Keeping rabbits in sheds and aviaries

If you are a beginner rabbit breeder, then it will be useful for you to know that keeping rabbits, as well as climatic conditions, directly affect the health of animals, that is, skin, meat, meat and skin products and also down products.

There are all kinds of options for keeping rabbits - dugout, nursery, harem, parquet, etc. Cell-free keeping is practiced both in fenced and non-fenced areas, with or without any buildings.

However, even if you have a warm climate, this kind of content is not the best, and here's why:

If the rabbits are in the wild, this makes it impossible to carry out medical and breeding work among your four-legged pets.

As practice has already shown, the probability of not only mass diseases increases, but also the death of animals increases. And if breeding work is not carried out, and close family ties of animals are allowed, then this is the reason for their degeneration.

If you decide to start breeding and keeping rabbits in your homestead, then it is better to do it right in the cages.

But first things first:

Today, rabbit breeders in all parts of the world are developing new, more sustainable methods for keeping eared pets, as well as looking for more affordable and cheaper materials for construction. As a result, experience and scientific research have shown that the best way to keep rabbits is to keep rabbits in cages.

The cage system helps create more favorable conditions and helps maintain good hygiene conditions. Among other things, this system helps to optimize the sectional space for a specific purpose, and this is the main thing for the health of rabbits.

Benefits of cage content

1. The feeding of each rabbit is adjusted as needed.
2. The mating is carried out at the time scheduled according to the plan.
3. If an animal is sick, it is easy to detect, isolate and treat.
4. Preventive measures are easy to carry out.
5. Carrying out breeding work does not bring difficulties.

All these advantages have contributed to the fact that cage keeping has spread more widely than other types of rabbit housing previously used. The cellular method of keeping has become more effective in manifesting the most productive qualities in four-legged furry animals, and has also contributed to the fact that it has become possible to obtain higher quality meat and skin products from rabbits. In addition, the cost of production itself has decreased.

So, having analyzed the advantages of cellular content, let's move on to the technical side of this issue.

The site that you decide to choose for a rabbit farm should be dry, it should not be flooded with spring waters. It must be fenced with plantings of plants. This will protect it from winter winds and direct sunlight on the rabbits.

The rabbit farm site should be dry and protected from winter winds and direct sunlight.

The area for keeping rabbits should be flat, without beams and ravines. It is very good if it has a slope for the flow of melt and rainwater. It is good if the site is protected from the winds by forest plantations.

For the cultivation of rabbits in subsidiary farms, the cages are used in a variety of ways.

1. Cages of stationary design for outdoor content.
2. Cages of stationary design for keeping indoors.
3. Portable cages with lightweight construction for combined housing.
4. Mobile cells with mesh cages.

In relation to climatic conditions, rabbits can be kept in cages, but:

• Under a canopy.
• Indoors.
• Combined way.
• In the external shed system, which is created depending on the different periods of animal life support.

It should also be noted that the design of the cage may change depending on its purpose, for example, it can be for individual or collective keeping, with or without walking, for rabbits or adults, for a pregnant female, etc.

When placing stationary cages in the open air, it is advisable to install them in two rows one to the other, it is possible in several tiers.

Cells are installed in two rows one to the other. The roof from the front and back of the cages should protrude, which protects the rabbits from the sun, rain and snow. And the cemented floor makes it easier to take care of the animals.

Moreover, the roof of the upper tier should protrude 50-60 cm from the front side and 25 cm from the back side, which protects the rabbits from the sun, rain and snow.

If you install the cage on a floor that is cemented and well prepared, then animal hygiene and a clean yard will be maximized.

To obtain okrol in winter, the cages can be covered with an additional collapsible gable roof.

To avoid losses during breeding in winter, the cages can be covered with an additional collapsible roof. And close the passages between the cells with shields or cover with a film.

The passage between the cages must be sufficient for maintenance. By winter, these passages are closed with specially assembled shields or covered with foil. Electric lighting should also be provided as needed.

When the cold has passed, the roof over the cells can be dismantled.

