How Do You Know When a Rabbit Is Going to Have Babies
Chapter 8: The rabbit
Unit of measurement 66: Breeding and feeding rabbits
Unit of measurement 67: Health problems of rabbits
Unit of measurement 66: Breeding and feeding rabbits
Rabbits are easy to house, inexpensive to feed and produce a very adept quality meat.
One male rabbit (buck) and two females (does) given care and practiced feeding, will produce more than 50 rabbits a year. This means y'all can sell or consume almost one rabbit every week of the year.
Learning objectives
After studying this unit yous should know:
1 Breeding rabbits.
2 Care of young rabbits.
3 Housing (hutches) for rabbits.
4 Feed and h2o for rabbits.
5 Uses of rabbits.
Convenance rabbits
The female person rabbit (doe) does non come into estrus (oestrus) as do other animals. The doe will accept the male (buck) at whatsoever fourth dimension of the year.
Does are mature and can brood at five to 6 months of age and can continue to accept young for 4 years.
The length of pregnancy in the rabbit is 31 days and the doe can produce from 1 to 12 young each time she gives birth. She can get significant again inside a few days of giving nativity. Yet it is not practiced practice to allow the doe to go pregnant directly afterward giving birth. It is better to mate the doe when her immature (litter) are 4 weeks old and then that they are 8 weeks old when the adjacent litter is born. In this way one doe tin can produce 6 litters a year.
Two weeks after mating yous tin feel the immature through the side of the doe's belly.
Male person rabbit (buck)
Traditionally people keep all their rabbits together. However it is advisable to keep the buck split up from the does and do not go along bucks together as they will fight. The doe must be taken to the buck for mating and and so returned to her identify. A buck tin can be used until he is 7 years quondam. If you accept large numbers of rabbits together apply one buck with every fifteen does.
Giving birth and care of the young rabbit
The doe needs a nest in which to give birth. She volition line the nest with her fur. Do non check the young until the day after birth and practice not bear upon them with your paw. Utilise a stick to gently touch them when checking and remove whatever that are expressionless. They are blind until the eyes open at ten days of age.
Go out the immature rabbits with the mother. They tin be killed for meat from 3 months of age.
Sexing rabbits (knowing the sex)
Knowing what sexual activity the young rabbits are is important because yous may desire to go on the does and sell or kill the bucks. To sex young animals yous look at the area beneath the anus. In former bucks the scrotum can conspicuously be seen.
Sexing rabbits (knowing the sex)
Feeding rabbits
You can buy fix-mixed rabbit feed (pellets) fabricated from grain, plants, minerals and vitamins. However this may be expensive or not available. Rabbits can exist fed the post-obit:
· Vegetables such as carrots, sugar beet, manger beet, parsnip, swede, turnip, potato and other root vegetables· Greenish leaves
· Grains such equally oats, wheat, barley and maize
· Dry bread
· The waste skins or tops of vegetables from the kitchen
· Dry sunflower heads (the rabbit volition swallow the seed)
· Young branches from trees such as acacia
· Bran mash (bran is produced from the milling of wheat or rice)
Feeding during the dry season
Equally with other animals you must think virtually what to feed rabbits during the dry season. The post-obit can provide for dry flavour feeding:
· Hay, preferably from greenish leafy plants. Bind the plants into bundles and hang them to dry in the wind but avert putting them in the direct sun. This type of hay is preferable to that made from sun-stale grasses (come across Unit of measurement 23).· Carrots, beetroot, turnips and other root vegetables tin can be kept for a long time in dry sand in a bin, barrel or wooden box. Arrange the vegetables in layers separated by dry sand and embrace the summit with a layer of straw. Another mode to keep root vegetables is to place the vegetables in layers with straw between them. The whole pile is covered with straw and then globe. Get out a small hole at the acme for ventilation
Feeding during the dry season
Eating the droppings (faeces)
Rabbits produce both hard and soft droppings. It is natural for the rabbit to eat the soft droppings information technology produces because they incorporate nutrients and h2o. When the soft droppings laissez passer through the gut for a second time the nutrients and water tin can exist captivated (taken into the trunk). The droppings produced so volition be hard.
Water for rabbits
A supply of drinking water is necessary at all times. A suitable water drinker can be made from any plastic bottle. Make one or two holes in the bottom of the cleaned bottle, fill it with water and spiral on the pinnacle. Place this in a shallow container. This could be used for h2o for chickens too.
