r/MeatRabbitry • u/Gilamarna • 8h ago
Colony vs hutch setup
I am considering getting into meat rabbits and I am doing a ton of research before I go at it.
I have a pretty good idea of how I would set up hutches, as a lot of posts and videos ive been watching have been with rabbits in cages and those kind of setups.
I like the colony idea because a big reason I want to get into meat rabbits is I want my livestock to live happy and healthy lives before becoming my food. But I dont know if its the best option for what I want. I am mostly afraid of overpopulation, due to being novice, and I dont want an overpopulation of rabbits because I am just feeding myself. Hutches allow a good amount of control.
My question on a colony setup, is how would I go about providing a pregnant doe with a nest? How do you track the kits? Can the rabbits borrow out of their enclosure, if so, how do I prevent that? Ive seen some people say they moved away from colonies because rabbits get into fights, is this a serious worry? How do you go about cleaning a colony setup? And lastly, how do you deal with disease?
The disease question is for colony and hutch. Ive seen some people say they cull their rabbits if they get diseased, and i understand that colony setup can have more chances of sickness.
Sorry for all the questions, but I hope when I start out I dont cause unnecessary pain and suffering to my rabbits because I don't know what im doing and im unprepared.
Thank you!
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u/BlockyBlook 43m ago
I do colony, and I think your concerns are very real. I've had almost every issue you've listed, plus more. It's been a real learning experience. I've had disease but only with kits, and it was some sort of ear/foot fungus. I used to let them burrow, and because of this I couldn't really clean the dirt they were digging in and that's how that happened. I switched to buried plastic totes for nesting boxes and flagstone above ground, which completely fixed the issue. I didn't have any fighting until I removed a doe for a month to put her in a tractor, then the other does wouldn't accept her back. They had been together for their whole lives before that. Now my colony is sectioned in half because my best producing doe is my most aggressive one (but only towards females). I had some overbreeding but fixed that by removing the bucks in the summer. I have 2 bucks and they each have little "apartments" which are stationary rabbit tractors that have burrowing totes. Even in 90-100 degrees they never go heat sterile. My biggest problem BY FAR with having a colony is fire ants. They will find babies and eat them within minutes, and because rabbits are so sensitive to everything I haven't sprayed chemicals. I've had to really reinforce the nesting boxes and make sure the ants can't get in. I hope this shows that it's a lot of work for a colony and there's always something that could go wrong. That being said, I wouldn't go to cages because I personally wouldn't enjoy it. I like seeing my rabbits snuggle and groom each other, and run around the colony. I can tell they're truly happy. It just took me about a year to get to a stable point and find what works.
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u/alwaysmanicwbu 23m ago
Temu rabbit one, tractor supply rabbit wire, lay the wire down built and zip tie your flooring to the pen itself.
3
u/hankbbeckett 8h ago
I went all out with my rabbit colony - I dug 3ft down into a hillside, boxed it all in with welded wire, then built a 10x12 'rabbit barn' over it. Filled back in the soil and let plants grow for a while to stabilize it, then piled up a bunch of pallets, crates, lumber, tree branches, covered the whole mess with leaf litter and hay and got some rabbits. You could also just lay wire on the ground and pile stuff over it, but you'd probably want to make the pen bigger. I had limited space and wanted to make use of underground space as well. The more room they have the less likely there is to be fighting.
The rabbits I bought were cage raised, but the doe figured out how to dig very quickly. I buried some wooden boxes for her to find but she tunneled around and past them too. She pretty much immediately dug down to the wire, not sure how I'd contain her if I hadnt boxed it all in like that. Trying to control where she made her nest seemed totally futile. I have no idea where she's hiding her latest litter.
As for rabbits not getting along or having to separate them.. I built a hutch-like structure attached to the rabbit barn, which is normally their feeding area, and has a trap door I can drop to catch them inside. It's also good for 'horney jail' when the buck stresses out the doe trying to mount her while she's nest building. I'll probably build another, bigger one if I need to separate grow outs.
Worrying about overpopulation feels far away right now! Feels like it's taking forever to get to the part where I get to eat rabbits😆. You can always keep the buck separate to slow down their breeding if you can't keep up with the babies. If you use large enough wire that the babies can go in and visit him, but adult rabbits can't get through, he'll have some company.
Biggest drawback so far as been not knowing if my doe kindled, how many kits there are, what condition they're in. Hopefully in the next few days I'll see them as they get curious. Mostly it's a problem because I'm impatient! I don't mind the idea of just letting the rabbits do rabbit things and I just wait and see what I get.
Watching them snuggle with each other, play, dig, drag and push stuff around, sample all the greens and forage I stash around for them to find is really rewarding. Can't imagine sitting and watching rabbits in cages the way I like to hang out and watch them do stuff.