Some of the amateur rabbit breeders at this time of the year hang a glazed frame on the doors with a metal mesh. This can be done with two nails that are bent in the form of hooks. If the weather is calm and clear - the frame is raised, inclement weather - lowered. Glazed frames in any weather help to provide rabbits with light, and the daylight hours for them are not artificially reduced.

To save space in the room, the cages can be arranged in two tiers, and to save electricity, make the most of natural light.

When placing cages in enclosed spaces, it must be taken into account that your pets will not tolerate drafts very well, as well as low temperatures and high humidity. Illumination in the premises should be maintained approximately eight to ten hours a day, the intensity of illumination should be equal to thirty forty lux.

The well-thought-out arrangement of cages, communications, gutters and containers for collecting manure will make feeding, water supply, cleaning the cages easier and shorten the time. A well-assembled ventilation will create the correct movement of air and save the animals from drafts and harmful gases.

Much attention should be paid to reducing the concentration of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide in the room in which rabbits are kept. The best way to do this is to remove the feces of animals from under the cages. This process should be regular. At the same time, a well-thought-out arrangement of cages, containers or chutes for collecting manure will make this work easier and save time. Also, when creating a microclimate in a rabbitry, ventilation and proper air movement in the cage room should be taken seriously.

It should be noted that raising rabbits in closed and heated rooms, in which a constant microclimate is maintained, gives the greatest effect.

Indoors, it is possible to create conditions for receiving births throughout the year, regardless of climatic conditions and seasons.

So, if you decide to keep rabbits indoors:

• It is possible to create conditions for obtaining litters throughout the year, regardless of climatic conditions and season, which contributes to a fairly rapid increase in livestock.

• Using a creative approach, as well as some design solutions indoors, it is easiest to mechanize and automate a number of labor-intensive processes, such as feeding, water supply, cleaning cages, which in turn increases labor productivity and significantly reduces the cost of the product itself.

In private households, for the rational use of space, cages can be installed in two or three tiers. This will also make it easier to inspect the animals, distribute water, feed and maintain.

And most importantly, what must be remembered is that the presence of more animals in the same room complicates the maintenance of the necessary sanitary conditions and reduces the effectiveness of measures taken to prevent epidemics.

With the combined method of keeping rabbits, portable cages are used. Most often, the design of these cells allows you to install them in two or three tiers.

In areas where winters are severe, it is better to use a combined method of maintenance. This method allows you to get rounds in winter, which increases their number throughout the year.

With the approach of cold weather, the cages, if necessary, are transferred to a rabbitry built from various materials available and, most importantly, it must be plastered. On the south side, a window is made on the entire side.

Cells are installed depending on their design. Portable lightweight cages can be used. They should be such that they can be easily arranged in a shed in several tiers one above the other.

Portable, lightweight cage for rabbits. The design of this cage allows it to be used in a combined method of keeping.

Before moving the cages indoors, they must be treated with a disinfectant solution, then rinsed with clean water, dried and then collected at the place where your rabbits will spend the winter.

Sometimes rabbit breeders bring only females into the room for mating and littering. And the rabbits are subsequently deposited in cages in the open air, which helps to harden the body and increase immunity. This is especially important for young rabbits who will be selected to rebuild the herd.

Gradually moving such a cage around the backyard, you can save green fodder, as well as time for cleaning the range for rabbits.

In the summer, mobile cages with mesh cages can be successfully used. If rabbits are kept in such cages, then there is no need to harvest green fodder, prepare it for distribution and feeding, and also clean the paddocks. The principle of using such cells is their gradual movement around the plot and feeding vegetation.

Cages with aviaries can be mounted in blocks, which consist of three types:

• For keeping four adult females.
• Maintenance of two adult males.
• Six litters of young animals, which are three to five months old.

It is a good idea to install such mobile units on wheels.

The fantasy of amateur rabbit breeders is really limitless. If the necessary material for cages is not available, then beginner rabbit breeders also make cages from planks that make up various boxes, sometimes the boxes themselves go in, and old barrels placed under a light canopy, and sometimes in the open air, are also not left unattended. while lying on its side.

Crates and barrels can be stacked on beams that are raised to a height of 70-80 cm in a row from the ground. Sometimes they can be placed in two tiers.

