New to me

[3mina]

Yesterday Whipple and I processed 17 rabbits and I found a couple of things I haven't seen before, or at least not to this extent.

I found what I think is a tumour on a liver, just a light green flat round coarse grained flap on a duct. I discarded the liver.

Then as we were cleaning up after #16 I looked at the grow out cage and saw what I thought was a doe kindling. I threw together a nestbox super quick and went to move the 'new mom' into new quarters. I turned 'her' over and discovered 'she' was still a he but the boys had been fighting and almost castrated him. Needless to say he was immediately put down and the rest separated.

I felt awful that I'd missed this. I'd put off processing until after the last show since these were the ones from the local breeder to beat. Obviously I waited too long. I've had a couple of torn lips and noses but this was the worst injury I've seen.

 

[JulieCunicole]

I'm so sorry. I've heard of bucks fighting once they get to a certain age.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I had that happen once when I was really behind on processing. I culled the victim immediately (and the others next!), but I was really surprised that he didn't really seem to be in any distress at all. I was more upset than he was!

 

[MaggieJ]

Just to test a developing theory, 3mina, remind me how you feed your growouts.

In our colony on natural feed only, I have never seen a fight nor found signs of one when processing rabbits. The grow outs take 14-16 weeks to reach butchering weight and seem to mature sexually more slowly too. I'm wondering if the two things result in less aggression among the colony rabbits. Even the mature buck seems tolerant of young bucks.

 

[3mina]

I had that happen once when I was really behind on processing. I culled the victim immediately (and the others next!), but I was really surprised that he didn't really seem to be in any distress at all. I was more upset than he was!

I was definitely more upset than the buck in question. He was also done immediately but the rest got separated since I had to get Whipple back for an appoinment, they'll be done next week, they're five months now what's another week? I waited as long as I had with these ones for the three shows I can get to this summer. I'll be breeding the does from these litters just before the end of May, they're very close to senior weight now.

Maggie, I feed pellets and hay. I`m pretty sure this happened because I had taken these bucks to an Easter display and then put them in a new pen afterward. Between that and age, it was probably inevitable