I'm considering starting a Rex rabbitry, but I've never owned a rabbit before (though I've had a variety of other pets), so I'm not sure what kind of time commitment I'd be signing up for. I'm a mom of four kids, so my life is very busy, I don't want to buy and breed multiple rabbits only to discover that I can't properly care for them all.
I'm toying with the idea of buying just one pedigreed Rex buck to start out, so I can see what caring for a single rabbit is like, and whether I might be able to do it on a larger scale. If it's manageable, I'll look into getting him a girlfriend or two. If not, then it's probably easier to sell one rabbit than three (or ten!).
Do it!
Kids and rabbit are a
great combination! And rabbits are, imo, about the lowest maintenance animal you can have (well, maybe a goldfish, but they don't double as snuggly therapy animals!).
We homeschooled five kids, and the rabbits have been a fantastic part of our life (and for many of those years, we lived in the city on a lot of around 10,000 sq ft). Over the years, our kids learned SO MUCH from raising rabbits that it's hard to make a list, but it includes biology, anatomy, behavior, economics, genetics, observation skills, generosity, public speaking, physics, engineering and building (cages, fences and nest boxes), and where meat comes from, as well as
really important things like compassion, cooperation, responsibility, and self-sacrifice. Like I mentioned, the rabbits also performed much therapy: when one of our more volatile children would be "having a day," I'd tell him or her to go pet the rabbits. He or she always came back calmed.
We did start out with a single mixed breed lop buck (named Gunner in hopes that my husband would stop trying to give that name to our next male child
). Although I've raised rabbits for much of my life, I wanted to be sure that rabbits would be a good fit for our family. I agree with
@Preitler that bucks tend to be the best pets, at least in the larger breeds; of course there are individual differences, and I've found that in the dwarf breeds like Polish, Mini Rex and Holland Lop, both sexes make nice pets, but overall, as they mature, female rabbits can get a little uppity and territorial while bucks are generally curious and friendly. You
can find females that not uppity and I'd encourage you make to that a priority; Rex in my experience are usually pretty sweet. When we started raising Satins as meat rabbits - after we'd had Gunner for a few years - for about three generations I had to cull rabbits that were not nice; now we rarely have one that is not. (When there was a rabbit in a new litter that was aggressive, the kids would tell me, "Mom, there is a pot bunny in this litter."
) But since I had kids that were so involved with the rabbits, and a passel of neighbor kids who loved visiting too, it was really important to have rabbits that did not attack someone opening their cage!
I did have some concerns about the kids not wanting to eat our rabbits, and I was prepared to harvest and can the meat when no one was looking and just call it "meat," but all my worries came to naught. We named the breeders only and they were the pets. We bred at least two does at a time so there were
lots of bunnies at the same time, and if there were one or two that the kids especially liked, we'd find homes for them instead of butchering them. We explained to the kids what we were doing and why, and as I've learned, emotionally healthy kids are usually quite able to handle these things. (The only thing that came up was that my 5-year-old wanted to know that we weren't eating tiny babies!) We didn't necessarily let the littlest ones watch as the rabbits were dispatched, but once the rabbits were dead and butchering started, they
all wanted to watch (there's some biology, anatomy and physics).
The thing is, I've read that rabbits are very social animals and benefit from having at least one companion, so should I get a doe as well and keep her in another cage next to him? Would he (or I) be happier if he had another buck next door? Would he even care about having a neighbor, since they're in separate cages???
Maybe I'm overthinking all of this, but if I do get rabbits, I want to give them a good life. I don't want to make a bunch of rookie mistakes that could cause a lot of stress for me and the animals in my care.
I agree with
@RabbitsOfTheCreek that rabbits don't "need" another rabbit around. And yes, although I don't have too much of a problem with spraying bucks, some of my bucks
will spray if there's a doe next to them, and some will also have spraying wars with an adjacent buck. So I actually have solid barriers between my bucks and other rabbits. That also prevents barbering (chewing on each other's fur) and fighting, as well as breeding through the wire, which an experienced rabbit breeder friend assured me
can happen! On another note, I don't have much in the way of health problems in our rabbits, but the solid barriers also work to keep nasty things from spreading; for instance, a rabbit that comes home from the Fair with fur mites doesn't immediately spread it to the others!
It's true that rabbits do like companionship and several of my does are buds with the one next door, laying next to each other along the wire barrier. On the other hand, when they are raising a litter, some of my does will defend their kits by literally biting off body parts of the does or kits next to them, so they get solid barriers between them as well. But we make sure our rabbits get their companionship from us. In the winter that's more challenging (it's one of those opportunities for learning compassion, responsibility, and self-sacrifice!). But not only do the rabbits appreciate the attention, but interacting with them every day also builds those powers of observation, and allows you/the kids to begin to notice if something is going wrong before it gets really serious.
I agree with you about our obligation to give the animals in our care a good life. Happy animals are healthy animals, and compassionate people are healthy people! One of my daughters schooled an ignorant man once at a Farmer's Market. He asked her how we could possibly kill and eat our rabbits (who would do that to a 6-year-old?). She told him:
"Our rabbits have food, water, protection from predators and petting and love, and when it's time to butcher them, it's over like THAT." (She tried to snap her fingers but hadn't quite learned how yet). Then she said, "Do you know how rabbits in the
wild die?!?!?"
Suffice it to say the man kind of slunk away and I stood there glowing with pride.