Also, in the presence of two hundred liter metal barrels, you can build a two or three-story rabbitry by laying the barrels on a rack specially made from a metal corner. The main components of such a rack are a frame on which a row (floor) of barrels is laid and side supports that fix the barrels from the sides in one position and prevent them from rolling.

Barrels are placed on a metal rack 70-80 cm from the ground, in two tiers. A flooring is installed inside the barrels, it can be in the form of a wooden lattice.

Inside the barrels, a flooring is installed in the form of a wooden lattice, which isolates the rabbit from metal and makes it easier to clean the cage.

The door for such a cage is hinged to the flooring and opens down. To ensure gas exchange, the door is made mesh. It also provides for fastening feeders and drinkers.

If such a rabbitry is located in a room without drafts, then it will not be superfluous to make a frame for laying barrels with a slight slope back. And in the lower part (laid down) of the end of the barrel, make a hole for the drain. This will reduce the humidity in such a cage and make it more comfortable.

It must be taken into account that the metal walls of the barrels will not save the animals from cold and heat, which means that their thermal insulation should be taken seriously.

It happens that the rabbitry can spoil the look of your backyard with a pile of containers filled with water or feed, a large number of cages, boxes for collecting manure and so on.

So that the rabbitry does not spoil the look of your backyard, you can fence it with dense vegetation or trellises with climbing plants.

To solve these problems, you can install the gratings in a vertical position from either rails or rods, consisting of metal. Plant any climbing plants in front of the trellis.

You can plant a decorative pumpkin, which has spectacular large leaves, and as a result, they will braid the entire lattice. In winter, the pumpkin can serve not only as an interior decoration, but will also be an excellent additional product in the diet of the whole family.

On land that is fertilized with rabbit manure, not only cucumbers, but also tall tomato varieties will grow wonderfully. Plants such as the climbing rose and clematis will add vibrant colors and brighten up your rabbit farm.

Animals, on the other hand, will feel great behind such a hedge, because such a hedge can not only hide from the bright sun, but also perfectly let in fresh morning air and scattering light. And children or adults who will work in the garden or walk will not disturb or frighten all the livestock.

Compliance with such simple but effective measures will help not only aesthetically decorate your site, but your pets will be calmer, and females will be less prone to stress. The rabbits will grow better and faster and develop well.

Sheds are sheds, sheds, specialized premises with a frame, floors (walls), roofs - assembled from various building materials. Often the walls of such a structure are the back walls of the cells themselves.

As we have already said in the previous paragraphs, rabbits can be kept in specialized closed rooms, cages, as well as sheds. The content of rabbits in sheds is used in large household plots.

Sheds are sheds, or sheds, with a frame made of various materials. Their roof can be made of iron, slate, and so on, and the shed itself is made of metal, wood, or even reinforced concrete.

As a rule, the temperature and humidity of the air inside the shed is very close to atmospheric.

The diagram shows a shed section 244 cm long, which includes 4 cells on one side and 4 on the other, for a total of 8. Shed is assembled from the required number of sections.

The disadvantage of such content is the high cost of manual work and the time spent on caring for rabbits.

The disadvantage is also that the reproduction of rabbits depends on the season, which is no more than six births per year. But under certain conditions, rounds are also obtained in winter. So, in order to get rounds all year round and increase productivity, heated mother liquors and drinkers are used.

The shed is made with a gable roof, and a longitudinal transom on both sides. The transom is used to illuminate the room, as well as to ventilate the room without drafts.

Sheds, which have only one tier, are a rather long canopy, which has a passage in the middle, and on both sides of this passage there are rows of cages. The roof of such a shed is gable.

In some household plots, two-tiered sheds, which look like a long barn, have been used.

The temperature and humidity of the air in the sheds are close to atmospheric, which affects reproduction. It depends on the season and is no more than six rounds per year. Therefore, heated mother liquors and drinking bowls are used to receive litters in winter.

The passage at such a barn is located in the middle, and on the sides there are two rows of cells in two tiers.

The roof of such a shed is gable and has a longitudinal transom on both sides. It is designed to illuminate the room.

