Northern Homesteading

Rabbits are one of the best choices of livestock for a family trying to self-sufficient. They are very small and incredibly calm natured. They aren’t dangerous when they get mad like cow, and aren’t as aggressive as a boar pig or billy goat can be. They can be housed in a small cage behind your house, and won’t bother neighbors. About the Silver Fox Rabbit Ever hear of it? Most people haven’t unless they attend rabbit shows or have spent time googling rabbit breeds. The Silver Fox rabbit is truly one of the most unique and useful rabbits. It’s a heritage breed rabbit. Silver Fox rabbits from good lines will average 11 pounds as an adult. They have large litters and excellent mothering instincts. I've raised them for 10 or 11 years now. Body Type The Silver Fox rabbit has a wide and deep hind quarter, and smaller shoulders. That gives it a good meat-to-bone ratio. They are not a big-boned rabbits, like some breeds. They grow quickly, have a lot of meat, and stay healthy. The Silver Fox rabbit is very predictable with the color of their offspring. They are almost always jet black and will start to get a fleck of silvering on the tips of the guard hairs at about three months old. The silvering will be full by six months old. Unfortunately, It’s not a very common rabbit. The breed was nearly extinct in the 1970’s. by the 1990s, thanks to a Silver Fox rabbit club, there were a few breeders here and there throughout the country. Today, there are breeders in each state. I know of four besides me in Michigan, but not all of them breed purebreds. The fur on a Silver Fox was bred to mimic the fur of the arctic silver fox. Its coat is full, thick, and has the same color scheme as the wild animal. If you brush the fur backward, from rump to head, it will stand straight up and not lay back down. That’s called stand-up, and it’s the only rabbit with that feature. Since they are a larger rabbits, they make better use of a varied diet without contracting bloat. Bloat is when there is too much gas in the gut. A rabbit with indigestion can get a gas build-up (bloat). More often than not, bloat will kill a rabbit. Silver Fox don’t seem to have that problem. Big plus there! Although, there is not a lot of genetic variation in the breed so you have to be picky about selecting your future breeders. In the 1920’s a study was done through the USDA about feeding meat rabbits grain. They reported that rabbits fed all or mostly grain showed good gain by butcher age. The best gain was with corn. Many folks consider corn to be a poor choice and potentially dangerous for rabbits, but it is an ingredient in most pelleted rabbit feeds and I'm fine with it. Silver Fox, being a larger breed, don't have much of a danger of that. I give my young rabbits cracked corn and my adults get some whole kernel corn, in addition to fiber-rich feeds such as green leaves or hay. This breed seems to handle the changing availability of fodder I have on hand throughout the seasons. The thick fur coats on Silver Fox rabbits make them a great choice for a northern environment. They thrive in the cold winters of Michigan. They do need to be kept out of direct sunlight. Too much direct sun will cause any domestic rabbit to have heat stroke. Silver Fox are no worse than the average rabbit when it comes to handling heat. Rabbit terms and breeding tactics A female rabbit is called a doe. A male rabbit is called a buck. A bunny is also called a kit, and a group of kits born together is a litter. A rabbit giving birth is kindling. A doe Kindles kits, got it? Those are old German-rooted words.. You can say bunny, baby, birthing, whatever. Sexual maturity is reached at around 5 months old, but a doe shouldn’t breed before 6 months old. By then, her body is completely done growing and there will be significantly less trouble with birthing. A slightly older doe seldom has a problem, whereas a younger one may not have a good mothering instinct. The gestation period for silver fox rabbits, and all domestic rabbit breeds, is 31 days, plus or minus a day. Depending of stress and quality of feed, a doe will have 4-12 bunnies. Rabbits don’t have heat cycles like most mammals. When rabbits successfully breed, that induces ovulation. 