whats your weight?

[iamdrglass]

Last night DW and I weighed our first litters. They are 44days and 49 days old and 7 per litter.

I am trying to get a base line for a breeding program so I can choose future breeding stock. One litter "44" avg weight is 43.16 avg daily gain is .98oz. Second litter "49" avg weight is 51.17oz daily gain avg is 1.04oz. Is this comparable to other peoples litters?

I have been doing basic math and figured that a litter needs to avg 1.50oz a day to hit the 5lb goal at eight weeks. I am thinking of keeping the largest doe who has the largest avg daily gain of 1.20oz for future breeder. Am I on the right track for breeding for growth?

I am going to also start feed records imediatley.I want to try and figure my feed conversion ratio for futre records. I am currently feeding free choice pellets. I am also considering adding calf mana to the pellets.

Do you think I am on the right track in my thought process?

Thanks

Dan

 

[MaggieJ]

Five pounds by eight weeks old is the commercial standard. I don't think too many home rabbitries manage to do reach it quite that quickly.

 

[DevonW]

Commercial standard for a fryer is a max of 5lbs or 12 weeks. Anything over 5lbs and 12 weeks is a roaster. It sounds like you are on the right track however free choice is not a good idea if you're processing for meat or interested in keeping does out of the litter for future breeding. As well if you're looking to get the best feed-meat ratio it's a very poor choice. A strict diet at gives the rabbit enough nutrients to support it's growth but not too much is the best route it's different for everyone and it takes some time to find the right amount but in the end it's worth it.

A friend and myself have done a few feeding experiments, and we found that free fed rabbits although have the faster weight growth rate also have an extremely high incident of messenteric fat (internal fat)which can lead to breeding problems later on in life especially for does. If a 12 week old rabbit has kidney's completely obliterated by fat, and it's starting to build up on it's other organs at 12 weeks can you imagine what it will look like on the inside by breeding age and how difficult it will be to get that doe to breed successfully? Not to mention free fed does and litters have a higher kit mortality rate due to increased risk of weanling enteritis. The scary thing is you have no idea that a rabbit has a lot of messenteric fat until you open it up, they can be perfectly healthy looking/feeling on the outside and be a mess on the inside.

The least amount of messenteric fat occurred in rabbits on a strict pellet by weight diet and 2 hay cubes daily and those fed a completely natural diet. With the pellet diet providing slightly faster growth rates then the natural diet.

Messenteric fat looks like this on the extreme level, anyone want to guess why this doe never produced a litter despite being bred every other month since the age of 6 months? :

 

[MaggieJ]

Devon is right on about internal fat. You don't want the fryers to be putting on fat, you want them to be making meat. Fryers raised on a natural diet have just a tiny bit of fat around the kidneys... maybe a tablespoon. But they do take considerably longer to reach five pounds.

 

[arachyd]

You also wouldn't want to do a daily weight to figure out how they are doing. Young rabbits have growth spurts and different litters may have different days when their growth spurts begin. I'd do a weekly or biweekly weighing to avoid misleading litter comparisons.

 

[iamdrglass]

Thank you all for the replys. I am just trying for a base line avg to help with future breeding stock choices.

As for doing daily weights I don't think my wife would like helping bring 14 rabbits to the kitchen counter just to get data for our future breakfast sausage.

Thanks keep the advice coming
Dan

 

[akane]

I thought 5lbs seemed like an impossible amount but handling champagnes today they were the size of my mini rexs so probably 4lbs at 8 weeks on grains and hay instead of rabbit pellets.

We've had almost no problems free feeding whether it's 18% kent family pellets, whole grain mix, or horse pellets and BOSS. There was almost no fat in the past 2 batches of butchered rabbits who were free fed. All my rabbits but one leave the sunflower seeds and other high fat items behind if they feel their needs are met unless they run out of all other food sources. When I first started free feeding the new rabbits would eat everything they could get and taught it to their offspring but after a month of realizing the food wasn't going anywhere all the adults and then all their future litters started regulating themselves and only eating what they needed. Now I fill a 5gallon chicken feeder and a 3 lb long bin feeder and let them have at it. The only exception is a mini rex doe who was an only kit and very well fed as a kit to the point we named her hippo bunny and she had trouble walking for a week after her eyes opened because she was so round with such thick legs. I blame her upbringing for her inability to regulate her own feed intake and her attraction to the highest fat items. I planned to breed her this month but she's spending the month in bunny boot camp (the big champagne doe is chasing her around the colony) and hopefully I can breed her end of july if it isn't too hot. I might bring her and Amako inside but I have to cut the 3x6' indoor cage down to two 30x36" to make it fit in the condo. All other rabbits are maintaining their condition by choosing which food items meet their needs on their own.