Rabbits, Sheep, Alpaca, OH MY!

We moved to this house at the end of last March with the intention of making it into a mini farm. We only have a little over an acre of land but it seems huge in comparison to what we did have.

We started our farm life by building a chicken coop this past summer and now are the proud owners of 6 laying hens. They each give us one egg a day and with 7 of us in the house right now it makes for great weekend egg breakfasts.

Now we are toying with the idea of expanding our farm to include some money making animals. Ray really likes the idea of raising alpaca. I did too until I saw the price on them. We found this auction site http://www.alpaca.com/listing1.cfm and I almost hit the floor when I saw the bids. We saw one that actually went for $100,000.00! My wonderful, awesome, I would die for husband just reclined in the chair and said "yep, that is where the money is. Lets get a few." It took me three days to convince him that we really don't have that kind of money to invest in animals right now.

He is stuck on the idea of raising animals beyond our chickens, cats, dog, fish and guinea pig.

Then he started talking sheep. Long haired sheep that we could sell the wool on. Ok, I like that, not as expensive as alpaca. Through research I did find that we do not have enough land to support enough sheep to make any money.

Then I remembered that people do use the fur from Angora rabbits. I really liked this idea. The rabbit is not hurt, the fur grows back and the kids, even Keegan and Konnor, can help.

Now I am on a mission. Find out all I can about raising, breeding and showing rabbits. Seems that if you show your rabbits and they win you fetch top dollar for them. I already have some basic knowledge. My dad raised rabbits and showed then when I was a child. Now I hope I can dig out those memories to get me on the right track.

I have convinced my husband that if we can handle tiny little rabbits, we can talk about buying more land and adding on some sheep and once we have the rabbits and the sheep in hand, and they are making us money, we will talk about alpaca.

See ya on the bunny trail.

~Just Me