SuburbanFarmChic
Overrun with beasties
So I figured I'd let you all follow along in my attempts at backyard rabbiting. I did not have much by way of initial set up costs as I inherited my brothers set up when they were not able to keep neighborhood dogs out of their yard. Don't know who the dogs belonged to and it was a rental that didn't want large fences installed. Dogs can't attack the rabbits if the rabbits aren't there.
As it was all coming down from NY I didn't get big outside cages so I'm working on building those. Currently plywood and tarps are my friend.
At start up we received.
Sam - a NZ buck of great size and demeanor - He's a love bug.
Melody - A broken white NZ? doe w/ wild bunny splotches - Small litters, builds her nest late, otherwise good mama.
Raspberry - A sherbet color NZ? doe with a lighter underbelly. Large litters, builds a great nest but tends not to use it for kindling, fairly good mama. Slightly spazzy.
And 2 freezer boys that were not named.
At the start we did not breed anybody as when the dogs got into the cages several of the rabbits got out and were out for the whole night and we didn't know who was bred. Bunnies were delivered to my house on Labor Day weekend.
In Sept, (I will look up the date) Melody had a litter of 3. Built her nest around day 4 with some assistance. She pulled lots of fur, just didn't really do much aside from that.
Bred Rasberry in October and had a litter of 9 in November. 4 were on the wire and of those 2 made it so we had 7. For some reason she then decided to kill one of them. I think she was cleaning it and accidentally bit it and it yelped and so she offed it to keep it from making noise/drawing predators. It had damage only on it's privates and it's throat. So then we had a healthy six that were doing well. Fast forward to Thanksgiving weekend and we have 6 cute healthy babies. One was a harlequin doe and even though she was little I REALLY wanted to keep her. Well she disappeared that weekend. Just poof gone out of a closed cage.
About a week after Rasp kindled in Nov we rebred Melody so she was due mid December. She'd only had 3 kits in Sept, they were all weaned and eating solids and she was back in great condition. I tried the double breeding thing 8hrs apart and it worked. In Dec she had 7 kits which is the MOST she's ever had ever. I even called my brother's GF to confirm. So she's not totally silly levels of infertile she just ovulates low.
I had brought her cage into the house because she's crap at nest making and we were going to have 18* weather. She kindled inside with ZERO nest. Glad she wasn't outside. I did learn my lesson about moving a litter though as when we put her back outside w/ the babies at 4 days old she abandoned the litter. Won't do that again.
A friend was going through a divorce and I inherited their something/something doe that looks like a wild bunny. She is about 1/3 smaller than the NZs but not teeny. Got her Dec 10th with her hutch, supplies, and their chickens and coop/tractor. (Tractor my heinie, I wouldn't haul this thing around the yard) Anyway, this is the rabbit page so enough about the chicken tractor that only houses 4 birds but takes 3 guys to move. I bred her the weekend she got here so she's due any minute. I expect she actually kindled last night and I checked the cage for anything on the wire but didn't open the hutch because it is finally feeling like winter outside and it is COLD and WINDY and if there are newborn babies I don't want to chill them. We'll wait for this afternoon. BTW she built a lovely nest and it is full of nice warm bunny hair. and OMG my dog just had the nastiest gas ever and I have to stop typing now and go find a breathing mask.
OK back. I know one Labrador that is NOT getting ANY more bacon grease on her food. OY.
So we have a pending litter today or tomorrow at the latest I think. She could pretend she's a goat and may hold onto them for a while.
Melody was rebred about a week ago and is due early Feb.
Rasp's litter had some issues. This is the litter that was let out of the cages. There was one BIG godzilla doe that I REALLY REALLY wanted to keep. Well while we were in NJ for my grandmother's funeral she and 2 others were let out of the cages. Remember we were down to 5 kits because one went missing at Thanksgiving. Now down to 2 in the cage and 2 in the yard and one absolutely gone. The next day one of the ones in the cage died. Don't know what happened, it might have choked, it's mouth was full of food. We made several attempts to catch the 2 in the yard and the dogs got one of them. Big white girly was still out and about though and I managed to FINALLY catch her some time last week. She was out for about 4-6 days. I know there were 2 days in the middle where we didn't see her at ALL and thought a hawk got her but then she poofed into the bunny yard again and finally was of size to trip the live trap. So I put her and her remaining sibling in a cage together since the doe wanted nothing to do with her now after her little jaunt around the yard.
