Weaning style survey

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Who weans where

  • Doe moves out

    Votes: 8 36.4%
  • Kits moves out

    Votes: 13 59.1%
  • Nobody moves

    Votes: 1 4.5%

  • Total voters
    22

PTJeff

Active member
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
41
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6
Location
Cleveland suburbia
I am wondering what method others prefer:
1. Move doe out
2. Move kits to grow out cage
3. Leave together till harvest

Goal: freezer buns
Cage space not an issue
Breed back at 21/28 days, which I believe necessitates option 1 or 2, but not sure.
 
i take kits away from the doe. i've read that taking mom away from the kits and leaving kits in "their" cage can help reduce weaning stress, but i don't have the setup for that. my kits have never seemed particularly stressed upon weaning. i wean at about 5 or 6 weeks straight into a large community pen where all the kits go from any litters born at the same time. they seem thrilled to have the space, even if there are strange rabbits with them and mom isn't around. i've never had issues with enteritis or anything like that.

leaving the kits with the doe for too long can cause stress to everyone, and eventually it will get very overcrowded. once the doe is rebred she will behave aggressively toward her kits in order to get them to leave so she can focus on raising her new litter. i wouldn't really want to go that route unless i was using massive hutches or a colony system.
 
I go with leaving most of the kits in the original cage and moving the doe and a few kits (2-4) into a separate cage. Then I move the kits with the doe back into the original cage over a few days to ease up on the doe's milk production.
 
I've always done this the same way, move kits out at six weeks, watch them for the first few days to make sure no one is stressy, if they are they go back for a few more days. I also split bucks and does at six weeks so if I'm limited on cage space they can stay together for a while. Sometimes, when things are really tight, does stay with mom for a little while and bucks get their own bachelor pad.
 
Most of the time i remove the youngsters. But..... sometimes the doe moves. It just depends on the situation. Some does are done,done, Done with pesky youngsters and Need to be away from them. Others seem to enjoy the young and will stay together longer. Often, especially in colder weather, i might leave a junior doe with her momma if they seem content.
Of course when raising for meat, the situation might be quite different. :)
We all figure what seems to work best for us, tho that might shift in different circumstances.
 
Each breeding doe has her own cage. She leaves it to visit the buck's cage for breeding, then goes back and gets a nest box at day 28. Between kindling and kits leaving the nest box, the doe and the nest box are moved to a larger cage. The nest box is removed as soon as all kits have their eyes open and have begun to venture out. The doe is taken out when the kits are 5 weeks old. (That is an easy point to remember because it is a point at which we weigh kits. And we've never seen a doe seem to be still nursing kits at 5 weeks) The doe goes back to her cage (may be bred first, depending on time of year) Kits stay where they are until they go to freezer camp or are put in smaller cage for possible future breeding.
 
Rainey,
So there is no stress by the doe when you move her and the kits at about day 10?
She doesnt freak out in the new environment?
 
PTJeff":4kx9mgu2 said:
Rainey,
So there is no stress by the doe when you move her and the kits at about day 10?
She doesnt freak out in the new environment?

Usually, no. Actually we now have a young doe, bred for the first time this year, and she gets very growly from the time she's bred until her kits are out of the nest box. Then she is back to easy-going. She is a good mother so we want to keep her until we have a better replacement. Just bred her for her third time, due mid-September. We put her directly into a larger cage so we don't have to move her and the nest box. Should have said that before but just kept it simple and told what we usually do.
 
My kits go in to a 7x2 ft grow out cage at 7-8 weeks, sometimes with other kits their same age/size.
 
I've always moved half the litter out at week 5-6, taking the larger kits, then the other half in a week or two depending on how they're growing. My thoughts behind that being to prevent mastitis in the doe. I have only ever lost one doe raised kit to enteritis and it was completely my fault for over feeding greens when I first started breeding. I didn't take into account that sometimes one kit may eat all of his siblings' share too.
 
