Tattoo-ing rabbits...

So, I got my handy-dandy Grand Champion II tattoo set this weekend and tried my hand at tattooing. Did four 16wk old rabbits, they were ok. They flinched but not too bad. I am not sure if I did it deep enough, there was not any bleeding, but I did place the tattoos carefully away from any visible veins. We shall see how it looks when it heals. I also tried a 6mo old buck...not so great. He FREAKED out! Scratched DH, shredding his glove in the process and I was only able to basically poke several sets of holes in his ears that will need to heal up before we try again. Definitely better to do it young...

I have the same set, got it when I bought my cages back in March or whatever, but just tattooed last week. I was agonizing over figuring out a way to track bloodlines through the tattoos, and finally figured one out. Oldest buns were almost 6 months, youngest about 8 weeks I think. My DD held them in a towel w/ their eyes covered, and none of them screamed... I need to clean all the excess ink out and check them all to see how well we did overall. I used a fresh cotton swab dipped in ink for each ear, rolled it real well with quite a bit of pressure against the ear pressed against my finger, then massaged a tiny bit of neosporin over it. We did 23 rabbits! Most are going to be for meat, but I am thinking of trying to sell some on CL, so I figured we would just do all of them. In avoiding the large veins, the tattoo ended up where the ear's natural curve is.

Here is the system I devised: Buck's initial, Does initial, month, year, then 1-0 for each bun in the litter. Our first Buck is named Black Floyd, and his successive sons are named starting with C, D, etc. Our first does are Poppy and Feather, so their daughters names will start with QRS GHI, etc. I only have 24 holes, so figure it will take a while to go through the alphabet, and then I can start the process over again! I'll also know the age of the individual because of the date in the ear. I was wondering if there is a rule about how long the tattoo can be- meaning can it be more than 5 letters or characters if you wanted? With my system there is no way to identify my rabbitry...

I would love to hear what methods other raisers use, and any tips on tattooing techniques!

Annette

i can tell the age of my rabbit based on the tattoo. first two letters are "SS" for my rabbitry, Sterling Satins. then a number or letter for the month:
1: Jan
2: Feb
3: march
4: april
5: may
6: june
7: july
8: august
9: september
0: october
A: november
B: december

then a number for the rabbit marked that month. if it was the first rabbit tattooed that month, it will be a number 1. 2nd rabbit, number 2, and so on. after 9th: 9 and 10th: 0 move on to letters. then the final number is the last didgit of the year they were born.
2010: 0
2011: 1
2012: 2

so a rabbit born in december 2010, the first rabbit marked that month, would be : SSB10

I was going to do first initial of each parent, 1-12 for month, then 2 digit year, so "SR0711" but thought "what happens when I have two bucks or two does with names that begin with the same letter? What I decided on, after also agonizing about it, was to keep it simple....

"O" for OneAcreFarm
"B/D" for buck/doe
"1-999" for number assigned to rabbit

So we marked the bucks "OB1" and "OB2", any new bucks born and kept will be "OB3", "OB4" etc.
Same for the does....I can always look up the birthdate and parents.

Technically it can be as long as you want but only so much will fit in the ear. Especially with a clamp instead of a pen. Most rabbits won't fit more than 5 and most clamps aren't made to hold more than 5. I have trouble doing 8week olds since I got to 4 digits with my code. I ended up not doing them in the heat because it was too hard to get 4 digits around the very large blood vessels. I tried one and it bled horribly so I had to wait a month for larger ears and cooler weather.

Many of mine scream but I think part of that is my clamp is an old used set that does not have an ear release. I often have to peel the ear off the clamp afterward so they might be panicking that their ear is stuck.

There is an old story about a judge that was taking an English Lop to a friend. Noting that there was no tatoo in the ear, he asked his fried what to put in it. Friend told him 'anything'. So that judge put.*.I wish I was a silver martin * ( it seems that His favorite breed was the SMs. ) I cannot vouch for the truthfulness of this... but it has been in rabbit circles since the early 1990s.

( story offered to show that there is no limit to the length of the tatoo. Don't think one could do that with ...say a Polish....)

EPIC FAIL!!!

I tattooed my herd's ears at the beginning of the month, and many of them turned out to be very faint. You can read a description of the method I used above in the 2nd post on this topic. Not sure where I read the suggestion to substitute a cotton swab for the brush included with the kit (so you could use a fresh one on each ear instead of disinfecting the brush between each use so as not to spread infection), but I am wondering if that contributed to my failure. The bristles would probably force more ink into the holes.

