Petlover500":3djdbvpo said:
Wow, that is crazy! You truly are a large quantity rabbit breeder!
I think the most breeding rabbits I will ever had is 15-20 max... Maybe not even that.
I just can't handle a large herd with my life style, especially when I am living with my parents. But someday hopefully I will have "lots" of does and make some pretty babies!
How long have you been breeding? How much space do the cages take up? It seems like it would take a while to accumulate that much breeding rabbits, and have the space for them!!
LOL I'm not really what most consider "large", small in number actually. The other MR breeders I know that do well have a few more holes for just their MR...some have a few less but not a lot. I feel quite small when they start talking and not as "serious" some times as they are. The number evens out to about 4 Standard Rex spots, 35 Holland, and another 20 or so for Mini Rex. I've got empty spots set for certain breeds, one day need to actually count. I focus more on do I have what I want to get what I want than the number right now. I guess that goes with all breeds though as far as the numbers to seriousness equals out; every one has a different opinion on what is "serious" to them, some can be nice and some can be errm nasty about it.
I started in 2001 with purebred Holland Lop pair, broken chocolates. New nothing about type etc, just thought they were cute. Lost them before I even got a litter out of them sadly. My VERY first breeding rabbits though were some time before that, Easter present of some big ol' angry biting lop doe that was a pretty chinchilla color (think some kind of Mini Lop/French cross, she was huge...or maybe just to an 8 or so yr old she was huge lol). I wish I'd gotten pictures of her and too long ago for me to remember a lot of details on her.
They take up a lot of space, reason why I errm took over a whole building for myself LOL. It was a garage, and originally only had a few cages in them. Sizes vary from 24x24 up to 3ft by 8 ft. The 3x8 I'm getting ready to take down as the Standard litter I had has been moved on and its no longer needed. Majority are 24x24 (inches not feet). I have no solid bottom cages for the rabbits. Most of ramps/trays for waste, others drop to dirt floor box I clean out. I can't put them really high or really low, hard to get into. I have rope lights up now to make things easier (cheaper too). There's lots of things I'd like to do to it to make it better, but could be worse. Runs I have outside, 3 single runs that are 10 feet by 2 feet and then the fenced yard that is 25 feet by 25 feet....they can really be a handful in that much space if they don't wanna go up at night or when I have to do some thing else and they have to go up.
Doesn't take long at all, most of the does IF they'd have litters (I've not bred them, health issues of my own so having multiple litters to handle/care for was out of the question) would make the adult numbers look small. Most of them will have 6-8 at one time, and the majority I keep are does at the moment. SO if I would actually breed all at once...I'd shortly pull my hair out lol. This is why I'm a bit particular in planning etc, want to have some idea of what I want to do way before I do it and what I really hope for in litters so I can plan for shows.
I know I need to go through them some time soon, reduce numbers for winter. Its not so much that its going to be cold in the building (heater) but that getting feed in this area during snowy months can be a pain and not having as many can make the same feed allotment for the month go a much further. Not that if I need to get more feed I can't, just having self limits helps keep things reasonable and keeps me pointed in one direction with out getting the cute bunny blinds on. There is nothing like a box full of harlequin hollands with smushy faces and trying to decide if really need to keep the whole litter...lol. Now if I didn't have goals and a rabbit budget, I'd get lazy and not go through the barn as should too and then I wouldn't go forward with showing/breeding.