8 bunnies in a litter is a standard average. They need a warm dry nest. The bunnies will start eating solid food by 3 weeks, and can be removed from the mother during the fifth week. I start weaning my bunnies away from mom at exactly 5 weeks old. I remove one a day until they are all separated from the mother. If You remove them all at once, it is a big shock to the mother’s milk production and stresses her out more. Stress is what causes most health and behavior problems in rabbits. Stress can even lead to periods of infertility. If your rabbits won’t breed, look for a source of stress, and give them some time. After weaning, the mother can be bred again immediately, but it is wise to give her a few weeks to build up her strength. I breed my females two weeks after the last bunny is removed. About two months after the bunnies were born. Using my timeframe, I get 4 litters a year (every 3 months) from each female. Since the average number of bunnies is 8, you can figure that each breeding female will have 32 bunnies a year. I have 4 females. That’s about 108 bunnies in a year. If you don’t give the mom a rest period between litters, you can get 5 litters a year. Actually 4.9 litters. Nine-tenths of a litter isn’t worth having an unhealthy mom. Give her a break, she deserves it. she’ll do better for you after she has regained her strength. Breeding without a break stresses her out a lot and she won’t eat well. She also will have more health and digestive trouble. If she’s not utilizing her food well, forget about healthy babies. Want to get your hands torn up? Just like people, a stressed rabbit tends to be aggressive and touchy. Keep her comfy and she’ll keep her teeth to herself. Housing and cages Rabbits should be covered from direct sunlight, and if possible, be off the ground. On the ground, they will come in contact with ticks, and parasitic worms. They can be in a shed, or have a roof over their cage. The undisputed Best cage is an all-wire cage. Do not use chicken wire or hardware cloth in these. A wire cage is the cleanest, since there is no wood to absorb urine, and nowhere to build up poop in the cage. Use a heavy gauge cage wire with 1’x1’grid spacing. Use 1’x ½’ grid for the floor. Cut the wire into the dimensions you want, then attach the walls, floor and roof together with cage crimps. Add wire doors and wire latches. Put it on a frame of iron pipe or angle metal, and you’re the new bigshot in the business. The chicken wire and 2x4 cage is very common. Build a 2x4 frame that stands a few feet off the ground, and cover the top and sides in chicken wire. Get a sturdy cage wire with 1’x ½’ grid and lay it on top of the bottom 2x4’s for the floor. Use fence staples to attach it all the frame. Feeding pelleted feed Silver fox rabbits will get up to a healthy 11 pounds. On cheap, 16 percent protein rabbit feed, my Silver Fox bunnies will average 3 pounds at 7 weeks, 4 pounds at 10 weeks, and 5 pounds at 12 weeks old. That’s fairly typical of the breed. My local store sells basic feed for $15. With high protein feed 18 percent or above they will do more like 5 pounds at 10 weeks, but it’s not cost effective. The standard rabbit feed is 16 percent protein. There are 18 and 20 percent protein options, which will build up muscle faster, but they cost between $22 and $30. It’s not worth it. Grass is a healthful treat but a poor feed for rabbits. Feeding fodder Fodder is any plant material that is grown for animal feed. It can make up part or all of the diet of a rabbit. The most common fodder today is hay is dried hay. Hay can be a cost-effective method for feeding fodder throughout the winter. Local, dried hay, with a protein level of 12 to 15 percent, costs half what a bag of feed costs, pound for pound. In Michigan, all hay is either some or mostly alfalfa. Alfalfa has a protein level of 16 percent or so. As long as I don’t lose much from the dry leaves crumbling into chaff, it’s an economical option. Timothy hay is recommended for both horses and rabbits, in the adult life stage. Timothy is a long-stemmed grass with a lot of fiber and 10% or less protein. Low quality means that there isn’t much protein in it. It’s mostly grassy and lacking in legumes such as clover and alfalfa. I find it funny that around here, grassy has is considered “low quality” by the hay farmers. Timothy hay is a great example of a “low-quality hay” that’s not really low quality. By itself, it’s not a complete diet for growing bunnies or a pregnant doe, but it is a good maintenance feed. It’s recommended for non-mothering adult rabbits. Higher protein levels will build up muscle faster, and help them develop in the fetus, but this can lead to an adult getting fat. I do feed higher calorie and higher protein to my adults in the cold winter months. Either with a bit of corn, or a cheap sweet feed. A pregnant rabbit with a low protein diet will have smaller litters. I’ve personally seen a 50% reduction in litter size when switching from cheap pellets to a fresh-cut hay diet. It wasn’t just grass either. I fed a fifty-fifty mix of long-stemmed grass and clover to increase the protein. The big bonus with fresh fodder is the amount of vitamins in it. just a few leaves of dandelion, plantain, or chicory each day improves milk production of a doe and promotes general health due to the high vitamin content. Leaves of the burdock weed help promote good health and breeding in male rabbits. There are a lot of benefits to giving at least a bit of fresh green “weeds” to your rabbits. It’s only a weed if you have no use for it. I live in the rural countryside. We don’t have