How to make a rabbitry with their hands: examples of self-made designs
Lives in his own house outside of the city and attracts many: fresh air, the lack of the usual hustle and bustle and, of course, physical labor that produces some fruit. No matter what you grow on your plot. Can be limited to just flowers. When you hold in your hands a banal cucumber, which they themselves nurtured, experiencing an odd sense of pride and joy from uniting with nature. And you know what you have created pure product. Gradually an idea, and do not make any hens or rabbits. For rabbits, for example, you can build a rabbitry with their hands. But first, think whether you are ready to keep these animals?
The contents
Advantages and disadvantages of rabbit production
The advantages of the idea of breeding rabbits are obvious:
- Meat. Rabbit meat – a dietary product, useful for people of all ages. It contains a set of amino acids that promote protein synthesis in the human body. In addition, it is low-calorie and natural food.
- Liver. Let in one animal only contains 100 grams of liver, but it’s a real delicacy.
- Skins. The currying not only requires additional time and knowledge, but also special preparations. Not the fact that their search and application want to waste your time.
- Bones and other waste. These products can be boiled, in soup, to give the dog.
- Manure. In quality, this manure is superior to pig and cow, but an inferior horse. In spring and autumn you can add it to the soil, and it will answer you a nice harvest.
- Communication. Even the mere contemplation of these cute fluffy gives a lot of positive emotions.
But in the last paragraph, the benefits already lies the catch. About the disadvantages of rabbit production, too, is telling:
- Slaughter. Yes, rabbits have to kill. If even a middling economy, to hire someone to perform this work does not make sense.
- Mortality. These animals are often sick and rarely cured. Especially in summer, when there is an epidemic wave.
- Accommodation. In this article you will read how to make yourself rabbitry, so that this issue can be ignored.
- Food. What were these picky animals won’t eat. They eat up to 30 times a day, but most food and drink just spoil, the mixing of waste. Conclusion: quality of food should be plenty.
- Reproduction. Despite the theoretical fecundity of these animals, in practice, the offspring can be many, and may not be at all.
- Breed. To maintain the level of population, once every six months requires a change of the male-producer.
Before you the main disadvantages of rabbit production. If we add the time-consuming cleaning, rodent control and daily presence of the owners in the mode of pet care, it becomes clear that a rabbit is not a simple matter. If such prospects are not afraid, let’s talk about Pets.
Rabbit meat is useful for the elderly and for children, and even for the patients: this is a real low-calorie diet product
Kill the rabbit is not so simple: get used to these animals, but way out there. You can plant ornamental rabbits for sale
Plan for the future of livestock
How to build a good rabbitry, not knowing how many individuals in it will live? If you just want to have Pets «a sample», enough one rabbit with the litter. They simply do 1-3 cells on the site. To the receipt of meat was a regular and uninterrupted, you need 20-30 individuals of different ages in different categories.
For starters, you can have multiple rabbits and care for them throughout the warm season to determine how this activity suits your plans
Optimal size of rabbitry
There are recommended sizes of cages for rabbits. Here we will focus.
How to hold a pair?
If you need to accommodate two adults, enough to build a two-section room. Design parameters:
- length 140 cm;
- width in the range of 60-70 cm;
- height from 50 to 70 cm.
At the edges of the structures are placed bunker drinkers and feeders. So animals will be more difficult to get in them hoes. Between the sections is placed a sloping grid, in which you can put hay. This internal structure is called Senik. To save space on the plot, rabbitry can be placed in two tiers. In addition to compactness, this design makes it easier to add pet food and speeds up the procedure of cleaning.
A small cell of two sections perfect for keeping a pair of rabbits for them in this building there are
Group housing of calves
Room for young pitch, focusing on the following parameters:
- length about 200 – 300 cm;
- width up to 100 cm;
- height range from 35 to 60 cm.
For young individuals, aged up to 2 months, you need to calculate the actual volume of cells, based on the total number of animals. One rabbit needs a minimum area of 0.12 m2.
The female and her offspring
To place a female with offspring, you need a minimum of 0.6 m2 of space. For newborn baby rabbits in the cage is placed a special nest box, which should have the following parameters:
- length 35 cm;
- height 30 cm;
- width 25 cm.
In this box mom and her rabbits will feel comfortable.
The simplest nest box looks like this, it is easy to build. Inside you can put hay or sawdust to make the kids feel comfortable
What material should I use?
For the construction of the Warren you want a relatively inexpensive but durable material. Note that, for all its prettiness, your future Pets are rodents. This means that any facility they definitely will try on tooth.
Rabbits are rodents, so the internal bars made of wood, must be protected from their attacks. It is easy to make the protection of tin
If you want those frame parts, which are made of wood, lasts for one season, upholster metal. To not buy it specifically for these purposes it is possible to adapt the tinplate from cans of beer or galvanized steel for roofing. The additional work shouldn’t take too much time, but the useful life of the cells will increase ten years, maybe more.
The cheapest and easiest material for the frame is sticks of wood the cross section is 50×50 mm. the Wood should not be impregnated with antiseptic. This treatment is toxic enough to poison young animals. Better dry the frame. It increases its durability.
