First Generation Replacement Doe # 1: 1st Litter

When my original breeding stock of Cinnamon doe gave birth to her first litter on the 18nth of August 2011, we kept 3 female from this first litter and raised them as replacement does. I call them  First Generation Replacement Doe # 1, Doe # 2 and Doe # 3. They were sired by the broken back Chinchilla buck so they are half Cinnamon and half Chinchilla breed. 

Anyway, Doe # 1 was mated with the black Chinchilla buck on  February 04,2012 at the age of 5 1/2 months old or just 2 weeks short of her 6- month birth date. She kindled on March 07, 2012 to her first litter of 6 healthy pups. Some of her kits took after their father's color which is glossy black. Sometimes, all we see in their cage are their shiny eyes especially when we go out just to check on them at night. We don't have electricity in the rabbitry yet but we plan on putting a light bulb in there soon especially during the rainy season so they will not be scared when there is a typhoon. On one side of the rabbitry is a translucent plastic sheet that brings in light inside the rabbitry even at night so that works just fine for now. Her cage is 2 1/2 feet wide by 3 feet long so there's ample space for her to roam around even if we put in a nest box inside. She occupies the lower bunk in the middle hutch inside the rabbitry which is bigger than the rest of the other hanging cages. These pictures below are her fist litter. 

First Generation Replacement Doe: Cinnamon Chinchilla Breed

New Zealand Doe Giving Birth

Just before bringing home the New Zealand doe that I bought from a neighbor, I dropped by Johnny's house as it was on my way home. Johnny is the original breeder in our village whom I bought my initial breeding stocks. I asked him if I could use his New Zealand breeding buck to be mated with my newly acquired New Zealand doe and he agreed. We made an agreement that once the doe gives birth, I will give him one young rabbit as payment for the use of his breeding stock. So we bred this rabbit on February 06,2012 and she gave birth to 8 healthy kits on March 09, 2012. Unfortunately, one of pups turned out to be a runt. It was so small and was not proportionate in size that we all pitied it. The runt did not live long and soon passed away after about a week and we had to bury it. So now we have only 7 all-white pups left among the litter. The pups do a lot of sleeping but once the doe jumps in the nest box to do her feeding, all you'd see are flying feet and squiggling bodies trying to get the plumpest teat for their mother's milk. So if you are a first-timer in raising rabbits and she gives birth, do not worry if you do not see the mother doe feeding her kits. She does the feeding mostly at night or in the afternoon and it only takes her about 10 minutes to feed them and then she gets out of the nest box again. Here are the pups in their nest box sleeping it away, they're 1 week old when this picture was taken. I hope you enjoy the pictures of these New Zealand kits.

New Comer: New Zealand Doe

When I first started having rabbits, I had 2 does of New Zealand breed but I lost them soon after for unknown reasons and I was devastated. I have always wanted to have some rabbits with red eyes. So when a neighbor who started raising rabbits ahead of me came to ask if I wanted to buy one of her New Zealand does, I readily agreed but asked if I could take a look at the rabbit first. She told me that she bought this rabbit from a pet shop when it was still small. Then she brought this doe to be mated with one of our neighbor's breeding buck and she kindled a litter but all the kits died. She thought that maybe what caused the death of the litter was the cold temperature because the doe gave birth during the rainy season. The reason why she is selling this doe is because she only wanted to maintain just 3 breeding does. She said that this doe has shown some aggressive behavior towards her whenever she tries to clean out the cage and she is kinda afraid of her. So when I went to visit her house to look at the rabbit, I noticed that they had a stray dog that is loose in their property. I pointed this out to her saying that the dog must be kept in a leash as this may be the cause of the stress in the rabbit which is why she is exhibiting an aggressive behavior towards her. So anyway, I paid 500.00 pesos for the rabbit and brought her home. So here is a picture of this New Zealand doe that is the latest addition to my rabbitry.

Pet Rabbit

 

Some children in our neighborhood likes to drop by our place after school just to see the rabbits and they usually end up buying a pet rabbit from us after badgering their parents endlessly. We make sure that before the rabbits leave our place, we give instructions to the new owners about feeding their pet rabbits the right kind of food so they will stay healthy. We also check first if the new owners have a cage or a hutch ready before we even release the rabbits to the them. Having a pet rabbit to take care of is a good way for the children to learn about taking responsibility. We normally dispose the baby rabbits when they are already 1 1/2 to 2 months old. Some customers prefers to buy the ready-to-breed female rabbit because they want to start breeding right away. The money that we get from the sale of these baby pet rabbits are used to buy their next sack of rabbit pellets. So the rabbits are more or less self-sufficient in this way because they pay for their own keep. We only provide them their vegetables for roughage and water of course. My one and only niece took these pictures of these baby rabbits. I think they're all cute, don't you think so?

 

Sleeping with its legs up in the air!