The passage is made 120-130 cm wide, and in the end walls of the shed it ends with a door.

The walls of the shed are the back walls of the cells.

For additional lighting, small windows with bars are made in the back walls of the cells. For the winter it is convenient to close them with a folding door. Feeders and drinkers are hung on the doors, which are attached to the inside of the cells.

The positive aspects of the shed system are the increase in the productivity of the rabbit breeder, the possibility of mechanizing certain production processes and the protection of rabbits from bad weather.

Keeping rabbits in aviaries

Walking your rabbits is good for their growth, relieves various diseases of the heart and digestive tract, and can be a guarantee of health for your pussies. But for this it is necessary to follow a number of essential rules, which are described below.

Many rabbit breeders who have been in contact with rabbits for a long time are surprised to see their constant craving for freedom and constant movement. If you release the animal into the wild, you can be surprised to see how it transforms. He also loses apathy and lethargy with anger. Watching them, you see how these four-legged animals are able to express their joy from the feeling of freedom. Running, jumping, swift zigzags and jumps - this is how they show a person their boundless joy from their freedom.

It was then that you can see what a real rabbit is: this four-legged animal is dexterous and quick-witted, perfectly adapted to life in the wild. He has soft but springy paws, ears with great sensitivity, his movements are precise, and the reaction is instantaneous. And you really stop and think about how the rabbits, living in cages for generations, managed to save all this.

Cleanliness is the best cure for diseases, so a general cleaning of the rabbitry should be done at least once a month.
General cleaning of the rabbitry may include several stages - this is the mechanical cleaning of bedding, feeders, drains. Burning all accessible surfaces - fire destroys most coccidia, scabies mites, helminths. Spraying disinfectant solutions - helps to get rid of viruses and bacteria that have penetrated deep into surfaces and into the joints of structures. And we finish our cleaning by inhaling the room with iodine.

On the paddock, rabbits should be kept in a group and this will be the right thing to do. Rabbits are inherently herd animals and will feel more confident if they have the opportunity to help each other. As soon as they are released into the enclosure, they will definitely gather in the colony - young and adults.

Overcrowding of animals is dangerous for rabbits, because then they start stress, injury and fights. It has been noted that the more space a rabbit has, the healthier the animal.

If the aviary is small, approximately 20 square meters, then experts advise keeping five rabbits with offspring of twenty to thirty rabbits, or their number should be twenty-five heads of young stock.

In the aviary, rabbits from the same litter get along the most. If young animals from different nests need to be combined, then the rabbits are launched into the aviary at the same time. If the enclosure is already inhabited, then a new animal should not be transplanted to it, a beginner may find it very hard.

It is impossible to unite the surviving and pregnant females, who were previously unfamiliar. The instinct that prompts them to protect their offspring will sharpen quite sharply at this time. But if your rabbits grew up together, then they will continue to live, as a rule, very friendly.

If the rabbits were born in a cage and do not have enough hardening, then they should be transferred to walking only at 2-3 months and gradually. You need to start from spring or summer, but not from autumn, which is usually accompanied by rain and bad weather. If there are sick rabbits among your rabbits, then they should be kept in an isolated enclosure to separate them from the sick and treat them.

Signature: 1 - manhole; 2 - uterine box in the trench; 3 - insulating material;
An artificial burrow with a queen cell installed in it.

You can get out of the shelter artificial burrows for rabbits . And at the bottom of such a hole, you can install a nest. The nest is a box with a removable lid, which is buried in the ground by 0.6-1 meter, and in the position below it and up, a wooden pipe is attached, having a length of 1.5-2 meters. The cross section of the pipe is 20 cm. It is the entrance and exit from the nest. The edge of the pipe that is dug in near the nest is set slightly below the entrance to the nest itself. This is to prevent water from getting in.

