Best Practices - Training kits

About 90% of my young stock ends up going to pet homes.   The remainder tends to go to breeder homes.

One of my pet peeves is getting rabbits from breeders that are a pain in the butt to handle.  They kick and fight when you want to pose them, or clip their nails, or give them a brush out when they moult.   ACK!  Drives me nuts.  No need for bunnies to be brain-dead when it comes to being handled for these necessary things.

To that end, I want to raise rock solid youngsters.  Kits that can handle about anything that is thrown at them without freaking out.

1. dealing with people other than me

About the only thing I can't do reliably is introduce them to strangers a whole lot.   But I can get them used to children (my son and his friends).   I can do some introduction to strangers via children who aren't allowed to have one, they will often come over in the nice weather and play with bunnies on the grass.  I get my hubby to come out to the rabbitry and just say hi to the babies and occasionally I'll bring some sensitive types into the house and plunk one down in his lap.  :) 

2. having nails trimmed.  

I play with bunny feet.  I turn them on their backs.  I fiddle with their feet.  I reward good behaviour.  I do it at least once a day with the little ones until they are five weeks old, and then once a week until they are about 3 months old.  That seems to do the trick with them.  I used to do it a longer but have learned once they get the early training in, they are good to go.

3. being handled every which way.

Do you know what three year olds do with bunnies?   They pick them up by their butts.  They grab the fur and lift.  Six year olds will make them dance.  :)  NOT always the best way to handle a rabbit, but KNOWING THIS, I get my bunnies used to the fact that sometimes their butt hair might get pulled, they might be held upside down, they might end up snuggled upside down in an arm, and such like.  I try to handle them every which way I can.  Gently, slightly roughly, tossed into a cage (MIND.. I do this in such a way that they are not harmed or scared).   I want them used to a sensation, but in a safe, non-scary manner.

4. introduction to foods other than pellets

Do you know how very difficult it is to get a bunny that is stressed from a move to eat when it doesn't like the pellets you are offering it?  and it's never had oatmeal or hay in its' life?   Wow... MEGA difficult.  ERGO.. I make sure that every rabbit I own is used to foods like greens (parsley, carrot greens, lettuce, etc), oatmeal (rolled kitchen oats, or horse oats), hay (either regular horse hay or hay cubes), and the occasional snack of fruit (generally apples).  They also get bread crusts, leftover carrots or peppers or whatever I happen to find in the house.    

5. Movement from one cage to another

In the spring I put bunnies out on grass, in the winter I bring some into the house for a day or two, I'll move rabbits willy-nilly from one cage to another, from one tent to another.  I want them to be used to the fact that life changes and they don't need to stress over it.  Rabbits that stress are rabbits that don't stay in my rabbitry.

I want bomb proof easy to work with rabbits.  

 NOTE: I cannot guarantee what any rabbit will do in your rabbitry, or in your pet home, but I will certainly do my best to give you a level headed rabbit that is a pleasure to handle and work with.   How you handle your rabbit (s) and the environment you raise them in will also have an effect on them.  But at least I want to do my best to give you a good start.

What do you do to get your rabbits used to life outside YOUR rabbitry?

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Ivermectin usage

One of my pet peeves in the husbandry of rabbits is the overuse of medications OR the wrong use of medications in rabbits.   One should always breed for health and good immune systems.

One of these meds was recently discussed over at the meat rabbits board.

Ivermectin.

People use ivermectin as a wormer for rabbits.  There are better known and rabbit safe meds out on the market.   People will use it as a preventative medication.  People will use it as a first drug of choice.

Panacur for one.  Easy to use, easy to treat, out of their system in two weeks.  and there are other ones out there.

But no.. people like to use Ivermectin as it's an over-the-counter medication and easily available in a handy little tube for administration.   So no need for fecals, no dealing with vets, etc.

But no fecals means no certainty in what you are treating either so it's a bit of a catch 22 right?

Personally I only worm when I KNOW I have a problem, and then I get a fecal done at the local vet.  Costs me $5 for the fecal, $5-8 for the wormer.  No issues.

