# Rabbit pen thred



## Blackhereford boy (May 29, 2012)

Hi i was wanting to see every ones indoor and outdoor pens big or small any will do 

thanks


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## ohiogoatgirl (May 29, 2012)

right now i have 3ft by 5 ft  cages that i am working on filling with pairs of does to keep them together that way. but i'm also hoping to set up a small colony pen of sorts. its not set up though. 

here is a video of what i have now (i have a new video i just havent uploaded it yet  )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7wKpyomyNU&feature=plcp


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## Blackhereford boy (May 29, 2012)

thanks those are nice


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## treeclimber233 (May 30, 2012)

Just wondering why you want to keep does together.  Are you going to try to breed them?


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## Bossroo (May 31, 2012)

Rabbits, especially female rabbits ( even siblisngs)  , are very terratorial so  eventually furr and blood will fly.  If it was me, I would keep 1 mature rabbit per housing unit .


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## ohiogoatgirl (May 31, 2012)

@ treeclimber
yes i am going to be breeding them next month

@bossroo
not nessecarily, no. these are sisters from the same litter. they have always been together, never lived seperately. most of the reason rabbits become agressive and so territorial is because they are seperated and never learn how to act with another rabbit other then breeding and caring for their own kits.
and when born and live together their whole life then they can sometimes be kept in a large cage together and be fine together. sometimes they will get territorial with each other and fight. in which case i have a cage that i can seperate them. 

if you read about colony set ups you can find more on that


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## Bossroo (May 31, 2012)

After raising hundreds of rabbits... I found that even full sister and/ or male littermates will kill, maime, and destroy the looser of a fight. When I first started to raise rabbits, I too did the colony thing with a group of full sister littermates. Ended in total disaster with blood and fir flying everywhere. The weakest sister had her entire hind end eaten off then  screeming bloody murder when I reached in to take her out , and not to even mention the resulting huge vet. bill.  Lesson learned...  I switched to one mature female per hanging wire cage. Everyone was much happier that way.  I can give you quite a few colony disaster stories from the years that I worked at a Univercity Vet. Medicine Teaching Hospital.  Good luck to you !


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## pennylove (May 31, 2012)

I've seen two colony set-ups (in person) that worked well. One is a large fenced enclosure, inside of a barn. The does are kept in colony at all times and the bucks are housed with them, but each in separate cages, spread throughout the area. I questioned placing the bucks in the area, thinking they might be sexually frustrated being kept in close proximity to so many does and that their presence might cause more territorial fights between the free-ranging does, but that wasn't the case. The owner claims she sees little difference in the amount of aggression the does exhibit to one another whether the bucks are nearby or not. However, with the does in close proximity, she has not been able to allow her bucks access to one another--even adjacent wire cages eventually led to fighting and biting through the wires. 

In that particular set-up, she has separate quarters for does with litters and a separate pen for junior rabbits (separated by gender). Only her breeding bucks were kept "caged," the rest of the rabbits had large fenced enclosures to roam. The rabbitry owner has had the best of luck with introductions and bonding (i.e., preventing fighting) by introducing AT LEAST two rabbits of similar ages to the colony at the same time. So, if she purchases a new doe, she keeps her caged away from the other rabbits until she has another doe or two and then introduces them to the colony at the same time.

I'm sorry I don't have pictures to show you, but there was nothing elaborate about the set-ups. Long, rectangular pens of varying sizes enclosed with wire fencing. Straw was used on the floor and she used the deep composting method, with free-ranging ducks to control flies in the summer. As someone who purchased rabbits from this set-up, my only complaint was that the rabbits' coats hadn't been as carefully groomed as I would have liked, but then, you're probably not looking at raising Angoras, either: )

The second set-up involves large cages for each rabbit and a mutual free-range area. All of the rabbits, separated by gender, have access to the free-range are at one time, meaning it never becomes any one rabbit's territory, so there is very little fighting. It works on the principle that you introduce rabbits only on "neutral" grounds--what belongs to everyone remains neutral. The rabbits are caged at night, either separately or in bonded pairs and allowed to free-range for most of the day. When the does are out, the bucks are in and vice-versa. 

In both of these examples, adequate space for every rabbit is key. The minimum standards for livestock breeding and raising are really not adequate by rabbit standards. If you want to prevent fighting, the rabbits need plenty of room to interact with one another (or not, as the case may be). There also need to be nearly unlimited resources--plenty of food, water, shelter, etc., for each rabbit, all the time. 

Also, in both of these colonies, fighting is at a minimum. There are occasional fights and every now and then someone suffers a bite wound, but nothing like Bossroo has described.


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## Blackhereford boy (Jun 4, 2012)

those sound cool

thanks


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## bjjohns (Jul 1, 2012)

This isn't really a rabbit pen so much as it's a rabbit tractor:





 It's 5'x10' and the bottom is 2"x4" welded wire. The sides are 2' chicken wire. We put the rabbits in at 3-4 weeks of age. It gets moved 2-3 times a day. You have to be careful to not put it over holes when the rabbits are still really small.


