Rabbit Colony Cannabis Garden
Rabbits living free in a colony system amongst large cannabis plants both weed and fertilize the plants. The cannabis also makes up a meaningful portion of the rabbits diet. In the fall during harvest, I will weave the mature ripe cannabis branches in the fence, allowing the rabbits to do most of the trim work for me too. This season the cannabis is grown exclusively with the fertility from the rabbits, no added compost or manure, and it is also dry farmed. I never watered it. The rabbits do the work of growing the cannabis and pay me in rabbit meat for their efforts. My favorite system at the homestead. Cannabis seed will be available from this seasons crop in November, Redbud Haze, !!! Haze, and Redbud Widow are the available varieties.
Everything is food for something at the homestead
All the weeds, and prunings are fed to the rabbits from around the homestead.
I've be been feeding the rabbits one or two wheelbarrows full most days which means we only give them some grain coated with molasses and mineral to supplement their nutrition.
Soon we will start harvesting rabbits regularly but for now we just process one when we get taste for rabbit. We used this one to make white chilli.
What would normally end up in the compost bin is instead used to feed the rabbits and turned into meat which we eat. The rabbits deposit thier manure helping to feed the cannabis, which we produce and sell seed. So weeding and pruning which helps our fruits and vegetables grow better, ends up growing us more meat, cannabis and helps us earn some sats while we're at it. Everything is food for something!
I apologize in advance for my ignorance on any of the topics at hand but just have to ask...
Do the rabbits get high?
I'm obviously picturing rabbits so high that catching them is as easy as waving something colorful at them. Which makes no sense. But it does make for an entertaining mental picture.
Oh, and noice boost amount. Love the touch.
i don't think the rabbits are getting high but I do think the cbds from the cannabis is stored in their fat which I get the benefit of when I eat the rabbit.
In the past, before I got married, I raised rabbits at my father-in-law's house in cages, but I had a lot of trouble with the mice. They attacked the babies a lot when they were born. I struggled a lot with the bedding at first, and later with finding grass to feed them; I had to go very far to find it. But it was a great experience; I learned a lot along the way.
We started with cages then moved to pasturing in tractors, finally ended up with a colony. The colony is the least intensive as far as management goes but the most challenging when it comes to controlling breeding and harvesting the rabbits.
I'm loving your posts, I think you're living every Bitcoiner's dream, hahaha.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
This sounds like a dream. Part of my grand life plan was doing permaculture stuff. I really dig the idea of building systems with this kind of self-reinforcing feedback. I've been a total city boy the last few years though.
How long have you been at it?
ive been studying permaculture since 2011 and have been homesteading for over a decade. Everything here is integrated and connected. I built a yurt and tiny house which we host nightly rentals, the guests take a tour and learn all about our silvopasture fruit/nut/vegetable/berry production with also supports grazing sheep for lamb and sheep's milk. Then I show the integrated food forest rabbit colony cannabis garden, which leads to the woodland production system where we make maple syrup, harvest wild mushrooms and keep our horses and rams. We use our chickens and ducks to compost the horse manure which the compost is fertilizer for our gardens. all animals, plants, and Bitcoin miners have a job any pay me with food or Bitcoin. then I sell the products and yeilds of the systems at Bitcoin Meetups.
This is fucking awesome.
How much land did you need to start?
What were the biggest challenges to getting started?
How long have you been doing this? How close are you to complete sustainability?
The rabbit colony cannabis garden is half of the system we call the food forest which is about 1/10th of an acre. The colony itself is much larger than necessary for the number of rabbits we have. Basically it doesn't take very much space at all to grow a lot of rabbit meat. The biggest challenge is getting comfortable with trying things having no guidance or mentorship. We use the principles of permaculture to solve problems and figure out how to adjust the systems. The process is slow and lots of things seem like they're failing at first. It's hard to maintain persistence. We've been homesteading for over a decade and we still have a long way to go before we don't find value in the convenience of the grocery store.
I love how the rabbits naturally fertilize. If you enjoy this kind of thing, our little ~food_and_drinks would love it.
rabbit manure is special, unlike any other manure at the homestead it doesn't require composting or aging before feeding it to plants. perfect symbiotic relationship with the cannabis.