A Better Way to Raise Rabbits

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As it turned out, my fears proved groundless. I installed the 18 does, then the two bucks . . . and the animals had a field day! They were too busy romping around and having a good time to even consider quarreling. In short, my bunnies—at least—instantly adapted to their new "loafing barn" type home. (I suggest, however, that you watch yore animals for the first few hours they're together this way to make sure there's no fighting. Other rabbits may react differently than mine.)

One thing I soon noticed was that each doe had selected a box for her own and would run inside it whenever a stranger approached the building. (Whenever I walked into the building, though, the animals milled around my feet like a flock of chickens.) Since there were more rabbits than boxes, I decided to add extra crates until there was a 1:1 ratio between bunnies and hiding places. (I also piled several ammunition boxes and boards at one end of the house for the baby rabbits to hide in.)

At the end of four weeks, we noticed our first litter in one of the new boxes. Other litters followed quickly. The nest boxes seemed to be working out quite well: The pregnant does filled their crates with straw from the pile in the center of the floor and securely plugged the entrances to their nests with more straw and hay. I never disturbed these nests (or even checked for dead rabbits) until the little ones were at least a week old. All I did was pour a pail of feed (rabbit pellets mixed with cracked corn) and a pail of water into the troughs once a day and feed the bunnies alfalfa every other day. (In addition, I added straw to the pile in the center of the room about once every seven days.)

Within a few weeks, we noticed small bunnies coming to the troughs at feeding time. When spring finally arrived, we had 70 rabbits of frying size, smaller bunnies everywhere, and babies in most of the nest boxes. Our problem now was not keeping our rabbits warm . . . but keeping them from smothering each other!

To give the bunnies more room to run around, we decided to build them a large pen outside the rabbit house. We made the chicken-wire enclosure 20' long and 20' wide, and tall enough so that my six-foot husband could walk around in it without stooping over. (The top was covered with chicken wire to keep hawks, cats, and other varmints from making meals of our bunnies.) To ensure good drainage, I dug a 2' X 6' X 2'-deep trench in the center of the pen, filled it with gravel, and covered it with chicken wire. Then I spread two inches of concrete over the entire pen area, taking care to fill in the cracks around the posts and see that the chicken wire was embedded in the concrete.

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