Is a Colony right for me?

So, I have a breeding trio, both females have had one litter since I got them. Not breeding them again for a few months because of the summer heat. They are currently in wire cages on my front porch, soon as the chicken run is done I'm planning to move the cages back there.

I've been thinking about switching to a colony, and I don't know if what I'm thinking will work.

The first reason I want to do the colony is because the rabbits seem bored out of their minds in the cages. I'd like to give them more room to move around and play, and interact.

The second thing, and this is where I don't know if this will help, is the heat. It seems to me that putting them on the ground might help them out with the heat, but I don't know how I would do the ground. Is it possible to allow them to tunnel somewhat without causing problems? Maybe even some prebuilt tunnels or something? I know my dogs deal with the summer heat by lying in holes they dig in the ground, and it seems to help them out a lot.

It seems, though, that most people have to have some sort of hard floor to keep the rabbits from tunneling out.

The problem with a colony set up is right now I'm cooling them with misters, and if I have to use that over a colony that's on the ground, I would worry about mold and such, especially with hay/straw on the ground.


Thoughts?

Here in New Mexcio we have mostly dry heat. Although, it has been raining nearly every night (we call it our "monsoon season, lol).

I have a colony style pen and it works great. I have the bucks in cages above the floor. The does dig all the time ~ for cooling and burrows.

I have wire all along the inside perimeter. They like to start there, but if I put something towards the middle (like a bale of hay or a shelter) they start the burrows there and I don't worry about them burrowing out of the pen.

Pictures are of "burrows" that I also have for them. I put in a couple of inches of dirt and that help keep them cool. They are the kind with removable lids so I can check inside if I want to.

Right now I have 4 does running loose in the pen. The other does are either with kits or expecting.

ChaoSS":27r4eso0 said:

The first reason I want to do the colony is because the rabbits seem bored out of their minds in the cages. I'd like to give them more room to move around and play, and interact.

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I live in the Central Valley as well, at about 4350' above sea level. During the heat of the day my rabbits lounge around doing nothing at all. Seeing them, you would think that they were "bored out of their minds"... but go out to the rabbitry in the late evening or early morning when it is cool, and you will see rabbits cavorting around, munching on chew toys, and playing with the toys in their cages.

Aside from the kits in growout pens my rabbits don't get to "interact"... but I think they are safer that way. I have occasionally left rabbits together too long before separating and/or butchering, and have had injuries ranging from torn ears or noses to scrotums ripped open.

Unfortunately, the criteria of "too long" differs with different lines and even litters within the same line, so I have learned that my best show prospects need to have their own quarters from a very early age.

We had 2 slightly insane rabbits. 1 buck that even tore open a doe ready for breeding and a doe that would kill all smaller rabbits until she had her own litter. Take those 2 out of the equation and we had many, many rabbits in colony with only a single minor ear tear. They do interact quite a bit and do things they can't in a cage so I think it's worth investigating but it is complicated. In my experience they do not seem that territorial or solitary at all. They make quite social herds. Even the males have their own social groups and don't fight when raised that way. Just because they can fight and intact males are less likely to get along does not mean they aren't designed to live in a group. Stallion horses will kill each other but they are herd animals. Existing groups of mares will beat the crap out of a new one sometimes but they are still herd animals. You just have to learn how to manage them and with so few colony keepers it is a huge learning curve.

The main problem with rabbits is the burrowing. Sometimes they centralize their digging and stay in the center under the object you have provided. They most definitely can go 8' or more in a single day though. Ours went through a sheet of plywood, through 8-10" of compacted aglime, and another arms length in to the dirt under the horse stalls. That was a mini rex. Plywood is not rabbit proof by the way. You can bring some of the coolness of the ground up to them by setting concrete blocks on top of your digging barrier. There are some designs for hot climates that make a wire tunnel in to a stone or concrete lined nesting hole mostly buried with a removable lid for cleaning and refilling with bedding since the rock won't absorb urine and other moisture like dirt would. Otherwise you have to use a large area, make a centralized digging area like a big mound of dirt or a structure to start under, and bury wire around the outside edge to help stop shallower tunnels started too close to the edge. They can tear through weaker wire like chicken fencing. It's a lot of work to rabbit proof something but that isn't really the complicated part.

