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The End of Pastured Rabbit

8/1/2012

32 Comments

 
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It's time to pull the plug on our nearly year-long experiment in producing pastured rabbit. In short, we just can't keep the little buggers in the rabbitats.

We based our design on a model promoted by Nature's Harmony Farm. The idea was to keep the bottom open so the rabbits could graze on grass but make the structural parts that touched the ground wide to discourage the rabbits from digging out. After raising rabbits back at our Shoreline house in suspended wire cages, I was keen on doing something different that could give them more space and allow them to forage for more of their food. Still, I was a bit leery of the design, and even phoned into the the Nature's Harmony podcast to ask about problems they experienced with rabbit escapes and rabbits getting soggy in our wet winters. Although they've taken their podcast section down, they assured me that escapes were not a serious problem if the shelters were moved frequently and that the rabbits wouldn't get soggy if they had a raised covered area. Lesson learned: I need to trust my instincts, because the rabbits preferred to sit on the grass even in the rain and got very soggy in the winter, at times so bad that I needed to bring them into the garage to let them dry off. And second: I had lots upon lots of escapes. I lost one doe to a predator after she escaped during the winter. A replacement buck we got early in 2012 confounded all our attempts to make a maximum security rabbitat, and he spent more time outside the shelter than in it. The last straw was found when all the young rabbits (did you know they are called kits?)  escaped not once, but twice in the space of a week. Trying to catch up 8 super speedy tiny rabbits is no fun. The problem is not that the rabbits are tunneling  out, but rather that they can squeeze through the tiniest gaps between the base of the rabbitat and the ground. Our ground is very uneven, so attempting to get a 8' by 4' wooden surface to lay flat against the ground was next to impossible. We tried plugging the gaps with stray boards, but they inevitably would still escape.

Some farms use shelters with slatted bottoms to keep the rabbits from escaping, but this significantly reduces their ability to graze, and would need to be very close together to keep in tiny 3 week old rabbits.

I haven't completely given up on rabbits, though. While I don't want to put them back in small suspended wire cages, I do want to put them in a protected, secure area. Thus, I've decided to try raising rabbits in a colony style in the brooder stall we used to raise the turkeys. In this setup, the buck, doe, and young rabbits all live together. They have lots of space and deep bedding to absorb their manure. Every day, I bring them fresh grass harvested with a small push lawn mower with a bag attachment.
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So far, they seem to be enjoying the setup, and I'm certainly enjoying not fretting over a bunch of escaped rabbits. Time will tell whether this is an acceptable solution, and if it's not, I may decide to give up keeping rabbits.
32 Comments
Jeremy
8/1/2012 11:03:32 am

I wonder how difficult (and maybe damaging to the soil?) it would be to dig the bases of the structures into the ground a little... I imagine you already considered it, but it seems pretty secure - just potentially a huge pain.

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Jeff
8/1/2012 02:41:33 pm

That is a good idea, and it would work, but it would be a major pain when moving the rabbitats everyday. It might be more efficient if I were to build a semi-permanent larger outdoor pen for the rabbits. Something to definitely keep in mind.

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Mark
10/28/2014 06:57:35 am

Maybe a grate kind of thing that could be pushed into the ground around the perimeter like an angle iron lip,

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Uncle Chuck
8/2/2012 06:39:48 am

Maybe a heavier base material, say 4 x 4.

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Eileen Matthai
8/10/2012 08:29:15 am

I too have had good and bad luck with rabbit tractors. Mine are similar to yours, except we used 2x2 framework, and the lid had tarp over 3/4 of it. They stay dry that way, plus I use a rubbermaid tub for a house inside the tractor. I've had escapees from uneven ground, some I found, some the dogs found. I am planning on making a couple with 2x4 wire on the bottom, I'll let you know how it works out.

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Jeff
8/10/2012 10:40:47 am

Glad to see that you have had some successes, Eileen. Thus far, I'm REALLY happy with my stall rabbit colony setup. The rabbits have more room than the rabbitats, plus they get to dig in the deep bedding. With a few minutes each day of mowing with the bagging lawnmower, my daily rabbit chores are about equivalent to what they were before. Best of all, no escapes!

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Guaraldi Family Farm
10/9/2017 06:18:32 am

that's what I was thinking, the grass would stick up through, but the animals cannot escape, maybe 1" hexagonal wire to keep in the kits? but i am not sure how much the grass would poke through that small of a hole if moved everyday. And, in the winter (assuming you are where winters halt ALL vegetative growth, you could move the tractor 10 times a day and they may still escape.