Are rabbits DQ'd from showing if the tat appears to have been "tampered with"? What do I do now? <plaintive wail!> Redo them with the clamp, hoping to get close to the original tattoo site? Buy a tattoo pen and go over the existing tattoo freehand? Buy a different color ink? (I used black.) The breeder's tattoos are so-o-o much clearer and darker than mine, but she obviously used a pen...

MamaSheepdog":2sgwna8w said:

EPIC FAIL!!!

I tattooed my herd's ears at the beginning of the month, and many of them turned out to be very faint. You can read a description of the method I used above in the 2nd post on this topic. Not sure where I read the suggestion to substitute a cotton swab for the brush included with the kit (so you could use a fresh one on each ear instead of disinfecting the brush between each use so as not to spread infection), but I am wondering if that contributed to my failure. The bristles would probably force more ink into the holes.

Are rabbits DQ'd from showing if the tat appears to have been "tampered with"? What do I do now? <plaintive wail!> Redo them with the clamp, hoping to get close to the original tattoo site? Buy a tattoo pen and go over the existing tattoo freehand? Buy a different color ink? (I used black.) The breeder's tattoos are so-o-o much clearer and darker than mine, but she obviously used a pen...

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Mine were lighter than I wanted as well, we also used the Q-tips...but I think it had more to do with me not clamping hard enough...

I had read that it was best if the needles completely pierced the ear, and I had to peel the ears off of the pins, so I doubt that was the problem. Some of them turned out pretty well, but others are barely visible.

MamaSheepdog":1jpkkwff said:

I had read that it was best if the needles completely pierced the ear, and I had to peel the ears off of the pins, so I doubt that was the problem. Some of them turned out pretty well, but others are barely visible.

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Did you "scrub" around with the Qtip? That is what I did....and put several coats of ink and I did not use the neosporin...they are all legible and won't have to be redone but I would like them darker....

OneAcreFarm":24vpvdge said:

Did you "scrub" around with the Qtip? That is what I did....and put several coats of ink and I did not use the neosporin...they are all legible and won't have to be redone but I would like them darker....

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Yeah, I went over it several times and pressed really hard against the finger I had behind the ear, and then when applying the minuscule amount of neosporin, I rubbed it in using lots of pressure with the ear between my thumb and forefinger. I didn't use multiple coats of ink though- just saturated the Q-tip well the first go-round. There was plenty of ink smeared all over the inner ear.

I know the order I did them in, so I'll have to check and see if there is improvement between the first ones done and the last, or if the results are just random.

We re-did Stu's tattoo yesterday...had hubby do it this time. Seemed like it did fine, we shall see when all the extra ink wears off....

Random Rabbit":2h0olejz said:

There is an old story about a judge that was taking an English Lop to a friend. Noting that there was no tatoo in the ear, he asked his fried what to put in it. Friend told him 'anything'. So that judge put.*.I wish I was a silver martin * ( it seems that His favorite breed was the SMs. ) I cannot vouch for the truthfulness of this... but it has been in rabbit circles since the early 1990s.

( story offered to show that there is no limit to the length of the tatoo. Don't think one could do that with ...say a Polish....)

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I remember this story. I believe the judge was Mr. Thomas (I can't remember his first name) but in the version I heard, the rabbit was a Checkered Giant and it was one of Glen Carr's.

scpankow":l0smfo50 said:

We re-did Stu's tattoo yesterday...had hubby do it this time. Seemed like it did fine, we shall see when all the extra ink wears off....

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Somehow I posted this from my old account...who knows? Anyway, I will post a pic of Stu's ear when the excess ink rubs off....

Random Rabbit":32tdejy5 said:

There is an old story about a judge that was taking an English Lop to a friend. Noting that there was no tatoo in the ear, he asked his fried what to put in it. Friend told him 'anything'. So that judge put.*.I wish I was a silver martin * ( it seems that His favorite breed was the SMs. ) I cannot vouch for the truthfulness of this... but it has been in rabbit circles since the early 1990s.

( story offered to show that there is no limit to the length of the tatoo. Don't think one could do that with ...say a Polish....)

Click to expand...

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I wish I'd thought more creatively when I had a few of my rabbits tatooed.