For the winter, the nest should be isolated from the frozen ground, covering it with straw on top. In such a dwelling, the rabbit will be quite good. The rabbit does not have very good thermoregulation, and that is why the animal does not tolerate a sharp fluctuation in temperature. When the animal is in a cage under the open sky, it experiences both cold and heat. In summer, the temperature in the yard is plus 35 degrees Celsius, and in the cells it rises to 50 degrees. In winter, even when kept in a barn, if it is not heated, the temperature can drop to minus twenty-five degrees, and if the animals do not have the opportunity to hide, they will suffer from cold and cold. The result is frequent lung diseases. If the animals live in underground burrows, then in summer it is cool there, and in winter it is not cold even in the most severe frosts.

And most importantly, in such a shelter, the rabbits will completely fearlessly leave their offspring, because they also need to feed and relax a bit.

Shelters can also be from boards, brushwood, stumps and straw. For the winter, such shelters must be insulated. Such shelters for rabbits must be located in dry places so that they are not flooded with rain and melt water.

Rabbit breeder O. Azernikova, who has gained considerable experience in the care and maintenance of rabbits in the wild, believes that if the grazing of the herd is properly organized, then labor costs for daily fodder are reduced.

Grazing rabbits, of course, needs effort: this includes fertilizers and sowing grass, which the animals themselves love. However, the results that your efforts will give will undoubtedly please the eye.

A gable canopy will help the animals hide from bad weather, in which they nail a manger for hay, and drinkers and, of course, feeders from which your animals will eat grain. There is so much to be done about this. Enough for all animals. You can think about the device of minks in the ground. In summer, in such minks it will be cool, and in winter it will be possible to warm up.

And here is the personal experience of Alexei and Anya in keeping rabbits in the wild

The temperature of the rabbits

The humidity and temperature of keeping rabbits can have a strong impact on the life of your furry animals.

When keeping rabbits in optimal temperature conditions, heat transfer from animals reaches 20-25 percent. This is due to the evaporation of moisture. Humidity, at which the rabbit feels good, is approximately sixty to seventy percent. If the air humidity is high, then your pets may get a runny nose, especially at sub-zero temperatures.

To protect rabbits from heatstroke and avoid the death of animals, cages should be placed under a canopy with good thermal insulation. This is especially true for the southern regions, where temperatures can reach more than 40 ºC.

Rabbits are more sensitive to high temperatures. If the temperature in the rabbitry stays above thirty-five degrees Celsius for a long time, then the signs of impaired vital activity in animals are significantly reduced. Breathing in rabbits becomes rapid, and after a few hours the animals may die. The stillness of the air, combined with high temperature and high humidity, will inhibit heat transfer and cause overheating of the body.

If rabbits are bred in the southern regions, then animals often get heat strokes. They can be avoided by placing cages either under a canopy or under tree branches.

Feed for rabbits must necessarily contain such substances necessary for animals as vitamins, carbohydrates and minerals. Water also plays an important role in keeping tetrapods. If the conditions for keeping rabbits in winter are such that the water freezes, then it should be poured immediately after you have fed the rabbits with concentrates. In addition, it is best to pour warm water for rabbits in winter, since it does not require additional energy from rabbits of its internal heat to keep warm. If in winter it is not possible to water the rabbits after each feeding, then clean snow is placed in the drinkers. Rabbits eat it and in this way will be able to satisfy their need for water. Of course, snow does not contain the essential substances found in ordinary water, but the damage to the health of rabbits with a lack of water will be much greater than with a lack of a small amount of minerals that a rabbit receives from water. If the nutrition of your pets is complete, then they receive all the necessary minerals with mineral supplements and supplements.

Branch forage, which is usually harvested in May-July, can be a good addition to the winter diet. If it was not possible to stock hay for rabbits, then you can use brooms, which are harvested in the summer. However, such feeding is allowed only as a last resort. If you managed to prepare branches in winter, then you will notice how well rabbits eat bark from them, especially if these branches are aspen. Coniferous branches are fed to an adult rabbit in an amount of up to one hundred and fifty grams. With this feeding, the rabbits will chew on the cages less.

