How to properly care for rabbits
Breeding rabbits is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. Contrary to all prejudices, these animals are distinguished by developed intelligence and even amenable to training. The health of pussies and the beauty of their fur directly depend on the correct approach to their maintenance. One of the most important questions breeders face is how to care for rabbits.
Taking proper care of your rabbit
Features of the content
In order for a pet to develop correctly, it is necessary to create conditions for its comfortable living, as close as possible to natural ones. Almost all breeds of rabbits are highly active creatures, so aviaries or cages for them should be spacious enough. Ideally, a pet house should be 4 times the size of the animal itself. Keeping rabbits at home is based on several basic principles:
- cleanliness of cages, drinkers and feeders;
- balanced diet;
- adherence to the vaccination schedule.
Rabbits and their offspring need special care. Females must receive all the necessary vitamins and minerals during pregnancy so that their offspring can be born healthy. Babies are born not adapted to environmental conditions, therefore, in the first 2 weeks, it is especially important to ensure that the rabbit does not lose milk.
Arrangement of houses
The first thing to do before buying rabbits is to arrange a place to stay. A decorative rabbit can move freely around the apartment, but for sleeping and coping with needs, you need to put a cage equipped with everything you need. If it is not possible to provide the rabbit with free movement around the apartment, you can build an aviary for him, in which he will be constantly or just walk. If you are planning to breed rabbits for meat and fur, there are several options for keeping:
- indoor rabbitry with cages in 2 tiers;
- aviary breeding;
- equipment of the territory with street cages.
Novice breeders can watch educational videos about keeping rabbits and setting up cages.
When kept in a closed room, it is necessary to ensure optimal ventilation, avoiding drafts, and protecting the dwelling from the penetration of rodents and other animals into it. The cells are placed in such a way as to be able to quickly clean them of waste products. Rabbits do not shit anywhere, but defecate in one place, closer to the end of the cage. For this, the floor in the houses is made of wood, and a net is placed towards the end of the cage.
Aviary keeping can cause many difficulties for newcomers to rabbit breeding. In fact, an aviary is a fenced area equipped with feeders, drinkers and huts for wintering. Contrary to all prejudices, rabbits can be kept in enclosures in winter. For this, the floor is strengthened, a mound is made of biomaterials. Wood shavings and straw or hay work well.
Arrangement of houses
The litter is constantly filled up, and changed once a year in the spring. Rabbits happily make holes in the litter in winter to protect them from frost, and go into cages at night. The beauty of the enclosure is that caring for rabbits is much easier compared to cage care. The pen can hold up to 25 rabbits along with the rabbit. Young animals can stay with their mother for as long as possible, which contributes to increased immunity and rapid weight gain.
Outdoor cage systems are only suitable for keeping rabbits during a warm season. For the winter, they should be transferred to a warm room. There is Mikhailov's cage, which is a whole mini-farm equipped with heating, an automatic fecal purification system, ventilation and everything you need. However, this design is suitable only for those who are not afraid of high energy costs. Such a system allows you to grow the largest possible individuals.
Material for making houses
Chipboards should not be used to make street cage systems. This material absorbs moisture and begins to crumble when the temperature is unstable. Inside, the wooden protrusions should be trimmed with galvanized strips so that the rabbits cannot gnaw them. When making a wooden floor from slats, it is necessary to make gaps of such a size between them so that the feces can fall into the pallet, and the pets' paws are not injured.
The cage flooring can also be made of mesh, but this flooring is only suitable for certain breeds of rabbits. In most rabbits, the feet become inflamed from contact with the mesh. If biomaterial litter is laid on the floor in the cages, it should be changed regularly to prevent the spread of infection.
Feeders and drinkers should be made of material that can be disinfected and easy to clean. It is necessary to make removable structures that are well fixed to the walls of the cage so that the rabbits cannot turn them over or contaminate food and water. A sufficient amount of clean drinking water is the key to the health of pets.
Selection of feed
In European countries, for a long time, all farms have switched to feeding with pelleted feed. This feed allows you to reduce the cost of additional vitamins, because it is completely balanced and provides the body with everything it needs. If it is not possible to buy expensive feed, they can be replaced with succulent grass in the summer and all kinds of grain mixtures. In winter, in order to replenish the missing vitamins, dried dried herbs from mountain ash, coniferous or other branches, hay are introduced.
Roots and mash of boiled potatoes and bran are introduced into the diet. The number of such mash is determined by the characteristics of the breed. Some rabbit species are prone to obesity, so the consumption of boiled potatoes and corn feed should be kept to a minimum. Excessive obesity spoils the quality of the meat.
Rabbit food
To replenish the calcium deficiency, chalk and bone meal are added to food. Fish oil is great for improving appetite. When giving grass to rabbits, you need to make sure that it is not wet or rotted. You should not feed the animals with the same type of grass all the time, otherwise they will suffer from vitamin deficiency.
