LGOberean
Doctor of Teleocity
We’re getting into raising rabbits. In addition to raising quail. And keeping chickens. And gardening.
We found growers in the area, and had made arrangements to buy two does from one breeder, and a buck from another. Obviously, ours will be a small rabbitry operation but that’s fine for just my wife and me. We’re growing them for meat and maybe fur and anticipate that we’ll have a productive enough operation to sell a few. Anyway, that’s the plan.
But there was a hiccup to the plan. The husband of the grower that had the does for us didn’t get the memo on which does were spoken for, and culled one of the does before his wife caught the error.
So we did more searching, and found another source for a doe. This third rabbitry outfit wasn’t raising rabbits the way we want to (they were overcrowding them, IMO), and they were more expensive than the other growers. But even in this we caught a break, because the doe they sold us was pregnant, so we got more bang for our buck…or better said, for our doe.
The rabbitry operation that has the buck we picked out lives farther away, and since we’re going to be in that area of Texas in a few weeks anyway, we’ll pick up the buck then.
Our breeding stock rabbits are all named, BTW. And the names chosen are a nod to the breed of rabbits we’re raising, which is the TAMUK breed. For those not familiar with rabbit breeds and/or aren’t from Texas, TAMUK is the name of a university, the university where this breed of rabbit was created. