Learning Experiences, and Growing Out Hutches

We've had a couple of learning experiences over the last two days. Fortunately none of them have been devastating like some of our earlier learning experiences. As you can see in this photo our driveway is still here, and with minimal damage. We had some sudden and very hard rain on Tuesday night. Fortunately the lady of the house managed to get home in time to put down 2x4s angled towards the edges of the driveway every 30 - 40 feet or so to slow the water down and prevent major erosion.

Indoor Rabbit Considerations
Our second learning experience was that while the basement is great for keeping the rabbits cool, without having to put them in there on zero notice leads to some issues. I came down to find that one of Dawn's babies had somehow slipped through the bars on the dog crate and was wandering around and exploring our boxes in traditional rabbit fashion. With it's teeth. No great damage was done, and the baby is social enough that it came right up to me making it easy to pick up and put back with its family as we transferred them back outside. We also learned just how fast the air can get not so good inside with rabbits.

One of the opinions we had consistently been given about raising rabbits for meat was from the House Rabbit Society. While we took a lot from them on care, and stimulation for our rabbits we didn't take everything they recommended. They advocated that the only humane way to keep rabbits was indoors, and on solid floors. We declined to do this for a few reasons. First was space, second was that solid floors allows waste to collect causing poor health, and third was that according to our research having rabbits inside can lead to air quality problems and thus health problems for the rabbits.

In one day the rabbits had produced enough waste that it smelled foul, and a couple of them had slight sniffles. Not Pasturella level sick, but they had a brief sniffle that went away within minutes of being outside. We rake under the hutches every two days, and throw the buckets of droppings out every 3 - 5 days. We haven't had any smell problems from the rabbits outside because by spreading out the droppings and keeping the areas clean it isn't an issue. If they were inside given the smell over one day we'd have to be cleaning the area twice a day which isn't a reasonable expectation for people with full time jobs.

Growing Out Hutches
My initial plan had been to build 8 identical hutches for the rabbits. Three for the does, one for the buck, three for the litters to grow out in, and one just in case. I decided to delay building the second four to evaluate the first group and learn from them. In that time I have done some research and observed our own hutches and come to a decision. While each adult hutch is going to be effectively the same design as the one I have now, the hutches the babies grow out from weaning to butchering in are going to be different.

These hutches are going to be different to reflect that in the future we are going to want to be keeping potential breeding stock, and they will need more space to grow out in. The way we will be doing this is by keeping 2 or 3 of the most promising babies to grow out to 6 months old to see which is the best conformed, best temperament, and most healthy. To facilitate this without them feeling cramped as they would by the end in a normal hutch, I will be building growing out hutches.

Basic concept is that they will be 7 feet long, and three feet deep. They will have two, 14" private spaces, one on each side of the hutch. It will be as with the others waist height to a person for ease of maintenance since that has been working out well. I am working out exactly how I want to do the doors, but it will probably come down to a center opening paired set of doors that open out to the sides. This will give the growing adolescents space to grow and thrive while keeping it easy for us to maintain the hutches and keep the rabbits inside healthy.

Below you can see the size of the 1 month old babies that was the first thing that led me to major concern about using standard sized hutches for growing out to butchering weight, never mind breeder potential.

Weight Charts

Dawn's Litter
    5/03    5/04     5/05     5/06     5/06         5/07     5/08     5/09     5/10     5/11      5/12      5/13    5/14
1:  71       80        89        87       Weights   103       113      125      133      148       158       158     167
2:  67       75        80        84       At             91        110      119      116      133       144       153    158
3:  65       73        77        84       Death       91        101      110      113      123        130       129    156
4:  65       66        68        75                       88        100       106      110      112       121       128    140
5:  54       56        58        62                       75        100       103      102      109       110       110    132
6:  54       52        55        60                       62        70         71        78        90         106       101    105
7:  52       49        50        52       46
8:  49       48        46        50       43

    5/15   5/16    5/17   Prediction 5/21   5/21   5/22    5/23    5/24   5/26   5/27   5/28   5/29  5/30  5/31
1: 180    189     192                      222    248     289    283     293    307    339    424    437   457   506
2: 178    182     191                      221    244     270    280     288    267    338    368    407   430   488
3: 175    176     182                      202    226     247    253     274    238    365    364    402   423   475
4: 163    163     170                      190    221     225    250     266    235    337    362    400   412   461
5: 145    134     136                      156    177     191    198     209    234    264    293    326   352   396
6: 116    124     135                      150    167     183    190     207    214    263    287    312   335   382

The weights this morning jumped out to me immediately. Almost exactly across the board we have had a 50 gram increase in weight in one day. The greatest change is 58 grams by #2, and the smallest is 44 grams by baby #5. This is day 28, 2 weeks before we start to wean the babies off over a 4 day period. At this point if their mother died, or they were abandoned in the wild they would be able to survive. Well, in the wild they would be unlikely to due to predation, but it would be possible. I wonder if they are going to maintain this huge growth rate over the next two weeks, or if it will taper off. Feeding wise, they have been eating from the pellets and the hay both. Above you can see some of the babies going for the food. I wasn't able to get a picture of a standard situation around here of two or three babies sitting on Dawn and eating from the feeder. As soon as I came out with the camera they hopped off and looked innocent.

Sunny's Litter

    5/14  5/15  5/16  5/17   5/21  5/22    5/23   5/24   5/26   5/27   5/28   5/29  5/30  5/31
1: 65     65     71     92      134    163     164    167    188    198    208    212   225   237
2: 60     60     71     91      133    156     163    165    187    197    202    208   223   237
3: 57     58     68     89      131    155     156    164    182    196    201    208   222   237
4: 56     58     67     88      129    146     152    163    181    191    200    207   222   227
5: 55     58     62     83      125    145     151    160    179    191    197    207   219   226
6: 55     57     60     79      125    144     147    158    177    188    197    204   217   226
7: 53     56     58     78      121    139     143    158    176    183    194    199   200   223
8: 47     49     56     67      110    114     127    132    152    162    175    181   199   216