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AprilW

AprilW

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Pending the health of my remaining rabbits (long story) I will be greatly reducing the available space of my rabbitry to 8-10 cages, 12 at the absolute most. For those with a small rabbitry (less than 15 or 20 cages), how many brood animals do you keep? How do you decide which rabbits will stay and when do you move them out?

My rabbitry is for show and meat. The best show bunnies will stay, others will be sold or culled for meat.
 
I downsized dramatically a while ago too - i went from having a barn full - to a six hole rack. Im building a better herd back up now - hoping to keep around 20 rabbits.

What i do - is i keep the best. Move everything else on. I plan on keeping only what is better than I have, still selling really good bunnies. This way i can build a better heard that will do well on the show table. Everything that i think is really nice - i will grow up, and show it then or sell it, or keep it if it is better than what i have.

I like to bring in new rabbits once in a while too.
 
I asked because I have always had a good sized rabbitry and able to keep and grow what I wanted.
 
I have always had a small rabbitry, mainly to raise meat for our own table. I have four does and two bucks. I butcher at about 16 weeks as rabbits on natural feed tend to mature more slowly and we prefer the flavour. With so few cages, competition for places is tough. I seldom keep more than two replacement rabbits per year so it is only the very best that stays. We eat the culls; even older rabbits make great soup, stew or pot pie.
 
I currently have eight holes for working with my himalayans. We are not a production based rabbitry. We have one brood doe with the lines we love and she's all we need to keep producing babies that will do well at shows. The other holes are for our show rabbits. Thing with me is, I like to have very few brood animals. I don't have the room to keep anything that isn't winning or producing winners, and that's all there is to it! BEcause of this, my herd is constantly fluctuating. There are a few constants and from time to time I bring in 'parts' animals, but they rarely stick around for longer than six months unless they beat my other stock. :D
 
I generally will not keep anything I would not show plain and simple. If my show stuff cannot produce, to bad for me, I sell them. I dislike having weak lines.

I do not have any brood bucks (I don't see the point, since a buck can be shown throughout his entire life) and my Brood does are all rabbits I have successfully shown, and after a litter or two I may even stick them back up on the show table. This way I only keep what I need, and when you have a more limited number of cages you tend to only keep the best.
 
MeadowView":1zlq0stk said:
I currently have eight holes for working with my himalayans. We are not a production based rabbitry. We have one brood doe with the lines we love and she's all we need to keep producing babies that will do well at shows. The other holes are for our show rabbits. Thing with me is, I like to have very few brood animals. I don't have the room to keep anything that isn't winning or producing winners, and that's all there is to it! BEcause of this, my herd is constantly fluctuating. There are a few constants and from time to time I bring in 'parts' animals, but they rarely stick around for longer than six months unless they beat my other stock. :D
Click to expand...
Congratulations on your BIS win and the BOB at convention. Proof that a small number of holes can produce the best!! :D
 

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