Raising Rabbits Workshop!

  Are you thinking about getting started with rabbits but you aren’t sure where to start? Want to raise your own meat but you don’t know how to butcher it properly? Concerned with the way our economy is going and want to have your own personal food supply in case of emergencies? Rabbits are the perfect livestock for beginners, city dwellers, and homesteaders!

  Rabbits are clean, odorless, quiet, and productive. Two breeding does can supply almost 200 lbs. of high quality meat per year, and it can be done in the tiniest of backyards. Rabbit meat is known for its fine texture and its high level of protein; rabbit meat is twice as filling as chicken, so one 3 lb. fryer will go as far as a 5 lb. chicken from the store! Whether you are using rabbits for meat, fiber, breeding stock, show, or pets, you can learn all you need to know in just one day…

Come to the ‘Raising Rabbits Workshop’ and learn everything from handling rabbits, feeding, breeding, marketing, raising litters, butchering and more! Attendees will also have the opportunity to butcher a live rabbit of their own (this part of the class will be held at the end and it is optional to attend this part), and learn how to do the job properly and how to deal with the meat afterwards.

  Lunch is provided and will be a delicious rabbit soup and homemade bread. If you prefer to have something else, you are more than welcome to bring your own lunch.

Cost: $60 per person; a $30 deposit is required to reserve your spot.

Date: May 26^th, 2012 (Saturday)

Time: 10:30AM to 3:00PM

This workshop will be held in a barn, so please dress appropriately for unpredictable Oregon weather! Lunch will be held inside the house if the weather is undesirable.

Attendees will take home handouts from each subject covered, and will have the option to take home the rabbit they butchered (additional cost applies). Breeding stock may also be for sale.

For more information, or to sign up, please contact me by clicking HERE! There are only 6 spots left for this class so don’t wait too long to put your reservation down!

And for those of you who are interested in such a workshop but are unable to attend due to distance between you and the state of Oregon, I do have a webinar in the works that will be available for purchase soon! Just waiting for some good weather!

Stoked

Ooooh, I am stoked right now!!

In my post below about the upcoming goat conference, I jokingly commented that I should offer to teach a class. 

And then I stopped in mid-sentence. Why not? Why couldn't I reach for the stars and pursue the thought? So I wrote y'all to stay tuned, as I had a "light bulb idea". 

Upon finishing that post, I shot an e-mail off to the chairman of the conference, simply asking if they would be interested in another topic of interest being taught that day. My class choice? Herbal remedies for goats.

I received a reply this morning.

It was a "Yes" and a "No". Apparently they had already planned for such a class to be hosted, and had asked two different herbal doctors to teach it. Neither one of them have replied yet, and the chairman has said that if there is no reply in the next few days, the position is mine! 

Hoorah!! I may very well not get the position, but there's still a chance!!! :D

I must admit that I love teaching. I love it more than writing, and it's in second place to raising animals. I love that look that people get, when they finally "get it!" You see the realization dawn on their faces, and their delighted expressions as they find that they know what they're doing. People who once had no clue as to what they were doing; all they knew was that they wanted to know how to do it. They wanted that knowledge. And it never fails to bring me immense pleasure to help them on their way. 

So we'll see! I just may be teaching at the Northwest Oregon Dairy Goat Association's Goat Conference in February!! That's an exciting thought. :)

Your Opinions, Please?

I am eager to teach some more workshops! The goat one was a lot of fun, and I would sure like to do some more classes for folks. But, the cold weather is here now, and no one wants to stand around in a cold barn for the whole day. So I've been in a bit of a fix. I don't want to have to wait until spring to teach some more classes, but neither do I want to make people endure chilly days and frozen fingers!

Then I had a thought, two nights ago (I do all of my plotting and scheming at night. Hehe). What if, instead of hosting a live workshop, I did a "webinar"? I would create a private Youtube of the workshop, and run it as if you were actually there, and then when you pay for the webinar, I would send you the link to the videos. What think ye'?

 My thought right now would be to host a 'Beginning with Meat Rabbits' webinar. I've been raising rabbits for about 8 years now, so I've definitely got experience, tips, and tricks to share! I also have 15 rabbits of varying ages, and two that are pregnant and due in 26 days. Attendees would learn what to look for when choosing breeding stock, different rabbit breeds, housing needs, rabbit care, feeds and feeding, handling a rabbit, health problems and how to deal with them, herbal remedies, breeding, care of kits, raising a litter of kits, butchering rabbits, choosing stock to keep from your own litters, marketing rabbits, troubleshooting, and whatever else I can think of!

What's your opinion on something like this? How much would you say a webinar like this is worth?

Zzzzzz....

