About 45 minutes later, Tony was going upstairs, and just happened to peek in to check on #5 who was still asleep. There was #5, fast asleep in his bed, and a portion of his sheet was moving. Sure enough, he had woken up at sunrise, went down stairs, taken Boon from the nest box, and brought him back up to cuddle with him, only to fall asleep again, with the bunny in his bed.
When we finally found Boon, I brought him out to his momma for his morning feeding. By mid afternoon when we checked again (it was a warm day so I let him stay in with his momma for the day), Boon was out of the nest box! It's official, our little long-shot bunny is growing up! Now we can't keep him in the house anymore because he won't stay in the nest box. He will be staying out with his momma now. It was a warm night and tonight will also be warm, but next week we're heading into below freezing nights, and within the next two weeks we may be getting the yucky white stuff (I always dread the arrival of snow and cold weather). But now that Boon can get out of the nest box, he can cuddle up with his mom for warmth. I'm hoping he does alright. He's a plump little fella, and he'll have a couple warm nights here to acclimate to being outside. Yesterday and today we reached 70-degrees. Not bad for the middle of October!
I had every intention of butchering some roosters today. Tony got our new kill cones set up this morning before he went to work. I actually had a rooster in the kill cone, psyched myself up for it, and went for the slice... but for some freak reason, my knife did nothing to the bird! Not once, not twice, but three times I attempted to kill the bird, and three times my knife didn't so much as scratch his neck! I can't explain this. The knife was sharp, I used it just a week ago on bunny slaughter day and it did well. I took the bird out of the kill cone and returned him to the coop, then texted Tony that he's going to have to hire a processing place because I can't do it. Not even, apparently, with the proper tools. He said he'd help get the job done tomorrow.
We got a few interesting looking ones today. One looked like it had a large bruise, but it wasn't bruised at all, just the outside was discolored like a bruise. It was still shiny and firm.