Juicy feed should be given to rabbits regardless of the time of year. The best of them are cabbage, pumpkin, zucchini, carrots, beets. You can pamper a rabbit by giving skins of pumpkin, watermelon, melon. Red beets and fresh cabbage should be given with caution because they can cause digestive upset in animals. In winter, if you want to give your rabbit a juicy diet, you can also give him sauerkraut. It is given at the rate of 150-200 grams per day if your rabbit is already an adult and for young animals no more than one hundred grams per day. In order for rabbits to better eat sauerkraut, it is usually sprinkled with mealy food. Rabbits also need mineral feed. These foods include chalk, table salt and bone meal. Salt can be fed by adding it to concentrates, moistening them with salted water, and bone meal and chalk are added to small feeds. For example, you can sprinkle beet tops with chalk. In winter, shade-dried hay, pine needles, carrots, etc. can be used as forages rich in vitamins.

If the rabbits are one to two months old, then experts do not recommend giving them waste from vegetables, peeling potatoes, straw, or coarse green fodder. Such feeds cause indigestion in young rabbits. This may be because the digestive organs of these animals have not yet adapted to the digestion of such food. The rabbits that you have transplanted can be fed with oats, green grass, and legume hay. You can also give boiled potatoes, where you can add bran, fodder beets and red carrots. If you give rabbits wet food, then they should be distributed within 1-1.5 hours, otherwise they will turn sour in summer and simply freeze in winter.

If the food is dry, then it can be distributed for several days. However, for this, the feeders must be treated in such a way that the feed is not scattered by the animals. If the feed is grain, then they are allowed to feed the animals for ten days of fattening. Feed preparation rate for each adult rabbit: grain feed - 32 kg, for an adult rabbit - 17 kg, potatoes - 40 and 36 kg, hay 42 and 32 kg.

A converted greenhouse - as an option, for keeping rabbits in winter.

As for the winter keeping of rabbits, the experience of the rabbit breeder V.I. Ustyuzhanin, who lives in the Urals. When winter comes, he keeps the females in the greenhouse, which is somewhat refurbished. So that the rabbits do not tear the film and run away, he surrounds the greenhouse with a metal mesh, the height of which is 50 cm. As a protective measure, a mesh is also used, which is dug into the ground by 50 cm. go free and did not run away, because these animals belong to the category of burrowing animals.

It is interesting that the rabbits themselves are able to dig such holes for themselves and bring offspring into them. They eat what the owner stores for them - coniferous spruce branches, branches of fruit trees, hay. So that the rabbits do not take it away and trample it, he collects it in a pile, which is made of aspen logs and fenced with a mesh that has cells of eight by eight centimeters. In the greenhouse, he also puts self-feeders that serve for grain feeding and drinking bowls.

The result of such wintering exceeds all expectations. The rabbit not only winters well in such a greenhouse. By spring, such soil is ready for a good harvest. Yes, and strong frosts for young animals with such a content will never be terrible.

We breed rabbits. Method of Igor Nikolaevich Mikhailov

Having considered these and other tips, you can see the following: keeping rabbits does require not only physical, but also material costs. However, by making these efforts, you can get the joy of communicating with these four-legged animals and get a little closer to that world of nature, which, although it is still closed to us, but believe me, is very, very interesting.

21 comments

Regarding snow instead of water, I would not recommend replacing water with snow. This will do more harm than good. Rabbits will definitely have to get colds. After all, in winter the temperature is not particularly encouraging, and then there is cold, frozen snow. It is better to heat the water and feed the rabbits with this very warm water several times a day.

• I fully support your opinion George: “It’s better to heat the water and give the rabbits this very warm water several times a day.” It is also possible to use electrical heating appliances in combination with a low-voltage network, as provided for by the Mikhailov method. As for the snow, the article wrote that conditions can be such that after each feeding it is not possible to give the rabbits warm water to drink. That is, an extremely critical situation will develop, then the entrance can, at your own peril and risk, start snowing.

It so happened that this year we did not have enough cage for one rabbit, and we had to let her out directly into the garden. Every morning I watch how she, tearing up the frozen ground, chews the found roots along with the snow as additional food. And winters in different areas have different temperature conditions. Snow can lie both at minus two and at minus thirty.

We keep the rabbits at the dacha in the barn. We can’t often go, so the eared ones “drank” snow all winter. Soon two rabbits should give birth. I’m very worried about the water, because spring is not in a hurry, and the left water quickly freezes.