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Rose link
8/31/2012 01:11:33 am

We tried wire bottoms with 2" wire and we tried slatted bottoms. Neither were satisfactory, they just seemed to smash down the grass and the rabbits couldn't really get to it very well. And they still got out. We have one that we've not been able to catch and it has been out for about 8 months. We put them all back into large, suspended pens and we feed them rabbit pellets and greens we pick. Today we end the great rabbit experiment, and the last of them are going into the freezer.

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Jeff
8/31/2012 01:32:39 am

The only pasturing system that seems to be successful over the long term is the Salatin system--which requires that the kits get pretty old before they go out to the pens. I was never convinced that that system was worth it. Sorry to hear that you haven't had much success, but luckily there are still lots of other meat sources that are much easier to manage on pasture.

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Michelle T. Bernard link
9/11/2012 08:20:48 pm

We've been pasturing our rabbits all summer and plan to continue through the winter. We are in NC. We do have some escapes, but not too bad. Any that get out are quickly rounded up thanks to my Border Collie. I don't put kits on the ground until they are four to six weeks old. We feed a good bit of forage in addition to grass, making sure the rabbits have a ton of food in their tractors at night. That seems to prevent some digging. Also, different breeds seem to dig more than others.

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John
10/14/2012 05:22:26 pm

What's wrong with a soggy rabbit? I had three rabbits escape my cages last fall (2011). I would often see them out in the field behind my house in the drizzling rain. Once it snowed and froze (this is northern Utah) I continued to see their tracks all winter. Come spring, they were still coming around (to be near the other rabbits in my hanging outdoor cages). I caught them with live traps and noticed they were better looking that my caged rabbits. All winter long I never once left out water or food.

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Jeff
10/15/2012 12:39:16 pm

I think rabbits that have total free range can rely on their instinct to find shelter and/or dig burrows to get out of the elements. In the pasture pens, they just aren't smart enough to know what to do.

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squidpop
12/16/2012 06:58:37 pm

My rabbit digs great big holes 3 feet angled downward— then I have to fill it and reseed the dead patch. Shen never gets out though because she only digs down not up. My remedy is— I just bought 400 4 foot bamboo stakes and put them down on the lawn 1 1/2 2 inches apart. So far she has not dug a hole for 3 days. I kind of feel bad because she enjoyed digging.

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Kramer
1/7/2014 06:19:49 am

Have you seen how Joel Salatin at Polyface farm does this? He uses longitudinal wooden slats on the floor of the cage. This covers 30 to 50% of the floor surface but prevents escape and with moving them daily gives plenty of forage.

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Jeff
1/14/2014 03:07:47 am

Indeed I have. Note that he can only put growing rabbits on them for a short time (they have to be big enough to not slip through the slats) and he can't have breeders on them. He also only uses them for the summer months. I'd say that the system gives the rabbits some forage, but they need much more than the relatively small amount they can get through the slats each day (he still gives them plenty of pellets). Like many Saltinisms, the net benefit of the pasturing is to spread the manure around the pastures rather than to give them huge amounts of supplement.

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Nathanael
2/13/2014 10:07:17 am

I realize that this is from an older post, but I was just researching this issue again after reading up on other subjects and came upon your post and saw there was some recent activity so I though I'd comment. The new space you provide your rabbits looks nice! Here are my positive findings from our rabbit tractor experiences that I cut n pasted from my post over at the rabbit forum on permies.com. Cheers!

My friend and I decided when we moved "up North" this past summer to Ashland area in WI that we were going to raise rabbits for food, fur, and the learning process and found ourselves in the housing quandry also. I found some rabbit contacts in the area including an old friend who had been raising rabbits in a rabbit tractor with success. I ended up borrowing his tractor and eventually making a larger one to house more rabbits.

This tractor I designed has the cross section of a child's drawing of a house (think triangle on top of rectangle) and is about 8 feet long. One side is two plywood pieces (for wind/sun/rain screen depending on season) and the other is 3/8 inch hardware cloth. For the bottom I thought about slats but was worried about weasels entering under the gaps at each end. Consequently, I instead surrounded the whole perimeter of the floor with about 5 inches of hardware cloth and had overlapping 2x4 inch mesh wire which sits on the ground. This leaves a pasture of 7 feet by 3 feet for the mother and young housed therein. Hypothetically a weasel could burrow under the hardware cloth, but this hasn't happened yet...knock on wood. (our cats did kill a weasel near the rabbits though!) On one end we have a nest box measuring about 3x3 feet and a foot tall with a hinged door to the outside so we can look at the young as they grow in the nest.

