Dead Bunnies: Good & Evil, Continued

Late Friday night, in the middle of a spirited game of Settlers of Catan, Sean got a disturbing phone call.

A friendly pro-garden neighbor of Poppin' Fresh called with grim news. Vandals, probably the same schmucks who tampered with our hutches last week (and stole three baby bunnies) were at it again.

Domestic rabbits like our New Zealands are very docile animals, sort of like sheep. These rabbits don't stand a chance against predators, and we had gone to great lengths to build a safe enclosure for their hutches.

The Vandals had taken all 7 rabbits from their cages, removed them from the fenced-in hutch area, and set them loose in the garden.

Neighborhood cats had found our rabbits long before a neighbor noticed them hopping around, unprotected. The cats made quick work of the baby bunnies. It was about 11:30 when the Sean got to Poppin' Fresh. By then, four of the baby rabbits were already dead.

After some desperate hunting, we recovered the doe and buck, and one baby rabbit.

The plants, water containment set-up and hoop house were untouched. There's always a silver lining.

Sketch by CamillaAnne on Deviantart

This destruction of property and animal cruelty has gone unanswered, much to our chagrin. We called the Lansing PD, but they're stretched thin and uninterested in small crimes. We fear causing further animosity, and have removed these three bunnies from the garden. They're in a "secure location."

We're not sure where to go, from here.

Baby New Zealand Bunnies

Exciting times at Poppin' Fresh! In the last week we've watched our seven new rabbits grow from wiggly pink creatures to tiny, white-furred "awww" inspiring rabbits.

A flower by the Rabbitry, which bloomed the same day the rabbits were born.

The Hoppin' Fresh sign, part of a drawer from Sean's retrofitted desk hutches.

Mother Rabbit

Seven tiny baby rabbits. You could fit two or three in one hand.

Rabbit Close-up

 The rabbits are about a week old, and are growing fast! In the next few days their eyes will open. They'll continue to live in the next box for now, but soon they'll learn to escape their baby rabbit crib. They'll stay in an extra-large hutch with their mother for quite some time, and will eventually move into their own cages.

Sean's latest construction project is this massive hutch! Soon, I'll share a the finished hutch, complete with shingles. 

Rabbit and Garden Update

I've been putting this post off for a couple of days,
but it's time to bite the bunny bullet and share some sad news.

There are no baby bunnies.

I was thrilled to announce the arrival of baby New Zealand rabbits at our community garden, earlier this month. It was the first litter, and we were all pretty geeked. The buck and doe are fine, but those poor little baby rabbits died soon after birth.We were shocked, and felt awful. It's been over a week, but I have been avoiding this blog post.

There are numerous possible contributing factors to the kit loss, each as likely as the next. There is no official cause of death, but here are some possibilities:

1. We were not prepared for the litter. It's possible that the nest box was the wrong size. It's possible that we didn't provide enough of the right kind of bedding, which may have resulted in the kits getting too cold at night. The hutches we have are great for housing mature rabbits, but not litters. The doe gave birth two weeks earlier than we expected, which left us scrambling a bit. New cage construction is already under way!

2. The mother rabbit was not prepared for the litter.  Very young mothers, especially those under six months of age, may not "understand" what has happened. Our doe is just about 6 months old, and this was her first litter. Nervous and young mothers sometimes abandon their young, and there's not much that can be done through human intervention. Apparently, it is common for a young mother to lose her first litter.

 The majority of this information was provided by Sean, who is becoming a rabbit master. He's being guided by a friend who just happens to be a veterinary medicine student who specializes in rabbits. He tells us that we're doing things correctly, so that's comforting. He also inspected the doe and gave us the go-ahead to rebreed her.

Death can be a terribly sad thing, especially when it arrives as the shadow of so much life and optimism. Of course we were unhappy and angry that we lost our first litter.  Still, we are a rational bunch of folks who understand that life isn't a Disney movie, and that nature works in mysterious ways. I'd be lying if I told you that a cloud of gloomth has hovered over Poppin' Fresh. We've all dealt with it, and are looking ahead to a rabbit-filled future.  

