Roberts Rabbitry Homestead

Today I'm talking with Vicki at Roberts Rabbitry Homestead.  This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company. https://www.homesteadliving.com/subscribe/ref/41/ https://homesteadliving.com/the-old-fashioned-on-purpose-planner/ref/41/ www.patreon.com/atinyhomestead If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee  https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. This episode is sponsored by Greenbush Twins & Company, where creativity and community grow hand in hand. Just like a thriving garden or a well-loved homestead, the best things are built with care, purpose, and heart. Through thoughtful design, storytelling, and handcrafted goods, they're helping people celebrate a simpler or meaningful way of living. Learn more at Greenbush Twins & Company. 00:28 Today I'm talking with Vicki at Roberts Rabbitry Homestead in Indiana. Good morning, Vicki. How are you? Good morning. I am good. Good. How's the weather in Indiana today?  It's all right. I think it's going to get hot again, but right now it's not too bad. Went out and did my morning chores and didn't break a sweat, which is always great. 00:51 Yeah, did you guys have, we had over two weeks of tropical dew points a couple weeks ago. Did you guys have that too or did you just have like a few days?  Honestly, we had such bad humidity that I don't know. It was bad for,  honestly, most of the summer, our humidity levels have just been insane. Yeah, I don't like it. And I keep saying that on every episode and I need to stop. Fall will be here soon. I know it will be. And then I'll be like, man, it's cold again. What happened? 01:21 Today in Minnesota it is 72 right now and it's sunny and it's pretty and it's very little breeze and it's supposed to be high of 85 and I don't know what the dew point is supposed to get to.  Probably,  yeah we're going to be back in tropical dew points today 72 at 3 o'clock this afternoon 72 degree dew point. Yay, oh yay here we go again.  Yay. 01:50 So, tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do at Robert's Rabbitry.  Well, rabbits. Yeah, I do. I got lots of rabbits. I love my rabbits for sure.  But really, I'm just a normal person.  I'm a mom. I got four boys from... Oh my. Yeah.  The oldest is 15. He just got his learner's permit.  Then... 02:19 The next one's 11. He just entered middle school, then seven, and my youngest is five. And he just went into kindergarten. So my youngest went to kindergarten. Did you cry?  You know, a little bit, but honestly, I've been raising kids for the past 16 years, my whole adult life.  My husband and I married straight out of high school. I was pregnant with 02:48 and had a kid within a year, sorry, a year of marriage. So I've been doing the parenting thing my whole adult life.  And while it never stops, but they go to school and you get a little bit of more time to yourself.  And it's, you know, that time is like, oh man, what do I do with myself now? You know, I've never had, I've never had all my kids at school at one time. I've always had at least one home.  And when I 03:18 kind of started to realize that these kids are getting a little bit older and I have a little bit of time myself and I can, you know, start to explore some of my other hobbies that are a little more time consuming that I wanted to jump into.  So I'd already been doing some of these other skills, you know,  when my kids were little, I learned to sew so that I could make them baby clothes because that's cute. 03:48 And so I did that. learned to sew and I have gardened on and off my entire adult life. Some places we could garden where we live, some places we couldn't.  And when we got out here to the country, out to the family farm,  now I have the ability. I don't have to ask permission from anybody to have a garden. So that's been really great. But you know, I've just been learning some of these skills.  do. 04:18 I obviously I raise rabbits.  I have chickens and we do pig feeder pigs, but we don't breed them. just get them from a local farm and raise them out for the pork. But I don't have a business.  don't have,  you know, I'm not like big,  huge social media star or anything. I'm just... 04:48 just a normal person who I'm here.  you know, I didn't grow up learning any of these skills. And as I got older, I was more interested in them. And now that I have this time, I'm diving a lot deeper into them.  That's fabulous. You're in it for the satisfaction and the self sufficiency.  Exactly.  Good. That's amazing. And I think everybody should be. 05:12 I know it's not everybody's cup of tea. There's a lot of people who don't want to do what you and I do in our daily lives and that's okay too.  So I saw on your Facebook page this morning when I was looking to see what you're up to a post from June 4th and it says, going to lie, this was pretty entertaining. And it's a string of messages back and forth about somebody wanting rabbits from you. 05:39 Was it a bot? Was it somebody just being stupid? Tell me the story on that one. It's a scammer. Yeah.  