Ivermectin is being over used.  People use it for their dogs, their horses, their cattle.  People don't pay attention to strength differences.

So easy to over medicate.

So easy to give via the wrong methodology.

People think because it's over the counter that it's a safe medication.  It isn't.

Ivermectin overdoses can cause seizures and whole host of other issues.  Such as

• Lethargy
• Tremors
• loss of coordination of the muscles, mainly in the extremities
• Drooling
• Tachycardia
• Excessive dilation of the pupil of the eye
• Stupor
• Coma
• Depression 
• Death
• Fluctuating blood pressure
• Birth defects in kits (aka cleft palates)
• Temporary Blindness

If you ever send your rabbits out as critter food do make sure that none of them have an ivermectin sensitivity.   OR make a point of NEVER giving your rabbits ivermectin. 

Some animals have a genetic mutation that weakens the molecular pump that keeps ivermectin out of the brain.  With this mutation, the drug freely enters the brain's blood supply and the animal seizures to death.  This can also happen with a massive overdose of the drug in an animal without the mutation.  This mutation has been found in many animals, but is mostly commonly found in some herding dogs, particularly the collies. 
The second issue is that, as with all antibiotics and diseases and dewormers and weedkillers and so forth - some organisms are more sensitive to ivermectin than others.  If you give ivermectin to an animal, particularly to a whole herd, even if given at the right dose to treat those animals, some of the parasites will survive.  The tougher ones will go on to reproduce, and pass on those ivermectin resistant genes. 

Resistance is thought to grow any time a dewormer is used, and the more often it is used, and at the lower dose, the faster the resistance grows. So if a producer is using too low a dose (half the amount, in order to save money and treat twice as many animals) and is using the formula wrong (there are pour on vs oral vs injectable solutions) even fewer of the worms will be killed and the population of resistant worms in the pasture will grow even faster. 


Rabbits have so few meds that can be used on them.  Why would you want to encourage drug resistance when there are better meds out there that do the job properly?

The third problem is that ivermectin stays in an animals system for a pretty long time, from 14 to 60 days, depending on the species and the formulation used.  So care must be taken to know just how long to wait until slaughtering the animals, in order to keep the drug out of the food supply. 

If you don't know for sure how long it will be in their system (and remember, rabbits eat their fecals thereby keeping the meds in their systems longer) then how long do you know to hold back that rabbit in order to keep it out of the food system?  
 
For more information, you can check out:

American Consortium on Small Ruminants Parasite Control (discusses FAMACHA)http://www.scsrpc.org/

FARAD (Food Animal Residue Avoidance Database) - FARAD.org

Minor Species Drug Act - http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/MinorUseMinorSpecies/default.htm

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Best Practices - Breeding for Rabbit Health

I've been actively breeding rabbits for about 6 years now.   I bred rabbits when I was a child as well.   I found it a fun hobby and I still do.  I love talking bunnies. I love teaching about bunnies.

I belong to a few different rabbit boards.   Meatrabbits, Rabbittalk and Rabbit Addict.   There are two others that I visit infrequently  homesteading today and Poultry Swap.   Each board has a different focus and flavour to it.  Meatrabbits tends to focus on raising rabbits in a healthy safe way, rabbittalk has a similar focus but also has pet rabbit talk, show rabbits, general chit chat, Rabbit addict is mostly show rabbit folk.

One of the things I've learned through the boards is to set goals for your rabbitry.

My goal with my rabbits is simple (yet difficult).. to breed healthy rabbits with good temperaments which over time will do well on the show table (depending on the breed involved).

So today I'll talk about best practices focusing on health.

What does breeding for health mean?  Why is it so important?  What's all involved with breeding for health?

Rabbits are prey animals.  That means they are designed to reproduce quickly and live long enough to reproduce themselves.  Healthy, intelligent animals do that.. the unhealthy, unintelligent don't.  That's simply the way of life in this world filled with the results of sin.  Prey gets eaten unless prey can grow up quickly enough, be healthy and smart enough to avoid becoming food.   It's the animals with a healthy immune system that survive.

