The Neighborhood Bunny Lady
Homesteading on Whidbey
Published in Whidbey Weekly October 11, 2018
By now you all know the chicken ladies are out there in full force. What about the bunny ladies? Did you know Whidbey is home to them too? You might even have one in your neighborhood. I certainly do, and she goes by the name of Amy Kinkaid.
Her property is right down the road from me, nestled into the back corner of a neighborhood on the north end of the island. If you are driving through the winding blocks of her quiet neighborhood she is the hidden surprise at the end of a long driveway. Tall trees and her personal mini forest seclude her seven acre farm the rest of the nearby homes.
Her registered farm is a little gem, home to bunnies, chickens, quails, two pups, and a beautiful family. Amy, her husband, Andrew, and their two-year old son, Cole, run the farm. Amy knows all things bunnies, while her husband is quite the handy-man. He runs around fixing things, making things, and finding ways to keep the farm running smoothly. He is humble about his innovate creations, but having raised bunnies and chickens myself, I feel he deserves a round of applause for his time saving work. Most impressive of these functional innovations is the watering system he has set up for the bunnies.
A fifty-gallon RV water tank has been repurposed to serve as the watering tank for an automatic low pressure watering system. With the use of quick release connecters and a pump, Amy simple plugs the hose into the spigot then turns the knob to fill the tank. Watching Amy demonstrate how she provides water for dozens of bunnies in a few seconds was amazing. I thought back to my own experience of filling my rabbit water bottles multiple times a day, every day, for every single cage. My system was time consuming, annoying, and elementary in comparison.
Whilst this set up and many others are impressive, Amy’s knowledge and experience is equally so. She is a 4-H gal, educated on her pedigrees and she knows her bunnies. Her first introduction to raising the furry creatures started long ago. As a child her family raised them on a large scale, having three to four hundred at a time. Now, she is passing on this legacy to her own son.
She doesn’t have hundreds of them but one day she might. For now, she has her show bunnies, her fluffy Mini-Rex pet bunnies, and her meat rabbits. The large and beautiful Cinnamons are pedigree. They participate in rabbit shows, always striving to win the Grand Champion title. Because they are show rabbits, Amy goes through great pains to maintain their nails and coats, ensuring that they are always show ready. She explained to me that “pedigree” refers to ancestry and lineage rather than just being “pure bred.” To achieve this status there must be records going back three generations, so that’s the parents, the grand-parents, and the great-grandparents. Keep in mind that these fluff balls reproduce like, well, rabbits. That means that a breeder can create a pedigree in a relatively short time frame.
Speaking of rabbit reproduction, what does she do with all those babies? In one season, my two does and one buck gave me eighteen kits. Seeing all her does had me wondering how many kits Amy gets at a time and what she does with them all. First, she has to separate the kits around eight weeks in order to wean them, preventing any males from impregnating their moms and reducing stress on the moms. After they have been weaned, they are available for purchase in breeding pairs or individually. Some of them are sold as pets while others go on to breed more meat rabbits. Of the kits that are not sold, Amy continues to raise them to later sell or butcher for meat.
If you have never tried rabbit, it is a very lean white meat, similar to chicken. Amy uses it in place of chicken or pork in many recipes. I personally enjoy it smoked or in spicy Mexican pozole, mainly because I don’t know other ways to cook it. When I confessed this, Amy let me in a little secret about the part of the rabbit I found really tough and nearly inedible, the strip of meat around the belly. She told me it makes the best jerky. I will now be saving all those little strips of meat for the dehydrator and whipping up a batch of savory jerky this winter.
If you enjoyed reading about my local bunny lady, stay tuned for my next article. I very well may be showcasing a homesteading lady near you!
Photo credits to Helina Bailey
