Improvements; and the Fun part of raising Rabbits

The cupboard is all painted and finished (Great job, Hubby!!) Pallets underneath hold the sprayer and buckets we need for weighing and keeping big wash brushes handy. Cleaned nest boxes ready for another litter on a pallet stacked beside the cupboard.

Coffee cans and large yogurt contaiers hold extra hair that does have pulled, in case a mother doesn't pull enough to keep her babies warm. Also spray for ear mites, blood-stop powder, eye wash, wheat germ oil dispenser, record cards and pens, snack baggies to put record cards in, scissors, calf manna pellets for new mamas, and germ-x hand cleaner.

Underneath, nails hold the most used tools, nail clippers, wide putty blade for scraping nest boxes, and barbeque wire brushes; the best for cleaning cages.

Across the isle, my used-to-be dairy weigh scale, with bucket; for weighing fryers at harvest time.

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Now for the fun part......

Brand new newborns... she had a good litter of 9

... and here is a 2 wk old, just waking up to the world!

Content for now, but not for long.....

These are about 3 wks and getting ready to leave the nest

At naptime they are so cute, some all lined up in a row

These no longer need a nest box, but still grab a snack from Mama

Sometimes a song comes to mind as I watch these little fur-babies!

"Listen.......

Do you want to know a secret?

Do you promise not to tell?

Closer......

Let me whisper in your ear..

Things I know you want to hear..

I'm in love with you!"





"Takin a Dive"

I am glad to be able to have fun with my work :) Is your work this much fun?

It takes a special personality to be able to raise meat animals and then be able to part with them when the time comes.

Speaking of which, the rabbit truck runs this afternoon and I will be parting with about 50 of them. Two weeks from now it will be up to about 80. Meanwhile I have bunnies to wean from their mamas, who will be giving birth again in about another week.

Have fun with your rabbits!

Back to bloggin' 'bout the Bunnies

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better .....

Hubby builds a cupboard in the barn for my rabbit supplies.

He does a fantastic job!

Under that he has fashioned a work bench.....

at just the right height for me.

So the whole work area looks like this....

The bench will come in handy for scraping nest boxes, or set a rabbit on for examining or treatment, and there is room underneath for my fly-sprayer and my bucket I use for weighing fryers.

He's so clever. I appreciate all he does to make the work easier for me!

Time for a rest.... and fans in the barn

With the heat of summer coming on , we are slowing down our breeding schedule and allowing the does more time between litters. They need this time to gain condition, as when the heat rises they don't eat as much as in cooler weather.

Besides this. we are taking the nessessary steps to try to keep them unstressed from the heat.

We have cleaned all the fans and made sure they are in good running condition. That meant taking off the grill covers , air hosing all the accumulated hair, scrubbing them. air hosing the motor parts and washing the blades and entire casing., and putting them back together. There are 4 fans (24" square box) hung from the ceiling, all blowing the same direction to cause air flow through out the barn. We also use a 42" barn fan on the floor to move damp air out of the barn. This one needs cleaned of the hair accumulation every week.

These fans, plus the insulation put up last winter to block the heat from the metal roof, should keep it much cooler. We are hoping for at least 10* cooler than the outside temp.

You can see the temp gauge on the pole at the right of the last picture. The goals are, keep a lesser number of fryers per cage, keep the air moving , but not blowing on the rabbits, check nest boxes often for expired bunnies and for dampness, feed often but not let feed sit in feeders more than 12 hrs, make sure all water nipples stay in good working order, and allowing more time between breedings.

Tools of the Trade

While working in the barn the other day, I thought about the different tools we have tried and what worked and what didn't. I thought it might be neat to share what common tools we have found that work best and why.



The propane torch is used for burning off hair before the pens are scrubbed down. This wire-brush barbeque grill scraper ( available at wal-mart) works wonders for cleaning the floors of the cages while torching them. Gets rid of all the residue from torched hair build-up. Gets into the corners really nice and has a long enough handle to get to the back of the cage easily. We have tried regular shop-type wire brushes, but the nose of it is too long to permit getting the bristles into the corners, and it really isn't long enough to reach the back under the cage.

Bags of pine shavings work well for nest-box material. A wide-bladed putty knife with one edge slightly longer than the other helps get right into the corners when cleaning the nesting material out of the boxes after use.

The feed cart is an absolute nessessity for feeding more than a few rabbits. Just push it along the isles and stop at every feeder to distribute their needed ration. For our number of rabbits, it lasts about half-way around the barn, then needs filled again to finish the job. When there is a high number of fryers being fed , we go thru about 120-135#'s /day, and average about 2 ton /month.

Index cards, pens, and black fine point permanent marker for doe cards, to keep record of when doe was bred, to which buck, when she kindled and how many. Also snack size ziplock baggies are great for putting doe cards into to keep clean and nice. Then the cards are attached to the back of the feeder with a clothespin for extra security. The container of wipes is handy for quick needed "hand wash". The coffee can holds extra hair pulled by does that didn't need that much in their nestbox. During winter it will come in handy for those does that don't pull any, or don't pull enough.

I f you have other tools that work for you or other nifty ideas for your rabbitry, please let us know. We would be glad to have you share with us.