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Your Backyard Bunnies

GRIT readers share their rabbit-related visual perspectives on GRIT See You, our free photo-sharing website.

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ID That Bunny

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Raising Rabbits for Meat and Breeding Stock

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Historic Meat Rabbit Breeds

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Eating Animals You Raise: Separating Pets From Meat

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: FOTOLIA/FLOWERSTOCK

Test your rabbit knowledge with a simple photograph identification game.

These multipurpose lagomorphs require little and yield lots; an ideal quality that supports raising rabbits for meat.

Find the perfect meat rabbits for your patch of paradise.

While some of us prefer to think that our meat grows on trees, anyone who raises animals on a farm eventually has to face the facts: Species eat other species ‒ and that includes us.

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A Rabbit Primer

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DIY Rabbit Homes and Equipment

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Hay For the Hutch

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Cooking With Rabbit

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Farm-Kitchen Tradition

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The Rabbit House

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Bunny Love

Get over the ‘Easter bunny syndrome’ and into raising rabbits as bona fide livestock.

Your rabbitry dreams move from concept to reality with these rabbit housing plans.

Make tons of rabbit feed the easy way.

Broaden your meat horizons with healthful, domestic rabbit.

A few choice rabbit recipes from our archives.

If you’re more of a ‘hands-off ’ type of animal husband, keeping rabbits all together in a colony – rather than individual cages – may appeal to you.

Pet rabbits have a way of stealing hearts and minds, turning their owners into enthusiastic and dedicated fanciers.

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Rabbits in the Garden

What do I do?

Ban Bunnies From Your Vegetable Patch

Build this safe, simple and humane trap to keep uninvited critters out of your garden.

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Professional Rabbitry

If you’ve considered making the leap from hobby to business, read this advice from a professional conservation breeder.

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How to Tan Rabbit Hides

Don’t let any part of your animals go to waste. Make beautiful, hand-sewn items from tanned rabbit hides.

On to the Rabbit Shows!

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An excerpt from Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits provides information for those wanting to show off their bunnies.

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Rabbit Facts That Will Pique Your Interest

These hopping specialists have been around for millions of years, and it doesn’t look like they’re leaving anytime soon.

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Must Love Rabbits

If you’re fond of rabbits, you’ll love these delightful, intelligent books that feature rabbits as their main characters.

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Jimmy Carter and the Marsh Rabbit

‘Experts’ don’t always have the answer.

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Recommended Resources

Everything you’ll need to raise the best bunnies for whatever

reason you choose.

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ted into a mounting or an automatic watering valve. Modern rabbit keeping leans toward opening the cage as infrequently as possible. To this end, feeders and waterers are usually designed so they can be refilled from the outside. These types of feeders and waterers create the least amount of waste and keep things as sanitary as possible.

2 by 21⁄2 feet (5 square feet). The cost of hutch building can be greatly reduced, though, if the nest boxes are attached to the doe’s cage to leave the floor space completely available to the mother and the six to eight young that

will be sharing her quarters for several weeks. (See “DIY Rabbit Homes and Equipment” on Page 34 for specific building plans.)

Each hutch will need a feeder for pellets and either a water crock fit-

The only other piece of furnishing needed for the hutch is a nesting box at kindling time. The nest should be 18 inches long by 10 inches wide by 10 inches tall (for giant breeds, increase that to 24 inches long by 15 inches wide), made of plywood or welded wire, with an opening at one end large enough for the doe to enter.

Make sure the box will fit through the hutch door.

Nest boxes can be covered or uncovered, but if covered, be careful to choose bedding that will stay dry. You could even use an old wooden apple or wine crate for a nest box if the measurements are correct. Place the

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Feeding

Don’t ever feed greens (lettuce, carrots, rutabaga, sweet potato, turnip greens, etc.) to young rabbits. Greens can give them diarrhea and even cause death. A good rule of thumb is to only feed fresh greens to the breeding does and bucks.

1 pound whole oats 1 pound wheat 1 ⁄2 pound crushed corn 1 pound soybean meal in pellet form (If you’re mixing it up for nursing does, increase the soybean meal to 21⁄2 pounds per batch.)