So a lot of times, I don't know if it's a bot or not.  I think it might be.  I get them from time to time.  But it's funny to me, you know, when you type back to them because 06:06 It's just like they're responding to whatever, you know, they're not like actually seeing what you're doing because they don't actually want whatever it is you have. They want your account stuff. You know, they want your financial information and to be able to get money from you in one way or another.  So it was just funny. was just playing. I like to do that. You'll see it on a lot of my posts. I get tons and tons of trolls and 06:34 I mean, I haven't even been doing this that long and they hit me very quickly and they hit me very hard.  Yeah.  And I mean, to me, I just laugh about it and I'm going to put something,  if I even respond, the trolls, it's going to be probably something witty or funny.  It is witty. 07:00 It is witty and funny. read through the whole thing. And for the listener, if you want to see it, go follow Robert's Gravatory Homestead. It's the first pinned post. And you will definitely giggle, if not pee your pants laughing at Vicki's responses.  Yeah, I mean, I'm not here on social media to take things like super serious, you know?  So I'm here.  I live in a very, very, very small community. 07:31 Honestly, it's an hour before you get to a city with a population over 18,000.  So it's very, very small and I'm an introvert and I like to stay home. So I don't have a lot of friends really, you know, and I wanted that community too. 07:58 Honestly, I was having a really hard time finding any resources that could kind of help me learn in the way that I learned.  So that's kind of how the whole thing was built. Really the whole page. I was bored and lonely and just looking for people who shared the same passions as I did. And that's what I ran across when I started my page. And that's a really great 08:27 thing to do, really great way to do it.  And I know that people think that social media is a terrible entity.  It's a monstrosity, but if you use it for good, it can be really good.  I think with your voice and the fact that you're an introvert, you should start your own podcast, Vicki. I think you'd be great at it.  Oh my.  I don't know about... I just like the... 08:56 learn, honestly, I love to learn.  And I will spend my whole life learning something new every day. That's my goal is just to learn more and more. You can never know enough, you know, or at least that's how I feel. And I just have a passion, I guess, for sharing what I learned because when I started looking for resources and stuff to 09:25 on like online because I couldn't find it in person.  I just, I was having a really hard time coming across a lot of those resources that were helpful, especially in the rabbit world.  That is just such a world full of so much good and bad. 09:53 That's what I'll say. There's tons of good and there's tons of bad.  Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that rabbit people can be kind of a pity if they show their rabbits, if you're not a show rabbit person.  I've heard that if people are raising their rabbits for the hides and for meat and for rabbit's feet, they can be a little more forgiving. I don't know if that's what you expect. Yes, absolutely. Yep, that is true. 10:23 All right, we will get to the rabbits, but I want to ask you a question. You have an Australian shepherd. I sure do.  What is her name? Her name is Renly.  Renly, okay. And you said she's five. She's about, she turns five next month, yes.  Okay. I don't want to talk on and on about mine. I have done it too many times on the podcast already because I love her so much.  What I want to ask you about her is why did you get her? Did you get her as a puppy and did you have a reason? 10:52 Um, I did get her as a puppy.  Um, we,  I had a Yorkie that I'd had since, um, I was pregnant with my very first one back in 2010.  Um,  and she was sick.  um, I knew that when that time came, would lose and I would lose my Yorkie.  It would be devastating. Yep. 11:22 And I didn't want another Yorkie because that, it wouldn't compare, you know? Like I just felt like I knew I couldn't get another Yorkie and that would save the heartbreak that I would feel when I lost her. So we were out here at the farm and I wanted a family dog that had the energy. 11:51 to keep up with all my feral kids.  Yes.  So I wanted, you know, but I didn't want a giant dog because our house is not that big.  um,  honestly, and I had just seen Australian shepherds, you know, here and then at one point I did work for a vet for a short time. And I mean, I saw some of the most gorgeous dogs and cats and, animals that you could just imagine. 12:20 And the Australian Shepherds always just really, they were just so pretty.  I started looking for one and I just happened to run across an ad for a guy in the town next to ours, in the Amish town next to ours.  I went, well the whole family, we all went in to look at her and she's actually not the dog I wanted out of the litter. 