Eh? What was 'zat? Sorry, I must have -- fallen -- asleep -- again.... Zzzzz... ;)

 Okay, so I'm not quite THAT tuckered out; but I'm pretty close. The class went really well, and there was a headcount average of somewhere around 20 people. Not too shabby if I say so myself. :) I learned today, that I need to buy another copy of myself. Goodness gracious, those girls were all needing help for something different, at the same time! Now I know how my old art teacher felt... I probably looked like a bumble bee; bumbling, ducking, stooping, and turning; trying to help 13 girls use a drop spindle! LOL! It was interesting to see which girls really latched onto the spinning process, and those who seemed a little indifferent. It was a fun group though. They were all really sweet girls, they were attentive, and they learned surprisingly quickly! By the end of the lesson, each girl knew how to choose, wash and card a raw fleece, and how to spin their own yarn.

Oh, and here's a winner. I've waited who knows how many years to hear this. I got called, "Miss Caity", today! ;) I never thought I'd live to see the day when I was old enough that young girls would look up to me and call me "Miss"! LOL! So there, one of my life's goals completed...

Also sold a good bit of goat milk soap at the class, which was really nice. :) Gotta' start saving for a plane ticket to VA!

OH! And I am so, super stoked. The class hostesses (this spinning class was part of a home ec thing; and I was asked to teach) let me borrow their brand-spankin'-new copy of Joel Salatin's latest book, "Folks, This Ain't Normal". I started reading it on the way home, and am already loving it!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work I Go!

Toodle pip and cheerio, my dearies! I'll be leaving in a few hours to go teach a spinning workshop! :) I've been looking forward to doing this for a few weeks, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. My mission is to give thirteen young girls a crash course in spinning, and we have to cram what would normally be 6-8 lessons, into a 2+ hour session. Fun, fun, fun! ;) I've got 14 spindles packed in my bag, as well as three fleeces, some roving, balls of singles for plying, books, and numerous other odds 'n' ends. Oh, and some goat milk soap for the hostesses. :)

 I also have 5 more workshops in the making, and will post info on those soon! So far, I have workshops covering, goats, rabbits, spinning, urban homesteading, and backyard chickens. Methinks my life is going to get busy, quickly!

Okey, dokey... I must needs go now... 

I. Am. Tired.

Very tired...

 So, how did the goat workshop go? Ummmm, to be honest, I'm not sure! It all seemed like a blur. At the start of things, I was having a hard time cramming each class into an hour, but towards the end, I was having a hard time stretching each class! I think I did a pretty good job teaching today; but whether I did or not is up to the people who came. I certainly shared all my secrets and taught them everything I know (well, almost). Everyone left happy, and assured me that they felt they got their money's worth. Shucks, I even sold a good bit of goat milk soap, got reservations for next year's kid crop, and have a waiting list for the next classes (I wasn't sure I could do another, but everyone really wanted to). It was amazing to hear where everyone came from. The closest person was almost an hour away, and the farthest person came from north of Seattle, WA!! She drove almost 5 hours to come to my workshop that started at 9 AM!!

If I do another workshop, I will definitely make a few changes. One, the workshop will not start any earlier than 10 AM! I made a cup of tea for myself at 8:20 this morning, got to take one sip, and then people started arriving! So no tea... [sigh] Two, everyone will bring their own lunch. I kept lunch really simple (bread, meat, cheese, fruit, snacks, etc.), but it was still stressful, and my family ended up having to set lunch up and then clean up afterwards.

But, my goats have trimmed hooves now, they all got a dose of Probios today (everyone learned how to drench/medicate a goat), and boy howdy did Poppet and Shilling enjoy having free reign in the barn! Hehe... They thought climbing on the hay stack was the best thing ever. :) Lunch was pretty fun, as I got into a fun conversation with an older gentleman about agricultural politics (quickly becoming one of my favorite topics!), GM'd foods, collecting rain water from roofs, and keeping chickens.

Next time, I'll probably wear better shoes, too... I wore my rubber boots, and my feet and legs are absolutely killing me now... Standing for 6 hours in rubber boots is not the best plan of action.

I'm sure I'll wake up at 2AM tonight and realize that I forgot to mention something really important. But then, I'm so tired that I may be sleeping too hard to think about anything at all...

So would I do another workshop? Well, I don't know... I'll think about that when my feet aren't hurting so much...

TTFN, ta ta for now!

Here We Gooooooo!

Tomorrow at 9AM is the start of a long day! I do believe I am excited about it... Everything is ready, all that's left are people to come and someone to teach. I'll try to blog tomorrow evening to let y'all know how the workshop went!

Toodle pip and cheerio!