We've learned from this experience, and we've moved on.  Rabbit death is going to happen, one way or another. Many breeding resources recommend that if you loose a litter, to rebreed immediately, and in 31 more days you'll have more bunnies! We decided to give our momma rabbit a bit of a break, and won't be rebreeding her until later this month.
By then we will all be better prepared!

So, there you have it.

When one thing dies, many more flourish.

 Last week Sean and I participated in some garden outreach, during which we walked around and met most of the neighbors. We invited everyone we met to come over and check out the garden, and promised many tomatoes to friendly folks.

The garden is looking SO GOOD. Now that we've been working the same plot for over a year we feel more confident in our own skills, and we're much more "settled in" in the neighborhood. I've been focusing on beautification, as silly as it sounds, and we have flowers coming up all over the garden. Soon we'll be extending our fence to surround the new lot we acquired, and then Sean will build a few much-needed gates.

Our young fruit trees are doing well, the Jerusalem Artichokes are getting HUGE, and tomatoes, corn and potatoes were planted  our new lot this week. We've been eating fresh snap peas, spinach and lettuce. Squash and pumpkin seedlings will go into the ground soon, and maybe a small crop of hops. We're feeling proud and optimistic with so much tasty food ripe for the taking.

It has been horribly dry in the Lansing area, but we're ready and waiting for a good rainstorm. We've added to our daisy-chain of rain barrels, tripling our water-storage capacity. We have many more barrels set aside, so once we add taps to them we'll be in good shape. Rain barrels are so simple to make, and are absolutely invaluable. Soon I will post an easy how-to rain-barrel demo, so you can make some for your own garden. If  you don't want to wait, do a quick internet search and get started this weekend!

If you want to join us for a work party, keep an eye on the Learning Leaves Community Gardens Facebook Page, where we post schedules for all three of our gardens, on the east side of Lansing.

Community Gardening and Rabbit Keeping FAQ

About a year ago, a friend told us about a new community garden forming a few blocks from our house, funded by the Lansing Land Bank and The Garden Project. We jumped on board, and haven't looked back.

We now help maintain two community gardens where everyone works together. Poppin' Fresh is one of those gardens - and it has exploded in size, in more ways than one!

Our footprint has doubled. Last month we got approval to annex the newly-cleared lot next door. We're slowly gaining new members, which are desperately needed to eat all of the tasty things we're harvesting, year-round.

We're happy for more space, but the most exciting thing to happen at Poppin' this month is the arrival of baby bunnies!

With the arrival of bunnies have come questions from alarmed relatives and curious friends. The best way to learn about what we're doing is to come and see for yourself. Until you make it over to the Garden, allow me to answer some of the questions we hear most often.

Why are you doing this?

We're doing this to learn, plain and simple.

My childhood in the suburbs did not offer much hands-on experience with farming and animal husbandry. Sean and I first got involved in the community garden because it sounded like a good opportunity to get our hands dirty and learn the basics of gardening from knowledgeable people, for free.

Our biggest expenditure has been time, and it is time well spent. We're still learning, but we're also teaching new gardeners what we know. We have fun at the Garden, and the time flies when we're there. It's a nice break from the daily grind. The good people and delicious free food are nice perks, too.

The long-term goal is to strike out on our own, get some land and have our own garden with its associated trappings. Until then, we're making the most of what we have and learning lots along the way.

Okay, so, why rabbits?

Rabbits are so cute! They're cuddly, quiet little buggers with twitchy noses and lucky feet. What's not to like? 

There are other benefits, of course...

• Rabbits produce good fertilizer. And when I say good, I mean really good. Please don't be squeamish - it's just nature! Rabbit manure is one of the very best fertilizers available. Fresh manure from large animals (horses, sheep) is harsh stuff that can kill your plants if applied too soon. It needs to be composted for months before adding it to your soil. Rabbit pellets, which are considered "cold" compost, can be used immediately without killing your plants. It's not as smelly, either.

