Bunnies have a new hutch!

After many months of almost getting to it, the husband buckled down and built the rabbit hutch he's been planning for so long.  Not moment too soon either, since our new angora rabbit had immediately punched a hole in the floor of the old hutch so big she could stick her head through it.  Not really the kind of animal husbandry we were aiming for. But she only had to rough it for a day, and then got moved to this beauty:

That's her on the far left. The other three are the New Zealand meat rabbits we've had for a few years now.   After two disastrous litters from our doe (resulting in a grand total of two stillbirths and one survivor), I got discouraged and we started just using them for their manure.  Rabbit manure is amazing as a fertilizer, and rabbit pee is great for the compost pile. Our plan was to have corrugated plastic roofing under the hutch, ramping down to a gutter to catch everything. Then we ran out of money. So here's our set-up for now: 

Nice heavy duty plastic on the ground, weighted down with the aforementioned gutter and... some rocks. I put the straw down to catch the pee and I add it to the compost pile when it gets nice and gross. Here comes the amazing compost pile picture!

I bothered to take the picture so I figured I'd use it. Every day I gather up the straw, then scoop up the poop with a spade and add it to my "tea," which is poop in water. Delicious, I know, and at first I was just adding the poop directly to my plants, like this baby pomegranate: 

But if you make the tea, the nutrients in the manure will be much more readily available to your plants.  The tea needs to be aerated or it will turn rotten and kill your roots, but that's another post.