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(4)/ANDRE HELBIG, ALEXANDRU IONESCU, SILVIA JANSEN, CLAUDIA STEININGER

Rules and Regs Before you build any pens, hutches or coops, it’s always a good idea to check local restrictions and laws regarding the types and number of animals that may be kept in your locale. In many wellpopulated areas, such regulations are very specific, limiting the number of animals per household and requiring that shelters be placed a specified distance from adjacent property lines. Save yourself annoyance and extra work by checking the rules before you build or buy.

Of course, even if there are no detailed livestock laws where you live, you should strive to keep noise, odors and flies from becoming nuisances to your neighbors.

Indeed, if you live in an area where backyards tend to be small, you’ll pretty much have to make your prospective project’s effects on others a prime consideration when choosing your homestead critters.

— Randy Kidd, DVM

Greens Not Always Good

Like all animals, rabbits need a balanced diet of high-quality, nourishing food. This feed usually consists of pellets and grain, protein supplement, hay, green fodder, and water.

Commercial pellets provide a nutritious diet with good, predictable results. It’s also easy to measure out pellets and determine how much the animals need. But be sure you follow instructions carefully. If you are just beginning with rabbits, it’s advised to stick with commercial pellets, particularly the lower-protein varieties.

If you want to make your own grain mix for the trough, try the following basic recipe:

The Nest

Moseying on up to the lunch counter.

nesting box, lined with straw, in the doe’s hutch 25 days after mating.

The grain mix should be constantly available for a nursing doe. Ladle out only about as much as young stock, non-nursing does or bucks will clean up in half an hour.

Alfalfa, clover, lespedeza, oat, timothy and vetch all make good rabbit hay.

Make sure the hay you feed is finestemmed, well-cured, free from mold, and cut into short lengths. (For more on this, see “Hay for the Hutch” on Page 41.)

Each rabbit’s cage should be kept stocked with clover or alfalfa hay for roughage, and supplemented occasionally with fresh greens. Although the animals will thrive on pellets, greens are rabbits’ natural diet, and care should be taken that they get some. Cabbage, carrots, lettuce and garden trimmings are all eaten with gusto. Keep in mind that, whereas the hay should be there for the taking, a rabbit should not be given more fresh greens than it will

Social problems seem to go away when rabbits have plenty of space and comfortable housing.

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Indoors or Out

DIY RABBIT HOMES and EQUIPMENT Your rabbitry dreams move from concept to reality with these rabbit housing plans.

t’s an incident I’ll surely remember for as long as we garden. One day last summer, I walked out to the backyard — either heading out to feed the hens or towards the garden for an early-afternoon watering, I don’t remember which — and something caught my eye in our lettuce patch.

One of the neighborhood rabbits, belly apparently as full as could be, lay there, passed out amongst the greens. As I got close, he came to, struggled to his

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Illustrations by NATE SKOW

feet like an overweight hobo waking up to catch a train, and — looking more like a tortoise than a hare — ambled off, leaving behind a barren patch of greens and garden soil that my sweat had fallen upon during early season preparation.

In the moments that followed, I started thinking about rabbit traps and bunny recipes.

Then, a funny thing happened while cruising the pages of this book and seeing the efficiency and logic in raising

rabbits in small spaces: I began entertaining the idea of having my own backyard rabbitry.

Be it chickens, bees, pigs or rabbits, the first step towards keeping any type of backyard animal is looking at the required housing and equipment. When it comes to raising rabbits in your backyard, multiple options lend themselves to creatively deciding which type of structure will provide your rabbits the highest quality of life.

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By CALEB D. REGAN

The first major decision is whether your rabbitry — or really, your location and space — is better suited to keeping rabbits inside or out. These critters are most comfortable at 50 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit, although they can withstand temperatures well below freezing and higher than 100, if their cages — the place where they will most likely spend nearly all of their time — are set up to make conditions most optimal.

In really hot climates, a good rabbit husband has to make the most of airflow, so a garage or indoor setting probably isn’t ideal unless the ventilation is great and you can cool the space. In any indoor operation, for that matter, excellent air ventilation is a must.

By the same token, in an outdoor setting owners need to provide shade so that a hot July sun isn’t beating down on a doe or buck all day long. Airflow must be maximized by placing a cage in an open area, so the wind can help cool the animals.

In cold climates, an outdoor cage is still an option, just pay close attention to ways to make life easier on that rabbit.

Giving access to winter sunshine with a wire ceiling, attaching plastic sheeting around three sides of the cage to protect against strong winds or precipitation in the worst conditions, and designing a secure roof that will keep rain and snow out are three simple ideas to make your structure work the best for your animals in the cold; just like using fans, attaching misting fans to garden hoses, and filling plastic jugs with water and freezing them to place in the cages can help during the heat of summer.

In short, any type of shelter will provide a layer of protection from two things: predators and the elements.

Since indoor cages require a significant amount of space, most small operations at least start out with outdoor housing structures.

In my part of Kansas, we often see winter temperatures as low as 9 below zero and as high as 112 during the summer. To keep rabbits here, we need a housing structure that can run the gamut as far as optimiz-

Another option is a movable rabbit tractor that will provide your rabbits access to fresh grass.

ing the comfort of rabbits in extreme conditions.

Read on and learn about do-it-yourself plans for a conventional wire rabbit cage, a hutch frame for protecting outdoor rabbits from predators and the elements, a rabbit shed, the best nest box, and a plan for employing an automaticvalve waterer.

Wire Cages

When it comes to cages, you have two options: wooden or wire. Eric Rapp, rabbit farmer and owner of Rare Hare Barn, which supplies rabbit meat to local restaurants in Kansas, recommends wire, without question.

“Pens made of wood look nice, but rabbits will chew them up in less than a year,” Eric says. “The type of wire used in the making of pens is important. Some people will use cheap wire that is rough

and light gauged. These types of materials will cause sores on the feet.”

Besides the damage a rabbit can do to a wooden hutch, consider that wooden frames get soaked with urine and become a breeding ground for parasites and disease.

Before getting too far, let’s consider what a rabbit needs to stay healthy.

Cleanliness, light, ventilation, protection from extreme heat and cold, dryness, and enough room to rear a family, although domestic rabbits aren’t suited to hopping great distances like their wild cousins.

And secondly, what do you, the steward, need in a hutch? Easy access for the handler — for cleaning, feeding, watering, handling and observation — is important, as is being unescapable, durable, affordable, and adaptable to both indoor and outdoor use in case anything changes.

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take both the low temperatures and the change of homes.

As it turned out, my fears proved groundless. I installed the 18 does, then the two bucks — and the animals had a field day. They were too busy romping around and having a good time to even consider quarreling. In short, my bunnies instantly adapted to their new “loafing barn” type home. (I suggest, however, that you watch your animals for the first few hours they’re together this way to make sure there’s no fighting. Other rabbits may react differently than mine.)

One thing I soon noticed was that each doe had selected a box for her own and would run inside it whenever a stranger approached the building.

(Whenever I walked into the building, though, the animals milled around my feet like a flock of chickens.) Since there were more rabbits than boxes, I decided to add extra crates until there was a 1:1 ratio between bunnies and hiding places. (I also piled several ammunition boxes and boards at one end of the house for the babies to hide in.)

that with this method of rabbit raising, record-keeping is nearly impossible.)

Our problem now was not keeping our rabbits warm, but keeping them from smothering each other.

Our rabbits were so prolific that we sometimes found it necessary to restrict breeding temporarily. We did this by partitioning off a corner in the pen, placing two old ammunition boxes in that corner for shelter, and retiring the bucks to separate compartments for 30 days or so.

Every four or five months we had to clean the rabbit house. This, however, was a simple matter: We just pushed the wheelbarrow right into the pen, loaded it up with old litter (straw mixed with manure and alfalfa stems) from the floor of the building, and carted the load to the compost pile. Afterwards, I took care to place the boxes that had babies in them back in the same spots where they’d been before.

The Rabbit Run

The Circle of Manure Mixing rabbit manure with chicken manure makes for a perfect fertilizer. Rabbit manure used as a soil amendment is even higher in nitrogen than some poultry manures, and it also contains a large amount of phosphorus, which is important for flower and fruit formation. It has an N-P-K ratio of 2.4-1.4-0.6. Also, rabbit manure, after it has composted, makes a great food for my worms, which in turn feed the chickens and the fish.

— Modern Day Redneck, GRIT blogger

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Provide plenty of boxes for your rabbits inside their house, because rabbits hide when they get scared or are unsure of something.

At the end of four weeks, we noticed our first litter in one of the new boxes. Other litters followed quickly.

