Anyone else breed/raise rabbits here?

[LunaMarieWolf]

Hey everyone! I was just looking at who all breed/raises rabbits on here.

Whether it is for meat, fur, or just pets.

I haven't been doing this for long. I just reallt started going crazy with it the ending of 2018 into 2019.

Had a few fallbacks with neighborhood cats and even rats getting into my cages/outdoor rabbit areas and killing my babies.

So I am just seeing who else works with rabbits here and if you guys have any tips/tricks/hacks on working with these little fuzzy guys.

 

[Mvan42]

We have pets. Had them when the kids were little. At one point we allowed them to run in the yard. Loved watching them. We currently have 7 babies again..

 

[BGcoop]

We are just starting as well to try raising them for meat. Our first litter didn’t make it due to a combination of cold and what I believe to be cystic mastitis of the mom. She is still recovering from that, however it was so bad I don’t think we can breed her again. Our other female had her first litter just over 2 weeks ago and is doing great so far. I am also interested in tips from other “experts”.

 

[Kyanite]

I raise rabbits for meat and fur. The meat is for both us and our dogs. We like supplementing their diet with home grown food. We have 6 does and haven't bred a litter since last summer because our freezer is too full!

We don't deal with predators much because we house our rabbits inside an outbuilding. When the weather is nice we open the doors up if we are home.

 

[LunaMarieWolf]

I know that to help keep feed cost down, I would get free veggies/fruit from my school.

Me, my friends, my sister, and her friends who all got free/reduced lunches at the school always grabbed a piece of fruit or vegetable. The students have to get one because it is required in the lunch program or whatever. But most of the veggies/fruit that we got, we weren't going to eat.

So my sister would bring home fruit and veggies from school and I would as well. It didn't cost us anything. Anything the rabbits and chickens wouldn't eat would go into compost.

Also, my local walmart and supermarkets would always mark down produce that was close to expiring. Buying the marked down produce helped cut feed costs as well.

 

[Skye'sDucks]

I have 2 rabbits as pets, one I even found on a trail by our house! I've had him for 8 years.

Honestly, I'd love to get more rabbits in the future (as pets) and maybe build a bigger pen for them. It might not happen, seeing as I'm staying with my parents for only a couple more years before moving out after college, and I don't know if I'd be able to support animals alongside myself wherever I go on my own. But maybe I can start something with my mom if we ever move while I live here.

My mom grows greens for her tortoises and I can give most of them to the rabbits, too. Greens and veggies are more of a treat to mine than a daily food. I guess you could say it cuts down on the cost almost entirely on that front.

I don't know if this is considered a 'tip' or 'hack', but I give mine a supply of both fresh water and water treated with apple cider vinegar. It's good for them, too, and they love the flavor.

 

[Sara L]

I'm raising rabbits for meat/pets. If you have a good feedstore near you, I recommend buying a bale of orchard grass hay. At the feedstore near me it was less than $20, while the cutesy bale of timothy hay (so tiny) from the pet store was the same price or higher. I think the tiny bale lasted 1 rabbit plus her litter for about a month or less. The giant bale has lasted 4 rabbits and 1 litter almost 2 months so far, looks like it might last another month as well.

Fruits should be more of a treat than regular meal since they are high in sugar. My rabbits love dried banana chips.

 

[LunaMarieWolf]

I never feed my rabbits just the fruits and veggies. I would usually split.. for example.. one apple between my 2 bucks and 3 does. Plus any babies if I had them at the time. I would also feed them hay, pellets, and they would get time to spend out on the grass to run around and just be bunnies.

The rest of the fruits and veggies I stored in a single bottom crisper in our fridge for later.

 

[Sara L]

If you have a yard that doesn't get any chemicals, you can grow plants specifically for the rabbits. I have dandelions in my lawn that I transplanted to containers and just keep harvesting when they get new leaves.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I have always had rabbits, from as early as I can remember; I've raised breeding stock for meat, we've raised them as pets and we've taken in aged rabbits people have had as pets and given them their final home. We have had our bunnies confined at times in the past, but the rabbits we have now free range in the yard under the guard of our Pyrenees. We live in a rural area and actively farm; we have two very large yards with lots of grass and grain in the summer and lots of hay and grain in the winter at our disposal. They have their babies in the tunnels they dig. Our bunnies had babies that showed up.