[DeepSouthBamaGRITS]

So now I know how you got your name. LOL!! I figured you love the Jersey Giant chickens. This spring I’m ordering the Bresse since they are an excellent meat chicken. I love all my chickens and sit with them in their coop almost every day and they love & actually know me as their “mom”, crazy for some people to comprehend the closeness you can develop with ALL your animals.

When I started raising chickens, I had to have every breed I thought was beautiful and at one time I had over 150! Ameracauna, Auracana, Buff Orpingtons-even have some (at the time considered rare Lavender & Chocolate Orpingtons. They were much larger than the Buff Orpingtons & the roo’s stood upwards of 3 ft tall and very majestic looking roo’s! I had bought a “straight run” of them from a local breeder and as you know with straight runs, you never know what you’re gonna get. Most were roo’s, so I sold my excess to people that had poults & needed roo’s for breeding. The biggest breed I had bought was Black Australorps. They were massive in size and were the size of turkeys! I also raise Naked Necks (Turkens). They are one of the strangest looking chickens having no feathers around their necks/chest area. Excellent layers and meat birds and always strike up conversations when people see them for the 1st time.
I had/have White/Silver Laced Wyandotte’s, Black Copper Marans, Olive Eggers, Easter Eggers, Delawares, Frizzles, Dominiques, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds, Black & Red Star, Welsummers, Sussex, Favorelles. and the list goes on & on! See some cute pic’s below of some of my chickens & the eggs I would collect EVERY DAY. So many different colors it was like easter egg hunting without having to dye them! LOL! Also, some pic’s of me in the coop with my Delaware chickens loving on mama. Caught one of them actually laying an egg and got a pic right when she laid it!

As far as the German Giant rabbits, I say go for it. I loved mine and actually kept a male from a litter because I hand held him every day and he is my very docile GENTLE GIANT. I could breed him with a NZ or Cali and have Flemish Mixed, which is what a lot of people do.

The reason I got Flemish Giants without doing research 1st was that my Dr had one that was a pet. Her children grew up with it and it was kept inside but had an outside run (with a doggie door it could go out when it wanted). She told me it was the most loving, docile rabbit and huge. At one of my Dr appts with her she was very upset. She knew I had meat rabbits so she shared with me that a neigborhood dog broke into the Flemish outside run and killed Max (his name). Her children were very upset to lose it so I got the Flemish to breed & get her a replacement for Max. Unfortunately after I got into raising them, covid hit and she wouldn’t go along with the required protocols and moved. She joined a group of Dr’s out of state that didn’t go along with the CDC Protocols. I didn’t get to see her before she left and have no idea where she went. Anyway, if you know anything about rabbits, some can be very aggressive if they aren’t SOCIALIZED to human touch and can put up a good fight leaving your arms/hands a bloody mess. With the stories she told me about how loving her Flemish was, I decided to raise them. THEN I found out about their huge appetite, etc., and after my doe had one litter of 6 I knew I would go broke feeding them out so I sold all of them (but they had to take them ALL as the kits were just 4 weeks old and they were just starting to wean from the doe). See pic below of the 4 week old kits. They were huge but gorgeous!

I have 2 rabbit tractors now that I will begin using once I get everything set up so they can graze planted vegetation they love to eat. Clover is one and there are others. I also plant extra kale & collard greens that I can grow here year around so that helps with the cost of feed. I also feed them some of the fruit I grow when in season. And they LOVE LOVE LOVE sweet potato leaves/vines so they get most of mine (that I don’t save to eat myself).

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