The first thing that 99% of us imagine when someone brings out "rabbit raising" are cages. Indeed, cages are the most popular approach to raising rabbits, or any small animal after all. However, some breeders/keeprs feel like giving rabbit a much needed natural habitat simulation. This approach has been becomming more and more popular among breeders nowadays, resulting in people crating rabbit colonies.
What is rabbit colony?
To answer this question, we must look back in nature. Before they were domesticated, rabbits roamed freely on meadows and grasslands. Even wild rabbits todays live in groups (wattens) ranging between 2 and 10 animals who share same territory and burrow system. Their number is managed by natural breeding cycle.
By the same model, many breeders (mostly meat) opt for this alternative to raising buns in cages. There are two main types of colonies: outdoor and indoor. Some breeders provide their rabbits with a combination of indoor housing and outside area. My thing is an indoor colony.
There are few types of colonies; doe colony (only breeding does), grow-out colony (only grow ups) and doe-buck colony (all the rabbits you need). For health and aggression reasons, buck colonies are avoided. Rusty Pocket Colony is combination of doe and grow-out colony.
How to form a colony?
Besides chosing the right place and enough of it, chosing the right animals is the main key of forimg the successful rabbit colony. Many breeders agree it's easier to start with multiple rabbits rather then a pair. After all, my correct way to putting rabbits together might not be right for you. There are three popular ways of forimng a good group of rabbits, but before that, let's pay a bit of time to preparing the colony space.
Introduce rabbits to scent neutral space always when possible. I tried doing it 2 times and it didn't work out for me. Make sure there is enought space for two or more rabbits to nap with enought distance from each others. Always have multiple feeders and waterbottles.
-Four methods on putting rabbits together:
1. Taking a car ride:
Taking a car ride around the block with your rabbits will stress them out a little bit and will make them easier to adjust to new (calmer) living space, even if they have to share it. I did try this method with Fawn and one of our previous does and it turned out it was the worst method of all.
2. Let them sniff:
One advice a lot of people told me was to introduce my (same sex) rabbits to each other step by step, or shall I say sniff by sniff. Let one of the rabbits in the colony while another one is in a cage or transporter inside the colony as well. Make sure bothe rabbits have access to the food, watter and hay and switch them regularly. Over time, they should get used to each others' scent and will live happily ever after once both are let free in the colony. Once again, I did try this method with Fawn and Sari, once again, it didn't work out.
3. Pop us together:
A bit riskier approach is to simply let your rabbits be together. I did this by firts letting my rabbits roam around the floor of our stable, later moving them in the colony. I would advise introducing rabbits in great open type area first. I tried this method with Fawn, P'Kaji and Nina and it worked.
4. Mother-daughter colony:
Probably the most likely successful method is allowing a doe ro kindle in the colony and then keeping her daughter(s) with her. However, some doelings will have problems with weaning, but is extremely unlikely.
So, there you have it. 4 ways of how to for a rabbit colony. Remember, if you notice any fighting, separate your animals immidiately. Chasing and humping will happen in the beggining, but it's just until they for the hierarchy and figure out who's dominant and who's not.
I hope this artice is helpful to everyone who is considering forming a rabbit colony. If you have any questions, experiences or suggestions, feel free to contact me. Thanks for reading.
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