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[MissPrissy]

I am picking up my rabbits this morning - 2 bred does and a buck - show quality Californians 1 year old. The 2 females are bred.

I haven't had bunnies since I was a kid. I think I am starting to get a little nerrvous. LOL

Could any of you with rabbits and experience show photos of your rabbitry and nest boxes?

I have to get nest boxes ready ASAP for the does.

 

[professor-yellow]

Currently we have 67 New Zealands and 5 Calis. Our SD is kindling as we post. The other SD kindled yesterday. We have 4 litters of NZ's amd all our presold.

I started out to for table fare and to sell a few to pay for feed. My daughter show them only provide feedback and brreding improvements to the herd. Besides it is teaching them a lot that I took for granted growing up.

Some great advice on this thread. My big stickler is sanitation. I no longer use wod anything, and cages are all individual. Omce a month I take them to a do it yourself car wash and disinfect them along with their wateres and feeders. They get s round sticker with the date of sanitation, and i rotate colors for various months.

I wean at 6 weeks even though they are usually eating solids steadily at 4. At 6 weeks, mamma gets moved to a new cage disinfected and ready to go with clean feeders and waterer. The smaller less aggressive ones will go with mom till 8 weeks.

At 8 weeks they are sexed and placed in the fryer pen. The best may be showed. My youngest loves the meat pen competition, so w pick the best 3. At 10 weeks they areeither sold or retained for potential replacements.

Rabbits get Timothey hay diaily in small quantities, and the babies get alfalfa.

I have tried all of the pellet formulations avaialble and found that Purina professional with 18 percent protien is best. I also give them dandelion greens a coupl;e times a week.

I have stayed away from the gravity feed in-line system because it is not a closed system rather can be a carrier for disease, and could be quite devastating.

As stated previously. record keeping is paramount along with daily sanitation prqctices for a successful rabbitry. There are some great calnders out there or make your own. I make up blank litter cards, and breed in the morning feed. By the time I have the litter card filled out, I seperate them. In an hour I place the doe with the buck again for a second. Give her an apple slice for a little treat and call it good.

The card contains the breeding date; 14 day palpation date: date to place nest box; expected date of kindling' actual date; litter size; weaning date; size of litter at 4 weeks.

There is a calander hanging with highlighted dates for action.

The calander is the master with duckling ages, butcher dates, chick deliveries, ages for outside and feed formulation changes. A month looks rather daunting all of it on one page but it works.

 

[MaryT]

We have been looking for NZW for about a year and can't find any!!! Most of the breeder information we have been finding on the internet is outdated. So if anyone here knows of anyone near Elkton, MD with 2 bucks and 3-4 does please let us know we would greatly appreciate it!!

 

[Blessed Farm]

Good stuff guys!

My 2 cents. If you are going to be moving your herd off farm a lot, or bringing in new buns, by all means, be a stickler with sanitation. I have found over the years, though, breeding for resistance is way better. Don't go overboard, be reasonable (cleaning bottles, feeders, and cages as needed, or once a month) is plenty in most cases, keep trays cleaned once a week and floors shoveled out as needed. I keep chickens with my rabbits, and they do a dandy job of keeping the droppings turned, and fluffed, so I can clean out under cages once a month, and use the gold for my garden.

BEST, HANDS DOWN, sanitizer/biocide around is Vanodine. I'll NEVER go back to bleach. You can spray the cages, even the buns with it, and it does not harm them, but kills a HUGE list of harmful viruses, bacteria, fungi and protazoas that bleach can't touch. And, it works THROUGH organic material, so no need to have your item squeeky clean before treatment, as you do with bleach. Bleach also will interact with the ammonia that may be present in anything a rabbit urinated on, creating toxic fumes that will kill. Vanodine will not react with ammonia at all. I LOVE this stuff. Have used it for everything under the sun: wounds, cleaning, treating water, bringing a sick animal around (in drinking water), my own household cleaning, and as an udder wash/teat dip for my dairy goats.

And, I'd strongly encourage any of you into breeding meat rabbits to consider a rare breed. There are some really awsome breeds out there that the old timers used, but they fell out of favor because of the commercial preference for white furs. Hence the NZ and Californians took the throne. I personally don't like either of those breeds, especially compared to my Rex and American Chins. I had herds as small as 5, and as large as 250 does, and 50 bucks, with all their litters. I've not had as productive results with the NZ and Cali's as I have with my American Chins. Temperment, litter sizes (that survive!), over all health, dress out ratios, and ease of breeding all surpass the modern commercial breeds in my experiences, with my Chins. The typical Rex could be larger, and I have strived over the past 15 years to get a strong, blocky Rex, with dense fur. Not an easy task. They still don't compare to the Chins. The only down part, it took me 2 years to find my stock!!

