Grass feeding rabbits, tips and hard comings

In this blog, I'm going to go over: How to grass feed rabbits, and the hard comings of pasture raising rabbits. Some topics you should expect to hear will be; Coccidiosis, prevention and cure. What to do during rainy seasons. The main reason your does will fight in a colony setting. How to introduce new does to the colony. And raising kits in a colony pasture setting!

---

Tips and hard comings of pasture raising rabbits! Pasture raising rabbits is not as easy as you'd think, especially if your method is like mine, (cages that are moved daily to constantly ensure new pastures) The problems with this system are rain, predators, and time but you can find ways to deal with it, during rainy days, I move the cages to higher ground and tarp the ones that aren't covered by metal roofing, the trouble with rain is, rabbits hate to be wet, but still persist to eat grass; they make mud, and sling it off their feet into the eyes of bystanders and each other if they're in a colony. Predators are less likely to attack cages in a barn, especially when they're hanging up off the ground, but my system has them often out by the woods, on the ground, without walls to block visibility. I do provide one wall for windbreak, and nestboxes to keep them warm if nights get cold, or in case any surprise litters come! They also provide a safe place to hide most of the time.

It takes time to move each cage every day, but to me it's worth it. Other methods include: turning your rabbits loose in the yard, or collecting greens for them every day, and leave them in their standard cages. If you want to make a grass feeding moving cage or "tractor" I use a 2×6 foot floor space with 14 guage 2×3 inch holes on the floor for each rabbit, to prevent burrowing, but have enough space for grass to come through. The biggest hard coming of grass feeding rabbits would be coccidiosis, which if given comfrey, willow leaves, blackberry leaves, rosemary, and lemon balm. Isn't as hard to overcome, but it's a huge learning curb.

---

The biggest reason why our does fight in our colony, is because they want babies! I've had does get torn up pretty bad in colony battles, and often cannot figure out who is the culprit! I've had a doe get her vent torn giving birth, and because I wanted to give her time to heal, I skipped breeding her a few times; I eventually started finding all kinds of does getting rips in their ears, eyes, and rearward areas, I then separated some new does I had recently placed in the colony, and still was finding new battle wounds, finally that same doe ended up with a major eye injury, so I separated her for treatment ( castor oil, tea tree, and lavender) and then, I stopped finding new wounds! She is now blind in the one eye but it did clean right up. She just wanted to be bred!

---

Kits in a pasture raising setup can be difficult because sometimes they try to eat new foods quickly, and some herbs cause bloat if the rabbits aren't used to eating greens especially kits, I feed my new rabbits and kits starting out, plantain, blackberry leaves, and rosemary starting out for 3 days, then lemon balm, comfrey, and willow leaves for at least 1 day, by then they'll be ready to try new grasses and leaves.

---

Introducing new does to the colony is something that nature just has to take it's course on, but I usually feed them all first, rabbits are more grumpy when they're hungry, and if there is food to fight over, like when you just added new grain, they begin to establish dominance. Try to provide lots of places to hide, space to run, and keep the environment quiet and less stressful.