introducing new rabbits to others

[M Claire]

Jumping in on this thread, do you think that 12 week olds are still young enough to accept a new herd mate of the same age without much fighting?

I have a neighbor who is a social worker. Their department got a rabbit for a client and then the client went AWOL and the department manager said "just put thumper back in the woods".
Since she knows that I have rabbits, she asked if I would be willing to adopt, and I certainly would, but just wouldn't want to end up with the adoptee getting maimed of course!

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

Really old thread...you should ALWAYS quarantine a rabbit before it has any contact with other rabbits in your rabbitry. I quarantine 30 days and that is the last rabbit I handle before I go in an wash up. As to the rest....sorry, I am not fond of colonies so no experience, but at 12 weeks either mine are culled or I HAVE to split them up even if they have been together, because they start fighting about that age. If you quarantine, we are talking 16 weeks and that would even be harder, I would think. (And it could be the adoptee that does the maiming.)

 

[M Claire]

I guess we will just have to test and see how it goes. I am not too worried about diseases since the potential adoptee has only ever lived indoors and alone, but I hope that she will still be young enough to get going on the social skills learning curve.

I envy your meat operation. I would love to get into meat rabbits and especially meat chickens, but I don't think my young suburban kids are ready for the hard facts of life yet. Hopefully someday

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

It has been my experience that children do not have the chance to adapt to which they are not exposed. We started over 7 years ago when my daughter was 9 years old and she did not like the idea, but she ate the meat. Then she hit the middle school years and swore off rabbit meat altogether, (but knowingly ate it sometimes, so I think that was mostly about looking PC with her friends and thinking she should feel quilty), and now the girl wants to learn how to process from kill to freezer.

And I personally would STILL quarantine. There are some illnesses that are not limited to species. For instance, the same thing that can cause kennel cough for a dog or respiratory illness in a cat, can cause snuffles in a rabbit, which is deadly. Quarantine often is an unnecessary practice, thankfully, but finding out it was necessary after the fact is not a risk I am ever willing to take.

 

[M Claire]

Yes, I see what you mean. I still have much to learn about rabbit illnesses. In Europe, we hear a lot about myxomatosis and rabbit hemorrhagic fever, but it's hard to get accurate information about the other illnesses of concern.