Abigail M Johnson

I am hoping to really get a lot of use out of the jerusalem artichokes. I planted maybe 20 of them along the fence of the various animal pens. The more, the better for me. It is intermingled with chicory, which I also recommend. Planting along the fences uses space near the animal enclosures for growing food and beautifies the space. Do you harvest the artichokes a little at a time or all at once in fall? I realize the leaves can be harvested at any time. Does it stunt the tuber growth to pick the flowers and leaves excessively?

I raise 2 breeds of ducks in separate areas. The first are Saxony, and the mamas like to make a humongous nest with hay with tall sides. You can sometimes barely see them when they are sitting in the nest and this is a large breed. I started them out with a very simple A frame type house made of pallets and a tin roof. I put hay under it and took an egg from the chickens and put in there where I thought would be a good spot. Then just let some duck eggs pile up in there. This breed wants about 10 eggs before they will sit. If I take them all she will not really lay eggs in the nest anymore but by the pool. Same goes for most of the ducks I have had. They don't really like nest boxes. The second type of duck I raise is a Rouen. These mamas make a totally different nest, just a depression in the ground and they cover the eggs with leaves. One of mine is currently sitting on a nest she made. If I take her eggs out, she will stop laying in the nest. She is trying to make a clutch and once she has 7 or 8 eggs she will sit on them. If I mark on the older eggs and let her keep them a while I can take new eggs while she eats. If I want her to raise ducklings I just let her keep them.

I grew purple top turnips and daikon radishes for my rabbits in the fall and winter. They adored the turnips and rarely got tired of eating them. Of course they like variety, but they really did love the turnips. The radishes, they liked less. They enjoyed the tops on those more than the root, but those were so easy to grow that it was worth it to me. I don't know if you have room for peas, but I made hay out of all the pea plants I pulled up as they played out and they dried and stored very well in old feed sacks. I fed the rabbits that for a long time in winter. I am just now getting some jerusalem artichokes growing, do they multiply quickly?

That is really sad. Sorry that happened. So far I am having success with a sort of hybrid situation, although I am not even a year into this, so I have limited experience. I have my rabbits in separate cages at night. I let them out in the late morning when I feed them and they spend the day out in a pretty good sized fenced area. They get frisky kind of like dogs when the weather changes and they jump around. They climb a lot but they have never climbed out. They seem to do that when it is cool and they are excited and happy. Anyway, they mainly eat and lounge around together. In the evening I put their food in their cage and they usually come up to me and let me pick them up. When I started this setup, I had to use a net to catch them, they did NOT Want to be put up. Then they caught on to the routine and they seem to like to be put up at night now. They have never tried to dig out or anything. When my doe's kits get bigger, I don't think I am going to let them out of the grow out cage. I think I will just keep things simple.

That really is adorable. Yeah, I'm not sure what happened with the 2 babes that died. They didn't die from cold or anything, they were small like they didn't live long. They were alive at day 2 and today I saw flies so that is what prompted me to clean the nest out. I didn't want the flies to begin to harm the other kits from the dead smell or something so I replaced the nest materials thar were mainly underneath the little actual nest hole area. Hopefully my doe keeps doing what she has been doing because the 4 live ones were very fat and happy, trying to hop around.

It seems like it is a problem from one extreme to another. I was concerned about the freezing temps a couple nights ago. The kits, born 4 nights ago, seemed to do fine through that because they had a very warm nest. Now it is 80 degrees outside. I had 2 kits pass, though I don't think it was heat related but I cleaned out the nest box because of that finding. So as I was placing the materials back and replacing some of the materials, i starting thinking surely these kits are too hot in here now. My question is, how much should I interfere with the state of the nest, should the kits stay covered in the fur if it gets over certain temp? The remaining 4 kits are really healthy, fat and moving around a lot when I messed with the nest. I just don't want them to overheat. I never even thought of that being a concern, but I live in a place where it is cold one day, hot one day. Fluctuates a lot.thanks for any advice from more experienced folks.

I have two small flocks of ducks. One flock is Saxony. The second flock is Rouen. I let them out one flock at a time to forage in a much larger area. They don't really stay out of their pen consistently. They sort of go in and out. Certain times of the year, I can stop giving them feed because they won't touch it. As to what they actually eat, I haven't paid attention. I can't tell when they eat plants, as they do not demolish things like chickens. They seem to eat mainly bugs and nibble at green plants. Ever since I got them away from a mixed flock situation with chickens, they have calmed way down are no longer hogs. There is a hen sitting on eggs in each of the duck flocks right now, so I do give them some feed, as I'm not sure how much forage time they are really willing to go and have right now. I would love to get away from feed altogether so I like these ideas. I do not buy feed for my rabbits but I pay for feed for the chickens. I have too many chickens to forage for. The ducks are the most low maintenance and delightful animals that I have.

I wanted to update that my doe had a second litter on Saturday night. I saw she had made a good nest in advance. She seems so be caring for them this time. I am so happy about that. No kits were born out of the nest box and she blanketed them with fur and pulled more when the temperature dropped last night. I did cover her cage with a tarp because it was incredibly windy. I did temporarily place a sheet of cardboard under her nest box since it was windy and freezing. I have not looked in the nest at all. Perhaps I should make a different thread on whether to clean the nest and how often...advice. But I did just want to give that update!

I have only been having my pair of standard rex rabbits since early fall 2025, but I have only bought them hay. I was able to forage or grow everything for then here in Louisiana. They are very healthy, happy and doe has kindled 2 litters. Best of luck.

Yes I have used rise and shine rabbitry list a lot when I started out. I live in Louisiana and have not had to buy anything except hay. The rabbits do seem to get burnt out on some of the things growing in winter. But Spring is practically here with lots of things starting to grow now, much more to grow in the coming weeks. I am going to try sunchokes and mirliton starting spring after reading what everyone has posted here. I am hoping for a lot more stored 'hay' for next winter from everything I might dry this year. Hope everyone has survived the ice and cold.