Rabbit's Drinking Bottle, Feeding Cups

This is a medium size drinking bottle that I give to the bucks. It has a drinking nozzle at the end and the rabbits learned that if they lick on the nipple, water will come out and they can suck it up. It's a sanitary way of giving them clean water.  The bottle is attached to the side of the walls by a piece of string and the height is adjusted according to the size of the rabbits.

This is a large drinking water bottle that I give to the pregnant does. Knowing that the does are pregnant, I bought a large drinking water bottle for them so they could share it with their litters. It is also kept in place by an adjustable spring wire.We clean out all the bottles and the feeding bowls with Zonrox to disinfect them.

This is a stainless steel bowl that I use as a feeding cup for the rabbits. It can be easily hooked up by its holder on the wall of the cage at any height and it is detachable. It is easy to just lift up the cup from its holder and the holder will remain hooked on the walls. Initially, I bought several plastic feeding cups with a wide base at the bottom but the rabbits would sometimes tip the cups over together with the feeds. So when I found these stainless steel cups in a pet shop, I bought some of them.

This is another hard plastic feeder that I use with the does. It has a screw outside the cage and the cup is detachable from its base. Just turn the cup a little bit and it would come out from its base while the base remains screwed on the wall. I like this best because it is sturdy and they could not tip it over. I actually ordered 10 pieces of these feeding cups at ACE Hardware store at SM mall here in Baguio as that is where I bought the two that I am using now. I placed my order in sometime in May and the saleslady who assisted me said that it would take two weeks at most so I said okay. June, July and now it is August and my order is yet to come. I kept following it up with the saleslady every time that we go to the store to buy something but she always tells me the same thing, that nothing has arrived yet although she already placed my order. Maybe one of these days I will eventually get it.

Rabbit Manure Worm Bin

Behind the door in the rabbitry is a black plastic compost bin with a white cover. This is where we put the strained rabbit manure. Once it is half way full, we put the earthworms inside and continue to fill it up until it is 3/4th full then we take the bin out and put a new plastic bin in its place.

The manure bin in the picture above is almost full but not quite yet.  Around the four sides near the top, we drilled many small holes to serve as ventilation for the earthworms. We also drilled many small holes on the white cover for additional ventilation purposes. I cut up some old newspapers and soaked these in a bucket with water for a few minutes. Then I squeezed out the excess water and spread the newspapers at the bottom of the box to serve as lining. Then everyday, we put the strained rabbit manure in the box. We used a black plastic box for composting the rabbit manure because the earthworms thrives best in darkness.    

The pink strainer (not shown in picture) is just on the left side but it is near the worm bin. This is why we placed the worm bin under the window behind the doorway as it is easy for us to take the drained manure and flip over the contents into the worm bin in one smooth single flow. It simplifies the work of emptying the pink strainer with the manure.

Cleaning the Rabbitry

By extending 2 feet of the suspended cages towards the chicken coop, this allowed us to have a 3-feet walkway between the left wall cages and the middle cages as seen in the picture above. The red stool in the middle is used by yours truly because I am a short woman and this helps me to reach for any rabbits at the upper levels. Underneath the left wall cages are several plastic containers, this is where we keep the rabbit pellets. The 1-litter bottles on the floor are filled with water and this is what we use when we clean the linoleum floor under the cages. A stick broom and a dustpan is also on the floor near the bottles.

These are the cleaning utensils that we use in the rabbitry which includes a sponge, a hand towel, a hair brush for grooming the rabbit's hairs, 3 different kinds of brushes, a scraper and a handy blue torch with a small can of propane gas that we use to burn off the stray hairs that often clings on the wire walls. This is an easy way of cleaning the all-wire cages of hair and parasites by burning them with a handy blue torch.  

   

Since the floor under the cages were made to slant to a certain degree at an angle, this allows the free flow of urine and manure to fall into the linoleum and down to the half cut orange PVC pipes which serves as gutters as shown in the picture above. These orange gutters are then inserted into the cut that was made on the black PVC pipe. The upright black PVC pipe is another scrap material that we have kept in the old pigsty over the years knowing that it would come in handy someday and it did.  

This shot was taken from the doorway of the rabbitry showing the back of the upright black PVC pipe that is tied with a wire on the steel frame. This black PVC pipe is where the urine and the manure drains and these are deposited into the plastic at the bottom. The plastic at the bottom is actually a 1-galloon plastic water bottle and we just cut off the top part so this serves as a wastes bucket.   

The bucket that contains urine, manure and cleaning water is then poured into this pink plastic strainer with another 1-gallon plastic water bottle at the bottom. We cut off the bottom part of this plastic bottle and turned it upside down and the mouth of the bottle is then inserted into a 2-inch diameter hole on the floor. This hole on the floor has a 2 inches PVC pipe that is buried into the concrete floor and this is where the waste water and urine is drained. So only the manure is left into the pink strainer and once it is dry, we put them into a bin with a cover.

   

Rabbit Breeding

These two does of Chinchilla mix breed are the only surviving does that are left in my breeding stock after I lost two New Zealand does. I had these  two remaining does mated with the Cinnamon/Chinchilla mix breed buck at the same time around 9 AM of July 18, 2011. I first took one doe and brought it to the buck's cage. What happened next was very funny because it was the doe that was mounting the buck! She was really ready for mating and she kept chasing and mounting the buck who was getting away from her. After a few minutes, the buck started to smell the doe and was going around her in circles. Then all of a sudden he mounted the doe and then fell over on his back! It happened so fast I don't think it even lasted for a few seconds. We were all watching this mating episode out of curiosity because this is our first time to breed our rabbits. After the buck has rested for a few minutes, the does started to mount the buck again. So we let the buck do his job twice and then we took off the doe and put her back in her cage. Then we got the other doe and put it inside the bucks cage. She just went running around while the buck was trying to get near her. After a few minutes of "getting to know you" scenario, the buck finally mounted her but we were not sure if it really went through. She wasn't cooperating as the other doe. Finally, we took her out and put her back in her cage to calm her down.

 After 8 hours, we put back the first doe in the buck's cage again for the second time just to make sure that the doe is impregnated. The buck did a good job and we took out the doe back to her own cage. Then we put the second doe in the bucks cage to do the same thing but it seemed that it was not working. Since it was getting late and I had to start my cooking, so we decided to let the doe stay with the buck for the night. When we went inside the rabbitry the next morning, she seemed calm and satisfied because she was laying with her body stretched to its full length. So we took her out and put her back in her own cage. It has been 15 days since we had the does mated and I am afraid of palpating the does just in case I make a mistake. Their tummies are getting big anyway so that should be a good sign that they are pregnant.    

The picture above shows the two bucks that we currently have. I used the white and brown spotted buck to mate with the two does. He was born on December 15, 2011 so he is now 7 months and 3 days old and this is his first time to be used for breeding. He is a mix breed of Cinnamon and Chinchilla. The black buck is a mix breed of Chinchilla and New Zealand and he will be 7 months old by August 02, 2011.

None of these rabbits are brothers or sisters because I personally picked them from different does who have given birth all at the same time. The breeder who happens to be my neighbor has 12 breeding does and several replacement does and bucks in his rabbitry. My plan is to use the black buck to mate with the two Chinchilla does after they give birth to their first litter. I am hoping that I will have some litters from the two does by the 18-19 of August. By that time, the black buck would be 9 months old and the two does would have had 2 weeks of rest after weaning their litters. I plan on weaning their litters at 1 month and two weeks old so the does will have at least two weeks of rest before being mated again.