Question about colony

My 13 year old daughter has started breeding Holland lops. We have always had sort of a colony. We kept the girls together (they were too young to breed) and our male in another cage. We recently heard about colony breeding and I LOVE the idea. We also raise city chickens and they have a huge portable coop that moves. We had a small coop (when we only wanted 4 chickens) that they out grew. It has two coop that are about 4ft by 4 ft (on top of each other) with 4 nest boxes on each level (that are external) and they both open into a 4x8 run, that we have wired the bottom. We move the coop every few days (so they have access to the grass.)

The breeder that really got me turned on to colony breeding said with a set up like this we could probably have 4 does and our male. We only want one male because we want to know the pedigree of the rabbbits.

We currently have 2 holland lop does. One show quality and one pet and our male is show quality. We are considering keeping one of the kits and the breeder of two of my rabbits has offerend to sale me the mother of one of my does to maybe help show them how to parent. She is 18 months old and is a grand champion.

I am wondering if introducing her to the colony is a big mistake, or since she is the mother of one would that make introdicing her easier. Our two does are a month apart and have always shared a cage since we got them. We have never even had one fight. No hair pulling,. Nothing. They are super laid back. What are your thoughts?

There is no sure way of telling without trying, but in general it is difficult to introduce a mature doe to a colony. Does can be very territorial. Better to grow out one of the offspring of your two younger does in the colony.

I'm not sure what your intent in breeding is (Pets? Show?) but colony-kept rabbits are more prone to accidents that will kick them out of the running for showing. Everything from fur chewing to scraps and cuts from disagreements to being the low man ont he totem pole with feed and loss of condition. You have to manage personalities very carefully and it is a delicate balancing act.

I would not keep the buck in with the does. If you're not breeding for meat, it really doesn't do you any good to keep repeating the same breedings over and over again without careful selection.

I also would not even attempt to add an adult doe to the mix. She will in all likelihood fight with the others.

Watch your two young does carefully as they mature, just because they get along well now doesn't mean they always will, but I wish you the best of luck!

I was wondering, if you were planning to build a bunny tractor, why not build one that has removable dividers? Then if it goes well, you don't need them, but if you have issues, you can separate the rabbits easily.

Also you might try introducing them in a large secure area--indoors or out--and see if they seem to get along before committing to the expense of building anything.

Well we got our new bunny, but she came with a friend lol. We could not decided between the two and the breeder offered both for the price of one! (One is a grand champion the other has them in her pedigree). After we watched them a bit, we added them to the colony, while we sat right there.

Ebony ran up to her mom right away. Emily just stayed in the hutch, she came out a couple of times to check them out, but was uninterested. Within 15 minutes, they were cuddling together like they were life long friends.

We checked often and it has been several days and no problems. They each have their section inside and we have the male in now and he stays upstairs and the 4 girls stay down stairs, but they hang out together in the run some times. They look so much happier than when I had them all in separate cages and we have not had any problems with fighting at all. We have several food dishes and water so there are no fights about that. I am so happy this is working out. We will have to see when babies come into the picture, but so far so good.

We will pull the babies as soon as they wean incase the new owners want to show. We will not be showing our girls, maybe our male,but not the girls.

Glad it's working out.

Be sure to have enough nesting compartments so your does are not in competition for a place to kindle. Sometimes does will decide to kindle in the same nest and share the raising of the kits, but you can't count on it.

Thank you!

We have 4 nest boxes in the bottom (which all the does seem to prefer and two are sharing right now, not babies, they just chilling together) and 2 nest boxes on top, which they ignore.

I just cant believe how well they get along. They have plenty of room, but they seem to choose to hang out. There is always a pile of rabbits laying together. Even with it this hot.

Rabbits are very social creatures. I'm not saying it is necessary for them to live in groups, but I do think it is a nicer lifestyle for them. I know I love to see my rabbits grooming each other, cuddling up, even using one another for pillows!

