Taboos You Must Know When Raising Rabbits

1 Things to Avoid When Raising Rabbits

1. Avoid continuous back-to-back breeding. Mating does repeatedly without regard to their condition or season causes real harm: more kits may be born, but fewer survive and those that do are poor quality. Tailor breeding to each doe; never push constant breeding to maximize offspring. After a litter, rest the doe half a month to a month before breeding again, and never do this with weak, sick, or old rabbits.

2. Avoid using crossbred rabbits as breeders. First-generation crossbreeds are large, sturdy, disease-resistant, and fast-growing, but they must not be kept as breeders because their traits are unstable and offspring show severe segregation.

3. Avoid doing vaccination, deworming, and medication at the same time. Some owners dose rabbits heavily with medicine right after vaccination to prevent stress, but this can invalidate the vaccine. Never combine the three.

4. Avoid blind medication. Some owners over-medicate thinking it speeds recovery, but sickness has a natural course and excess drugs won’t help and may hurt.

5. Avoid over-relying on feed additives. More additives are not better; without targeting the flock’s needs they raise costs and may antagonize each other, failing to help and sometimes causing poisoning.

6. Avoid feeding a single monotonous diet. Convenience feeding of one feed, or whatever is available, lowers feed efficiency, slows growth, and costs more.