Starting a pastured colony

I recently decided that I'm going to give raising rabbits a try. I've raised chickens and enjoyed free-range chickens so much that I decided against using cages for rabbits.

I'm going to be fencing off a pasture for them and supplementing them with additional food as needed.

So far I have two shells made up and will be working on more once I get some more barrels. The barrels and entry pipes will be covered with soil which will be packed down and seeded to keep it in place. I'm still working on a removable top that I'll be happy with. The idea is for the top to hold around 8 inches of soil so the den will still be insulated but will allow me easy access for checking on kits, etc.

I'll try and take some more pictures tomorrow.

As promised, here are some more pics.

I love the idea, I'm sure rabbits will do quite well in a pastured setting. How deep do you plan on burying the fence to prevent them from digging out? I would expect it would need to be at least 2'.
Here's a design that a lot of large lizard keepers use, thought it might be suitable for rabbits. I would probably use 6' long metal siding and bury it 3' down.
http://www.riobravoreptiles.com/howto_outdoor.htm

Jeff Sayler wrote:I love the idea, I'm sure rabbits will do quite well in a pastured setting. How deep do you plan on burying the fence to prevent them from digging out? I would expect it would need to be at least 2'.
Here's a design that a lot of large lizard keepers use, thought it might be suitable for rabbits. I would probably use 6' long metal siding and bury it 3' down.
http://www.riobravoreptiles.com/howto_outdoor.htm

They're much less likely to burrow if you provide them with dens. I probably will bury my fence about a foot at the most. Anything that gets out will be eaten by my cats so problematic rabbits will be culled by natural selection.

As advised by others on another message board, I'll be keeping the rabbits in cages before allowing them into the dens until they establish a litter area so I don't have to worry about them filling their homes full of feces.

so its been a couple of months...... how did it work out?

how do you prevent water getting into the barrel?/stop the dampness coming up from the ground.

Curious to know how well this project worked out, also what do people do to seperate/prevent over population? do you stud males in fom time to time but otherwise keep them seperate?

Also how large an area did you "fence in" and how much do you supplement in food as i imagine it would be very costly to fence in a large enough area that is self sustaining.

I'm looking forward to more photos

The one thing I would do differently is use a full barrel and dig it down deeper in the earth, and then put the piping on a slant downwards. It will better simulate a real rabbit den, then you have space to add a insulated removable top. It would be harder to reach the babies, but I prefer to mostly leave mine alone for the first few weeks.

Any up-dates?

Dean Walls wrote:

As advised by others on another message board, I'll be keeping the rabbits in cages before allowing them into the dens until they establish a litter area so I don't have to worry about them filling their homes full of feces.

Can you point me in the right direction for this info? We will be integrating our rabbits into their colony soon and would be very interested in more on this information to avoid poo-filled dens...

Thank you in advance