The most important aspect of successfully breeding rabbits at home is ensuring that your pets have free access to clean water.
The body of animals is designed in such a way that their stomach cannot independently push food into the intestines, so the animals must constantly chew something. It is best to design bunker feeding systems in which feed will last for several days. This move will help reduce feed costs because the systems are automatic and feed itself to the hopper when it runs out. Also, with the help of this, it is possible to provide the rabbits with the required amount of feed.
Females and their offspring
Fawn females are kept separately from other rabbits, with the exception of the aviary breeding method, in which there may be several rabbits in the pen. It is important to monitor the quality of rabbit feed. Before okrol, in about a week, the female begins to tear out the fur on her chest and equip the nest. If there is not enough down in the nest or the firstborn female is confused and did not equip it at all, it is necessary to report cotton wool and hay to it yourself. It is important not to forget that a pregnant rabbit needs more water.
After the offspring appear, you need to provide appropriate care for small rabbits. Immediately after giving birth, the offspring are checked for the presence of frozen individuals and removed from the cage. Rabbits should be taken with gloved hands so that the female, smelling the human smell, does not abandon them.
With cage keeping, if a female has problems with milk production or for some reason has abandoned the babies, she will have to take care of the rabbit on her own, because other females most likely will not accept someone else's child due to the difference in smell. When kept in an open-air cage, other females take care of an abandoned rabbit, because the smell mixes, and then they do not distinguish between their own and others' offspring.
Rabbits are not vaccinated during pregnancy. The best option to protect the female from the risks of infection is to get vaccinated a couple of weeks before mating, so that the body has time to recover after receiving the vaccine. All individuals before vaccination must undergo prophylaxis against worms. In the presence of parasites in the body of eared ears, the vaccination simply will not work. To date, a huge number of non-toxic anthelmintic drugs are presented in veterinary pharmacies.
Vaccination
When breeding rabbits at home, you need to increase their immunity on your own. They receive their first immunity with breast milk, but when the young rabbits are weaned from the breast, the protective functions of the body are sharply reduced. To keep your rabbits healthy, it is important to adhere to a vaccination schedule. Revaccination is carried out every six months.
Vaccination for rabbits
Many diseases that are not scary to other animals are fatal for rabbits. Opinions differ on the relationship between the type of maintenance and the incidence of disease. For example, when kept in an open-air cage, rabbits can be breastfed for as long as possible, which contributes to the development of immunity, plus sufficient walking in the fresh air. On the other hand, if one individual falls ill, the rest will immediately become infected, and it will not be possible to save all the livestock, while with the cage keeping, taking the necessary measures in time, there is every chance to save the rabbits from neighboring cages.
Causes of infection
Taking care of rabbits is quite simple if you know the basics of proper maintenance. An animal can pick up an infection from a newly purchased individual that has not passed the appropriate quarantine. In other cases, this is an omission of the owner. Food poisoning is caused by poor quality feed, dirty water, high salt content in the diet and feeding on poisonous plants.
You can not introduce legumes, cabbage, poorly processed and unwashed root crops into the diet of rabbits. Such food provokes bloating. If the room is not well protected from drafts, rabbits begin to get sick with colds. Inflammations on the soles appear from mesh floors in cages and inadequate room hygiene.
If you decide to have a lop-eared rabbit as a pet, it is necessary to conduct a constant examination of its ears. Such a structure significantly reduces the hearing of rabbits, and with inadequate hygiene and inadequate care can provoke various ear diseases, including complete hearing loss.You should regularly trim your pet's nails so that he cannot comb his ears to the point of injury.
Long-haired rabbits require special care. The fur should be combed out regularly, the rabbits should be washed. It is also important to watch out for fleas and to trim the coat as needed. Especially you need to pay attention to the fact that the fur does not fall on the eyes and does not interfere with the pet's vision.
Generalization
Taking care of rabbits at home is quite simple if you arm yourself with all the necessary knowledge and skillfully apply it in practice. Before purchasing a rabbit, you should purchase a cage or build one yourself. Next, you should conduct a full examination of the individuals for the presence of all kinds of diseases, carry out the prevention of helminthiasis and make the appropriate vaccinations.
Females and males are kept separately. Youngsters are planted in different cages as early as 3 months in order to avoid closely related crossbreeding in individuals with rapid puberty. Particular attention should be paid to the diet. Rabbits need constant access to clean water. Keeping a rabbit in an apartment is much easier. All that is needed for this is adherence to the vaccination schedule and arrangement of the resting place.
Females are kept separately. The offspring of rabbits in the first couple of weeks after birth need special care and heating, because they are born completely helpless. The longer the offspring will be breastfed, the better their immunity will be and the faster they will gain weight. More information can be found in the thematic video.