My modified colony report for now ...

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Brody

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the rabbits are enjoying life in the east very much

they have a 10 X 20 run with grass (for now) and there are 3 hutches and one large dog crate in the space

one hutch has Puff Daddy - the LARGE angora
another has Munch (once he goes to his home Popple will take over there)
one hutch has Niobe his girls and one baby
the crate has Dustbunny, 2 females and 3 babies ..

everyone is getting rotated time out in the run and doing great with it - all hop home at the end of their allotted time to get a treat and some fresh foods but all are enjoying lounging under the hutches or in the sun for a couple of hours a day.

A number need to be groomed quite badly but being loose is not making anything worse - if anything it's pulling mats out :)
 
I can work on pictuures .. :)

I'm not breeding anybody at the moment - joys of being about fibre -to me anyhow) but if I was this system would actually work well as I'd let the buck and doe together for a day and then put them into seperate rotations again. As the does due date drew closer I'd keep her in her own nesting area and let what happens happen. One of the things I find amazing about a group of rabbits who know each other and get along is how tolerant they ALL are of the babies in a group. Aunts and uncles step up and groom and snuggle the popples once they are out of the nest.
 
The extended rabbit family is very cool... and much like one would find in a wild European rabbit warren.

Looking forward to learning more about this, Brody. I'm hoping to have my rabbits in a colony pen in the goose house before winter. I don't know how to accommodate my back-up buck though.
 
Tracking breeding for pedigrees isn't tooo difficult in a colony, I'm finding. First off, if you only put the bucks in for a breeding, you at least know what buck is Daddy. In my setup, the buck is in a pen NEXT to the does he's going to breed eventually. They know each other that way and aren't terrified.

Second thing...if you have 2 does bred, and 2 nest boxes, hopefully they kindle in separate boxes. (mine didn't, see below). They when they're about to come out of the boxes, you can put a tiny DOT or 2 dots or 3 dots in the ear (tattoo) for each doe.

Third...if they all kindle in the same tunnel/box, it's a challenge. But with mine, they started off in separate little "nests" inside the tunnel. So I was able to see that CB had 1white, 1chocolate, 3 blacks; and so on. So that helped.
 
actually ann's point is true here too - even if does kindled together I have variety in colour so could tell whose was whose as long as they started out seperately - might be harder if all were oh say black or REW though ;)
 

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