• Yes, I understand you, My rabbit is also about to give birth, and I'm worried that she will not scatter the feeder with snow again. She turns over both food and snow, during the day I go to put snow.

Please help with advice. For the first time, a young rabbit happened. We were sure that she did not accept the rabbit, after 2 weeks the mating was repeated. The rabbit covered her twice. The problem is that she gave birth from the first coating. The rabbits are already a week old. In the literature It was briefly written that this happens, a rabbit can be pregnant with two births. Or I misunderstood something. Tell me, please, what to do?

• I haven’t heard of this. In my opinion, you have nothing to worry about. If the rabbit “passed”, then she will not let the rabbit in. She will run from him in circles. But in general, using the example of pigs, when the sow is allowed first to one, then to the second, and if and to the third boar. It is believed that the offspring will be strong and healthy, and the percentage of coverage is high

  • I would very much like it to be so, but unfortunately, the rabbit has a special structure of the uterus. Made a second nest. I don’t know if she will feed the first one and in general how will they get along?

    • Dear Lydia
      I tried to understand your question and found that twin pregnancies do happen in rabbits. This phenomenon is called superfetation and it is possible just if the female was planted with the male two weeks after mating. The anatomical structure of her reproductive apparatus is such that embryos of different ages can develop in different horns of the uterus, which, after the end of their development, will be born at different times.
      I also searched for reviews of people who have experienced this. What can be said? Feed her well, so that there is always water, that’s basically all that you can do, but it’s impossible to determine - she can both feed everyone and just trample everyone. Just be careful next time. And yet - the control mating is done on the same day, somewhere in three to seven hours. Then there should be no error with coverage. But if the rabbits are already a week old and she is looking after the first offspring, then in my opinion there is a good hope that at least some offspring will survive. Good luck!

To the above, about snow as water substitutes. I keep rabbits for only 4 years, in winter I don’t carry any warm water to them. They eat snow (if they get it on the rim in a cage) and drink water from the snow too. No one has ever been sick and nothing has happened to them. In general, in winter I try to eat juicy vegetables.

And I have another question. For the first time, I made a mistake and did not recognize two “Alphas”. In a fight, one ear was severely torn. What to do with the ear? I washed and rebented, but I don’t know what exactly to do.

• Dachshund dragged ours out of the hole. Broken and broken ear. Further - curdled suppuration in the cavities. Cleaned mechanically, pricked with antibiotics suitable for rodents (in the veterinary clinic). One and a half months of work and the rabbit is in order. Costs approx. 5000 rubles. You won’t be able to eat this anymore: a lot of chemistry inside and the price of the dish is beyond the limit! ???? For us, he is just a favorite pet. After recovery, he received a girlfriend, a rabbit, as a reward for perseverance. If you need help - write 89106501364 (inc.) mail (dot.) ru

Tell me please! The rabbit gave birth in a warm room. Rabbits 2 months old Is it possible to move them outside, and it's winter outside -25 degrees. Will they survive or not. Thanks in advance.

• To be honest, I wouldn't risk it. If the temperature outside drops to -20, I have the opportunity to transfer them (rabbits of all ages) to a barn where it will not be lower than -12. And I'm generally kind to kids. If before birth you could not make them a warm “bunker” (mother liquor), then expect a rise in temperature. If they don’t have enough space, then in pursuit of warmth they can strangle someone.

  Dear Natalia!
  I will say that theoretically, of course, it is possible, but here you need to take into account several points:

  1 Firstly, the main thing is that there are no drafts. If the rabbit is healthy, then he can easily endure even a strong headwind, but from a small draft he can get rhinitis.

  2 Secondly, it is also not advisable to abruptly throw rabbits into the cold. As we harden the seedlings, periodically exposing them to the air, the same must be done with the rabbits, since a sharp change in the situation will cause a decrease in immunity, and, as a result of illness, and in the worst case, the death of the rabbits.

  3 It is easier for any rabbit to endure frost if there is enough food in its feeder, which, living on the street, will eat significantly more than its fellow living in heat.

  4 You will have to make sure that the female with the babies has enough water and does not freeze.

  5 Do not forget about vitamin supplements.