This setup has worked remarkably well for us with no sickness (since starting in July) or any adult mortality issues. Pasture was not lacking on a friend's hayfield site, so we moved them around multiple times/day chasing the best mix of grass, clovers, and other good forage. We also fed the rabbits any "weeds" pulled from the garden and fed them about a cup/day of our sunflower seed/bread crumb/oat groat mix that we make up. Our original doe Nightshade kindled first in early August after living in these environs for the second half of her gestation. Nightshade raised nine healthy babies (she killed #10-the runt of the litter) all survivors of which grew with vigor. These young have never eaten pellets and besides the daily protein sunflower mix get all of their calories and nutrients from forage and household vegetable scraps. We routinely give brambles, willow, dandelions, catnip, wild strawberry leaves, lambsquarter, velvet leaf and a ton of other weeds and edge browse plants in season. This setup worked quite well, but we were a bit too slow to move the adolescent gang away from their mother which we learned the hard way when they smothered her next litter - a sad moment. Despite this loss, all of the young grew to a decent butchering weight in about 20 weeks. I know that this is slower than a pellet-fed rabbit, but considering their food is largely free, they are consuming a large amount of healthful and medicinal plants, and their organs and internal health during butchering all showed perfect signs of health, I have no complaints thus far.

Now that it's winter, we have the tractor stationary with a tarp around it and about 24 inches deep snow piled over the whole structure except the plywood doors which we keep bundled with blankets. We've also added several inches of straw which we routinely add to and clean out about every three weeks. This winter arrangement has worked well for the surviving rabbits (now four does including Nightshade) though we now need to begin separating them as one of our young does just kindled for the first time (!) and she and her seven little ones need some privacy! Happy news, but we again have a need for additional housing which we will temporarily meet via an XL dog carrier.

Here are a list of my thoughts on the success we've had:
1) Nightshade is a silver fox and her babies are 1/2 sf, 1/4 new zealand, 1/4 flemish giant - Silver foxes are known for doing well on pasture
2) Nightshade, although previously eating a diet high in pellets and corn, was also tractored getting pasture as more of a supplement before
3) We weaned Nightshade off her pellets over the course of a week or two substituting larger and larger portions of sunflower seeds and breadcrumbs before removing pellets all together
4) I believe that all animals need great diversity in their diets for optimal health - pasturing the rabbits on an the old hayfield was the easy solution
5) Using a large mesh floor works well for the rabbits to harvest their own food and still keeps them from burrowing out
6) The slanted roof over one half of the tractor as well as the enclosed nest box keeps the rabbits from getting wet in the rain - we had record rains this year

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Jon link
3/5/2014 06:35:12 am

Do you have any pictures of your set up? Thanks for posting.

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Jeff
3/5/2014 06:58:45 am

I should do a post on that soon. Right now I have them in modified cages with a "lounge and feed" area between each cage.

countrygirlfor HIM
5/7/2014 12:52:09 am

I am hoping to start raising pastured silver fox rabbits - starting out small with a breeding trio. I've read about many people doing it, but it seams that most find that it doesn't work long term. I was planning on supplementing the pasture rabbits with a mix of organic grains, quality hay, additional forage/garden scraps and possible alfalfa pellets. Keeping the rabbits on pasture most of the year rotating in tractors over extensive pasture, but bringing the does in to kindle and raise the kits until their weaned and also in the winter ( I live in PA). Has anyone had long-term success with a similar method? After reading many failure stories, I am beginning to wonder if it would be better to keep the breeding does off pasture all the time, feeding them with fresh cut forage, grains and hay and just finishing the fryers on pasture after their weaned. Any thoughts?

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Jeff
5/7/2014 05:22:23 am

I think the best tried and true method of pasturing is to keep the does and bucs in cages 100% of the time and put the kits out in pasture pens with slatted floors once they're weaned AND large enough to not be able to wiggle through the slats. It's a compromise over the original ideal. One of the biggest benefits is manure management because they're producing a large amount of manure at that point and it's a lot of work to keep the manure cleaned out when they're in cages.

Nathanael
5/7/2014 10:59:13 am

I think there are a several benefits of keeping the does with their young even after weaning and maintaining all on pasture. I've heard of kits dying early on when on pasture (a la Joel Salatin's son) but this has thankfully not been a problem for us. It may be a matter of scale or that we are lucky in terms of a nearby fox haven cleaned our area out of wild rabbits/disease carriers. You should probably exercise more caution if you notice an abundance of wild rabbits overlapping your rabbit pasture.

