Homestead mailing list

[Bevanron <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Gene GeRue wrote:

> I also like that they are easier to clean than chickens.

That's an understatement!  Ron and I were talking about that very thing
last night as it had been a while since we actually had any rabbits to
butcher.  Rabbits, for one, are much faster to clean, especially for two
people.  They don't stink like the smell of wet feathers.  When you
clean a deer, you end up with the smell of deer blood on you that is
hard to wash off, but there is no such lingering smell with rabbits.

> Set-up costs? Pens, watering equipment, etc. I could build elevated 
> pens but suspect commercially built is substantially better. What 
> square footage per animal is optimal?

My cages were built by Klubertanz and they are suspended from the barn
rafters.  The does cages are 3x3, and the buck's cage as well as grow
out cages are 2x3.  (2 wide, 3 deep)  The cages are hung fairly high
because I am tall, and this also keeps down dog predation.  I would say
the bottom of the cage is a bit over 4 feet off the ground.

I got my cages and equipment from a lady (crazy lady-seriously) whose
house had burned and had to sell out.  You can go to Bass Equipment or
Klubertanz sites and price cages, add bells and whistles or whatnot, or
you can buy the wire and/or wood and build your own.  You can also
colony raise, something I might try in the near future should NAIS
become an issue.
Watering is the key chore, IMO.  We started out with bottles, which work
fine but are very time consuming because you have to keep the bottles
clean and bleach them to remove algae, etc.  then, I went to a PVC
line/nipple watering system operating off gravity fed from a 5 gallon
bucket.  I just filled up the buckets with a hose every day.
Last month, we ran a water line across the barn and installed a pressure
regulator to the PVC/nipple system.  It's wonderful.  No work, no
worries, and we should have done this YEARS ago.  I'll bet that having
this constant water source, 24/7, took 2 weeks off the time it takes to
get the rabbits to weight, because despite my best efforts, sometimes
the rabbit waterers would go empty.


Bev
--
erthnsky AT bellsouth.net  BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm      NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W