Not new, but returning!

TKT · Friday at 2:03 PM

Bekah-n-Tennessee said:
NOOooooo!

I am NOT ready for this at all. The last two nights/mornings went down to 32 and one of my does even pulled additional fur for her few day old babies.

My little rabbitry is indoors in an insulated building that I have AC in for the summers and was looking at options for a safe heater (worried about fire hazzard) for a very small barn just to keep it above freezing and I thought I still had some time...apparently not. Ugh.

The adult rabbits will be fine well below freezing. Just add more hay for insulation for the mothers to use as they need. If it's inside a building you don't have to worry about wind or rain which is more problematic. That's what can affect their health or kill them. Not the cold. For the babies if the moms are pulling more fur, they are making thicker blankets which is great! As long as the kits stay under the blankets they are fine. I do all my breeding across fall, winter and spring because summers are so hot. When I stick my hand over the fur blanket I feel tremendous heat radiating off the kits underneath. They are all piled up and toasty and warm. The thing you do have to watch out for is any babies that are still latched to a teat when the mother hops out. If they are too young to get back into the nest box they will die. I was having problems with finding young kits outside the nest box last year, and I took the advice here and I made a little set of steps with half bricks at the end that they were able to hop up to get back in, and that solved that problem!

Bekah-n-Tennessee · Friday at 2:22 PM

TKT said:
The adult rabbits will be fine well below freezing. Just add more hay for insulation for the mothers to use as they need. If it's inside a building you don't have to worry about wind or rain which is more problematic. That's what can affect their health or kill them. Not the cold. For the babies if the moms are pulling more fur, they are making thicker blankets which is great! As long as the kits stay under the blankets they are fine. I do all my breeding across fall, winter and spring because summers are so hot. When I stick my hand over the fur blanket I feel tremendous heat radiating off the kits underneath. They are all piled up and toasty and warm. The thing you do have to watch out for is any babies that are still latched to a teat when the mother hops out. If they are too young to get back into the nest box they will die. I was having problems with finding young kits outside the nest box last year, and I took the advice here and I made a little set of steps with half bricks at the end that they were able to hop up to get back in, and that solved that problem!

Admittedly the desire to soften the cold in the rabbitry is more for my benefit than the buns, lol. There are many pros to having an indoor rabbitry but some of the cons are dumping/cleaning of trays every 3 days and I use triple stacked cages due to limited square footage so I spend quite a bit of time in there regularly between chores, breeding, getting weights and the like and I like to be able to still feel my fingers and toes while doingit all. Plus, I use bowls for water and want to keep them from freezing.

I have baby scrapers on all my nest boxes and right around the 2 week mark (or if I see one out and about earlier), my better half made me nice wooden steps that butt up against the front of the nest boxes so the littles can get back in. I definitely still check regularly for renegades though!

RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN · Saturday at 2:05 PM

Secuono said:
It's already freezing at night.
I'm not ready. Autumn just started, cmon!
Anyone else not ready??

I live in eastern Washington where it rains way too much! Last night, I came inside and I was completely soaked. I was wearing a raincoat, but it soaked through to my sweatshirt and then to my shirt! The gutter near where I keep my rabbits overflowed and started spilling into their area. On the other side of the barn, the same thing happened, but that's where we keep our pigs, and our three girls are pregnant and due any day! Right now it's more of a sprinkle, but it's windy, and the clouds are blocking the sun! The whole time I was outside, I kept telling myself, "You won't have to deal with this next year, you won't have to deal with this next year" (we're moving to eastern Washington)

. it's more the rain and the cold for me lol.

Secuono · Sunday at 8:10 AM

Cruella had 6! Tiny count, but it could of been worse. Interesting color on two, rews??
She's a nest sitter, but since she didn't toilet in there, I left her be until after she had them. Now has a box of hay to nap in.
Bred to Goliath and Rivian as backup.
Cruella, carries chocolate, non extension & dilute.
Goliath, has blue, REW and himi in his pedigree.
So, those two may be my first rews!