Advantages in Small Backyard Rabbitry

There are many advantages in having a small backyard rabbitry. One of them is that you could voice out your problems to them and they will not judge you. So if you happen to get into a fight with your hubby, or you lost in an argument, or you had a difference of opinion, just simply walk away and go into the rabbitry. There you can talk to the rabbits until you are blue in the face! Explain your side of the story and omit your hubby's side of the story of course and that should help to make you feel like the winner. 

Seriously, this small backyard rabbitry is just one of my hobbies. We used to be able to raise pigs in the backyard back then when there were only a couple of houses here in the village. Now that the city has grown so fast, the local government has made an ordinance banning the raising of pigs in the city. This is because of the smell and the noise that is associated with a piggery. So if you want to raise some animals in your backyard in the city, go into rabbitry. They don't take up too much space unlike other small ruminants. They can stay confined in a small space but it should be adequate for them of course. They can eat all your vegetable trimmings too, so they are economical to feed as well. If you have a lawn and you are lazy to mow the grass, just release them there and they will do the work for you. If you have shrubberies around the property and you don't know where to throw these, just give it to them and they will solve the problem for you for free, they will eat them all within a matter of minutes. They are that efficient you see. If you have a small garden in the backyard like me, then you need not buy or use those chemical fertilizers because you already got "Green Gold" from the rabbits waste pellets. You can also use the rabbit's waste directly in the garden without burning the plants because these are considered as cold fertilizer and the best thing is, it is organic fertilizer. They are also a good source of protein with their lean white meat which is healthier than other kinds of meat. As long as you keep and maintain the sanitation in the rabbitry, the neighbors have no reason to complain. Since rabbits are not noisy, they can be kept in the backyard and the neighbors will not even know that you are raising them because they are really quiet by nature. They will not demand attention but they will still receive attention gratefully. Here are some pictures of the beauties in my small backyard rabbitry.

Slaughtering Meat Rabbits

It has been awhile since I made a post about my rabbitry so I thought I will update you on what is going on now with my rabbits. Well, we've been breeding my initial stocks of one Cinnamon doe and one Chinchilla doe since August of last year. We've even slaughtered some 10 meat rabbits during Christmas time when it was time for them to go into the pot. Luckily, we got more males among the litters and these were fattened for table food while we kept the females as replacement does. We are raising meat rabbits after all and that is the purpose for going into this rabbitry, to learn to be self sufficient in producing our own food. We had no hesitation in slaughtering the meat rabbits knowing that what we fed them were healthy vegetation minus the growth hormones and antibiotics that are normally being used in big factories for growing chicken broilers. Please stop reading if you are squeamish about this subject, it is not for the faint of heart.  

  


We slaughtered the meat rabbits in the most humane way possible and it was done very quickly so as not to make them suffer. Using a 1-inch pipe metal rod about 1.5 feet in length as a tool in holding the rabbit's head on the ground and with both feet on both sides of the pipe, we give a quick pull of the hind legs to snap the rabbit's head. It only takes seconds and it is the most painless way to slaughter them. It is now time to cut off the head and the front paws. Then we tie the hind legs with a rope and hang the carcass upside down so the blood will drip down to the bucket underneath the carcass. Then we start cutting the skin around the hind legs but being careful not to cut the inner flesh, just the skin. Then with a sharp knife or scissors, make a slit from the anus going upwards to cut the skin on each hind legs to open them up. Make a slit also from the anus down to the belly and the neck. Then just pull down the whole skin and it would all come off in one piece and this is dropped into the bucket as well. Once the skin is all out of the way, then we make a slit in the flesh of the belly section to bring out all the intestines, the heart and everything else that has to come out. Then it's just to wash the flesh off and it's ready for cooking. My nephews can now do the slaughtering and it's easy peasy for them now that they know how to do it all by themselves. 

Sexing the Rabbits

In the pictures above, these are all Chinchilla male rabbits. When the rabbits are 2 months old, we check their sex organs and separate the males from the females. It's easy to differentiate the males from the females because the male organ protrudes when you open it while the female has a slit.  One reason for the segregation is that by the time that they reach 4 months old, there is a possibility of interbreeding among the siblings and we try to prevent that from happening. So all the males from the same litter are placed in one cage while the females are placed in another cage. Another reason for the segregation is to decongest them so they will have enough space to play inside their cages. They should be able to run around their cages for their exercise.

We usually put 3-4 males or females in one cage but they should all come from the same litter. We do not mix different breeds in one cage so we do not get confused about their lineage because we now have 3 different breeds such as the Chinchilla, Cinnamon and the latest which is the New Zealand. Some children in the neighborhood likes to buy their pet rabbits from us and it's easier for us to pinpoint the lineage of the rabbits so we do not give a pair of siblings to the same customer. In the pictures above, these are all female rabbits from the same mother. What we do before we sell the rabbits to the children in the neighborhood is to ask their parents first if they are amenable to their children having pet rabbits. We also see to it that they must have a cage or a hutch ready before we release the rabbits to them. This is to ensure that the rabbits will have a good home when they leave our place.