The only problem is unless your does are specific different colors if you breed them too close together you won't have pedigreed rabbits anyway because you won't know who the mother is. Especially when you have related does who's kits will have no distinguishing features. That's another reason to keep the buck separate. You will need to breed all does about 2 weeks or more apart to tell the kits apart and then separate or tattoo them at 8weeks so you can continue to tell them apart as they catch up to each other in size. We have a litter of champagne d'argent we now can't sell as pedigreed because a doe made a tear in our colony divider and the 2 week old litters from the different colonies mixed. I'm 90% sure who is who but I can't sell them that way. They are now no better than mutts but mine still have value as meat rabbits. I also have about 1 per litter that can't be sold for show due to minor injuries. The smaller of my 2 bucks in my older champagne litter somehow tore a triangle out of his ear as a kit and has a little line that goes all the way through. My champagne doe has a little crescent out of her ear from arguing with other adult does. Colony raising does have many extra challenges for those that raise show rabbits rather than meat or pets.

Your comments are valid, Akane, but since I am raising meat mutts for our own table, it makes no difference here. And it is lovely to see them enjoying themselves.

Samantha, Jane Doe and some of their kits.

My comments were to the OP who said they were keeping only one buck so they could have pedigreed rabbits but it won't happen if you have multiple does of the same color category. Even with different colors it can sometimes fail. I thought if I got a creme d'argent all offspring would be agouti no matter what I bred to and my champagne's would all be black but my creme ended up with some new zealand way back there so more than half her kits keep coming out black and now it's near impossible to tell which black kits came from which doe so I had to divide everyone in to 2 colonies just to sell pedigreed champagnes which still got ruined like I said.

I had a mistake with one of my mini rex as well. I bred blue to black with no chocolate or anything else that could hide it like REW on the pedigrees and chocolate to chocolate expecting I would get blacks maybe blues from one pair and chocolates maybe lilacs with a slight chance for rew from the other. I ended up with a chocolate out of the blue x black and later a lilac out of them. I didn't catch that chocolate being from the other pair for awhile because it was winter and I didn't check the nests often. Soon they were running around together and all kits were mixed. Eventually when I went to tattoo and document each rabbit with pics at 2 1/2 months I realized this chocolate does not match that line in size, body, and especially head shape. The blue doe had a very unique head shape that all her offspring got to varying degrees while my chocolates had very different heads and one line always leans toward long bodies while the other leans towards long shoulders. I tattooed that chocolate as being from the blue x black and offered it for sale without pedigree as a pet but ended up butchering her and I repeated the breeding to end up with a lilac proving I was probably right. Multiple times my plans of pedigreed offspring from colony does have been ruined despite only having one buck for each colony and breed and usually not even leaving the bucks in the colony.

akane":10xgyatg said:

The only problem is unless your does are specific different colors if you breed them too close together you won't have pedigreed rabbits anyway because you won't know who the mother is. Especially when you have related does who's kits will have no distinguishing features. That's another reason to keep the buck separate. You will need to breed all does about 2 weeks or more apart to tell the kits apart and then separate or tattoo them at 8weeks so you can continue to tell them apart as they catch up to each other in size. We have a litter of champagne d'argent we now can't sell as pedigreed because a doe made a tear in our colony divider and the 2 week old litters from the different colonies mixed. I'm 90% sure who is who but I can't sell them that way. They are now no better than mutts but mine still have value as meat rabbits. I also have about 1 per litter that can't be sold for show due to minor injuries. The smaller of my 2 bucks in my older champagne litter somehow tore a triangle out of his ear as a kit and has a little line that goes all the way through. My champagne doe has a little crescent out of her ear from arguing with other adult does. Colony raising does have many extra challenges for those that raise show rabbits rather than meat or pets.

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The breeder that I learned this from has a trick for that. If you have kits the same color from different mothers, you can put a little nail polish on the foot and monitor it that way. Then we can tatoo them.

home*sweet*home":1gn0ibtv said:

The breeder that I learned this from has a trick for that. If you have kits the same color from different mothers, you can put a little nail polish on the foot and monitor it that way. Then we can tatoo them.

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That nail polish 'trick' must be monitored on a daily basis!! Rehabbing baby wildlife has shown me that!!(squirrels, rabbits,chipmunks, etc--)

Another trick I have heard of is sharpie pen in the ear--maybe do both as a back up.