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## Shayanna (Sep 13, 2012)

Can I be like you when I grow up? 





			
				bjjohns said:
			
		

> This isn't really a rabbit pen so much as it's a rabbit tractor:
> http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/7104_rabbittractor_s.jpg
> It's 5'x10' and the bottom is 2"x4" welded wire. The sides are 2' chicken wire. We put the rabbits in at 3-4 weeks of age. It gets moved 2-3 times a day. You have to be careful to not put it over holes when the rabbits are still really small.


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## rittert3 (Dec 27, 2012)

I see this is an older post and I havn't been on BYH in a while but I though I'd share what I've built over the last month or two. I've got 20 holes built like this then a few extras,... raising show mini lops in NE KS.


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## bjjohns (Dec 27, 2012)

Pretty cool. How hard is it to clean up between the first and second stories?


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## rittert3 (Dec 27, 2012)

it was going to be made to roll out the back but my panels wern't wide enough so I just scoop it out with a dust pan once a week or so.


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## sonnythebunny (Jan 7, 2013)

I keep my bunny (holland lop) in a hutch


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## greenbean (Jan 7, 2013)

I've had does live in a colony setting together just fine, however I've also had others not get along at all.  This includes littermates.  I had one missing a lip and part of an ear before I could break up the fight.  I just keep them in hutches/hanging cages now (one rabbit per cage).  They do regularly get time out in the yard in a pen so they're not in a cage all the time.  I've seen some really nice colony setups before that worked well.  So if it works out for you, that's awesome!  Good luck!


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## bjjohns (Mar 21, 2013)

hoog said:
			
		

> I use a colony it's much eaiser for me.


I considered that, but how do you catch them? I assume with a colony you are butchering.


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## bjjohns (Mar 25, 2013)

> Still a net (long handled, small holed, fishing net from walmart) makes them pretty easy to corner and catch. ....  things deleted  ....Sometimes I don't even bother with the net and just reach in and grab them, that is, as long as I have on long sleeves to aviod the scratching.


I didn't think about the fishing net. I use one of the big ones to catch some of my more feral goats sometimes. Great Minds . If I have a cage rabbit get loose, my Jack Russel (George) will help me catch it, but getting it back alive can be an iffy thing.

We have a Flemish Giant buck (Named Bart, yes he is black). I refuse to mess with him. He loves my wife, shreds me if I even stick my hand in his cage. Been threatening to get welders gloves to deal with him.


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## pandorasun6 (May 9, 2013)

These threads all make me feel so much better about my rabbit-land experiment. I've been building multi room bunny condo's, 2 levels and multiple rooms that can be opened or closed off so I can use them for growing litters and close off when I separate boys from girls (these are pet variety).. I also use a solid level on top for nesting does. Clean the top level is a pain but I have lofts in them so I can actually hose them out without removing the rabbit if she sits up on her loft. I have them in sight of each other but no adults housed together. We already had one female on female biting incident * 3 inches deep and down to the muscle of her back* that left my blue doe with curious white fur marking from her scar. She healed up nicely with betadine and antibiotic cream and is still a friendly. The doe that bit her is also hard to breed because she attacks the bucks, pins and pulls fur. I really thought she was a buck for a little while! I kept checking her to be sure. The only problem I see now is one lonely buck that seems so distracted by the does he can't reach, he will barely eat some days.


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## bjjohns (May 10, 2013)

pandorasun6 said:
			
		

> These threads all make me feel so much better about my rabbit-land experiment. I've been building multi room bunny condo's,


I think I understand what you are doing, but you have any pics you could post?


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## pandorasun6 (May 10, 2013)

OH I WISH I COULD POST PICTS!! I am still too new a member to use that function. I came on here to get help identifying my mini rex does color and the breeds of my mutt bucks but the forum won't let me post my photos until I have been on here posting...so that is what I am doing! It is driving me a little nuts to not be able to post photos! I am building hutches for sale to go with the bunnies I have ready to go, I am half way through the first one and would LOVE to post some photos. The hutches I am building for sale are made from upcycled lumber, my husband cut the boards down to 1.5 " x 1.5" for me. They are 2' x 3' , 10" off the ground and 1.5' tall, just tall enough to build a loft in it. I find the bunnies love "hidey holes", dark corners and levels to jump around on, in a confined space, as they would underground.


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## pandorasun6 (May 10, 2013)

bjjohns said:
			
		

> pandorasun6 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I am going to attempt to post a photo of the large condo hutch I built, 2 levels on one side, loft/nest on other, all the rooms can be separated and so it can be one large hutch or 3 apartments. Right now I have boys on one side, girls on the other (10 weeks old) and a possibly pregnant mama upstairs


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## bjjohns (May 10, 2013)

pandorasun6 said:
			
		

> I am going to attempt to post a photo of the large condo hutch I built,


Got it, that's kinda cool. A little too complex for me I think, but I do need to build some bigger breeding hutches - I'll have to keep that multi-piece functionality in mind when I do that.


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