Colony nest box???

I just started the idea of colony raising rabbits, I have just barely built them an outdoor area that is 11'x11', I am building little house's that they can go into to have their kits. I have 2 does and 2 bucks.

My question is if the does get pregant will they have their babies in the same nesting box or will they burrow or will they kill the other does babies and have their babies. Can someone please show me some pics. Thanks

Hello Rabbitman and welcome to RabbitTalk. I think it would be best to move this thread to our Rabbit Colonies forum. I just posted today showing pictures of our indoor colony with nest tunnels. Hope it will give you some useful ideas.

pictures-of-nest-tunnels-in-colony-t2903.html

All of the above are possible. I've heard of them sharing a community nest, each nesting separately, and one killing the kits of the others. It all depends on the rabbits. You have to be willing to adapt your plans when doing a colony but you'll have the best odds if you start with litter mates or at least very young does. My older does all nest apart and sometimes have nasty looking fights where they'll jump in the air and try to throw each other to the ground. This has yet to result in anything but lost fur so while it looks bad I've left them alone and by the next day they've sorted it out with no visible injuries. The ones I added when they were only 6-8weeks old had their first litters this past month and shared nests with the older does. I haven't seen the ones added young get in bad arguments. They'll do some posturing and thumping but it usually ends without contact. If I could do it again I would get 1 experienced doe for the others to watch and the rest all recently weaned juniors around the 8week mark instead of mixing 4 senior does that had spent their lives to that point in individual cages.

In my experience if they can dig they will dig and not just when having kits. The first thing my bucks do when let out of cages is go on a digging spree and one of my does is not satisfied until she's buried the nest box in a 2x3' pile of straw and shavings so even when they aren't tunneling mine are still digging. A friend was telling me about how when she was a kid they started with 5 rabbits in a dirt floored building and by the next summer the building was full of holes and they soon had about 100 rabbits. Most of which they couldn't get to because they were down in the tunnels. They had to start trapping and just let the kits die in the tunnels.

For those reasons we left the rubber stall mats on one half of the horse stall colony and then laid chicken wire around the rest of the edge. Chicken wire isn't very strong but they don't seem to like trying to dig through it and always stop when they hit it. This does not work outside or on floors that get damp where wire will rust and we have had to block some holes made by rats with bricks. Hardware cloth would hold up a little better. As we hoped they have not felt the need to dig in the center of the colony where we didn't place wire.

There is an update of my colony setup in my blog.

Thank you for moving my post, I didn't know where this would fit in, oh and those pictures were very helpful, I am building some boxes simialar to what you have, MaggieJ. And Akane thanks that was very informational, I will give my rabbits lots of straw so hopefully that will slow down the digging. And I won't allow my rabbits to have that many burrows LOL. I would have to burry them back up if they did that. I will let them have one burrow just to see how the process of underground kits work! I won't them dig to far because I like to know what goes on with all my kits.

I have a New Zealnd Whtie doe who is 4 months old and a Chinchilla mix doe who is a senior not sure of her age. She has a kit that is 2 weeks old, right now her and her kit are in there own hutch. I have 2 males one is a senior who is my only breeding buck, the other buck is to old I think. He shows no interest in the does what so ever he leaves them alone and does his own bussiness, he is always alone unless one of the other rabbits approach him, but he wont go up to them that much. I don't know what his problem is but he is one of the sweetest rabbits I have ever had. I think he is a mini lop. he doesnt have the features a Holland lop has. He is a broken black.

I will have to monitor have everything goes, as of right now they have been free ranged for about 1 week. They are in a shed but I dont like having them in there, the amonia is way to strong and wheneber I open the door they run up to it and look out. A few people have told me that they will become wild but they actually are so much more freindly wierd huh? Any way thanks for the replies...

I think nest tunnels may work better than "little houses". They more closely resemble a rabbit burrow and because of the length the kits tend not to wander out prematurely. Building them with the open end raised a couple of inches would help even more, since wanderers would tend to gravitate downhill back into the nest. My does have always kindled right at the very back of the nest tunnel and this helps prevent the doe from stepping on the kits when she enters.

Rabbitman, will your 11' x 11' pen have a roof? Your rabbits will need some protection from sun, heavy precipitation and wind. If they are just using structures within the colony for protection from the elements, you will need to provide more of them and also to make sure they are very weatherproof. Rabbits can take quite a bit of cold, but they do not do well if not protected from wet, wind and sun.