12:50 Okay. But the dog that I wanted was already spoken for and she was the next pick for me. But man, when I saw her, fell in love and everybody else fell in love.  I mean, it was just sealed that moment.  So, but we brought her home and you know, actually she was a puppy at first, but when she started to get a little bit older,  she just really took to the everything. 13:19 um, everything about the whole farm life.  She loves the rabbits. I'm not even kidding. I can't tell you. She goes up to every one of their cages every day. She goes and she checks on them. If one is loose, by golly, she lets us know.  time I even had a kit managed to get out of one of my hutches and she, she brought it to me uninjured. In her mouth? 13:48 Oh,  a good girl. mean, she is, she is just an insanely great dog. She goes on all the four wheeler rides and walks on the property with the kids. So I don't have any kind of fear, you know, that they're out there by their, their selves walking around or riding. She's always with them.  She, she helps us catch chickens.  She's a very good herder.  So. 14:18 I mean her role really is just to be the family dog and the little farm dog that we have. So she's just perfect about it too. We just love her to death.  so you had reasons for choosing her.  Yes, yes I did.  Yeah.  We ended up with ours sort of by happenstance, which is a weird way to say it. 14:44 We knew we were going to get a puppy at some point when we moved to our place that is, we've lived here six years now, but we didn't know what we were going to get.  And our neighbors for, you know, it's about half an hour away.  She, the lady, the wife taught our kids in elementary school. So I knew I followed her on Facebook and her her mated pair, as I call them, of Australian Shepherds had a litter on August 3rd. And I sent her a message and I said, 15:14 we finally have moved or we have some room to have a puppy, a dog, and we'd really like to have one of Diesel and Daisy's pups. And she was like, oh, okay. And she talked a little bit in messages and I assumed that she thought that we were serious.  And about four weeks later, she posted and she said, we have a couple puppies left. If you want one, let me know. And I'm like, she didn't think I was serious. 15:42 So I messaged her and I was like, Jean, I'm serious. How much are you selling the pups for? I said, we want one. And she was like, oh, I thought you were just like, it would be nice to have one. I said, no, we're serious. How much?  And that dog cost us $500.  I can't believe we paid $500 for a puppy, but we did. And we didn't really have a purpose for her. We don't have animals for her to herd or anything. We wanted a house dog. 16:12 that was really good at watchdogging because we live in the middle of cornfields and soybean fields.  She has lived up to being a watchdog beyond all measures. She has no off switch.  What I want to say about this particular breed, whether they're small, medium or large Australian Shepherds, I have yet to hear anything bad about any of them from anyone I know who has one. 16:40 they seem to be a really good all around dog for a family. I mean, as long as you can get their energy out, that would be the only thing that I would say if you can't get them to run and stuff,  I mean, Renly would be extremely wound up if she couldn't chase after the four-wheeler all the time, and she didn't have her space to roam.  and... 17:07 And it depends on their own personalities. I keep hearing from people, you're like the 30th person I've heard that from.  Our Maggie is a loaf when she's in the house. When she's outside, she wants to play. And so we have a frisbee that she loves and we have the little balls that look like mini basketballs and she will chase those and she gets her yas yas out and then she's fine. 17:33 But she is very much like a Labrador Retriever in the house. She's a loaf. She wants to lay around and eat snacks and drink water and just hang out. She's not too bad in the house. So we lucked out big.  Yeah. Renly does great in the house, but she's lazy inside. She just wants to come in here and lay down and, you know, cool off and stuff. But then she's right back outside.  We actually found out here pretty recently that she has a thing against raccoons. 18:03 They all do.  all do.  Yeah, it was, and that wasn't on purpose. So she goes out with my son every night to shut up the, you know, the feed shed and all that stuff and close the chicken coop. And apparently there was a raccoon and she took off after it and it was a rough and tumble kind of thing. 18:29 but we were having just such a bad issue with raccoons at that point. So, I mean, it was probably good for her to scare them away some.  Yeah. And this is why it's really good if you're going to have an outdoor dog, well, any dog, but definitely an outdoor dog, make sure they're up to date on the rabies shots.  Absolutely. She is.  Okay. So I had to ask about that and I want to hear about your rabbit story because did you 18:55 Did you know you could raise rabbits or was this a new thing for you?  I have actually been raised, like I've actually had rabbits and have been breeding rabbits since 2022 or the end of 2021. I can't remember.  