My does are in a large cage when they have their litters, so during weaning I just move them to their normal smaller cage leaving the kits in the larger cage. Less stress on the kits; I've never lost one during weaning.
 
SableSteel,
You said that the does are in the big cage when they have their litters,
When do you move the does from their normal smaller cage?
 
Ummmmm... about day 28 ;) I mean to do it around 2 weeks in, but I procrastinate <br /><br /> -- August 20th, 2017, 10:51 am -- <br /><br /> And if the doe is real mean, I put her in a big cage straight after breeding since I don't want to have to catch her again
 
Thanks to all for the survey participation and especially those who gave brief insight to their vote.
I was hoping to get more that 15 votes, but it appears that there is a definite trend with this management style
Keep voting and i'll start another question as I keep reading your posts
Thank you all again
 
My situation was a little different from most because my rabbits were in an indoor colony rather than in cages. The does weaned their kits when they wanted to, but they were still all in the same pen. This often meant early weaning, but not all does let themselves be bred by the buck while their litter was still in the nestbox.

My rabbits were on a natural diet and therefore tended to mature more slowly, not reaching sexual maturity before the usual age of 14-16 weeks when we sent them to freezer camp. In the time we had the colony, we lost one youngster that may have had some kind of GI issue. I credit the natural diet for this at least in part, but I also felt that the rabbits benefited individually from the group setting. They seemed more content than when I had them in cages made some of the decisions regarding issues such as weaning become insignificant.
 
I have mostly 30x24 or 36x24 or 24x24 cages in towers....

I leave the kits and mom together for as long as I can.
Mom will be re-bred no earlier than 2 week after kindling.... (after considering the does' condition and grow-out space)
My last breeding, I miscalculated the birthday and butcher day for the previous litters, so mamas had to hang with the kids until they were 8 weeks old.
I found that the kits seem to have adjusted much better than mom moving at 6 weeks.

I will be trying to repeat this in the future if no weaning enteritis strikes these litters!!
Good luck with your breeding!

I move mom to her own apartment vs moving kids.
 
it depends on the situation but most often I will remove the doe from the kits BUT I will move the entire litter and doe to new cage, clean out the old cage let it sit out for a couple of days then put it back in, putting momma back in her old cage. Sometimes I will move the smallest of the litter back with her.

Moving litter and momma to a new cage and then moving momma keeps the kits content.

BUT if I have a big litter, I will take the boys out and leave the girls with momma, then move momma and girls to a new cage three-seven days later, do the cage clean and then move momma.

Momma normally gets rebreed around six weeks but I play around with this a bit. Depends on needs and the doe.
 
About two weeks before my does are due, I'll move them to the grow out cages (small operation here). They'll kindle in the grow outs and at about five to six weeks I'll move mom back to her cage, leaving the kids in the grow out. Depending on how many are in the litter, I'll separate the sexes by eight weeks. I only have two or three does having kits simultaneously, so I have to manage my space and have a spare 36x36 in storage for when I have too many.
 
Usually, I'll take out a wall between the hutch spaces and enlarge the nest area into a grow out area if the doe had a large litter. Usually around six to eight weeks or so. Then sell a few kits or separate out the males or put the kits over somewhere else and down size the growing space back to a nesting space again when the doe is rebred.

Each big hutch has two levels that are 10' long and almost 3' deep. Each long space can be separated into three smaller spaces or one small and one medium space, so between the two big hutches there can be as few as four big spaces or as many as twelve small spaces.

At the moment, one hutch is two large communal spaces where all the growing kits and non-breeding does hang out. The young bucks in there are now 16 weeks so will need to go somewhere else really soon. One or maybe two will be kept, but that still leaves two extra. They'll go over into the buck hutch but still share a space, at least the two spares. The two new herd bucks will get their own more or less permanent space.

There's also several smaller two hole hutches for the bucks so when there's more than four bucks, they have to take up one of the smaller spaces in the big hutches. I need another big hutch.
 
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