So my goal with my rabbitry is to build an animal with a strong immune system.

This presupposes that I'm doing everything at my end to assist in this regard.

• Clean cages.   Without clean cages, even the healthiest rabbit can get ill.
• Good feed.  Bad feed can cause a host of issues with rabbits.  Failure to breed, grow etc.
• Fresh water.   Without water rabbits won't eat.

So what I look for in my rabbits goes as follows:

1. I don't keep rabbits that I have to fuss with as babies.   They need to keep themselves clean (no matted poo),  learn potty manners (as in they need to go in one corner of the cage), no runny eyes, no sneezing, no bloating, no making me squint at them saying hmm.. something ain't right with you.  no nothing.
2. They need to mature at a reasonable rate and in doing so need to not have days of going off feed.  They need to be relatively stress free animals.  They need to have good feet, good bodies, no abscesses, sore hocks, good teeth, and so forth.
3. They need to be able to breed without making it into a big production.  This assumes that I am watching them for signs of readiness.
4. They need to be able to reproduce without intervention. No stuck kits.  No prolonged labour.  This doesn't mean that I don't leave room for error in first time moms.  First time moms make mistakes at times.  But I rarely have issues with first time moms. :)
5. They need to raise their litters.   Feed your kits, raise your kits, be nice to them.  No peeing on them.  Be a good mom basically.

Steps 3-5 They need to accomplish without having health issues.  No going off feed.   No pickiness when it comes to feed offered.  No blowing snot.  No runny eyes.   No rabbit diseases.   No tilted heads.  

I want a rabbit that when you look at it, you get a picture of glowing health.

Why?

Because I've read too many stories about people doing one of two things.

1. Breeders that take seriously breeding for health that end up, over time, having rabbits that fit all their criteria for good healthy rabbits.  Rabbits that end up being strongly healthy able to handle well the way they are raised and handled.

2.  Breeders that end up not focusing on health and having snotty noses, babies that fade, and a whole host of other things as their priorities in rabbit raising are different.

I've been focusing on health for the past two years.   In just that short time I've rarely get kits with runny eyes, I don't lose entire litters to weaning entropathy,  no rabbits blowing snot and such obvious issues.   I still lose the occasional rabbit...but with much less frequency which is WAY COOL.  I HATE losing rabbits unnecessarily.  AND if I breed for health then I get rid of that anguish of losing rabbits untimely.

Now mind you... if I have a wonderfully healthy rabbit that has the attitude of a pit bull with a less than positive agenda on his mind.. I won't keep it.  Temperament is very important as well...but that's not the point of THIS particular post.  :)

Breeding for health doesn't mean that I never lose a bunny untimely...but it does mean that I reduce the likelihood of such happening, and that's what the goal is...reduction in untimely deaths.  Which is accomplished best by breeding for health. 

Breeding for health means that I need to cull out everything that doesn't meet my standards.  Cull can mean a variety of things - cull to the pet store as a pet, cull to private rabbit sale - pet or breeder, cull dead to feed a critter (but not if it's sick), or cull dead to enrich the soil.    

Culling dead is not a happy event, but in the life of raising animals it's part of it if you truly want to improve your animals.   Just because a rabbit doesn't meet a health standard doesn't negate it's usefulness in other areas of life - a baby rabbit that didn't meet my cut can grow up to be a perfectly lovely pet, an adult rabbit who can't reproduce can fill a void in someone's life and if I can pet out a rabbit I will happily do so.  But a rabbit with a less than positive outlook on life who also has health issues.. I do not send out as a pet.    Who wants an unhealthy rabbit?    Who wants a nasty rabbit?   Fortunately since temperament is also important to me I rarely get nasty rabbits.  :)

Not every rabbit makes it a  keeper rabbit.
Not every rabbit makes a pet.
But every rabbit can be useful in life in some regard.
And that's the way it should be life.  Everything has a purpose.

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