River Lane Farm and Garden

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Andover, MN
River Lane Farm and Garden

We have a small farm, flock, and Rabbitry. We raise Holland Lops and Muscovy Ducks

01/30/2025

40° and the birds are feeling pretty good. It’s almost time to go to bed, but they’re enjoying a little water first.

01/28/2025

Before I tell you all more sad news, let’s focus on the positive. Every day we take care of 24 rabbits, that are alive and well , nine chickens- two that we have had almost seven years now. And nine ducks, 3 of which have been here almost 5 years now. Generally things just go normally and there isn’t much to mention. But every once in a while, weird things happen. Like the mink -we have never had a mink problem before. And then sadly yesterday Elena found one of our fuzzy Teddywidders paralyzed and had to put him down😔
His name was Bjorn and he was the father of Anton Jensen and husband/brother to Yrsa. 🤭
Back in 2022 the Shurtleffs adopted 2 cute Teddywidder siblings and named them Bjorn and Yrsa. But before they got them fixed, Yrsa got pregnant and had a lot of baby bunnies in Aug 2023. Soon after they got the parent siblings both fixed and found homes for all the babies except the last one that I happened to see on a craigslist post. I was thinking I needed my own little fuzzy friend in the garage so we went and bought him and met the Shurtleffs, and have kept in touch with them over the years. Last summer, they wanted to buy two of Elena‘s Holland lops, and rehome Bjorn and Yrsa with us. Grooming Teddywidders is no joke, and so they moved to lower maintenance Hollands. Around that time, we also got Claude who wanted to be a garage rabbit. So we moved Anton (who is also neutered) and his parents and a fuzzy lop to a large living area in the rabbit room. And they have been a happy little colony and have had no issues. Back in September we lost the little fuzzy lop, but then Elena added in a new fuzzy girl. I recently just groomed all four and everyone was fine.
Elena‘s best guess is that he just hopped wrong or slipped on the floor/ just some freak accident that sometimes can happen to rabbits. We have burned to a rabbit show where a rabbit hopped off the table and landed weird and died right then and there and we have seen rabbits hop out of people’s arms and be totally fine. You just don’t know. RIP Bjorn 2022-25

01/27/2025

The mink strikes again!! 😫 this time he got Petals, our Pekin/Anacona and our young Pekin Petunia. We’re just so sad. 😞 Almost 5 years Petals has been here.
Petals came to us in June 2020. We had just had a predator attack and only had one duck left named Annabelle, she needed a friend and Petals was available. Soon after, however, Annabelle died, and then 4 days later Elena bought 2 Muscovy ducks- Kanye and lil Kim. Over the years, petals, integrated herself with the Muscovys and stuck pretty close to Kanye and his hens. Elena even said Petals learned to talk “Muscovy” 😆In 2022 we got another duck named cloud and petals. Didn’t really know if she wanted to stop being a Muscovy 😆 Cloud was always on the edge of the Muscovy-Petals club. In Jan. 2024 Cindy, the Pekin came to stay and in Feb. 2024 Elena got five ducklings to grow up and be friends with Cloud and Cindy. We lost Cindy in Dec, then Cloud a week ago and now Petals and Petunia are gone. Dumb mink. Out of the five ducklings she bought in February. We still have one buff named Casey left. The mink comes in and runs around, and the other birds can all fly away, but the big pekins get cornered and trapped. Yesterday the mink was caught on camera, but he wasn’t able to catch anyone. Elena is not happy and has ordered traps. We don’t want him to start trying harder and find the chickens and bunnies too😞

01/22/2025

Sad news in the duck world yesterday. A mink crawled in and took Cloud, our 5 year old Buff Duck. Cloud came to us with four baby mallards in the summer of 2022. A lady I worked with wanted to rehome her and her foster babies with us. Then later that fall the four mallards flew away and cloud was pretty sad. She tried to fit in with the other ducks, but it was hard and last spring, we bought three buff ducklings to grow up and be her friends. Two of them died, but we do have a young buff named Casey still here. RIP Cloud.
The mink also killed Saweetie, a young brown and white Muscovy that was born in October 2023. And it tried to get Kesha, but she was OK 🥲. All the other ducks and chickens seemed scared but are doing OK. We will have to think of what we can do to ward off the mink. It grabbed Cloud at 2:40 in the afternoon- pretty bold!!

