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You can't make a doe nest. Some don't pull fur until after the kits are born but if they are born in the box and then get a nest piled on or around them it usually works fine. Aside from cold weather and slow labor. Otherwise all you can do is put in enough clean fur from past nests to keep...

I found pumpkin quite useful every year for guinea pigs and rabbits. If you ask around for people who set them out decoratively without carving or leftovers at pumpkin patches if you can get there between halloween and first frost they will let you have them free to only a couple dollars each...

Hay loses many vitamins within the first couple months and more over time. While the molasses is helpful it is not made to balance hay for a complete diet and will still be deficient in many of the same areas. Molasses can cause diarrhea and digestive problems in small herbivores in large...

Sometimes a single vienna gene results in vienna marked (VM) rabbits with odd white marks that don't match broken pattern. They are otherwise whatever color the rest of their genetics make them but that can make it easy to tell. Provided the white mark is obviously not caused by anything else...

REW is recessive to everything. Any rabbit can carry rew. Breed 2 rabbits with it and you get rew. It could be a dozen generations back, not show up on the pedigree, and still appear when you happen to cross 2 that both have it somewhere in their background. Meaning your doe has a REW...

If it could have some weed seed you might want to compost it well. If it's a field maintained well or otherwise certified "weed free" it can be used without composting and minimal risk of gaining unwanted plants. A lot of grass hay sold locally is basically weed hay of whatever in the heck...

I do leave the wood to sit in the entryway for a couple days before cutting it but that's just because I don't want the leaves. They knock off easy when dry. Otherwise I just store the wood with some amount of air flow. Even a closed box is fine if it's not sitting on something like a damp...

I had a guinea pig die eating peed on hay. If it grows even unnoticeable amounts of mold before cleaned out it can cause deadly GI consequences or even toxins. With a single row of wire cages I just toss it on top and let them pull it through. If I have stacked cages or solid I build wire hay...

It's easier to support and clean if everything slopes from back to front. Gravity even works in your favor to have the weight pulling straight across the front rather than a single narrow end. That's also why I said you could probably cut the pieces down to fit in a shower. They only have to...

Depends on the year. I've seen snow higher than my truck and drifts to the second level of the house or over a trailer. :lol: Some years we get inches, some years we get feet, some years it is only around a few weeks, and some years you don't go anywhere for a month or 2 while trudging up to...

Yes red, tort, etc... cannot carry harli so bred together will not create it from nothing but harli is dominant to the gene for those colors (nonextension). Unlike the chestnut or nontort version of selfs that covers up harli. Those 2 and steel are the same location allowing a mix of...

Red will produce tri/harli with tri/harli since it's recessive but it lacks the gene itself. Since red, tort, and related colors are recessive to harli they can't carry it but they will express it if the other parent contributes it. However, markings become much more random to minimal...

Lots of people in Iowa keep them outdoors regularly in equally cold or often worse temps several months out of the year. The midwest does not have an ocean to stabilize it so aside from Alaska and a few cities in mountains no part of the US really gets colder. Provided rabbits can get out of...

I've had litters survive in -30F in wire cages just out of the wind and we see -40F on occasion, which is the same in C. Never lost a rabbit besides young kits..... Windchill is another matter but far more easily solved. Most just don't breed in the winter. Rabbits indoors in giant cages you...

A dirt floor is bad. They will burrow quite quickly and I had rats burrow under it as well that were a pain to get out. I tried laying down wire but it will rust, they will tear it, and it cut one rabbit. I tried plywood and even a mini rex once went through it to burrow into a compacted...

Not always. Palpating has a fairly high failure rate. Some people get good enough at it to tell at certain stages in pregnancy but many can't tell and most rabbits aren't obvious.

The pelt size would be smaller but otherwise I did not see a difference. The actual coat quality and temperament of a rex or mini rex is going to vary by local stock. Some have mini rex in their standards for lack of standards they can acquire. Some of my MR were wonderful, friendly, and calm...

As I was listing earlier bull frogs eat about anything. :lol: If you can convince them something is recognizable as food even when they wouldn't normally come across it they will eat every insect, amphibian, fish, reptile, and mammal that fits in their mouths. Most people just have them...

Not a whole lot of changes. Just sealing lots of wood with enamel, building a new lid for the 40g the female pine is in, and adding the cleanup crew. I added a few handfuls of "live" soil from outdoors to seed whatever soil critters I can but while I saw springtails in there we have a native...

Mine have done similar and we joke that while I got my akita basically free when the pups of her breeding were selling for $1500-$2500 she's now a $4,000 dog after 2 surgeries including hours spent clearing a blockage of splinters in her stomach. I did not figure out what mine were eating and...