Thinking of setting up a colony

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therabbitlady

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We built a 10x12 shed out of pallets, it's got a window and door, tin roof, we covered the outside in heavily painted plywood. Also, it's purple (which brings me joy, the neighbors maybe not so much). Currently our rabbit setup is Tractor Supply cages, which are awful quality but what we could swing after we bought our house this past summer. I'd love to transition my rabbits into a colony. My husband and I are planning to dig the dirt down a little and put wire to prevent digging out, then put back dirt and hay/straw. We would put wire up on the walls a little as well. I would keep my bucks in cages with manure catching abilities. Currently I have two does that are mature and a few little does coming along. How many rabbits could comfortably live together in this size space? Any thoughts?
 
three maybe four, you'd need to provide lots of stuff to prevent line of sight issues.
Think it through well. Colony living is great until you have rats/predator or disease issues pop up.

easier to start with young does rather than with older does. Try to keep your bucks so they are "in the colony" but yet not in so you can control breeding. That way you can let him out for a couple of weeks and then pen him up again. :)
 
three maybe four, you'd need to provide lots of stuff to prevent line of sight issues.
Think it through well. Colony living is great until you have rats/predator or disease issues pop up.

easier to start with young does rather than with older does. Try to keep your bucks so they are "in the colony" but yet not in so you can control breeding. That way you can let him out for a couple of weeks and then pen him up again. :)
Yeah, I know that some people ended up with coccidia issues in their colonies. I don't want that to be a problem for sure.
 
The general rule is 20sq ft per doe and her kits, and 10sq ft for the buck. So, you could technically have 5 does and a buck. However, that is the minimum and can quickly get cramped. If it were me I would have no more than 3-4 does in this amount of space. Laying wire will help to keep the animals in and unwanted animals out, I would definitely go up the walls at least 2 feet with 1/4" hardware cloth this should (theoretically) baby proof things. If you want it to be rat proof than lining the entire enclosure with 1/4" hardware cloth is really the only way to do that, and that usually isn't possible (From my research, to an extent colony raising is is also excepting that that not only rabbits will be in that enclosure).

One thing you can do to boost the chances of healthy rabbits is to get new stock that comes from a colony setup they will have more instincts of how to live in this type of environment and will have an immune system that is, at least a little more, adapted to withstand the environment as well.

If you are starting with caged rabbits I would slowly transition them to ground life, don't just throw them in there. Start with a few hours a day in a ground pen, then the whole day, then a full 24 hours, a few days, then if they seem to be faring well they should be okay to go 24/7 on the ground.

Although I have done a lot a research on colony raising, I have not kept them in this type of set up myself so this is all the info I have to offer at this time.

These are my favorite two pages for colony info:
https://www.youtube.com/@FantailValleyHomestead
https://www.youtube.com/@sagesmokesurvival/featured
 
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