Since Rasp was in good condition and hadn't nursed anybody in about a week I rebred her this week and she's due a week after Melody in Feb. My plan is normally NOT to rebreed so close but they both essentially lost litters and were still in good condition and I need to replace those babies.
As far as processing we have freezered two boys and they were TASTY.
Of the Sept litter we have 1 girl and 2 boys. The boys are freezer bound probably in Feb and the girl I will keep for now. I want to see if she's a better nest builder than her mama. If she is, Melody goes.
Oh and yesterday we inherited another doe. She's smaller than the December doe so I'm not sure I can breed her to my big buck. I may look for a medium size buck and keep the largest baby and just breed that line up. I need to do something with her for her to earn her keep. She's another pretty orange girl and is almost 2 yrs old so I need to breed her soon. She's been a house bunny and is rather spoiled and was transitioned to the garage for a couple weeks and then days outside in preparation for coming here. Of course her first night here was COLD and WINDY. So for now she's just chilling out. I'll look for a smaller buck and then breed her when I can. I'm going to let her adjust to her new surroundings first.
Cages: We have about 5 of the wire rabbit cages, a wire ferret cage and uh some other kind of wire cage that I am in the process of transforming into outdoor hutches. I'm using the wire as the outside area and then attaching legs and a box w/ more legs and a roof to the back of it. I think I'm going to pick up some of the "clear" corrugated roofing to cover the wire areas as their food is getting wet sometimes and that's both a waste and a pain. The wood all comes from stuff I've picked up free off of CL and stacked in the wood pile under the deck for random usage so I only have labor and gas in the van for that. It was all local pick ups anyway.
The cages all came with the rabbits or I was given them when I took in somebody's chickens last summer.
I did buy a roll of hardware cloth to make some additional runs so that was uh I think 25.00.
My plan is to track expenses, sales, losses, success, failures, here for the whole project from here on out. I will endeavor to get photos up of the bunnies so you know who I am talking about.
The rabbit yard is a disaster right now with everything in mid project and other stuff going on but there is a grand plan and it WILL happen.
As it was all coming down from NY I didn't get big outside cages so I'm working on building those. Currently plywood and tarps are my friend.
At start up we received.
Sam - a NZ buck of great size and demeanor - He's a love bug.
Melody - A broken white NZ? doe w/ wild bunny splotches - Small litters, builds her nest late, otherwise good mama.
Raspberry - A sherbet color NZ? doe with a lighter underbelly. Large litters, builds a great nest but tends not to use it for kindling, fairly good mama. Slightly spazzy.
And 2 freezer boys that were not named.
At the start we did not breed anybody as when the dogs got into the cages several of the rabbits got out and were out for the whole night and we didn't know who was bred. Bunnies were delivered to my house on Labor Day weekend.
In Sept, (I will look up the date) Melody had a litter of 3. Built her nest around day 4 with some assistance. She pulled lots of fur, just didn't really do much aside from that.
Bred Rasberry in October and had a litter of 9 in November. 4 were on the wire and of those 2 made it so we had 7. For some reason she then decided to kill one of them. I think she was cleaning it and accidentally bit it and it yelped and so she offed it to keep it from making noise/drawing predators. It had damage only on it's privates and it's throat. So then we had a healthy six that were doing well. Fast forward to Thanksgiving weekend and we have 6 cute healthy babies. One was a harlequin doe and even though she was little I REALLY wanted to keep her. Well she disappeared that weekend. Just poof gone out of a closed cage.
About a week after Rasp kindled in Nov we rebred Melody so she was due mid December. She'd only had 3 kits in Sept, they were all weaned and eating solids and she was back in great condition. I tried the double breeding thing 8hrs apart and it worked. In Dec she had 7 kits which is the MOST she's ever had ever. I even called my brother's GF to confirm. So she's not totally silly levels of infertile she just ovulates low.
