[Food] Production - Rabbits

RedStateGreen · **Posted:** Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:51 am

wisconsin_cur wrote:

I have had two obstacles. First is the mistake I have made of buying bucks from people who breed to show. While they are the right breeds, grow well, and are even reasonable resilient (once I get them off of the anti-biotics and let their immune system develop) the bucks just do not seem to understand that tab a goes into slot b. They also tend to get bullied by my streetwise does. Getting one successful breeding takes days of trying.

This might explain the trouble I'm having getting my pair to breed. :lol:

RedStateGreen · **Posted:** Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:15 am

I take that back!

We had a nice surprise this morning: Shadow had two bunnies overnight.

It was a surprise as the times we let her and Leon out together, he didn't even seem to be able to find the right end to work on. But he must have figured it out! :lol:

They are very cute. As soon as I find my camera (or get a new one -- this one has been lost for a while now) I'll post some pictures.

wisconsin_cur · **Joined:** Thu May 10, 2007 12:00 am **Posts:** 4616

uNkNowN ElEmEnt wrote:

How much hay and grain per rabbit did you go through this winter? Was it the timothy alfalpha like you said you were thinking? How many does did you overwinter? Did you ahve to add any extra heating? or how did you work out your desire to put in further insulation?

Any changes you would make or ideas for next year?

I only fed gain when the low was below -15 F this year. Then I gave them about 1/2 a soup can's worth of corn and a generic sweet feed. the rest of the time they overwintered on hay. Sometimes an alfalfa hay, sometimes a more grassy mix. No heat. A couple of the rabbits used a plastic cat litter pail as a shelter.

I think I am going to have to accept winter as a natural limitation and limit my breeding to March-October and just let them rest through the winter. If I were to try I would probably pick up some used six pack coolers and cut a hole in them for an enterance and see if they would use that as a shelter/nest box.

wisconsin_cur · **Joined:** Thu May 10, 2007 12:00 am **Posts:** 4616

RedStateGreen wrote:

wisconsin_cur wrote:

I have had two obstacles. First is the mistake I have made of buying bucks from people who breed to show. While they are the right breeds, grow well, and are even reasonable resilient (once I get them off of the anti-biotics and let their immune system develop) the bucks just do not seem to understand that tab a goes into slot b. They also tend to get bullied by my streetwise does. Getting one successful breeding takes days of trying.

This might explain the trouble I'm having getting my pair to breed. :lol:

I have tried a couple of times this spring with no success. What I do observe is that with each attempt all the parties involved come closer to having a successful breeding. They may have "forgotten" exactly what comes naturally but they seem to be getting the general idea. I will need to put them together again over the next couple of days and maybe we can get spring started!

I doe will also refuse to mate if she is pregnate. If she does breed again while preggers she will miscarry since she will ovulate again which will throw her body chemistry off. This is why I check the does after every attempted breeding so if there was any success I do not try to put her in with the buck again.

Old_Fart · **Joined:** Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:00 am **Posts:** 53

Quote:

Re:
Another thing you could do, you could just use heat trace tape. It looks like you can get it for 3 watts per linear foot. You could use a small strip between the floor of the nest and a piece of insulation. You then hook it to a timer or thermostat control that senses the outside air temperature.
You could also run a heat trace around each water bottle while your at it.

You might try tose now popular light ropes. They are really cheap and available year round at hardware and department stores (Wallmart). They are pretty much waterproof it you put RTV over the end caps and can be cut to lengths needed. There are 2 sizes, 3/8 and 1/2 inch. The 3/8 inch lights run 3.36 watts per foot and the 1/2 inch lights run 5.5 watts per foot. Determine how much heat you need and whack off a chunk to suit your needs. I use these to keep my water pipes from freezing in the winter. Bunch cheaper than pipe heat strips... just no thermostat, they are either on or off. Also good as soil heaters in the greenhouse. One caution is to maybe protect from Rabbitts chewing on them, or if using in a greenhouse put a piece of 1/4 inch hardware cloth (wire) over the top of the light so you dont cut it with a shovel/digging tool.

[Food] Production - Rabbits

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