01/20/2025

I took some pictures the other morning when I let the birds out, it’s currently -14 and Elena will be letting them out in the next hour or so. I will stay warm inside…. It’s amazing how these birds and animals can just hunker down and keep themselves warm in these temperatures. Brrrrrr! 🥶

01/17/2025

Grooming the fuzzy bunnies got away from us during the holidays and now that time had come. They all have fresh new haircuts and a cleaned out area to play. They seem much happier 😃

01/14/2025

The bunnies in the garage got their treats this morning:) Claude was happy with the blueberries, strawberries, and carrots. Alfred and Lucy are here for the week -and they enjoyed lettuce and strawberries. Oakley can’t decide if he wants to leave his litter box to eat the treats.😆

01/01/2025

Earl, the rooster, is sure keeping an eye on my dad while he’s doing chores 😆 I usually am supervised by a cat lol but he’s got a rooster watching him 👀🤣

12/29/2024

Everyone is doing great on the farm- Isaac sends Elena pictures once in a while since we are out of town. Glad he and my parents are making sure all the animals are OK. while we are having an amazing vacation.❤️❤️❤️

12/28/2024

Yesterday Cindy the duck was found passed away under the ramp. She was almost 5 years old and had joint problems, so we are not surprised. She had really good day about a month ago and she was swimming, cleaning herself, and feeling good but since then she had just been getting dirtier and more tired. Rest in peace Cindy duck. Everyone else is doing great, we are out of town, but my parents and Isaac are watching everyone.

12/23/2024

These mild mornings are nice. The animals don’t seem to mind and the water doesn’t freeze as fast. Kesha and Ice Spice I’ve been trying out their wings. They’ve been going on little daily adventures. Hope they stay safe until Elena clips their wings 🙂

12/19/2024

Elena has been out of town so I have been caring for the rabbits-litter box changes for the boys in the garage, changing out water bottles for the bunnies outside, and visiting the bunnies in the rabbit room. The new Bunny Cottonwood is funny -she tunnels way back in the straw, sometimes she comes out but if she sees you, she runs back into. I was telling this to Jonah and he said oh so like a hermit crab rabbit😆😆 yes exactly she is a rabbit hermit crab. And we got some snow this morning, but no one wanted to go out in the snow.😆

12/15/2024

We added two new Holland lops to the farm yesterday 😊 one is a returning guest. Oakley was born here in the summer of 2022, and due to circumstances, his family couldn’t keep him anymore so we welcomed him back. And the other is Miss Cottonwood, her owners had gotten bunnies during the pandemic, and then those bunnies had babies -and this is one of the babies. They had rehomed everyone by this point and just had one Bunny left that they no longer wanted so she came here too. she did not have a name when we picked her up and they weren’t sure if she was a boy or a girl, but Camilla suggested Cottonwood and we like that name :) and Elena confirmed that she was a female and gave her a good nail trimming also❤️ Oakley is the son of Laurel, one of my favorite bunnies, and in his genetics are a lot of our old favorites like Denver, Hazel, coal , sparrow, and marsh.❤️❤️❤️

12/14/2024

The size difference in our mixed flock is pretty big. Kanye and his son Kendrick are male Muscovy ducks. They can be 12 to 15 pounds with a 5 foot wingspan. Compared to Mally, the mallard, who is probably a domesticated call variety of Mallard at 2 lbs. The female muscovy ducks are about 4-6 pounds. Then there is Earl, the rooster, probably 6 pounds which is about the size of the pekin and Orpington ducks, that around 3 pounds are probably the chicken hens. Currently, we have a very docile flock. With the exception of Earl, who likes to throw a side eye once in a while😆 but the real one to watch is Kendrick. He is only four months old and so far very nice, but if he starts getting aggressive as he gets older, he will not be staying. Muscovy drakes are just too big to keep if they get aggressive towards people or the rest of the flock. We do not stand for aggression towards us or anyone else in the flock, especially if he tried to mate with the chickens- then he’ll have to go. But so far he has been a respectful nice boy- let’s keep it that way Kendrick😎

12/11/2024

Brrr! Chilly morning and it’s just going to get worse. Seems like we really hit a cold spell mid week and then the weekends warm up. This one is going to last Wednesday Thursday Friday ….could feel like -20 with the wind they say. Great. Hopefully Elena gets the outside bunnies wrapped up and gives lots of straw and everyone just hunker down for a couple days.

