Another Newbie Wanting Advice

Hi Everyone,

First i would like to say this forum is great! I have been reading all the posts on colony raising and its been very helpful.

I would like to start a colony this summer and have been thinking a lot about since the winter.

The colony will be outdoors and i will start with 3 does and 1 buck, most likely newzelands (raising for meat). I will definitely make sure the does are related and i will get them young! Are NZ good for colonies? If not what is a good meat rabbit for colony life?

What i was thinking for a set up is a 20x20 enclosure with an 8x8 shed in it. It sounds like most outdoor colonies do not have a large indoor space and i am confused about this. If you only have small tunnels around where do the does have their kits? Where do they go for shelter and in the winter?

Inside the shed i would like to set up levels for vertical space and nest boxes. I thought i could also store their food and supplies on shelves up high.

Does everyone bury their fencing when creating an outdoor colony?

Is a shed a good idea or should i just set up smaller hutches around?

Will rabbits dig out of a 20x20 space?

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to reading and learning more!

The answers to all your questions are here someplace.... It might take a while to ferret them out. Rabbits will dig out of anything if they can. However, mostly the reason rabbits burrow out is because the like to dig under some structure, like a wall In the wild, this equates to digging under a big boulder (where the soil is likely to remain dry even in a rainy season. If you have no such structure in your pen... their instinct kicks in and they dig under the closest thing, which is the fence. If the try directly to dig under the fence, it will be just deep enough to squeeze under... like a dog would, but usually they are trying to find something to dig under because it is a place that will remain dry for their litter. If you have an existing structure, like a tree stump, or a piece of concrete slab, or a boulder, and can build your cage around it, it will work easier. (They will often chew on and kill a live tree after a while) One can bury fence wired down 8-12 inches at the fence line, and that will tend to keeping them from burrowing under it by accident. Wire flat on the ground is to keep them from burrowing at all... something that might be best if you are providing them a structure to live in.

I had a trial colony of one buck and one doe in an area of 10' by 24' and after about a year the rabbits and their offspring (they had a litter about every 5 weeks which was removed around 8-10 weeks) After about a year, that single pair and their litter pretty much fouled up the area.

There are many ways to raise a colony, some do it in fully in barns or other structures, and clean it often. Perhaps some of them will comment with their suggestions. HT also usually has some colony information.

They will probably just use your shed to nest under. Rabbits don't use nestboxes if they have a choice. Sometimes in colonies they don't use nestboxes even when they don't have a choice and pile fur and hay/straw in the corner. Most people build colonies nesting tunnels instead of boxes. If they can dig though they will do that instead. Which will raise lots of little rabbits just fine but it makes it a chore to catch them when you are ready to butcher some or to check one over and you have to direct the digging away from the fence. If they have no reason to dig away from the fence and no buried wire or skirting to stop them it wouldn't matter if your enclosure covered acres. You'd still probably lose rabbits eventually. Those reasons are why I like my indoor colony who can't dig. At least mostly. They still try to pull it off and managed to tear up a corner of wire to dig at the compacted limestone floor. There's an 8" deep by 6" wide hole in that corner now. I just dumped a brick over it yesterday to stop them. Digging is just what domestic rabbits do.

So if i had a few dog house-type houses in the pen would that be enough to shelter the rabbits and kits?

You need to think of the rabbits' needs throughout the year. You have made a lot of posts, here and on Homesteading Today and I am finding it difficult to pull it all together... so if I have missed something, please correct me.

You want a shed or barn for your rabbits and other animals. The rabbit section would have access to a fenced yard and you are concerned about how much space they need, indoors and outdoors, and also how to keep them from escaping and keep them safe from predators. You want to know what kind of nesting facilities to provide. You plan to have three does and a buck. Is that it?

As i read and post the more i learn... please bare with me!

I have decided to do the bunnies separately in a 20x20 pen. I am trying to figure out what sort of shelter they need. At first i thought they would need a large shed, but the more i read i see that people mainly have smaller enclosures for their bunnies.

I am in a climate that will get cold and there will be snow, quite a bit of snow...

I would like to have 2 4x2 wood hutches for my 3 does and buck. Along with straw bales and other tunnels and fun hide-outs, will this be enough shelter for them to live and raise kits in? Do i need 2 hutches or would 1 be ok?

Fencing: i was thinking about using 1x2 gauge fencing. But along the bottom i want to use chicken wire: begin with a foot or so over the ground and bend it so it goes a foot up the fence. This should deter digging along the fence and prevent kits from escaping. Good idea? I was also thinking of doing an electric wire around the top of the fence.

I have been reading the Harvest Moon rabbitry website and really like how they do things, i sort of want to model my pen after how they have theirs done...

I don't understand, why do you need hutches if you are doing a colony? or are you planning on keeping the rabbits in hutches and your 20x20 pen is just really an exercise run?

