What Beginners Should Know About Keeping Rabbits

1 Tips for Beginner Rabbit Keepers

1. Choose Quality Breeding Stock

Pick strong, well-growing animals rather than small, poor ones. Start with 10 to 20 breeders; rabbits multiply fast, so keep the best offspring to expand, and you’ll soon reach 100 to 200.

2. Balanced Feed

For larger numbers, buy a reputable brand of rabbit feed; don’t use pig or chicken feed. If mixing your own, balance crude fiber, protein, energy, minerals, trace elements, and vitamins in the right proportions.

3. Feed on a Schedule

Rabbits are herbivores with fragile guts; too much causes bloat and diarrhea, too little stunts growth. Feed set amounts on time, stopping at about 70 to 80 percent full.

4. Regular Vaccines

The big fear is an outbreak, especially rabbit hemorrhagic disease, which can wipe out a herd. Vaccinate on schedule, such as the combined hemorrhagic-disease and pasteurellosis vaccine. Kits get their first shot at 1 month, a booster at 45 days, then every 3 to 4 months.

5. Prevent Coccidiosis

Coccidiosis is devastating and hits weaned-to-4-month rabbits most. Add a diclazuril solution to feed or an anti-coccidial to drinking water, and avoid free-range rearing so kits touch less ground and feces.

6. Control Litter Size

Aim for quality over quantity: a doe with 6 to 7 kits is ideal. Too many yields weak kits that get sick after weaning and survive poorly, so cull the small, weak ones or foster them to a doe with fewer. Keeping 6 to 7 per doe gives even, strong, fast-growing kits.