The nest boxes seemed to be working out quite well: The pregnant does filled their crates with straw from the pile in the center of the floor, and securely plugged the entrances to their nests with more straw and hay. I never disturbed these nests (or even checked for dead rabbits) until the little ones were at least a week old. All I did was pour a pail of feed (rabbit pellets mixed with cracked corn) and a pail of water into the troughs once a day and feed the bunnies alfalfa every other day. In addition, I added straw to the pile in the center of the room about every seven days.

Within a few weeks, we noticed small bunnies coming to the troughs at feeding time. When spring finally arrived, we had 70 rabbits of frying size, smaller bunnies everywhere, and babies in most of the nest boxes. (Keep in mind

(3)/JULIJA SAPIC, DERRICK NEILL, MISSAN; RYAN MCVAY/PHOTODISC/THINKSTOCK

Breeding and Chores

To give the bunnies more room to run around, we decided to build them a large pen outside the rabbit house.

We made the chicken-wire enclosure 20 by 20 feet, and tall enough so that my 6-foot-tall husband could walk around in it without stooping over.

(The top was covered with chicken wire to keep hawks, cats and other varmints from making meals of our bunnies.) To ensure good drainage, I dug a 2-by-6-by-2-inch-deep trench in the center of the pen, filled it with gravel, and covered it with chicken wire. Then I spread two inches of concrete over the entire pen area, taking care to fill in the cracks around the posts and see that the chicken wire was embedded in the concrete.

The rabbits loved their new run. Left to themselves, they played outdoors throughout the night and early morning (weather permitting), then slept in the rabbit house during the day.

That first year, we ate rabbits all summer, sold great numbers of bunnies, and put 65 fryers in the deep freeze.

Our rabbits not only bred more vigorously in their “dormitory” than they

It’s important to clean your rabbit houses every few months.

did in cages, but they seemed healthier and happier, too. And my workload was cut by a good 80 percent or more.

After raising rabbits this way for more than five years now, I’m convinced it’s the only way to go. If you’re tired of

cooping your bunnies up in cages, why not try the rabbit house method yourself? All you need is a small building and enough hay, straw or alfalfa to keep the animals occupied. The rabbits will do the rest!

Ease of Collection: Colony vs. Hutch The most obvious drawback to the “colony” style of raising rabbits is that there’s no easy way to collect the rabbit droppings, which can be applied directly to garden plants without composting (this fertilizer being a potential source of income). Rabbit manure won’t burn plants or cause illness to those who eat the resulting vegetables grown in rabbitfertilized gardens. With wire cages, the droppings readily fall to the ground below, or onto a pull-out tray, for easy collection. However, the spent litter that Thompson collects every four or five months — straw mixed with manure and alfalfa stems — would make an excellent mulch for the garden any time.

A particularly good practice would be to spread it on your garden in late fall, let it break down all winter, then till under in spring for a good start to the growing season.

— Karen K. Will

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sealing their fate. It was kind of passive aggression.

It left open for them a small window of hope. Maybe they would reconnect with their mother. Maybe they would manage to make it on their own. Or maybe not.

But I felt that it was the best I could do for them at the time. I sure didn’t want them in my garden.

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About a month later, I was outside in my pajamas early one morning, hacking down my rye with a shovel, and getting pretty doggone good at it, thank you very much. I was almost finished and was near the fence, when I did my step-hack sequence and was startled by the tell-tale scream of a rabbit. At least I was pretty sure it was a rabbit. I couldn’t see the source of the noise. But I had a pet rabbit many eons ago when I was a child, and I remember the time he got loose in the

backyard and we had to catch him.

I’ll never forget that scream he let out when we finally made a successful grab. And then there was the time at band camp when my best friend started marking time at the drum major’s signal, and found that unbeknownst to her she was standing on a rabbit’s nest. You can imagine the screams — the rabbits and the teenagers — and the ensuing hysteria.

So even though it flitted across my mind that I might have unwittingly

Who’s Raiding Your Garden?

To determine what type of varmint is eating the fruits of your labor, you’ll need to observe the signs left behind.

Animal

Habits and Damage

Fence Requirements

Deer

Most active at night. Young plants are often pulled from the ground. Tracks may be evident.

Loves beans and eats many other crops. Dogs can provide some deterrence.

Two fences, 3 feet apart, creating a confusing 3-D barrier. Poly fencing 8 feet tall can go inside a lower fence, or you can use 3 strands of electric fencing, with 2 for the inner fence and 1 for the outer fence.