I think having the mothers with the kits on pasture early on plays an important role widely recognized with other breeds of self-sufficient livestock - that of teaching the young how and what to forage. For example, I have been feeding our rabbits A LOT of common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) because it is invasive and as a nitrogen fixer has a high nutrient load compared to other woody browse. The young we have in a tractor with their mommas have learned to relish this abundant food source whereas the young who we've separated haven't taken to it with the same excitement. This is observable in humans too, of course. Mimicry of mothers who've learned that a wide variety of plants are food will enable your young to fatten on a variety of wild foods which will keep your budget lower and your critters healthy. The biggest issue that I fear is when moving the tractor(s). The young may get their feet caught/broken, so you will have to be patient and/or scare them into their nest box as the curious little ones sometimes want to see what you're doing when you move them leading them into harms way. We've only just bought a buck this past winter as we borrowed a friend's bucks in the past, so it'll be interesting to get him on pasture - poor thing is very picky...a trait we hope not to pass on. Our grass is only an inch high or so here in N.Wisconsin. Can't wait to get them back on grass and clovers!

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countrygirlforHIM
5/8/2014 01:58:47 am

Thanks! We do have a lot of wild rabbits around here - I mean A LOT and I was wondering if that would hinder my pasturing attempts by introducing disease... As far as feeding/picky rabbits, I was thinking that if I kept my does in permanent hutches I would cut lots of forage for them daily, the same greens they would be eating if they were out on pasture. I was thinking this would eliminate the problem of picky kits. I really do want to raise ALL my rabbits on pasture - just hate to invest in quality breeding stock and have them get sick or die on me, which is why I was thinking a compromise situation at least at the beginning. Maybe moving my does to pasture if the fryers seem to do very well...
BTW, would it really be necessary to keep my buck off pasture as well as my does? Also, what style of grazing tractor do you use? I've seen a few different designs.

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Michael
1/14/2015 09:55:49 am

Single hotwire at the base.

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FireMed
4/2/2015 12:12:01 am

This is something I have been thinking about doing for a while, but haven't figured out how yet.
Nathanael, do you by any chance have pictures of the tractor you used for your rabbits? We are up in central BC, Canada so it would only work for half the year. For the rest I was planning on using Jeff's idea with the colony in our barn.

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Dustin
2/15/2017 05:46:02 pm

I made a tractor with 1" chicken wire on the bottom. The grass pokes through and they can't dig out.

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Gus link
5/6/2017 05:05:24 am

I just started a rabbit breeding business and I'm wondering if rabbit tractors make better rabbits to sell because I don't want them caged up their whole lives that would be cruel. I understand that tractors make better meat rabbits, but do they make happier bunnies to sell as pets?

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Julie Engel link
7/14/2017 05:38:00 pm

Raising rabbits on pasture is a challenge, for sure. I've been raising all my rabbits on only grass since 2008, and it has been a wild ride. If your are curious, check out the YouTube video above for a brief introduction to my system, coined The Coney Garth, or visit my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClCd0CoDAeo6rw1b55flZjw) for my presentation that I gave at the MOSES organic farming conference in Feb. of 2016. Thanks!

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Owen Godbold
12/20/2017 10:26:23 am

I haven't read all of the above posts, so this may have already been answered, so, just bear with me :). Seeing that raising forage raised rabbits are hard to raise, why not adopt the POLYFACE method? Daniel Salatin has been raising rabbits since forever. Advice from me? Check out Polyface's website on rabbits.

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carl
3/13/2018 01:27:15 pm

use a larger wire on the bottom move cage back and forth a little upon relocating to work the grass threw bottom

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Momo
11/6/2018 06:37:25 pm

if the issue was gaps between the tractor and the ground, hypothetically some 'slinky' material with a weighted bottom would work...I was thinking netting and just thought that it'd be easy for them to bite through, but if it required effort and there were other, more appetizing things to chew it might not happen? maybe even sandbags, though you'd want wheels since it'd be heavy...

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Sandra Banks
8/6/2020 11:26:58 am

Are the pature fed rabbits sweet like the ones fed alfalfa pellets? Maybe anyone will answer me.

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Title scared me
5/1/2022 12:47:46 pm

Wow! The title scared me at first as I am currently starting to pasture rabbits. I was delighted to discover that the only issue you had was stupidity. All of these problems have very easy fixes.

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