to keep our lawns trimmed to an even three inches. I cut my lawn (tiny hay field) with a machete or a grass whip, as I need it, to feed to my animals. I can cut one spot three times a year. My yard isn’t just grass, it’s full of chicory, dandelion, clovers, burdock, wild carrot, plantain, and four different wild grasses. All the weeds that most people pull and poison simply feed my animals. I’ve also been known to feed my adults sugar beets, pumpkins, turnips, and green tree leaves. The leaves from mulberry trees are actually a great high protein feed. They can contain over 20 percent protein, not counting water content (that’s how it’s calculated). How much do they eat? If feeding fodder greens, I give a tightly wrapped bundle roughly the size of my two fists stacked together (I have big hands) to each adult. If they eat most of it, I’ll give them a second bundle later in the day. If you are using grain in their diet (corn, oats, sunflower seeds, etc.) two tablespoons are about the most you should give them, or, half of a quarter cup scoop. Grain doesn’t have a lot of fiber in it, so go easy on it. Pregnant or nursing does should have unlimited access to feed. As should growing bunnies. Based on a good average litter size of 8, momma and her kits will eat about 100 pounds of pelleted feed (with no supplements) during the three-month process from breeding, to butchering the kits at 8 weeks old. Adult bucks, and non-breeding adult does, will eat about 75 pounds of pelleted, 16 percent protein feed in a year. That’s approximately one cup, or just under, per day. It should be split between breakfast and supper. If they haven’t finished their last meal, weather its fodder of feed, you are probably feeding too much. With fodder, if you give them more than they want to eat, they will step on it and poop and pee on it. rabbits won’t eat it then. If they have fodder leftover, and it’s not clean, remove it and give them some fresh. If you feed them less at a time, but more frequent feedings, there will be less waste and the cages will be cleaner. Both you and the rabbit will be happy! How much do they cost? Currently, the going rate in the Midwest for a Silver Fox bunny, just weaned, is about $75. I usually sell mine for that. Expect to pay up to $100 for a good adult rabbit. An adult buck will eat about 75 pounds of pellets a year. 75 pounds will cost me $20-$30. It costs me 28 dollars per litter in feed, on average, to feed a litter out to butcher, including feeding the momma before they are born. A sturdy cage can be made with $10 in materials or $110 in materials. I built a cage for my first bucks out of two pallets, some rusty chicken wire, reused nails, and part of an old door. I used it for a few years until I put up some wire cages. It didn’t cost me a cent. There are often old rabbit cages for sale on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Sometimes people will just give them away. Do what you can afford. Care and maintenance Properly bred and raise rabbits should need very little upkeep. The most common thing they need are nails trimmed every couple months. A cat nail trimmer works great for it. it’s like a dog nail trimmer, but smaller. Dog nail trimmers will work too. They should be given a piece of untreated wood to gnaw on from time to time. Their front teeth can grow too long if they don’t wear down. Overgrown teeth will need to be filed down if you don’t want to put down the rabbit. It’s no easy task to hold down a rabbit and file it’s teeth. Occasionally, they can get hair matting around the anus. This usually happens when poop gets stuck in the fur. It causes the fur to tangle and mat together behind the tail. I’ve dealt with it once. Some matts can be brushed or plucked out. Dampen it with warn water to help it loosen. bad ones need to be carefully cut off. A rabbit can develop what is known as sore hocks. That’s when the rear portion of their back feet get sore, for any number of reasons, develops a sore. If they get sore, the wire floor of a cage will irritate them and make it worse. Sore hocks can get really bad. It can become an open oozing wound prone to infection. It’s not the most common thing, but it’s serious enough that your rabbit’s feet should be inspected regularly for redness and swelling. If you see a sore spot, you can place a board in part of their cage to be easier on their feet. If it gets bad, clean the wound, apply antibiotic and wrap the feet in a clean gauze or piece of an ace bandage. They will get dirty so change the bandage every other day. Do not breed an unhealthy rabbit. If an infection is suspected, don’t allow it to be with other rabbits in the cage, and scrub and disinfect the cage regularly. You need to handle each rabbit somewhat regularly. That's the only way you're going to notice things before they become a big problem. From mites to cysts and sores, you need to handle them to know how they are doing.