Pasturing rabbits and parasites

[alforddm]

This is my first year with rabbits. I would love to try to pasture the grow out rabbits in "rabbit tractors" however, I have a concern. We've only lived here two years and my lawn used to be a cow pasture. Of the two additional areas I could pasture the rabbits one is currently a horse pasture and one is currently a cow pasture. We live in the far Southeastern corner of Oklahoma and are very similar to Northeast Texas in climate, very humid. Should I be concerned about parasites? What about keeping the tractors elevated an inch or so off the ground? Has anyone successfully pastured rabbits under these conditions?

Thank you!

 

[JessiL]

Just trying to keep this thread alive...

We pasture rabbits in the exact opposite climate of yours - a cold desert! But knock on wood, so far (2 years now) it's working well for us. I think the secret is to either have a killing frost or dessicating conditions, and/or have your grazing rotation long enough that parasites die off. How much acreage do you have? If over two acres or so, you might be able to let the tractors roam a good half year or so before passing back over the same spot. That would be ideal.

From what I hear, you might be better off with standard cages, and cutting/bringing fresh forage to your rabbits rather than tractoring. No chance of contamination.

Hopefully someone else from a humid area will chime in. Best of luck!

 

[alforddm]

I have access to about 60 acres of pasture however, most of that would be sharing pasture with cows (which could raise other issues besides just parasites). The yard is about 1/2 acre probably. The horse pasture? It's about 3 acres. I "might" could rotate part of that. Sounds like I need to google how long parasites live in the ground.

Thanks JessiL for replying. I hadn't considered trying to rotate the grazing between the rabbits and the horses. <br /><br /> __________ Thu Dec 25, 2014 8:08 pm __________ <br /><br /> After a bit of research it seems that horses don't share parasites with rabbits with the exception of the dog tapeworm which can infect horses and rabbits and the Eimeria Coccidiosis species. Can anyone confirm? Also, two years of non use of the lawn would be enough to break the life cycle of most parasites.

I may have to just give it a trial with just a fryers and see how it goes.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I am trying to find the relevant threads to this subject for you- I know there was a really good post about rotational grazing for rabbits to limit their exposure to parasites somewhere... :?

So far, I have only found this:

post70263.html

 

[JessiL]

I would advise starting out with just setting your weanlings out there, so that if anything goes wrong, you've only lost them and not your breeders. We've actually moved all of our working does back inside, but not because of parasite or health concerns. Pregnant does start digging late-ish in gestation, and tear up our pasture/lawn something horrible! So mostly only the growouts and a few bucks go on pasture now. I feel sorry for the does, life seems a lot better on pasture, but I do try to upgrade their experience with bunny buckets and lots of forage in the season.