Water for rabbits
Housing rabbits
A small wooden house (hutch) will exist sufficient for a cadet. You can make hutches to contain more than than one rabbit. The hutch must be clean, dry out and well ventilated.
Remember that rabbits can be difficult to proceed in runs (fenced areas) as they will burrow down and under a contend and escape. They can be kept in enclosed areas if the fencing cloth is partly buried to finish them burrowing under it.
Housing rabbits
Nesting box
This is nothing more a cardboard or wooden box or even a basket. It is open up only at the top so the female parent cannot accept the immature out of the nest. The nest box should be lined with hay. By the time they are 3 weeks old the young volition come out of the nest themselves.
Nesting box
Uses of rabbits
Rabbit meat contains petty fat. It is white in colour and is very nutritious as it contains a lot of protein. Like a chicken, ane rabbit will provide enough meat for a family unit meal.
Some breeds of rabbit have long hair which is collected and spun to give wool for clothing. Rabbit skins can be stale and treated to requite good pelts (skins with fur) to be used in clothing and other uses.
Rabbit droppings brand excellent fertiliser. They contain more nutrients for plants than droppings from other animals and are useful fertiliser for growing vegetables.
Unit 67: Health issues of rabbits
It is better to preclude disease in rabbits rather than to accept to cure disease. Practiced feeding and clean housing will guarantee disease free rabbits.
Information technology is like shooting fish in a barrel to recognise a sick rabbit as:
· the centre will be dull
· the coat is crude
· there volition be diarrhoea
· information technology sits in a comer grinding its teeth
Taking the body temperature volition show if the rabbit is sick. The normal temperature of a rabbit is 39.three° C.
Learning objectives
After studying this unit you should know:
ane How to handle rabbits.
2 Ear issues in rabbits.
3 Issues with the teeth and toes in rabbits.
iv Problems caused past parasites.
Handling rabbits
To choice up a rabbit put one paw around the bottom of the ears to control the creature and hold the loose skin on the dorsum of the neck. Use the other paw to take the whole weight of the rabbit.
Treatment rabbits
Ear mange (ear canker)
This is a very common disease of the ear. Information technology is caused by mites, pocket-size parasites which burrow into the skin of the ear canal (inside ear).
The rabbit shakes its head from side to side and rubs its ears confronting the muzzle and walls. A yellowish white crust (thick layer) covers the ear culvert.
The easiest way to care for this infection is to put a few drops of oil (olive, sesame or sunflower) inside the ear and massage information technology. Repeat this every day until the status improves. If you have whatsoever pulverization for ticks and mites you tin mix a picayune with the oil and utilise it (run into R24 Addendum 1). Come across your veterinary officeholder if the affliction continues.
Cages and houses should exist kept clean. Launder your hands when you treat a rabbit and before you touch other animals.
Overgrown nails and teeth
The rabbit's nails grow continuously and can sometimes become overgrown. They can be clipped back using nail clippers or pliers. Do not cut besides close to the foot.
Rabbits have four front teeth in the upper jaw and two in the lower jaw. The teeth grow continuously but equally the animal eats they are worn downwards. Sometimes the lower and upper teeth do non come across when the oral cavity is shut. The teeth in this example do not article of clothing down. You volition demand to cut them with a wire cutter or a pair of pliers.
Overgrown nails and teeth
Problems caused by parasites
Rabbits endure from fleas which suck the claret and carry disease. Fleas lay their eggs in the cracks and holes in the walls of the housing. Rabbits can be treated with a dusting powder (come across R 15 Annex 1) confronting fleas and the housing should likewise be thoroughly cleaned and dusted.
Coccidia (very small parasites) in the liver and gut tin can be a trouble especially in animals nether 4 months one-time. They cause diarrhoea which may contain blood and animals lose weight and are pot-bellied. Coccidia can kill many rabbits.
The parasites alive in the droppings so hutches and cages should always be kept clean. I teaspoon (v ml) of iodine in five litres of drinking water can be used to assist prevent this disease. It should be given to the female rabbit before her young are born.
Rabbits can too suffer from diarrhoea, constipation, abscesses, mastitis and middle infections. Your veterinary officeholder can advise y'all well-nigh these problems in your rabbits.
Source: https://www.fao.org/3/t0690e/t0690e0a.htm
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