There are things to be managed with their social structure. It can get complex. No more complex than any other animal I've dealt with but putting any 2 animals together requires a lot of thought, research, and observation. Sometimes I roll chinchilla cages in to the hallway to watch a new pair or slide smaller housing such as for gerbils or hamsters over next to the computer. Mistakes still frequently happen. Usually in the colonies this would just mean a lost litter but there were those 2 rabbits I mentioned who left a large path of destruction without much warning. It can happen. 3 rabbits is far easier though than the ~60 we usually had. When we started small there were very few colony problems. One doe got moody about half way through pregnancy and I'd sometimes separate her to keep the peace but while they bounced around at each other a lot it never did lead to injury. It looks concerning when does start arguing but many times it's a lot of posturing. You see it with large livestock starting as games when they are little. Whoever can get the closest to hitting the other animal without actually doing damage or taking damage wins. Horses do that with kicks and rabbit do that by leaping in the air and trying to shove the other one on to the ground sideways. It doesn't usually lead to injury. When they lay in to each other with teeth or digging back claws then you have an issue. Chasing is also misleading. If rabbits are chasing each other it's somewhat a good sign unless you had them living together fine and they escalated back to chasing. In introduction stage it shows the dominant rabbit has been determined and so long as the submissive rabbit keeps moving away and has enough objects to break up line of sight until they settle in there will be no fighting. Without enough obstacles though the dominant rabbit never feels like they ran the other rabbit off successfully and will start wounding them on the hindquarters. You have to design your colony well and it seems each colony has individual design needs. If you feel little scabs on the back half of a rabbit one day then you need to get it out immediately and watch for infection. Something has gone wrong in your colony.

What also makes the colony so complicated is that the rabbits you buy probably haven't been with another rabbit since they were 8-12 weeks old. You can just see the shock in a new rabbit the first time they realize the other rabbits can come in their space. They don't know what to do. Your first generation is where most of the issues will happen because they never learned social skills. A dominant rabbit may not realize it has won and end up taking things too far so the target rabbit misses food, water, loses a litter, or in some cases actually does get injured. A generation raised in colony will get along a lot better with other rabbits. Many will say to only start with young rabbits, preferably not separated yet, or with a doe and her daughter instead of trying to put 2 separated does used to cages in together.

Thanks for the answers so far.

The guy I bought these rabbits from had some tiny cages, so most of the time they were almost free range in his yard, or on the side yard. One got out once, but came back, and one was killed by a dog, and another was maimed by dogs and I ended up putting her down because of her injuries.

That being said, they are, or were, used to being together, and I have let them run around a little bit in a run, and they haven't had issues being together. They haven't been left together though.

I'm still trying to run various ideas through my head right now. I'm thinking of a set up with corrugated metal or paving stones at the bottom of the run, topped with a bunch of hay/wood shavings, or even just dirt. Artificial tubes going underground to let them escape the heat, have small nesting areas that I can access, etc. Seems like a lot of work to set it up, though, if they end up not doing very well in it, or if it doesn't help with the heat enough.

Here is a paper on hot-climate housing for rabbits. Hope you find some of the ideas helpful.
http://om.ciheam.org/om/pdf/c08/95605275.pdf

A colony in a barn or shed is fairly easy to manage, in my experience. I put the buck in first and then added the two does so it was similar to bringing the doe to the buck for breeding. I've never had a serious fight and the only escape was some youngsters that squeezed out when the grill shifted.

This thread has pictures of my colony.
pictures-of-nest-tunnels-in-colony-t2903.html

My colony has 24"x30" paving stones on the floor so they can't dig out and it is something cool to lay on. There is a lot of hay on top but they can dig down to the stones if they want to.

I currently have Fred, Morgan and their litter of five living together as I still haven't had a chance to finish the addition to the colony (I'm beginning to think it will never get done...) Anyway, the litter was born in February and no problems so far, some chasing around but there is enough room to spread out and a couple of hidey holes to get away when needed.

Just my opinion but I would never go back to cages now. I see how they like to run around in the straw and sometimes they just run around and jump for no reason, just enjoying themselves, they seem happier and healthier. I free feed them and when they're processed there is no excess fat in them as they have the room to burn it off. Less maintenance as I clean it out every two or three weeks and put in a fresh bale of straw.

Maggie that pdf was interesting. That system also looks like quite a bit of work to set up, but seems like it could be promising. It also seems like the row of "clay pots" could be used as a garden, which would do wonders for keeping it cooled down.