HOW TO IDENTIFY RABBITS
IDENTIFICATION
Rabbits may be identified by:
- Tattooing special ink used on the inner part of the ear
- Ear tagging attaching ear tags, can be easily get lost
- Ring method ring attached at the hock of the rabbit. the ring carries a number
- Ear notching
HANDLING
Rabbits should be handled with care as rough handling may cause irreparable damage to muscles and may lower the carcass quality.
Avoid; Lifting rabbits by the ears should be avoided.
Best way: They may be lifted by grasping with one hand the loose skin over the shoulders and placing the other hand under the rump to support their weight.
Nails of adult rabbit may have to be trimmed to prevent them catching on the wire mesh of a cage.
Rabbits will bite and scratch their handler if distressed or frightened and it is wise to wear cotton gloves to protect your hands.
MANAGEMENT AND FEEDING
GENERAL FEEDING OF RABBITS
How Rabbits should be Fed
- Rabbits need to eat lots of fresh, green vegetative matter every day.
- Rabbits are nocturnal, and eat more at night.
- Fill the cages (mangers) with feed before the sun sets.
- Rabbits like fresh food.
- They will refuse greens that have been dried unless the rabbits have been trained to eat good quality dry hay and given plenty of water.
- Give them fresh feed twice a day; once in the morning and plenty at night.
- A nursing doe will need more feed than a pregnant doe or young buck.
- A cage with a dozen young, growing rabbits that have been weaned will consume lots of feed.
- Here is an easy way to know if you are feeding them enough: if they eat everything, you have not given them enough; if they leave a lot, you gave them too much.
What Rabbits Eat
Rabbits eat almost anything green, just like goats and cows. Here are some of the best feeds for rabbits by family:
Legume or Bean family: These are all kinds of plants, vines, shrubs, and trees that produce a pod that splits on a single seam.
The leaves of these plants are some of the best feeds for rabbits because they are high in protein. Examples are leaves of pigeon pea, peanut, beans, cow pea, velvet bean,
Perennial Peanut is a Nutritious Forage and makes excellent Hay, Stylosanthes, soybean, Leucaena, tropical kudzu, Centrosema, jack bean, forage peanut, lablab bean, Gliricidia, Sesbania, Calliandra, and Albizia.
Grass family: Rabbits eat all kinds of grasses such as guinea grass, elephant or Nappier grass, signal grass, maize and millet leaves.
Trees: There are many non-leguminous tree leaves rabbits will eat such as banana, mango, moringa and nacedero.
Fruit: Rabbits love fruit. Feed them all the fruit that cannot be sold or eaten by humans such as overripe bananas (with the peel), mangoes, papaya, avocados, pineapple and guava.
Weeds: Lots of weeds are good feed for rabbits such as crab grass, pig weed, goose grass and Spanish needle.
Leaves of cultivated plants: Sweet potato, maize, green beans, carrot tops, cabbage, and so on.
Kitchen scraps: Feed your ra;5;.5.5bbits kitchen and table scraps such as potato peels, carrots, papaya rinds, water melon rinds, avocado skins and celery leaves.
Market waste: Rabbits thrive on market waste such as waste lettuce, cabbage, carrots, apples, and other fruits and vegetables.
Garden waste: Rabbits should be fed all waste left over after the harvest from home gardens of peanut hay, green bean leaves, corn husks, cowpea and bean hulls, and unusable fruits and vegetables.
Rabbits also eat concentrated commercial (pelleted) feeds such as those made from corn, beans, wheat and millet.
Management of pregnant doe
- Should be fed good quality concentrates containing 16 -20% of protein and fibre
- Good quality grass or legumes hay be fed.
- Requires 250g/doe /day
- Commercial pellets usually contain the right amount of energy, protein fibre and mineral required during pregnancy and lactation.
- Village or small rabbits are usually maintained on kitchen residue and supplemented with fresh grass or legumes
Kindling preparation
2-3 days prior to kindling, a nest box should be placed in the hutch so that the doe can prepare the nest using fur from her skin or belly hair
Kindling (birth) normally takes place 30 to 31 days after mating.
It lasts for some minutes 15-30 minutes depending on litter size.
This varies with breed, level of management and feeding.
Usually varies from 5 to 10 in commercial production and 3 to 6 in the village system.
Kindles are normally blind and naked when born. The blindness lasts for 8-10 days.
It is recommended that during kindling 8-9 kindles be produced per doe, dependent on the number of teats per doe.