r/MeatRabbitry

I just set up a new watering hose system for my rabbitry for the summer. I’ve been using bowls but I like the idea of them having water at all times in the heat because even giving water twice a day didn’t seem like enough. I’ll have to go back to bowls in the winter but my issue is my rabbits don’t understand the nipples it seems. I set it up last night and put a dab of peanut butter on each nipple so they’d check it out but this morning none of them have figured it out. What should I do?

How high do you put your j feeders? For does and grow out. I have tamuk

Measure 5x, cut wire once.

new rabbit, learned he has coccidia, do i dare try to heal him with toltra?

How do you keep your rabbits from chewing holes in the frozen bottles? I give them to my rabbits and they have chewed a hole in the bottles within minutes. Do you just have brand new ones to give them every day? Are you ever able to reuse a bottle?

Any recommendation?

You all provided some really great insights and feedback when I posted last month about my app designed for meat rabbitry. This was a pet project that turned into a bucket list item. Thanks to the mods for letting me post this here (yes I did ask permission). I'd like to find a way to give back to the community, so if theres any ideas, please let me know your thoughts.

The app is full of features now.

• Track your breeders (all their metrics update automatically as they produce kits and those kits either get processed, sold, or turned into pets/breeders).
  • Profit and expense tracking is built in if that's your thing too
• Breeding management is super easy. Pick a doe/buck combo, and the app will set reminders if you want/need them. After-kindle tracking is automatic. I wanted a tool to help me identify which doe/buck combos produced the best/biggest/healthiest litters. Those metrics get tracked per breeder/per litter if you want them to.
• Set goal weights and ages for your kits, built-in weight charts/graphics, really helpful if you process based on weights not dates.
• Robust expense tracking down to the litter, or just in general if you want to do that.
• If you sell processed or live rabbits, you can track that too, with printable receipts.
• Pretty cool note-taking feature too, where notes left anywhere in the app get consolidated in a notebook that you can manage.

Again, I created this as a project for me and it sort of spiraled into what it is today. Lifetime of gratitude to the folks here to messaged me and interacted with my thread, providing all sorts of useful feedback.

The app is free to try for a breeding cycle. I'd happily extend that for anyone here. Its $3 a month if you opted to pay long-term. I am now going to shift over to cost opitmization with the goal of making everything local to your phone so I don't have any costs, and can then make it free for everyone and just be ad-supported, or at least have that as an option. Love it or hate it, I am here for the feedback. I appreciate you all!

HareBnB.app

HareBnB on Google Play Store

Update 5/17: I am adding whitelabeling, so you can name the rabbitry and add your logo if you have one. Your info will appear on any exports, receipts etc after you establish that. I will work on expanding the pedigree (currently Family Tree) on your respective breeder windows. You should be prompted only on your next login to ask if you want to change the name/logo. If you want to do so in the future, access Settings in the hamburger menu top right.

Any recommendation?

Looking for advice!!

Obviously, breeds only improve with aggressive culling...and I would like to have a solid genetic foundation for my Fluffle.

That being said, I was really excited to get started with a new-to-me breed (after a very limited foray into rabbitry in 2021). Conformation-wise, the doe and buck that she was exposed to were both fairly high quality.

She is a first time mom, and did a decent job of fur pulling, but 2 of her kits died within the first 24 hours. A third died within 48 hours. One of the remaining 5 looks thin and puny while the 4 others are clearly eating well. If this 4th one dies, that is HALF of her kindle! That seems like an insane amount!

I know that some loss is to be expected, and I know that first timers are learning on the job...but this seems like a lot.

I have decided to do a bottle feeding with the puny kit to help it get SOMETHING at the very least. Hopefully with a little more vigor it can get some time at the nip!

I bred one of my does today. My question is should I breed my other now as well? This is everyone’s first go and it was successful today so would it be best for both to be bred so there’s hopefully at least one mom that can care for the kits if one isn’t a good mom? What’s everyone’s experience?

I recently got 4 New Zealand mest rabbits.
3 males and 1 female siblings.
I got them as a gift.
They are about 5 weeks old and are in the same hutch.
I know I will need to separe them soon.
Idk if I should buy another hutch or metal cages.
The Woden hutch I have they have bitten into the wood.
I want to raise them for meat. But idk which cage is better for the long term.
Please help.

Hello everyone,

I am brand new to meat rabbits, though I've been researching for a while. A Craigslist post for free meat rabbits put me over the edge today, and I took home two does with ten kits about four weeks old.

The guy I got them from had a bunch of bunnies all loose in the same area, and it didn't dawn on me until I got home that the does were almost certainly loose in the same area as the buck. I feel like it's inevitable that they are pregnant again, and probably pretty close to 28 days along.

What should I do to preserve the health of the current kits, the does, and the unborn litter on the way? Can I pull the does at 30ish days from their kits? They are eating food but not quite half the size of their mom.

Help me reddit, you're my only hope!

Doe: FlemishxLionhead -- Buck: New Zealand -- Kindle: 10kits, 8wks -- Location: SW Ohio, USA

For about 2-3 weeks, we've had Mom and kits in a tractor in our yard. They seemed to have been thriving on just grass and water. Very energetic. We played with them frequently. I have another tractor with 3mo kits, also thriving about 20ft away.

In the past 3 days, we've lost 8 suddenly. Day 1: we found 4 kits dead, 1 dying (listless, unable to to move except sudden jerking. Day 2: 1 dead, another dying (same symptoms) Day 3: One dying (same symptoms, survived for most of the day)

By Day 2, we pulled Doe and kits back into our inside cages but we still lost some. The remaining 2 seem fine as does mom.

I don't use any chemicals in our yard. The other tractor of kits seems perfectly fine and thriving. I did a necropsy to check the liver for signs of Coccidiosis but they livers had no blemishes at all. They're bladders were full, they're stomachs were full, didn't see any constipation.

I'm at a total loss what to do.

What do you recommend?

I am looking into building a cage system and I had an idea. Id like the doe to have access to one module of adequate size for kitting and two modules of equal size when the kits are reasonable and need more room and then the ability to divide them when time.

This seems like a good idea to me, it would allow them to acclimate to the space and the doe would still have hers and then some as things get snug. I have not kept rabbits in this capacity before (to breed, to eat) Id love advice on if this would be an okay design to try.