Gophers

Active day or night, creating an extensive network of tunnels. Eats potatoes and other root crops, young seedlings, and germinating seeds. Special traps are available.

Use 3⁄4-inch mesh wire poultry netting buried 2 feet deep, extending 12 inches above the ground. Gophers that manage to get inside the garden may be trapped.

Groundhog

Active during the day, solitary or in family groups. Often takes a few bites from beans, squash or tomatoes, leaving remains behind.

Some gardeners choose to shoot them. Dogs can provide some deterrence.

Use 2-inch mesh wire fencing, with bottom edge angled outward and buried 10 inches deep; fence height 3 to 4 feet. Add 1 strand of electric fencing 4 inches from the ground on the outside of the fence.

Rabbit

Most active at dawn and dusk. Feeds close to the ground and clips foliage cleanly, often at a 45-degree angle. Pea-size scat is often present.

Use 3⁄4- to 1-inch mesh wire poultry netting or hardware cloth, with the bottom edge securely pinned or buried 6 inches deep and angled outward.

Height can be 2 1⁄2 feet for cottontails, 4 feet for jackrabbits.

Raccoon

Active at night, often in family groups. Favored foods include ripe melons, potatoes, peas and corn. Partially eaten food is often left on the ground.

Use 2-strand electric fence, on from dusk to dawn, with one strand 6 inches from the ground and the other 12 inches from the ground.

Skunk

Most active at dawn and dusk. Makes 3-to-4inch-deep conical holes as it digs for grubs and worms, sometimes digging up young plants.

Use 3⁄4- to 1-inch mesh wire poultry netting, with the bottom edge buried

Active during the day. An agile jumper that may come into the garden on tree limbs. Often eats tomatoes, corn, beans and strawberries.

Same as rabbit, with 2-strand electric fence on 24 hours. One strand should be 3 inches from the ground, the other at the top of the fence.

Active at night. Eats potatoes and many other vegetables, making gnaw marks 1⁄8-inch

Use 1⁄4-inch mesh wire hardware cloth buried 6 to 10 inches deep, extending 12 inches high, can protect individual plantings or entire gardens.

wide and 3⁄8-inch long. Cats can be effective predators or snap traps placed in their runs.

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Vole

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Squirrel

12 inches deep and angled outward, 3 feet high.

dismembered a field mouse — sadly this has happened by accident before — it was no surprise to me when the baby rabbit, considerably larger than it was the last time I saw it, presented itself, apparently unharmed.

I think I just scared the heck out of it. I know that bunny scream scared the heck out of me.

And it made sense out of that halfeaten strawberry I had found a few days ago, still clinging to its vine.

What to do?

Of course, it couldn’t stay. Absolutely no rabbits are allowed to make their home in the garden.

Interesting thing about the babies, they’re quite able to squeeze themselves through even the tightest-spaced wires of the rabbit guard.

So I ushered him out, gently, with the shovel, where he proceeded to crouch in the tall weeds along the garden fence and to generally try to make himself invisible.

Thankfully my dogs were all tied up at the time and did not notice the quick arc the bunny made across some open grass before settling into its hiding place.

It occurred to me that I could solve the problem very quickly by letting them loose, but that — while sure to be effective — just seemed too cruel, especially with my daughter watching everything with rapt attention.

So, I headed over to the carport where I came up with a plastic pitcher and an old Frisbee, and I managed to get the little thing inside the pitcher without too much trouble. I carried him to the fence line at the back of the yard.

Toss him over? Nope. Way too high.

That would be sure to cause cruel and unusual damage. And that’s when it came to me.

The day before, on one of my patrols around the yard, I happened to notice a hole that had been dug all the way through under my fence. Groundhog?

Rabbit? A small neighborhood dog? I have no idea. I do know that it was nowhere near big enough for one of my dogs to get through. Still, I had hauled

Though cute, the iconic Peter Rabbit won’t do much to scare away wild rabbits if they’re interested in your garden greens.

Rabbits find many garden plants to be particularly nourishing, tasty treats.

a cinder block out from behind one of the sheds and plopped it on top — and there you go, problem solved. No one coming in. No one getting out.

This hole was plenty big enough, though, to be a safe passageway for a baby rabbit.

So I took my captured charge back there, moved the cinder block with my foot, and let the rabbit go to scamper through into the yard of the neighbors behind me. Then I put the cinder block back — another rabbit problem solved.

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