And I did basic research before, you know, and I had 19:23 cage an actual rabbit cage and Willow she's my longest rabbit but I got her from a pet store I walked into a pet store I was thinking about getting a rabbit and I went in there and they had her in a fish tank oh okay at the pet store and I mean I was walking around looking for the treats and food for Renly and 19:53 everywhere,  every time I would have to walk by, she was just like, take me home.  And I have a bleeding heart when it comes to animals. I took her home.  I would have too, because a fish tank is not a home for a rabbit. No, I knew that even not having rabbits that that wasn't okay.  And I took her home.  And shortly after,  I, you know, I got a mail too. But really, 20:23 I didn't have enough knowledge when I started, but who does? You know, who does? And that's kind of the point of why I do a lot of the stuff I do is we don't have the knowledge when we start. Nobody starts with it, you know? So you're going to make mistakes and that's okay to make mistakes.  As long as you're doing it out of 20:52 true ignorance and not willful ignorance.  You know, so I mean, I did lots of things that, well, I know now isn't the way to do it, isn't the way to raise rabbits or things that are not good for them or safe for them.  Over the years that I've had them, I've learned that, you know, I've learned a lot. But it was up until this year. 21:22 Um, well, last year, up until last year, I kept a very small, uh, stock. I only had six rabbits and three were females. Three were males.  And while the goal, when I very first got rabbits was meat rabbits, I just, I needed somebody to do it. I'd never killed an animal before.  Never, you know?  so. 21:49 Well, okay, I take that back. I had to kill a chicken once,  a juvenile chicken, because there was a loose dog that got a hold of it and I could see its insides through its back.  obviously that needs to be dispatched. So I did dispatch that one, but I didn't watch when I did it. 22:15 You know, it was really hard. That was incredibly hard for me.  I love animals. I have a bleeding heart. When it comes to animals, I have way too many strays and just, you know, I love them basically. So when I saw these cute cuddly rabbits being born, these tiny little things, I'm like, oh, I could never do this, you know? And I didn't have anybody who gave me the confidence. 22:46 and you know, who would actually show me in person how to do it and then let me do it with their guidance. And it took years to find somebody for me locally who would do that.  And that was before I had really started my Facebook page.  And but I did find somebody through 23:15 rabbits here locally and she's a very good friend of mine now.  So we connected through rabbits, which is how I have most of my friends to be honest.  that's good. You've grown your tribe.  Yes. Yes. But she showed me,  you know, she showed me and she helped me and once I did it, I think I went with her twice and did it. And 23:45 And then I told my husband, was like, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it here. I'm going to, you know, this is, I'm going to do this all myself without the help and direction from somebody else. So I actually recorded our session, me and my friends,  of dispatching the rabbit and butchering it out. 24:14 So I went back and watched it and then I went and I did it myself. 24:22 And that's how I learned.  Super proud of you because it is really hard to take a life no matter what the purpose is for. 100 % to every single one.  Still now, it's hard. It's incredibly hard. it's a rabbit that I enjoyed, you know, having around or one that I didn't, I don't care. It's very hard to do it because I have so much respect. 24:51 for my rabbits and my animals in general. I have ton of respect for them and their purpose for why I have chose to bring them into this world.  And then when I go to take their life,  they're fulfilling their purpose. So I'm grateful and I'm sad and it's an emotional experience every single time. 25:21 It really is. I have not.  The things I've killed so far are bugs because I don't care about bugs. But I have watched my husband dispatch chickens because I made myself stand there and watch him do it because I was like, if I can't bring myself to do it, I need to at least stand here and watch it being done. And I did not throw up, but I wanted to.  It's. 25:47 Some people can do it and it's not they don't feel bad about it, but they can just do it. My mom and dad are both deer hunters. They have both gotten deer all their lives. I am really good at spotting deer on the of the road or in the woods when we're hiking or whatever it is we're doing. I'm really good at spotting deer. I don't want to shoot them. I would have to be starving to shoot a deer. I think that they are beautiful. 26:13 I think that that men, most men see a deer and they think, ooh, food. I see a deer and think, oh, that would make a really beautiful photo for my phone saver, screen saver, whatever you call it.  