Hello, and welcome back to the farm!
We attempted this year to be more proactive in our rabbit breeding program. The goal was to have 3 rounds of litters, with 2 bred does each round. We instead ended up with 3 litters total. We also have had no luck getting them harvested, because Mr. L’s work schedule has been utterly insane (3 jobs, weekend overnights, craziness). This means that we now have 21 rabbits on the ground that are headed for the freezer. I thought the oldest four were way overdue, but in checking my notes for this post I see they’re only 16 weeks, which is about when we try to harvest because that’s when the pelts are useable. Many people harvest meat rabbits at 12 weeks, but the skin is too thin and fragile at that age.
One of the problems we ran into this year is that we have one doe who just won’t get pregnant. She’s proven, she has had 2 litters for us, she still lifts and everything, but for over a year now we cannot get her pregnant. She is not overweight. She lifts. Just won’t take. And Mr. L is being a big softie and refuses to process her, so I won’t be able to peek inside to see what’s up until she passes of natural causes. We always try to breed 2 does at once, but we kept pairing her with another doe, so we kept ending up with only one litter.
I have to admit, I am looking forward to having fewer rabbits. I’m excited to go down to just feeding our keepers. Mr. L and I are going to do some enclosure revisions, including adding a roof overhang for more shade and to protect the feed from rain and snow, and replacing the bottom wire on several enclosures that have rusted out and broken. No rabbits have escaped yet, but that’s mostly because Lancelot is a big sweetie who loves to be loved and doesn’t overly care about roaming. We have had to use giant heavy rocks as obstacles to keep our grow-outs contained inside their tractor. They escaped a few times as little babies and now they have a taste for freedom!
Free roaming bunny that I found when I got home from work. Hadn’t even made it out of the car yet.
We do have some rabbits available if anyone local is looking to start up a program, but after this weekend and next weekend we will have far fewer! If you’re local and interested send me an email: info@honeybunnyhomestead.com Everyone else feel free to leave your comments below!
