How many Rabbits in Your Barn??

I have been asked this many times, and always the answer is the same ...... "well, I am not quite sure" .... as the number can change so rapidly. However I do have an answer today! Saturday night I counted all of them ..... ALL!

Breeding does ..............................................59
Jr does .........................................................26
Bucks ...........................................................10
Jr Bucks .........................................................5
Fryers, various ages,
out of the nest box .............................288
Babies,
still in the nest box ..............................127
______________________________
if I did my math right............................. 515

We put in 9 nest boxes last night and have about 80 fryers to go today.

What's going on in our barn

When I first enter the barn a pleasant sight greets me; a doe cleaning and looking after her babies.



This is a young doe with her first litter, about 3 wks old



Here is one of our older does with her litter of 10



Another with her litter of 8. See the baby on its mothers back?



This doe is pulling hair to make a nice soft nest for her babies. She will kindle (give birth) in a day or two. You can see the hair in her mouth. Click on the picture to enlarge.



Here are more young does that will be ready for breeding in Dec. They are raised 2 in a pen until breeding age.



Can't forget the boys ........ There are 12 of them but these 2 are my favorites.
This is JMJ3, one of the younger ones



And this is our Grand-papa, Mr Big. He was the first buck when we started raising commercial rabbits.



He has a face only a mother could love, but has nice, fast-growing babies!



Hubby has finished the last wall, getting ready to put in the windows. This will keep the cold out and let light in.



A whole double row of cages, cleaned, and waiting to grow out the young. It gets real busy when the pens are all full.



Thanks for stopping by. Leave us a comment. We always try to answer.

Rescue...

Can you guess what is in this basket?



In the barn early yesterday morning I found this little newborn on the floor, very chilled, lethargic, and dirty. Apparently it had come through the wire on the front of the cage and fallen out. We have baby-saver wire on the sides and back but not the front. Sometimes the babies will be hanging onto the does breast when she jumps out of the nesting box and they end up on the wire.



I brought it in and ran warm water over it until I had lots of movement, being careful not to get water near its mouth or nose, then wrapped it in a washcloth and put in a basket on the warming shelf of the wood cook-stove. Within a couple hrs the chilled bunny had warmed and was comfortable so I returned it to the mom.



He was doing just fine last night. With our 20-30* below normal temps for this time of year I am checking the babies often. We have had 36 new litters so far this fall and 5 more to go in the next couple days.

Unfortunately, we have lost several litters of 1st time moms. Some don't have a clue as to what is going on, and have them on the wire even though a nest box is provided. Some don't pull hair or wool to line the nest box with. Usually this is remedied by the time their next litters are born. And then there are some, who even though it is their first time I am able to foster some extra ones to and they take very good care of all. The next several are due the 29th.

Mega Mom!

My doe JMJ-1 had 17 babies (all live) 2 litters ago. On Monday she kindled again with 15 , again all live. We were able to foster out 3 of them. This morning a first time mom had 3 live and 4 dead. She was taking good care of the live ones so I gave her 3 more of the JMJ-1 babies and so far they are all doing fine. I think JMJ-1 can handle nursing 9 babies :) I used to put a dab of vinegar on the foster mom's nose and on all the babies so everyone would smell the same, but for the last several months I have just put new babies in the middle of the nest or each one between 2 original babies.

What is the highest number live in the litters you have had? Do you move some to other moms? What has been your technique?

They keep us hopping!

We had seven new litters born in the last 4 days. Six of them had litters of 9 - 13, which is our norm. As the does get older (3-4 yrs) they produce smaller litters; such as Miss Bunnie who had 6. We still use them because they can be good foster moms for does that just have too many to nurse. So Miss Bunnie adopted 2 from the doe that had 13, which left me with 3 litters who had 11 to raise. Another doe had 9 and the others had 10 each.This picture is of a brand new litter of 11 kits.

This litter, 2 1/2 wks old, is taking an afternoon nap. Notice the nearest one, on his back, feet up, like a little kid. It is so neat to see how relaxed they are.This is a common sight, out of the nest box, yet all piled up. The nest box will be taken out on day 18.

I took this picture to show the difference in size between a full grown Dutch doe and a full grown 6 mo old NZW doe, in pens back to back. This was the little Dutch doe I got for my grandchild at the Fairview auction in March. She had kindled 2 weeks later.

Tomorrow is rabbit truck day, so we will have more pens to clean, and more babies to wean!