Our county fair is coming up soon and I will be trying to purchase some New Zealand Whites for family meat production. I read in Carla Emery's book about keeping them in a run to live comunally. She doesn't get very specific about it though. Does anyone have experience with this? She says record keeping for breeding is difficult using this method, so I am assuming the bucks are kept with the does. Is this correct? How many bucks can you keep per doe in that situation? She says the does made little burrows for nests. Does this mean no nest boxes are needed? I like the idea of them getting more exercise and not being kept in cages, but need more info about the specifics. Thanks, Denise.

-- Denise (jphammock@earthlink.net), June 28, 2000

Answers

Denise,

I'll tell you what I know. My mom kept rabbits togather in an INDOOR building (about 10' x 20') with a very sturdy floor, with piles of straw in the 3 corners not close to the door. She also put in 2 nest boxes to ever 3 does (some prefer this over tunnels or burrows), and kept 1 buck to every 4 does. (She had real problems keeping more than two bucks togather) She tried to always limit the qty of rabbits for breeding to 10 total. All stock for culling or eating was seperated into another fenced section in the barn (about 8' x 12' maybe) for liberal feeding as soon as they could eat and drink o.k. on there own. I think she kept straw with the feeding out rabbits too. The biggest problem was that any disease quickly ran through the herd, and many would die if the first animal was not isolated. You MUST closely check your animals if they are communal, even more so than individual cages. Buildup of waste requires frequent attention unless you have a large outdoor space. Good luck, I enjoy my bunnies.

-- Marty (mrs.puck@excite.com), June 28, 2000.

My answer may not apply to this type of situation, but I have three seperate rabbit runs, with about 25, 10, and 6 rabbits respectively. All our males are neutered. Un-neutered males will fight to the death, but the fixed males & the females are very compatible. The pair off into little couples and friend-groups, and there is no fighting. I definitely feel that the bunnies are happier this way, they are very social little animals & they seem to really enjoy being together. One thing I would strongly recommend is that you fence the bottom of your run, because they will dig out of it otherwise.

-- Shannon (Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary) (gratacres@aol.com), June 28, 2000.

I had three sisters living in a 4'x8' area with access to outside run, for four years. I would take them to the buck to be bred. They got along great, taking care of each others youngsters. At one time, there were 20 babies running around there. It was great until one doe got possesive of the nesting box area. There were 4 boxes in a row and she wouldn't let the others near. And since it was Easter, all the does were bred. It went downhill after that. I had to seperate them and after weaning, the does kept fighting and couldn't be put together again. Sorry, that was my experince.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), June 29, 2000.

keep in mind that rabbits are territorial. this is easy when they are accustomed to being together but be cautious at first about putting adult strangers together. i found it helps some if you put them in the new space all at the same time, new to all of the so that one has already got herself an established territory.

-- Novina in ND (lamb@stellarnet.com), June 30, 2000.

Hi, I wanted to mention too that a friend of mine always kept her rabbits in a big run. She would just throw the new one in and if it lived...I never liked that. The one problem she had was that sometimes a few does wanted to use the same nest and babies were unfortunately killed.

I tried reintroducing the does in a grass pen none of them had been in before. But fur still flew.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), June 30, 2000.