So there are just some people who are totally into raising and butchering their own food. There are people who are into raising and not butchering their own food. They will take it to someone who can butcher it for them. I don't care. 26:41 how you do it, I care that you're trying to do it the best way you know how.  Exactly.  And a deer is actually how I learned to process meat on my own. So I'm very thankful for deer hunting because we do usually try to get one at least a season and that puts a little more meat in the freezer.  in the end, 27:10 Because we process it out ourselves, the only thing we have to pay for really is the tags and those hunting license. Right. Yeah. And it's a lot of meat.  It is. It definitely can be a lot of meat if you if you get a halfway decent deer.  Yeah. The best deer meat I've ever eaten came to us as a gift. My ex-husband had brought my son back from his weekend with his dad. And on the way back, my ex-husband hit 27:40 a probably four or five month old fawn. And he called us and he said, I can take it. You know, the officer that's here says that I can take it if I, if I pay for the tag.  He said, do you want it? He said, cause I'm not going to have any time or any room or any know how to butcher it. And my husband does know how to butcher deer. And I was like, yes, we do.  And we stayed up till like two in the morning dealing with that. 28:09 fawn that was basically free food. Yep. best venison I've ever had in my entire life because I was so young. And I felt so good that it didn't just go to waste or end up getting thrown into the ditch and rotting.  Yeah, that's one of those things. see something on the side of the road or, you know, especially deer. Man, we have tons of deer here. So when I see a deer on the side of the road, I'm like, oh, what a waste. Yeah, it really is. 28:40 And I think here in Minnesota, I'm not positive, so don't quote me, but I think if a deer has just been hit and the person that hit it doesn't want to take it home and deal with it, I think that there's a group that will take it and take it somewhere to have it butchered and then they donate the meat to people who need it, I think.  I've heard the story, I'm not sure it's true, I hope it's true. I hope it's true. 29:08 I've heard that around here you can get it processed and donate it to the food donation, the food banks, there we go, the food banks. But I don't know for sure if that's true or not either.  Yeah, and with the chronic wasting disease that's really popping up in the upper Midwest, I don't know if they're still doing it the way I just said. 29:34 but I know that they used to try to use the animal if it was still good. know they tried.  So, but anyway,  long story. We're getting way off of track here.  So I would ask you a whole bunch of stuff about rabbits, but I just talked to a lady a few months ago about rabbits on the podcast and she told me more than I ever thought I needed to know about bunnies. Oh, you're wrong there.  Was it Amanda? I don't remember. It might've been. 30:04 It probably because I listened to the podcast. I bet it was Amanda from my and Justin's homestead.  It might have been. Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to be really honest with you, Vicki. I do these interviews. I enjoy the hell out of talking to you guys, but I do so many. If I haven't talked to somebody just in the last week or so, it's all in the very back of my brain. So I would literally have to scroll through the list to tell you who I talked to about bunnies. Well, 30:32 If anybody listening doesn't follow her, go follow her because she's awesome. She's one of the people that gave me confidence to actually, but she doesn't even know it, but she gave me the confidence to start making the videos that I make, the educational videos that I make. She is. Shout out her name and her place again.  It's Amanda at La La and Justin's Homestead down in Florida. 30:59 Yeah, I think I did interview them. If I didn't, I should. Let's put it that way.  So I try to keep these to half an hour. And I feel like we talked about a lot of things, but we didn't really talk about a lot of things. You want to come back sometime?  Absolutely. I'm having fun.  Okay, cool.  Where can people find you, Vicki?  At Robert's Rabbitry Homestead on Facebook. I mean, I'll be real honest, that's about the only place I hang out social media wise. 31:29 That's probably good because I have Facebook,  have Instagram,  joined TikTok because my daughter posts on TikTok.  I can't keep up anymore. I'm like, oh my God, I can't spend six hours a day looking at social media unless it's literally for work. I can't do that.  So one place is good. It's easy to find you.  I'm there on Facebook. Come find me and come follow along. We're having fun there.  So you'll see. 31:58 Yeah, you'll see I'll find stuff. It's fun and it's fun-y,  know, like in the best way possible.  Alright. I like to laugh.  Yeah, me too.  As always, you can find me at a tinyhomesteadpodcast.com. Vicki, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Have a great day. You too. Bye.