Thanks guys!
Unfortunately we don't have a scale yet. Truth is, we don't lift our rabbits. We transfer them from cage to cage by holding up a small have-a-heart trap lined with outdoor carpet to their door, enticing them in with tiny carrot pieces... LOL!
Neither Tresa nor I want to be scratched or bitten (I use my hands for my prototype work and after my first injury working last year (lost a LOT of blood; ER visit with surgery and long term memory loss and still feeling pain), I'm definitely "gun shy"... I still pet them like crazy though... I provide them cage space to back up if they're not into it and get used to it over time by offering treats by hand... I'll figure out a way to weigh the next batch. I like the cloth shopping bag with the hanging digital scale (Thanks for that Grumpy!).
Joe, Zass... I did the math and you're right about them having to have been fairly decent size to get the dressed weights we got... I did a good job of dressing them out, there was VERY little fat on them and what was there, I trimmed off so the weights were pure meat and CLEAN. Hmmm. Thanks for the reality check!
This is our very first time with rabbits, and I guess I maybe had visions of 5lb dressed out weights? (laughing at myself here...?) I kept looking at our (now huge), NZW doe thinking they should have been that big!?
How we dealt with "breeds":
We chose our buck first just because we found an ad on Craigslist, I had just completed the Hutch, had just completed building three cages and we were like kids thinking about going to a toy store... The buck's owner was a well known breeder up here in Oregon and he was willing to bring him down to Grants Pass to a rabbit show nearby that he was attending for us to see him. He talked with us a lot (not a salesman, more inquisitive of our needs and very knowledgeable...Everyone at the show would stop by to say high and praise him for how he kept his rabbits and taught others to do the same.) We didn't know what we were looking for other than knowing we wanted a New Zealand and/or Ca for breeding stock. "Stubby" was a Red and was totally handleable (even in the loud, crowded convention hall). That took care of our fears of handling a rabbit! We fell in love with his color and behavior and bought him.
Later I think I remember reading that Reds do not grow out as fast?
We weren't attracted to the NZW "albino-red eye" look but realized they made great does, good size, fast grow out... so that's when we got "Caprica" (our NZW doe)... She came from a breeder with about 30 NZW rabbits and they were all large, well kept, each cage had metal tags with lots of record keping with a sister but she was a terror... Would never let us pet her, sometimes charged us in the cage... (Also, we got both of them at about 12~14 weeks and they were not handled as much as we would have liked...)
We traded the terror to a friend/rabbit breeder who was fine with her temperament for an 8 week old CA/NZW mix doe... ("Oreo")... we kept her on our dining room table for weeks, constantly petting, talking to, playing with... She acts more like a pet than livestock. We bred her with our buck this past weekend (She was just over 5 months old...) We'll see how she does.
We're planning on expanding our rabbitry next spring and getting two more does and a buck. I think we will stick with pure NZW and checking out the rabbitries they come from for all the things we looked for the first time, but this time add kit grow out history,
Grumpy: Thank you for mentioning the potential consequences of cutting back their hay! We have both researched so much on raising our rabbits, Tresa in particular has made sure their dietary needs have been complete and has always reported in on their conditions after cleaning out their pans... (She (Teaching Master Gardener), looks at their droppings as "Gold" for her garden beds! =D) I think I just had "blinders" on thinking Meat! Grow more meat! Ha! I'll keep the hay in there especially since they will now be getting a change in their diet with the BOSS mix addition.
Thank you guys!
Richard & Tresa
So I still have this Question: ?
Do you think adding the Oatmeal, BOSS and Calf Manna will help them grow a little faster over the next week or two? It's only 1-Tblsp of each per day (Trying to make sure there's no sudden change in diet.)
Thanks!
Richard & Tresa <br /><br /> __________ Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:38 am __________ <br /><br /> Thank you Marinea!
(Posted before reading your post.)
Reassuring to hear that we didn't do badly on our first run. (Just did the math again and even at 50% dress out weight, you're right. they had to have been at least 6 lbs each.)
Breeding "Lines" makes a LOT of sense! We started breeding and raising Jumbo Coturnix Quail this summer and I have been VERY focused on line-breeding for size, choosing which hens go with which roosters... Of course this has been a lot easier than rabbits because the turnover is so quick (Hatch to egg producing in 6 weeks)... We had thought of keeping one of our kits for breeding as it was (and still is), growing so fast. We just didn't have the cages or hutch ready for more breeders. (We're changing our hutch against the shop wall by adding a shed that will provide a hallway to walk through with matching racks on both sides. The shed will be insulated and I will build a small evaporative cooler to keep the whole area well cooled for summer (No more ice bottles, frozen marble tiles or misters... It gets up to about 105 here in the summer.)
Thanks also for the advise on feeding oats but not the BOSS or Manna... I will do more research on all three ("Research" is my middle name! LOL!) I'll feed only Oats today...
Thank you also for the "reality check" on the estimation of their live weights! (I sure wished I had weighed them before dispatching). I do have a very accurate beam scale for my work... maybe I can weigh them right after bleeding them out but before dressing? Do you think there is enough blood loss to make much of a difference in calculating where our starting point is?
Thank you again!
Richard & Tresa