12/10/2024

Earl, the rooster, was testing his limits with Elena yesterday😱 he ran after her when she dropped the food bag in, and Elena did not like that! We do not stand for aggressive behavior! So she dropped the food bag, caught him, then looked him in the eye and said if he did that again, he’s going to be dinner!! 😂😂😂 better watch it Earl - he has been warned🫣

12/05/2024

Brrrr!! 🥶 we had a super chilly “snow squall” come through yesterday, and by evening it felt like -14° with the wind blowing. This morning it was still cold, but everybody was fine😅 thank goodness. I gave them all their fresh water, and carrots -and I could see the tunnel that Malibu had made in her straw to stay warm. It’s amazing how these chickens, ducks and bunnies can acclimate and just hunker down through this cold weather. Peter the cat just sticks to the heated garage lately🤣

12/04/2024

We have a lot of rabbits over here. Rabbits for many different purposes.
Elena got her first bunny, a mini Rex named Oreo, when she was 5. Elena joined 4-H shortly after and learned that rabbits are pets, but also can be livestock-they are multi purpose animals 😄
She has had many different breeds over the years, with Holland Lops being her favorite. They are small, and not suitable for meat production. She concentrated on breeding show quality Holland Lops for years and won ribbons and mentored other kids about Holland Lops. Then, A few years ago, she bought a trio of New Zealand rabbits to try meat pen for 4H. She had one or two successful litters, learned to butcher them from a family friend, and we had a few good dinners of pulled rabbit and wild rice soup with rabbit , but then she got out of meat rabbits. It was a hard hobby to keep up in middle school. Then, a few months ago, she decided to get back into meat rabbits. She bought Californians and silver foxes, as her meat breeds. The idea is to have a few adults that get to stick around and have the babies, and then the babies get processed at around 3 to 4 months. She does all the processing herself and has tried out a few new recipes.
She has also culled rabbits for others in the rabbit community, and has made a fair amount of dog food lately.
So currently, we have one extremely spoiled rabbit that lives in the garage, a group of four fuzzy rabbits that live in a pet colony, another small colony of female Holland lops, and then about six Holland lops that she kept to go to rabbit shows or possibly breed next summer, and seven meat breed rabbits that live outside and 5 three month old babies. Elena likes all aspects of rabbit ownership from a pet who gets his litter box changed in a special way, to bunnies that get processed and turned into food. We have about six different breeds currently and she is also learning tanning so she can save the fur. Maybe she will craft her first pair of mittens this winter. Just keeping you guys all updated on what is going on over here. All things rabbit.

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Andover, MN

Website

https://riverlanefarm.com/

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Videos

Peter the cat isn’t the only mouser around here! 😆 I was taking a video because I wanted to see how much Mally the Mallard enjoyed the pond refresh- and then I noticed that Doja Cat caught a mouse in the background and was eating it in front of me😆..,,I thought it was going to be a swimming video😆 #muscovygetsamouse #myduckisamouser #muscovyducks #muscovyduck

We have a new friend over here, not sure if he will fly away this fall or if he will stay the winter with us but so far he really likes the pool:) #mallardduck #mallardducks #swimmingduck

Elena has been keeping the beehive stocked with sugar water and they are busier than ever. Hopefully they can make enough honey to last through the winter.💛🖤🐝 #beekeepingadventures #beekeeping #beekeepinglife

Morning sounds from the flock and a beautiful sunrise 🩷 #roosters #rooster #backyardducks

Mama duck taking her 8 babies out in the yard 🩷 #muscovyducks

Muscovy ducklings run out and find their mama in the morning #muscovyducks #ducklings

I love how the 8 ducklings come bursting out of the door in the morning 😆and how quickly they run to find their parents 🤣🩷😂🩷🤣

The three mama Muscovy ducks get their pool back and they are SO happy!! Clean feathers and good times ❤️ #muscovyduck

Pierre, the baby duckling, is one week old ❤️ #muscovyducks

There’s a deer 🦌 in the garden! We sliced the fence in the winter to rescue a duck and the deer just found the hole yesterday -and they will not stop going in😂 The sunflower leaves are gone, Strawberry leaves are gone …so we fixed the fence tonight. Fun while it lasted 😆 #deerinthegarden #deerinmygarden

Ducks had a lot to say about the new snow this morning 😂❄️🌨️ #ducksinsnow #muscovyduck