What ever you do, use something sturdier than chicken wire at the bottom. I reccommend hardware cloth buried in the ground, or as a "skirt" lying horizontally just under the ground--this from building chicken coops, I have not run rabbits in a colony yet. I just know wire will rust remarkably fast when in contact with the ground and dogs and such are very strong and can break right thru chicken wire.

Rabbits can even break through chicken wire if they want to. We used some chicken wire because we already had it on hand but it's not in any place that it would be a complete disaster if they got through it which they already have in 2 places and I need to do some repairs. All it's let mine do though is the buck get in with the 2 month olds and they dug that one little hole in the aglime floor that really wouldn't have gotten them anywhere. I also had some rats chew through a section but it was only rat sized and I set a cinderblock on it. Killing the rats took care of that problem. Unless you want to inspect daily and repair at least monthly chicken wire is not a good choice for anything really. The only thing it can contain is chickens.

Tara B":8vtn8wjt said:

I have been reading the Harvest Moon rabbitry website and really like how they do things, i sort of want to model my pen after how they have theirs done...

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Ok, I found the harvest moon video and it does look nice, but I suspect that Iowa gets a LOT less snow accumulation than Owen Sound. An outdoor colony in your area is going to be a LOT of trial and error in the first few years. Snow accumulation in your area is commonly 3-4 feet. Will you shovel out the rabbit pen or will the fencing be high enough to prevent escapes when rabbits are running about on top of 4 foot snowbanks up against the fence?

I would be very surprised if you had any litters from Nov - April. Is that the sort of production you are expecting? Outdoor colonies in warmer climates are probably going to have a lot less winter issues than you will. Be prepared to lose rabbits and learn lessons over the first few winters. Starting out with rabbits is ALWAYS a steep learning curve. Starting outdoors in extreme winter conditions will probably be even sharper.

My personal opinion would be to start indoors the first year or so until you get a feel for the area and what winter conditions are like as well as just getting over the hurdle of beginning rabbit breeding. However if you really want the outdoor colony, be prepared for some hard lessons as you figure it out. Every setup is going to have it's own quirks that need to be experienced. Even doing the research does not mean it will go 100% smooothly, especially if you are comparing setups from very different climates.

Moonkitten has given you excellent advice, Tara. Colonies are not as easy as they look. Even my little colony in the shed has required a lot of tweaking to make it run smoothly and the challenges of your climate will make things even more difficult.

Its great to have expert advice on everything. I am sure as things go i will learn and have to make changes.

I do really want to do an outside colony, which is why i was thinking about a shed or a couple hutches inside the fenced area for the buns to spend time in in the winter.

I was thinking about snow the other day... I was looking at Iowa's winter temperatures snowfall (where harvestmoon rabbitry is located) and the climates are similar, although on average we get a foot more snow than them.

I would love to hear from people who have outdoor colonies in snowy climates. I will contact Harvestmoon and ask about how they deal with snow...

Another consideration before you get started is predators. Coyotes, raccoon and especially owls and hawks can decimate your outdoor colony. Dogs can be a big problem too in some areas.

Here's a link to Turtlehead's blog. She is a member here and on HT but does not post much. You can learn a lot from her experiences. She's in West Virginia, which is of course milder than Owen Sound, but they do get a lot of snow.
http://gardenplotter.com/rospo/blog/labels/rabbits.html

Tara B":31x6o7l0 said:

I am sure as things go i will learn and have to make changes.

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Glad to hear it! We aren't saying these things to be a downer, but would hate to see you invest huge expense, effort and emotion the first summer in your new home, only to find that things didn't work the way you expected and there is nothing left ($$, energy) to redo the following spring.

I'm going to second the advice you got over on HT. Spend the $$ and effort on GOOD perimeter fencing. Start small, moveable and as temporary as possible with the animals and build on it the second year. For example, if you are planning to get young rabbits this summer and know they won't breed during the winter, you aren't going to get meat until mid-summer 2012. So why not start with a couple of trial rabbits? Get a freebie or two from kijiji, freecycle, etc and see how they overwinter in your little hutch. See if the hutch gets buried beneath 3 feet of snow and how often you need to shovel it out (and if that's what you want to do for 6 months of the year ) Don't invest heavily in the perfect breeding stock until you have the accomodations set up and working the way you want.

I really think you need to get a feel for the new location. Moving from urban Guelph to rural Owen Sound is a BIG change. For me, going from urban Guelph to rural was an eye-opener. There are farms to the west of us and all of their snow blows across the open fields, hits the treeline at the west of my lot and dumps directly into my backyard. Trust me, the snow is easily 3 feet deep for most of the winter, with higher drifts against the fences. It's a good thing chickens don't like walking on snow, or mine would be able to hop right over the 5 foot fence!

Ug! Snow..... Its very pretty but inconvenient at its best!

I thank everyone for their advice. I have not given up on my colony but i have decided to start with cages for this year. Seeing as i have never even bred rabbits, only ever had them as pets, i think i should jump over that hurdle first.

Moonkitten and everyone: thanks so much for your help and support!