One of the best ways to find local stock, of any breed, go to ARBA's site (http://www.arba.net/) and look at the show listings within your state. Find a show that you are willing/able to travel to, and go meet breeders!

Kim

 

[MissPrissy]

Where I live people who raise quality Cals and NZ's are few and far between making them rare in this area. I happen to like Californians very much. Large bodied, fine boned, whiter meat - makes it an excellent meat rabbit for MY personal preference. I have spent the past year seeking someone with reputable stock. I found them this week and I purchased a trio and brought them home today. I would encourage people to purchase the rabbits they LIKE.

 

[Blessed Farm]

But, of course. If you don't like the breed you try to raise, it takes all the fun, and productivity out of it.

The problems I had with the NZ and Cals, with the Cals being eaiser, they were too aggressive/flighty/obnoxious. The does were difficult to get bred, and it they settled, they would often kill their litters for no reason. Anything could set them off, or not. They were just too inconsistant and unreliable for me. And I've had blacks, blues and white of the NZ, and as I said, well over 300 rabbits at a time. My ex wanted to get into breeding them for the processor market. I got over any desire to breed/manage that many at once pretty quick, lol.

I have tried again, several times, with NZ, with stock from several breeders. I think the main problem here is that the stock we have in the area are mostly bred for show, not production. The temperments have not been paid as much attention to as the 'type and fur' for winning that class. It doesn't take long to ruin a breed when you are not breeding to the orignial purpose of that breed. I've seen it happen a lot with rabbits, horses, dogs, and chickens. Rex for example. They originally were bred to be an excellent meat rabbit with furs fit for a king (hence the name 'Rex', which means "king"). As the show scene takes over, and breeding rabbits for meat leaned towards CA and NZ, the rex became a fancy, and the type and size suffered greatly in favor of awsome furs. Now, there are some breeders out there, still, thank G~D, who breed the Rex as they were orginally intended, and they clean up at the shows. But they are far and few between, and they get a lot of flack from the majority of breeders who have much less integrity for the breed. Very sad.

I think it's important when you are shopping for your rabbits that you buy from someone who has the same goals as you do with your rabbitry (the same is true with ANY program you are working with). If it's showing, find a winning breeder. If it's homesteading/raising meat, find a fellow homesteader. Go with a breeder who is willing to share their knowledge, records, and actually LIKE working with their stock. Don't just assume that because the rabbit (or any animal) is of a certain breed, it will hold true to the standard the breed was created by. Of course, if you have no choice but to buy from what you can find, and it's less than desireable, you'll have your work cut out for you, but with time, you can learn to work with the stock you have to breed up to what it is yo have in mind for your herd.

Kim

 

[professor-yellow]

Also dont forget that a poor quality rabbit (slow weight gain, poor definition, nonreceptive to breeding, poor litters etc) eats as much as a high quality rabbit.

My NZ does average 12 per litter with high survivability. As a rule i will breed 2 to 3 does within a few days of each other in case one of the litters needs a boost with a new adoptive doe. the last batch one older doe (her last breeding) gave birth to 5 but lost four. She has been a VERY good mother, so we placed a few from each ot the other litters with her and to lighten the load on the other does.

it has worked consistently for us if needed.

 

[FutureChickenMan]

My Rex's were a second choice based on economics.. but I gotta tell ya, those little fuzzy butts sure are sooooooooft.. The ones I have are purebred and I could have gotten papers for them but elected not to, 'cause I don't plan on selling them as pedigreed pets. But I will sell them as regular ole pets. Anyway...

Temperment wise, they never give me any grief. Sure they hop away when I reach in the cage but I can pick them right up and they don't resist. Keep in mind I hardly ever handle them. Just a scratch on the head every once in a while when giving them treats/hay. They've figured out I'm the "candy man" 'cause when I go in the the coop they hop right up to the doors on their pens waiting to see what kind of goodies I have for them.

Breeding: I've only bred one of the two does so far, and it took the first time. I put her in the bucks cage and they did the deed then about 10 minutes later he mounted her again. A few minutes later I took her out and put her back in her own cage. I haven't checked exactly how many were kindled and how many survivied etc.. Been busy with a newborn in the house.. Anyway, I looked briefly this morning when feeding and for sure saw 3 hopping about in the nest, but there's so much fur in there, there could be more. As it warms up they're crawling up to the surface instead of keeping all buried in the fur.

I'll have to take some pics for y'all.