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Post by harrisi on Apr 19, 2009 9:34:04 GMT -5
I cant be the only one to be breeding feeder rabbits? I can't believe how cheap they are...we have just put into the freezer 9, 10 lb rabbits, raised by us, for the cost of 2 bales of hay (£12/17.?? USD). I dont know how these aren't more popular as feeder animals! (admittedly I had no idea the rabbits were costing us so little).
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Post by bigsis7 on Apr 19, 2009 9:59:42 GMT -5
I think the problem is room for a lot of people. 10 pound rabbits need quite a bit of room! I think charmantpapillion was thinking of breeding rabbits for feeders at one point...
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Post by tss on Apr 19, 2009 11:07:33 GMT -5
I guess you could say I raise them, I help raise them at least. The bad thing is hay alone would be enough to sustain them, maybe short term for those that are going to be killed once they are big enough but not for the breeders. They need lots of veggies too.
The ones I deal with mostly get breeder pellets but the bred females also get hay and everyone also gets veggies sometimes.
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Post by harrisi on Apr 19, 2009 12:34:05 GMT -5
True about the space, we are lucky enough to have a sort-of spacious garden so we have a 1.5'x10 (cost £25 out of the papers) pen split into two, one for males, one for females. Then we dug 6 " into the ground, put old slabs on the bottom (free) and chicken wire around the sides, filled with top soil (£4) and mixed up the soil every couple of days to put the waste underneath and the new compost up to the top. With the hay they also got a grass and various weeds, but obviously they dont cost. And actually alot of breeders only ever use a diet of good quality timothy grass and dandelion leaves or kale throw in for mothers that are due and nursing, we used this for our breeding trio and didnt have any problems with calcium deficieny. Small-time breeding is pretty easy, on a big scale it would be easier to use pellets (we are going to be putting up a few new pens so will have upwards of 20 rabbits at any one time, so we will be using pellets here and there depending on how the garden turns out once they have all been out for a graze!
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Post by bluedove on Apr 19, 2009 16:52:24 GMT -5
We are planning to after we move! Although our plan is more to feed us than the critters... Right now we live in town and it would just be too much work and money to make the hutches only to have to break them down and move them in a year or so. What is it that you breed the rabbits to feed? And what age/stage do you cull and freeze them?
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Post by ccretarolo on Apr 19, 2009 17:17:26 GMT -5
My dad is going to start here pretty soon. He's got a small house on an acre of land so he's in the process of starting up his own little farm. He has chickens right now and he'll be starting to raise meat goats, rabbits, and quail in the near future.
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Post by harrisi on Apr 20, 2009 6:50:28 GMT -5
What is it that you breed the rabbits to feed? Ferrets, humans, cats, hawks and dogs. And what age/stage do you cull and freeze them? Depends really. I go on weight instead of age as they differ greatly. For humans I cull at about 2.5 months old, so they are pretty big, but still tender. For dogs, hawks, ferrets and cats they are culled as soon as they reach the weight/size I want.
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Post by fuzzymom on Apr 24, 2009 11:25:43 GMT -5
I want to, but space is a big issue. We are currently living with my mother in law and we are taking two of her three bedrooms as it is. We could put them outside but there is a lady in the same row of townhouses that spends her entire day trying to find people who are disobeying the lease's terms. (We had these cute little wind chimes attached to the front porch and she reported us for having "too many decorations". She also reported us for not having our door painted. My mother in law had to get a new door installed because someone broke in. She hasn't had a chance to paint it to match the other doors on the other townhouses.) So this lady would notice some rabbit hutches when there is a pet policy.
When we get our own place, I plan on breeding meat rabbits for ferret, dog, and cat consumption.
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Post by whipple on May 2, 2009 19:15:00 GMT -5
I would love to breed rabbits. I plan on it when I get the space.
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Post by bluecoyote on Sept 23, 2010 15:45:47 GMT -5
So sorry i'm digging this up, i know this is an old thread!! but i have to say... i should NOT have read this why? because i reeeeeeaaaallly want to get back into breeding rabbits now four years ago when we first moved here i had a decent bunny set up... odd... but decent. they were actually on the ground in a fenced in area and were able to make their own burrows, browse on grass, run around, interact.....like a rabbit should. the big problem we had was when it rained.... they had a big dog house for shade, shelter and protection, but apparently the two does didnt want to birth in there and couldnt burrow deep enough into the ground - i found out its pure clay under 12 inches of dirt in most areas of that pen - and we lost a couple of litters due to water filling up the burrows so i had to time everything perfect and move the pregnant doe into a hutch to raise her babies. that worked great for a while until i had MY baby(i was pregnant at the time) once i had two little human babies taking up all my time i couldnt devote any time to bunny babies, so i just gave up on the plan. NOW, however..... i'm not tied down like before and my sons are actually turning into little helpers.... and i'm thinking of getting some more bunnies.. i keep seeing full grown New Zealands for $10 in craigslist... and baby bunnies for $5.... Lord help me, i am fighting temptation First I have to make a phone call to my uncle to see if he still has his rabbit hutches and if he does ask if he would be willing to let me have them and if they are able to be taken down and moved(he installed them into the side of his workshop for my aunt) He's an awesome carpenter, these are great quality home made hutches and he doesnt give a rat's butt about breeding rabbits lol that was his wife's project - now they are divorced i liked the idea of the bunnies being able to live on the ground and burrow and run around and eat grass the way a rabbit should..... but...... i just wont be able to breed them in there. not unless i could get a dump truck load of dirt poured in so they would have an actual hill to burrow into to avoid the rain. otherwise.... IF i get these hutches i'll install them into MY barn and either forgot the mice colony or supplement with mice.
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Post by 1 on Sept 29, 2010 23:29:31 GMT -5
I know its about the only question I ever ask but, breeding rabbits, is that the same as breeding rats and mice?
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Post by bluecoyote on Sept 30, 2010 1:13:51 GMT -5
i dont think it is EXACTLY alike..... when the does were allowed to make their nests in the ground they would actually bury the door to the burrow to hide their kits. i never once saw them nanny anyone elses kits either. there was ONE situation when i had a doe with a litter of bunnies just starting to hope around... and i had several orphaned kits that were still blind and nursing. i added them to the litter without any kind of reaction from the doe. she mothered them the same as she mothered her own. apparently there is a small window in which you can do that with rabbits... dont know about mice/rats or other animals doing that however...
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Post by goingpostal on Sept 30, 2010 10:14:11 GMT -5
I live in town, even if I had the room for rabbits I don't think it's legal.
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Post by 1 on Oct 2, 2010 12:09:11 GMT -5
Times up, I once read they have a kitten chamber underground, and I read the daddy would try to fight off weasels, but I mostly mean,,Can they breed quickly and with relatives? I live in town, even if I had the room for rabbits I don't think it's legal. As for you, what contry are you in? If Australia I bet its illegal.
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Post by bluecoyote on Oct 2, 2010 20:43:54 GMT -5
like rodents once they reach a certain age they become sexually active ...come to think of it.. goats are the same :/ i never allowed that to happen however so i dont know about the quickness and i doubt they care about who they breed to. i do know it can quickly get out of control if you dont stay on top of your breeding program.
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