[roddycm]

Hello,

I wanted to start with a few rabbits for meat and was wondering what system do you all use? I have been on google and most people suggest wire cages raised up off of the floor. Is this really the best way? It seems like quite a cruel life for the poor bunnies. Had a few pet rabbits before but kept them in hutches, never had meat rabbits before so any advice would be great!

I hear the best breeds are NZ whites or Californians... Have you guys found this to be the case?

Thanks

Roddy

[Bodger]

If you're only going to raise a few to eat for yourself, then a decent hutches will be fine.

[Clarebelle]

we started keeping rabbits for meat at the beginning of this year, we chose rex rabbits as I would like to use the furs as well as the meat.

We also didnt really want to use the 'breeding block' kind of system as part of the project was also to teach our children about caring for animals properly and discovering more about where food comes from.

At the moment we have our buck in a single story hutch at night and he goes into an outdoor run on grass during the day, it has shelter incase it rains and the floor of the run is wired so he cant dig but the grass grows through.

My doe is in a big two story hutch which has enough room for her litter aswell. I also have another hutch which is massive and has access to a large run underneath which I move our baby rabbits into after weaning. This large run area also doubles up as my quail chick growers pen!

We had a few false starts at the start of the venture, it was our does first litter and for different reasons we lost our first two litters.

One thing you need to think about is that rabbits can have very large litters so you will need enough room for them. Also, males reach maturity as early as 4 months (i think) so they would need to be kept away from their mother/sisters if you were planning to grow them on longer than that. Also you need to decide on a frequency for breeding, gestation is 32 days so you need to think about planning litters.

We litter trained our breeding rabbits and it makes maintenance much easier. We clean out their litter trays every two days. Litter training means that you will need to clean the hutches out much less often. We use wood shavings for the hutches and megazorb (a wood pulp used for horse bedding) in the litter trays.

Ebay has been a good source of second hand hutches. Just make sure you measure your car, some are pretty big!

Also you might want to think about growing some food for them to keep costs down. If you have kids, send them out picking cow parsley! My rabbits will even eat nettles once they've been dried. Stuff like strawberry plants are so easy to propagate and rabbits love them.

I hope this helps! 

[Rosemary]

Watching this thread - we're going to try rabbits next year, I'm looking o go on a course at Trealy Farm
www.meatcourse.co.uk/rabbit  in the spring.

[roddycm]

Brilliant advice! Thank you so much I am much happier with the hutch and run idea! I will have to google how to litter train rabbits haha I didn't know this was possible but it sounds like a great idea

[Clarebelle]

My rabbits were are a couple of years old already when i got them so it was a bit harder to train them, i basically had to wait until they had picked a favourite spot and put the litter tray there. It's meant to be much easier to train younger rabbits.

Also, about nest boxes, many people recommend placing a nest box in the hutch close to the time when your doe is due to kindle (give birth) so that the litter is born in the box but I don't do this. Does will naturally make a nest themselves so I try not to interfere and haven't had any problems so far but it's up to you. There are load of guides online about litter training rabbits and making nest boxes.

I would recommend investing in a waterproof/insulation cover for outdoor hutches, they can be expensive but you could improvise with a bit of carpet over the hutch and a waterproof tarp during the winter especially.

In the summer flies can be a real problem for domestic rabbits, this year i used red top fly traps in the garden and they have been amazing. I haven't had any trouble and have hardly seen a single fly in the hutches.

Just shout if there's anything else you can think of you might need to know. 

[in the hills]

We have a pet, house rabbit. I have heard people say that rabbits don't need much space as they don't move around a lot. They need loads of exercise in order to have a good quality of life and I find the tier cage system quite shocking. Think of battery cages for hens.


Our rabbit comes when he is called and purrs when petted. He knows when we are making toast and comes and begs for it .... quite intelligent. Lots of behaviours that you wouldn't know rabbits were capable of if kept out in hutches.


Easy to house train if bought as young rabbits. Ours will run around the house but always return to his cage and the litter tray it contains when he needs the loo. They are very clean if given the chance.


Think there are past posts on here about rearing for meat. Colliewoman (not on here at the moment) is a good source of rabbit information. You maybe able to find posts by her.

[MAK]

clarebelle set up sounds great and simular to ours for the buck. Mum moves into an old woden dresser to have her young and we cut a small hole on one of the doors then made a run around this ( wire bottom too).

KEY point. rabbits eat wood !! Infact mum number 2  ate thru the wire door frame and it fell off its hinge allowing her to escape. She had a fight with a drake and drowned in the bath. I had to kill her 9 few days old babies.

All the rabbit cages here are made of cast concrete with a wire grill. They can be stacked on top of each other and the base tilts backwards to aid cleaning.

NOTE : whatever you put them in rember that you will have to clean out their cage and run - you don't want to be crawling around or digging up wet soiled straw with a bad back do you?  They will toilet in the same area of the above regardless if you move their run around the lawn or not. Their toilet will kill the grass so maybe invest in a tray once you establish where they will toilet.   
Note 2: At some stage you will have to remove the rabbits from their cage or run to kill them. Consider how you will get one out at a time without other escaping and ease of access.
Note 3 Remove Mum from her kittens before they get to 10 weeks and seperate the sexes unless you plan to kill them at 10-12 weeks.
note 4 : Wild rabbits may visit your stock so protect your veg plot with an electric fence. 

[JulieWall]

Mine have a big hutch each all arranged so they can see the other rabbits. It's nice and social for them that way but the bucks are placed so that they can't see each other very well as they get a bit frustrated seeing the other at mating time. The shed they live in has windows and big double doors which I open up every day to get lots of air and light in.
I don't like wire cages either but many a day I have thought how much easier and quicker the cleaning would be if all I had to do was empty a tray. I clean them every day, which may sound a lot but in reality it mostly consists of emptying corner loos, shaking dry pellets out of their hay bedding and scooping them into a tub. Because mine all live in a big shed it would get pretty smelly in there if I didn't do this.
Rabbits are naturally clean and if you let them pick their own toilet spot it is a simple matter to just introduce a toilet. It's worth cleaning the corner loos with a soak in vinegar every now and then as it dissolves the smelly, calcified urine salts that build up in the loos.

Here are a few pros and cons as I see it;

wire cages are easier to keep clean.
Better air circulation in large rabbitrys with wire cages

solid floors enable the rabbits to scrabble (digging behaviour) which helps wear down their nails
permanent nest boxes are a nice bolt hole and more burrow-like
solid floors and nest boxes let the doe chose her own nest site
Kits that crawl out of the nest can fall through wire cages.

We are considering building a rabbit tractor but there are issues around contact with wild rabbits to overcome first. Whatever you end up doing remember that they need plenty of ventilation as rabbits (reputedly) have problems with respiratory diseases. I've never had a problem so far, touch wood, but it's worth bearing in mind.
Ooo, I wrote a book there, lol, sorry it was a bit longwinded.

[feldar]

Do be careful buying second hand hutches, really wash and clean them out, my OH lost all his breeding rabbits to a bug which ripped through them like a wildfire, this only occurred after he had used some second hand hutches given to him. Previous to this he had bred a closed colony of rabbits for years with no problems.

[Rosemary]

How old are the young rabbits when they are weaned and how long between weaning and a reasonable slaughter weight?

[MAK]

I believe that they wean at about 4 weeks but we keep Mum with the kittens as she still mothers them and they will take her milk. At 10 weeks they can mate so mum is removed at about 9 weeks and it is best to seperate male and females. 12 weeks and they are a good size to take for the kitchen. 
Happy to hear others thoughts but this works for us.
Oh - did I say that our last litter escaped their run after eating through the wooden door support. I caught 11 that remained in the duck enclosure that the rabbit run was in. One rabbit did escape and ran with the wild rabbits for a week or so but then made the mistake of setting up home in the barn amongst the chickens.

[JulieWall]

There is a nice pattern to the weaning - as usual nature has it nicely sorted. Wild rabbits mate right after kindling or at least within a couple of days. The growing kits just born are weaned and eating solid food by 3 weeks and the kits growing inside the doe don't really make much demand on the doe's resources until the final week of pregnancy. In domesticated breeds the kits will still try to steal a drink from mum but she doesn't always put up with it.
Have a look at this cutie, Daisy is a good mum and is standing for him Questing for grub. 

Pregnancy varies slightly between breeds, in the case of NZWs it is 31 days but bigger breeds can be even longer. Many smaller breeds are ready to mate within 3 to 4 months but the NZW should be left until they have attained their adult body weight. They can conceive at around six months but I never managed it earlier than 7 mths. The bucks still need to be separated if you are going to keep them longer than 12 to 14 weeks as the dominant ones will give the subordinate bucks a really hard time trying to mount them. It's easy to spot when you need to split them up as the racing around the hutch makes quite a racket, you'd have to be deaf to not notice, lol. Maiden does will usually be quite happy living together however.
They should be ready for the pot by 12 weeks but if you keep them a couple of weeks longer you'll catch a growth spurt that will put a bit more muscle on them, it's worth doing. The meat to bone ratio on the NZW is better than supermarket chicken by the way, as they are smaller boned than other large breeds. They are sometimes crossed with other large breeds to get a better carcase.

[MAK]

Very interesting. I gather ( and stand corrected) that the mother can delay pregnancy or even reabsorb the very young (5-6 days) if conditions are not right.
Our old neighbours were excited that our last litter were fathered by a wild rabbit. The right to be pleased with their gift as the meat was better than our usual.

[Clarebelle]

My standard Rex doe always has a 32 day gestation. The fur was a big reason for going for that breed but I think when we move house next year I may get a NZW doe and put her to our rex buck. It will be interesting to see what the carcass is like.

I'm currently weaning my first bunnies from mum, yesterday I put them in another hutch all day and back in with mum during the night, I am going to do this for another two days I think.

Mak, do you rest your does through winter or keep breeding?

Also, thanks Julie for the vinegar tip, might have to try that!