I have two sister does, half Flemish giant half New Zealand. I bred them with a pure New Zealand buck and got prolific litters of 8 and 9 kits and the does are good mothers . I lost the buck to heat exhaustion before I learned to freeze blocks of water for them to cool themselves against . My next step is to first expand my rearing areas to better accommodate raising rabbits and learn to butcher them as I am raising them as part of our own organic meat supply.

Heat exhaustion can be a b, and I've unfortunately lost a few as well. The local farms I've talked to really recommend air circulation above all. I only have my pet pair in a wooden cage, all the others are full-wire. I put them on sawhorses and in the middle of an old tackroom in the barn. As long as they are out of the sun, they can stretch out and pant if they get too hot. I also don't give them much hay when it is hot, because the body creates heat with digestion. Also, the ammonia in their urine, if not ventilated, can make them sick, and burn your lungs.

We recently bought some new cages that we're going to build a little area off the barn for. Our plan is to make it just four posts and a roof, and build a system so the urine and poop goes down a slanted board, into a chute or eavestrough, and into a bucket to prevent the ammonia and odours going up to the rabbits lungs, and it makes for a quick clean up. In the winter or bad weather, we can pile up hay/straw bales, or stick a sheet of plywood. That way, they have the most ventilation.

The wooden cage we have is nice for moms with litters that are moving out of the nest. Its about 4-5 feet long and 2-3 feet wide. It has wire on the front and wood on all other sides, with a lid on hinges. You can fit a nesting box in it nicely too. Rather than splitting up the litter into multiple cages, I can just remove momma, depending on how many are left at weaning time. This works well for now because we have small-medium breed kits in there, but I want to build a few bigger ones as a "maternity ward" for my NZ's and Chinchillas. I can shovel them out fairly easily. The ground in our barn tends to get muddy, so it is easier to clean sometimes than raking the ground.

I love when I get litters of 10 or more, except they tend to not all live, which really renders it useless. I had a doe give me 14 once! And 5 of them lived because she picked off the weaker ones.

Great idea with the chute. I had never thought of that. I will have to remember that for when I have rabbits again.

Have you considered selling your rabbits to a local pet shop for reptile food? No idea how much they pay but you may make more money that way.

The pet shops around are all chains, and when I asked them they said no. Although I found one reptile store that was interested but never called back.

I had the idea to sell the newborns or young ones that died as pinkie rabbits. I sold a few bags, but the demand was scattered, and my family did not appreciate a bag full of dead bunnies in the freezer door.

I would guess that Hamilton would be a further drive then Hagersville.

If it is not let me know. I know a few independent reptile store people.

RachelM - Can you post pictures of your setup? I am very interested in starting with rabbits in the next year but I am still researching cages etc.

Hi, I typically have three does and one buck, plus grow out..

I raise a mixed breed of rabbits, I am going to flat come out and say that I am tough on my girls, if they are not good breeders, birthing momma's and if they are not good momma's, I will put them down, if a momma rabbit was a bad momma and hurt her babies, she would never get a second chance on the farm, I would put her down before she was ever breed again.

I bought a female from a sale that was bad tempered and had no care of her kits, I put down the kits and feed the dogs and put momma in a stew pot, bad temperament, and bad mothering is often genetic and I won't put that in my lines.

Having said that, my rabbits are breed for a few things, they are breed to be steady in temperemnet, good breeders, average eight plus kits at birth, I will take a single kit loss but a mother should be able to raise all eight to nine kits to full weaning size. I breed for coat, as I tan hides, and so I like good coats and pretty patterns.

My breeders cages are all homemade and wooden and wire, they are extra big, they have a fully inclosed area with a pop-out door and access to the inside and outside area's for me, and the grow out kits are all wire and manly in rabbit tractors

I don't sell pinkies, or young rabbits, I have been known to sell fully done ready for butcher age friers, I very, very rarely sell breeders, we eat 99% of the rabbits we raise, I am a nose to tail eater, I have recipes for the blood, I use the hides, and between me, the hounds and the pigs, when I am done butchering, there is nothing left over for compost, in my small farm closed loop, everything about the rabbit is golden, from poo to fur!

I am a horse breeder but I concur with culling hard and not just breeding does regardless of their poor mothering abilities etc.
In the long term you will more consistently produce well with less financial loss if you are more stringent with your standards .
I am currently looking for any meat rabbit breeders in the fraser valley area of BC who might want to trade young breeding bucks , to work towards good meat standards and keep bloodlines diversified. I am not highly experienced with rabbit breeding but have 3/4 bred New Zealand 1/4 bred Flemish Giant rabbits F1 generation to select from.

How old do the bunnies have to be to sex them.

I find anything over four weeks good after six weeks is golden, they say you can do them as newborns but I would never do so as it would bother momma and while I do believe in checking on them right away, I don't see any need to stess the kits or the momma when can be done in a few weeks later.

On Aug 6 they will be 6 weeks. The thing is we have a hard time picking them up.

]ok, so they are certainly old enough, as for picking them up, put on a heavier fall long shelve jacket done up and thick leather gloves, one hand goes on the body (best way to write it, fingers around head, down neck on either side to shoulders, which holds bunny in place on the floor of the cage, then slip second hand under bunny, lift in one motion, top hand still in place to keep bunny from jumping away, pick up and put back down a couple times, once you are comfortable with this, then move to the same pickup and this time, bring in and close to body in chest area.. I will attach a grow out color photo, and it will show the hold, she has lifted the top hand and leveled the bottom hands fingers down flat for the photo but the rest is still there. the good thing about these photo is that its a 12 year old doing this and it was her first time doing this for me and you can still see how well it went once the baby bun is in that postion

Then once the bunny is comfortable with this, slowly lift top fingers and lightly stroke the head and ears, once it won't try and bolt from that, work your way to pets on top hand, bottom hand till providing support and control and your main chest area being the table so to speak, once the bunny is comfortable with that, I will do a little photo shoot tomorrow on the flip, I will try for a video and a sexing to boot.. let me see what I can do for you.. don't have the second person today but will tomorrow.

You will need to typically pick them up a couple times in each postion before you are going to be ready to calming teach them to flip and hold, I have a litter that has been trained for sexing already and a litter that has not, I will ideally take some of both and show you why its worth the work while you are learning to sex them.

FG

Thanks farmgal, look forward to the video.

ok, so of course I didn't do my own advice and I am bare handed and in a T shirt but when learning, take my advice, thicker light weight jacket and gloves. I tried to show the holds, the flips and the sexing.. hope it helps.. please ask questions if you have any 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyHoi5PJcIQ&feature=youtube_gdata