Rabbitry with a frame made of well dried wood can be considered the most economical design: it will serve you not one season
For the roof of each tier construction it is necessary to take moisture-proof material. Flat or wavy slate for this purpose is perfect. If the structure will be on the street, do not take it to the roof metal. This material has an unpleasant feature very hot in the sun. As a result, the cell actually turn into an oven.
Now you need to choose the material to cover the frame. For this purpose best suited galvanized mesh netting, mesh size of which is 20 × 20 mm. by the Way, the netting and title your received from the word «rabbit», pronounced in English.
To the side of the building, its doors and facade use steel mesh. Office for laying the hay — the hay shed located between the sections, it is necessary to make a grid, whose cells have a size of 50×50 mm. So the animals are easier to get them up to the required feed.
For the bottoms, apply zinc-plated flat grid with cells or 25×25 mm 10×25 mm. Its styling is on supporting wooden rails. This solution allows to do the cleaning much faster. Using a large enough cell the feces of rabbits simply fails. It does not stick neither to the wood nor to a galvanized surface that would scrape every time. The accumulation of manure occurs or in special receiving hopper or on the ground if it rolls down the inclined surface of the roof of the lower tier buildings.
As a rule, solid flooring for rabbitry does not apply. The reason is that the wood absorbs immediately the acrid urine, and feces to it simply sticks. As a result, the microclimate in the cell deteriorates and the planks start to rot quickly. So the bottom it is better to make the lattice. For this purpose, planed bars for sex. The gap between adjacent bars is not more than 1 cm.
In this picture you can see the slatted floor, each reechkoy protected from the teeth of a rodent with small strips of metal
Rabbits do not tolerate drafts and can get sick. To avoid this, the rear wall construction is deaf. To create it is possible to use polycarbonate, Board, ordinary plywood or OSB panels.
If the structure will be on the street, its supporting frame is made of metal. Thus, a supporting structure welded from angle parameters 45×45 mm. After which it is ready simply fill in the sections collected from pre-grid. Pin grid needs on the frames, welded steel rod. Another option is the wooden frame. How to do it, read below.
Need to know what the animals on the feet can appear corns, they bring suffering to the animal. To avoid this, you can set on the floor a small plywood sheet protecting the foot. But such fanerki is necessary to periodically removed, cleaned and thoroughly dried.
The element of the fanerku, you need only in those cells where the floor is entirely made of flat netting. It is necessary that the rabbits did not appear corns
Mesh neither rain, nor snow animals cannot protect can. Such a cell is better to place them under the canopy of slate or in the barn.
A little about the method of Zolotukhin
Nikolai Zolotukhin many years engaged in the breeding of fur-bearing animals, studied their habits and, summarizing his experience, and created his own method for efficiently equipping of rabbit hutches.
Combo floor looks exactly like that: slightly sloping large solid front and mesh width of 15-20 cm from the rear wall of the rabbitry
Zolotukhin offers:
- To do a combined gender: the front part is in the form of inclined flat flooring of slate, and the back need to run of the steel mesh;
- The trough, into which poured the grain, do not just bunker and swivel design: in this case, it is not only filling, but also clean.
A custom floor surface selected Zolotukhin is not accidental, but on the basis of reliable statistical data and own observations. Approximately 95% of the rabbits celebrate small need at a back wall of the cell. Just where you’ll mesh. There goes 70% of the feces. The rest of the animal feces scattered across the floor, but it’s dry, so sweep it much easier.
A simple rotary feeder from Zolotukhin different from the usual bunker that you can expand, slightly pulling
Litter, which absorbs moisture, Nikolai uses only in order to teach the young urinate at the back of the room. In his buildings always dry, and time to harvest he has to pay less than others. Details about the method of Zolotukhin see the video.
Begin construction of the Warren
To accurately calculate the consumption of materials required for the device of the Warren, or you need to use ready-made drawing or make your own sketch based on the above proposed sizes. After purchasing the material, you can get to work.
This drawing bunk two-piece cage that can contain four adults rabbits. It is equipped with Assembly barn, drinking bowls and hopper feeders
If the frame is wood, cut to size slats and connect them with screws. Make sure that there are no distortions. For this level check the horizontal surface, and a square – vertical. First, collect the front and rear frames. Now, using the short connecting ceiling and floor, combine them into a single structure.
If you look at the Warren side, you can see exactly how to do his roof, so she was inclined
The frame is ready. Now set the bars and barn doors. Stacked slatted floors, not forgetting that the clearance between the elements should not exceed 10 mm. After performing this operation the mesh and cut the plywood to attach them to the frame with screws.
Now covered with the roof. For the first level of the roof, you can use a waterproof sheet QSB. Cut out it so that the edge of the sheet of 10-15 cm were the dimensions of the cells. For the construction of the second tier take a wavy slate. It is attached to the inclined bars of the frame.
It remains only to set the doors from OSB panels, drinking bowls and hopper feeders. The work has been completed. Watch the video, it will help you:
All-season variant with insulated compartments
Another Warren, this time all season, is the master who made it. Below we show a drawing installations and video made by the author.
Another option rabbitry, this time it is equipped with a warm compartments, helping fluffy animals to successfully survive the cold and bad weather
A video with instructions: