Rabbit nuttering

[VickieB]

Out of curiosity, why do you castrate the male rabbits? Unless you save them for breeding why aren't they just dispatched? Or do you castrate before dispatching? (I'm sorry for all the questions, but I'm still new at all of this)

 

[Andrei]

Out of curiosity, why do you castrate the male rabbits?

Why do we castrate pigs and bulls and rams?
To be able to harvest more meat and a better tasting meat.
It is known that female meat taste better then male meat due to testosterone.
By castration one can keep more animals in the same finish enclosure and sacrifice them at a higher weight.
But for rabbits it makes the difference of 2-3 lbs and most do not bother and sacrifice them as teens.
Mature male rabbits are like roosters that will fight for dominance and a lot of blood is spilled.

 

[Bossroo]

If one has 2 or more rabbits in an enclosure... when testosterone starts to flow fights start soon after. This is to establish dominance and for breeding rights. I have seen some cases of male pets where the more aggressive male rabbit wins the fight then proceeds to eat the hind quarter of the submissive one. One owner came running over to my place bawling her head off... then I saw where 2 of her pet male rabbits in a cage where one ate the entire hind end off another and it was still sitting there alive and still being eaten. Now you know / or want to know about male rabbits.

 

[Andrei]

I had 2 adult males get at each other overnight and in the morning one was missing an ear and the other has disappeared.
He showed up few days later and he was limping and the fur was hardened with dry blood.
I had a 48 X 48 cage used for fastening rabbits and they stayed there for 1 - 2 months and get high protein/carb food before they moved into the Arctic.

 

[VickieB]

That is horrible! You shouldn't see any of that behavior before 12 weeks, should you? I've separated my buns when they go to their grow out cages by gender, putting the bucks together and putting the does together. I would hate for something like that to happen to any of the bucks.

 

[alsea1]

Wow. I have never seen this either.

 

[Bunnylady]

That is horrible! You shouldn't see any of that behavior before 12 weeks, should you? I've separated my buns when they go to their grow out cages by gender, putting the bucks together and putting the does together. I would hate for something like that to happen to any of the bucks.

Some male rabbits are more precocious than others, and some of it depends on the breed. I had a litter of 5 Jersey Woolies that turned out to be all bucks. They started mounting and chasing each other at a surprisingly early age. At about 10 weeks, I decided I was seeing so much fur around the cage that I really needed to separate them. I should have done it earlier. It seems that there was one buck doing the damage, and it wasn't just fur that he'd been removing. He'd been biting the other bucks' nether regions, and had mutilated several of them to the point that I couldn't even sell them as pets. He was an extreme case, but I learned my lesson. I watch for signs of aggression in the growing litters, and separate the troublemaker at whatever age it appears.

 

[P.O. in MO]

Thanks for posting this. Something to definitely watch out for. I separate by gender too, but 11 weeks is about the longest I have ever waited to butcher. Appreciate the warning.

 

[Andrei]

I have a silver fox young buck that is only 3 months and he is .... nuts.
He try to mount anything he has the opportunity to and he fights if refused.
He will grow isolated.