•  Rabbit pellets fix our soil, and we need it! Before Poppin' Fresh came into existence our land was occupied by a few abandoned houses in a flood plain. We've found more than our fair share of rocks, old asphalt and broken glass while putting in garden beds.  The quality of the food you grow is directly determined by the quality of your soil. Building good soil takes time, but amending it regularly helps! Rabbit pellets are chock-full of good nutrients . They drastically improve the soil's structure and porosity, too. You can find out more about the wonders of rabbit pellets by reading Chris McLaughlin's blog post, Rabbit Manure in the Garden.

• Rabbits eat our weeds! Dandelions and many other weeds are a delicacy in the rabbit world. In a matter of weeks our rabbits ate up every dandelion at Poppin' Fresh, which has left us with nicer grass and happier neighbors.

• Rabbits really are cute!  Adding the rabbits to Poppin' Fresh has strengthened our garden community. Regular gardeners, off-and-on gardeners, newcomers and neighbors all think that the rabbits are pretty darn cool. They've become a nice attraction of the Garden.

•  We're learning livestock maintenance. Rabbits are a cheap, relatively easy introduction to the care and keeping of farm animals. We want chickens, just like most of our gardening peers. Chickens required more than our fledgling garden was willing to provide at that point in time. Rabbits have been a great trial-run for us, and we now feel far more confident about our future ability to keep other kinds of rabbits, chickens, quail, bees, a herd of fainting pygmy goats... or whatever comes along.

So, how do you do it?

 Like many things at Poppin' Fresh, the rabbits just sort of... happened. They were premeditated, but we acquired them far earlier than we expected. It was a mad scramble to prepare for spring, but everything worked out wonderfully.

Our original breeding pair (a buck and a doe) of New Zealand rabbits came from a local breeder. New Zealand rabbits are bred as meat rabbits, not pets. Ours came with small cages, food and water dishes. Though they would have been alright in those little metal cages, Sean built two hutches out of re-purposed desks. They're much happier in their rabbit palaces, within the "Hoppin' Fresh" enclosure.

We cross each bridge when we come to it. As novice rabbit keepers, we didn't know exactly when our doe would give birth, but estimated her due date to be mid-June. We expected a litter of 3 or 4 bunnies. We were wrong. Our doe gave birth to 8 or 9 baby bunnies two weeks sooner than we expected! The Big Hutch Building Party is scheduled for this weekend. If you're available and want to play with power tools while building a better future for some cute rabbits, please join us!

Keeping rabbits as a part of your garden is not as outlandish as you might think. They're worth the work, as long as you don't let them "free range" and eat all of your veggies. That book I continuously mention, The Urban Homestead, was how Sean and I first learned about keeping rabbits as part of homesteading. It seemed bizarre at first. There are some urban gardeners who swear by it, and their results speak well!

The internet is full of helpful information about keeping and benefiting from rabbits, as is the library. We just acquired a copy of the eighth edition of Rabbit Production, by McNitt, Patton, Lukefahr and Cheeke. The MSU Extension is a helpful resource, too. EVERY Michigan county has an Extension office that provides free materials in the hopes of helping people improve their own lives, and their knowledge goes far beyond rabbits and gardening.

What will you do with all those bunnies?

Our main goal is to provide these rabbits with a safe, healthy living environment.

We shelter them, protect them from danger and provide a healthy diet of dry rabbit food and greens from the garden. Once weened, we'll keep the new bunnies in separate cages to control their population... and we'll go from there!

Though we make a lot of jokes about Rabbit Stew, I can't predict the future. All I know is that we'll continue to learn from these rabbits.
 

((Check back soon for video of baby rabbits!))


Find out more about raising meat rabbits on a small-scale urban farm (and SO MUCH MORE!) by watching this video, produced by Dan Shifrin. He's an urban homesteader in Florida.

Re-purposed Rabbit Hutches

Our community garden, Poppin' Fresh, 

acquired two young meat rabbits from a local breeder. 

Hutches were a necessity but with no funds,

we knew that ingenuity was key.

 

Why spend a bunch of cash on new materials
when you can get them for free?

There's a simple philosophy, once wide-spread
but quickly dissipating in America: 

Use what you've got to make what you need.

Some of you may remember this hutch Sean built:

Hutch #1, before shingles.

Compared to the traditional rabbit hutches for sale, 

this two-story abode is a luxury home
for our plump New Zealand bunnies! 

This week we delivered Hutch #2 to Poppin' Fresh,
and boy is it an upgrade!

Hutch #2, the  Bunny Palace.

 This hutch is mostly comprised of a discarded dormitory desk.

We got two desks for free from the MSU Surplus Store.

  (Side note: The Surplus Store is amazing and well worth a visit!)

Modest beginnings.

We fenced them in to deter

  neighborhood dogs and other dangers.

They're on the north side of our garage, 

so they're protected from the weather, too.

Fun fact: The wooden fence sections came to us from
a neighbor who was about to throw them away.
(Thanks, Mike)

We let the rabbits graze on our impressive
dandylion crop using our converted chicken / rabbit tractor!

We've been working on a few little projects

in addition to the big spring planting push.

There are plenty of greens in the ground

(Swiss Chard, lettuce, spinach, kale)

and our radishes are starting to crown

up out of the soil.

Arugula Flowers!

My favorite in-season treat this week

are the thousands of arugula flowers 

all over the Garden. Arugula leaves are edible and

often found in salads. They taste slightly peppery.

Their flowers are also edible!

I eat them like popcorn.

Yesterday we picked up about a dozen

Brussel Sprout starts from The Garden Project.

Pumpkins, squash, and other delicious things

are just starting to germinate in our hoop house.

Oh, and tomatoes!

 To help new volunteers find their way around,
I painted a sign for each bed.
They're a little quirky, but they work.

We've sort of neglected the front of Poppin' Fresh,
which probably irks the neighbors a bit.
This week I ripped the over-grown wildflowers
sown last year in "decorative" beds.
I replaced them with some Alyssum seedlings,
a few Thyme plants and a bunch of German Chamomile. 
Some Goblin seeds, too, but they won't
germinate for another week, at least.

One of two front beds, and the main gate.

The front gate looks a bit bare at the moment,
but we plan to train our cucumber plants up either side.
I hope it works!

The most important project of all was completed this week:

RAIN BARRELS

 If you don't have water, you don't have a garden.
It's as simple as that.
We don't have a well, and we certainly don't have
a hook-up to city water or the fire hydrant,
like other gardens in the area.

Our rain barrel set-up is our one
source of water for all of our plants.
Sean and friends "liberated" gutters
from a nearby house slotted to be demolished.
We connected them to our storage garage,
then hooked up a tiered rain-barrel system.
At the moment we have six barrels
attached to this garage, daisy-chained together
with an overflow system to collect
as much as possible during those torrential
Michigan rainstorms.

If only we had more than 
two watering cans...

If you live in the Lansing area you should come check it out!
We're always in need of a few extra hands.
We'll let you pet the bunnies, show you around our plot(s),
feed you some Arugula flowers and send you home with
some of whatever is ready to be harvested.
Email me and I'll tell you a bit more,
or keep an eye on the Learning Leaves Facebook page.

("Learning Leaves" encompasses Poppin' Fresh, Leaf Lot,
Marvin's Gardens and other bits of dirt we scratch at.)

See Also:Urban Farming and Community Gardening in Lansing, Michigan

Urban Farming and Community Gardening in Lansing, Michigan

It all began about a year ago, in the sloppy, 

cold Michigan spring of 2011.

We had just moved into our current house 

and were rather pleased with ourselves.

We patted one another on the back and smiled, 

proud as could be.

"Look at us, all grown up, doing grown-up stuff."

The only difficulty with our lovely rental house was
the lack of gardening space. The house is beautifully landscaped
with plenty of perennials and shade-loving flowers,
which leaves little room for all of the vegetables
and other plants we would like to add.
Our very nice landlord had some concerns about
Sean and I ripping up her pretty yard, which is understandable.
But, how could we be self-reliant homesteaders
without our own bit of dirt to cultivate?

Around the time Sean and I were hitting this wall,
we heard from a friend that a new community garden 

was to be organized using empty lots 

rented from Lansing's Land Bank.
Part of Lansing's east side lies within a flood plain,
which has resulted in many vacant lots with rich soil
in a nearby neighborhood.

$10 a year, per lot.
Throw in lots of free seeds, 

seedlings, information and help. 

It sounded too good to be true...

One year later, we now know that it is true, 

and even better than we thought!

Here's Poppin' Fresh. We also have a second lot,

named Marvin's Gardens. (Get the reference?)

It took a lot of hard work, and some prescribed Vicodin

when Sean and I both threw out our backs pulling up 

sodden sod. The pain and temporary 

 inability to walk was worth it, in the end. 

Digging up all of that grass  to make the garden beds 

was the absolute worst part about this entire experience.

Once the Garden Project sent over their 

fabulous tilling machine our prospects looked better.

We have the equivalent of three city lots that we use for planting.

These empty lots are in an older, quiet neighborhood built upon a 

30-year flood plain. No new construction is allowed, 

so the houses are slowly being abandoned, 

eventually to be torn down by the city.

On either side of Poppin' Fresh are vacant houses 

slotted to come down this summer. When that happens, 

I expect we'll incorporate 3 or 4 more lots 

into our already large garden.

Last summer, our first main growing season, was a great success!

We have a core group of 5 - 7 gardeners 

who have invested an obscene amount of time 

and effort to make Poppin' Fresh what it is, today. 

Being close to MSU means there are countless 

students who sporadically show up to help out. 

In return, we send them home with a bounty 

of whatever is ready to harvest. Various student groups have 

come and gone, and we sometimes find 

ourselves short-handed when the demands of 

college keep the crowds at bay.

We function differently from the average 

Community Garden cooperative. Instead of each gardener 

tending their own small plot, we all work together 

on what may be better labeled as a Community Urban Farm. 

However, we don't follow the model presented 

by Urbandale, a production community garden/farm 

about a block away. They have a food stand 

and sell their produce to locals. 

They also have big fence. 

We're sort of against fences, but may need 

to construct one this summer to keep our livestock safe.

We're always a little unorganized, 

but Captain Kirk continues to surprise

us with all kinds of crazy ideas and amazing finds.

It looks like our next project will be a chicken coop!

In the last few months, we've acquired some major items:

 The Hoop House

Tons of pre-consumer compost from MSU  and Starbucks.

Piles in various stages line the left wall of the hoop house.

Our vermicompost (worms!) is doing especially well.

 Two New Zealand Rabbits (a buck and a doe).

Carol named them Thing 1 and Thing 2.

The number system might stick when 

they start breeding, next month.
((Update! More about the rabbits here!))

Seedling trays and pots, dozens of them, that were discarded.

We get free seeds through the Garden Project,

but everything we've planted so far this season comes

from left-over seeds - greens and herbs, mostly!

Sean's rabbit hutches, made from reclaimed MSU dorm desks.

Sean's constructing the roof right now!

One in progress, and one waiting for a new purpose.

A free chicken tractor from a nice stranger!

  Later this week we'll begin harnessing power from the sun. 

THE SUN!

Captain Kirk's super-cool solar panel will be 

on loan to the garden for the next long while. 

This will allow us to ventilate the hoop house with fans, 

hook up a light and maybe a boom box. 

We may also need power to heat the chicken coop this winter,

if we don't keep it in the warm hoop house with the rabbits.