Homegrown Adventures Rabbitry

I have always loved animals. My sweet mama knew this and even though we lived in an apartment for most of my childhood, I have always had a pet of my own. This act of kindness from my mother is something I’ll never forget. I had hamsters, birds, a chinchilla, and a bunny. My sweet mama would come home from a yard sale with a pet and a cage.

Having our own rabbitry is such a big deal for me. I’d never believe a year ago that this would be my life today. My talented husband built this rabbitry. Girls and I helped but we were just extra helping hands for him.

We decided to build our rabbitry around our chicken coop. My husband built a large cage to the left of the chicken coop. This cage is for the rabbits who are no longer nursing. They will be killed for meat after they turn three months old.

We will have five breeding does and two bucks. Behind the chicken coop my husband built five cages for the does. We will be using fairly large already built wire cages for the two bucks.  As of now we have three breeding does and one buck. In a few months we will be getting two California rabbits for mating.

Breeding rabbits is new to us. When we first had the rabbits we had our three rabbits spend all of their time together. Two of the female rabbits got pregnant during that time. It was pure luck that I realized Sacra was pregnant and brought her inside a month ago. She had a liter of seven but only five are still alive. Bubbles had her liter of six a day after Sacra had hers. She was outside and her babies froze. We now keep our females and male rabbits apart from each other. When it is time for the rabbits to mate, I place the doe inside of the bucks cage for around fifteen minutes. I know record everything and can guess when my does will give birth.

I write down the date that they mated, the name of the buck, the name of the doe, when I placed or will place the nesting box, when I think the due date will be, date born, number alive, number dead, and other information.

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