolescent, part-feathered stage. They show their 'reptile' and 'dinosaur' flavours as they change, particularly around the head and face, before their fully feathered chicken appearance comes with the in-lay fully formed wattles and comb.

We need to check with Anne again, but I think they basically stay with their Mum (in this case in the 'other' hutch or in a run in the calf house) till they are feathered up, which is 6 weeks. They are too vulnerable, when just 'fluffy' to the cold and wet, especially in November, so they can't go outside and, if they are for any reason abandoned by their mother, we have to supply an "electric hen", a hot pad under which they can huddle for warmth. We are hoping our surviving two are both girls so that they can join the flock (all be it we'd have to watch out for any broodiness because any progeny would be father x daughter 'line-bred' birds).

We have named them CJ Cregg and Donna Moss after characters in the West Wing TV series. 'CJ' and Donna may turn out to be boys but if so, so be it
and they may be for the stock pot or a coq-au-vin. You can't have more than one "William" after all. That is possibly the less palatable side of small-holdering. We are not running a retirement home for geriatric farm animals.

Sad to relate that the 6 eggs we rather optimistically rescued into the incubator when Broody Betty got fed up with them just to see if they might survive, didn't. Today we decided they'd gone on long enough so we checked them one last time, then cracked them open by the compost heap and found them all to contain almost fully formed but dead chicks. Either this happened at some point after we'd candled them and the hen knew, and gave up on them or she gave up anyway and the eggs got chilled to death. Either way they are, sadly, no more and Betty can get on with rearing the 2 babies who are now 11 days old.

Wish her luck.