I had brought her cage into the house because she's crap at nest making and we were going to have 18* weather. She kindled inside with ZERO nest. Glad she wasn't outside. I did learn my lesson about moving a litter though as when we put her back outside w/ the babies at 4 days old she abandoned the litter. Won't do that again.
A friend was going through a divorce and I inherited their something/something doe that looks like a wild bunny. She is about 1/3 smaller than the NZs but not teeny. Got her Dec 10th with her hutch, supplies, and their chickens and coop/tractor. (Tractor my heinie, I wouldn't haul this thing around the yard) Anyway, this is the rabbit page so enough about the chicken tractor that only houses 4 birds but takes 3 guys to move. I bred her the weekend she got here so she's due any minute. I expect she actually kindled last night and I checked the cage for anything on the wire but didn't open the hutch because it is finally feeling like winter outside and it is COLD and WINDY and if there are newborn babies I don't want to chill them. We'll wait for this afternoon. BTW she built a lovely nest and it is full of nice warm bunny hair. and OMG my dog just had the nastiest gas ever and I have to stop typing now and go find a breathing mask.
OK back. I know one Labrador that is NOT getting ANY more bacon grease on her food. OY.
So we have a pending litter today or tomorrow at the latest I think. She could pretend she's a goat and may hold onto them for a while.
Melody was rebred about a week ago and is due early Feb.
Rasp's litter had some issues. This is the litter that was let out of the cages. There was one BIG godzilla doe that I REALLY REALLY wanted to keep. Well while we were in NJ for my grandmother's funeral she and 2 others were let out of the cages. Remember we were down to 5 kits because one went missing at Thanksgiving. Now down to 2 in the cage and 2 in the yard and one absolutely gone. The next day one of the ones in the cage died. Don't know what happened, it might have choked, it's mouth was full of food. We made several attempts to catch the 2 in the yard and the dogs got one of them. Big white girly was still out and about though and I managed to FINALLY catch her some time last week. She was out for about 4-6 days. I know there were 2 days in the middle where we didn't see her at ALL and thought a hawk got her but then she poofed into the bunny yard again and finally was of size to trip the live trap. So I put her and her remaining sibling in a cage together since the doe wanted nothing to do with her now after her little jaunt around the yard.
Since Rasp was in good condition and hadn't nursed anybody in about a week I rebred her this week and she's due a week after Melody in Feb. My plan is normally NOT to rebreed so close but they both essentially lost litters and were still in good condition and I need to replace those babies.
As far as processing we have freezered two boys and they were TASTY.
Of the Sept litter we have 1 girl and 2 boys. The boys are freezer bound probably in Feb and the girl I will keep for now. I want to see if she's a better nest builder than her mama. If she is, Melody goes.
Oh and yesterday we inherited another doe. She's smaller than the December doe so I'm not sure I can breed her to my big buck. I may look for a medium size buck and keep the largest baby and just breed that line up. I need to do something with her for her to earn her keep. She's another pretty orange girl and is almost 2 yrs old so I need to breed her soon. She's been a house bunny and is rather spoiled and was transitioned to the garage for a couple weeks and then days outside in preparation for coming here. Of course her first night here was COLD and WINDY. So for now she's just chilling out. I'll look for a smaller buck and then breed her when I can. I'm going to let her adjust to her new surroundings first.
Cages: We have about 5 of the wire rabbit cages, a wire ferret cage and uh some other kind of wire cage that I am in the process of transforming into outdoor hutches. I'm using the wire as the outside area and then attaching legs and a box w/ more legs and a roof to the back of it. I think I'm going to pick up some of the "clear" corrugated roofing to cover the wire areas as their food is getting wet sometimes and that's both a waste and a pain. The wood all comes from stuff I've picked up free off of CL and stacked in the wood pile under the deck for random usage so I only have labor and gas in the van for that. It was all local pick ups anyway.
The cages all came with the rabbits or I was given them when I took in somebody's chickens last summer.
I did buy a roll of hardware cloth to make some additional runs so that was uh I think 25.00.
My plan is to track expenses, sales, losses, success, failures, here for the whole project from here on out. I will endeavor to get photos up of the bunnies so you know who I am talking about.
The rabbit yard is a disaster right now with everything in mid project and other stuff going on but there is a grand plan and it WILL happen.
