Rabbit Web Discussion Board

Hi Everyone,
My name is Kate, I'm new to the forum. I hope I posted this in the right place. Well, here's my "rabbit story, ha ha"; Where I used to keep my horse at an agistment centre, there was also loads of animals there, including meat rabbits, and lop eared rabbits. The guy that owns all the rabbits is italian, and breeds the meat rabbits to.. um, eat.
There is a male and female meat rabbit, and he bred them.The mother is not tame, i went into her cage once, to give her hay and she kicked/thumped at me, bit and hissed at me Anyway, the owner said that my friend and I can have a meat rabbit each. (I am pretty sure they are meat rabbits, huge white ones like 4 times the size of lop eared.??)
So here are my questions;

-I have never had a rabbit before, have been researching etc. but am not sure I am ready for one, your ideas?

-I read that when you have to wean the rabbts in 6-8 weeks,
that the mother should be taken away for a couple of hours each day?
How would we go about this if the mother attacks when we try to catch her?

-What foods are toxic to them, apparently their poo is aswell, but apparently the babies eat their mums poo?

-What would you do in this situation? Any help?!

Thanks in advance!

Hi Kate,

First of all, when you wean them you do NOT have to bounce the mom back and forth. You simply ramove them from her and put them in their own cage with pelleted rabbit feed and water. Do NOT give a rabbit under 6 months of age any kind of fresh veggies or fruit as it can give them a diarreha that can kill them.

Secondly, a rabbit's poo is NOT toxic to them. Rabbits produce 2 kinds of poo. The regular round little ball kind and a kind that look like a little cluster of grapes that is sticky. These are called Cecotropes. The rabbit will eat these directly from their anus.

The animal then ingests this material and it moves through the digestive tract a second time, and the nutrients formed in the cecum are absorbed in the small intestine. Without this process, many of the nutrients in the food would be lost and passed through the colon, and out as typical feces. If rabbits, guinea pigs, and rodents are not allowed to eat the cecotropes, they will suffer from malnutrition.

All you need to do to keep a rabbit is to have a descent cage designed for rabbits, a good quality of rabbit pellets (feed), fresh water daily and make sure they are sheltered from the extremes of weather (hot and cold) and protected from would-be predators like dogs, cats, coons. ferrets (weasels),etc.

Pet and handle them daily so they are tame. If you can do those things you should be fine as a pet rabbit owner.

Pat

Rabbits make two kinds of poop, one kind is the hard balls, and the
other kind is soft and kind of squioshy. I hear that rabbits can eat
the soft kind, and they often do because it has lots of nutrients they lost. You shouldn't wean a rabbit baby before 8 weeks aide they're still nursing. Hope it helps!!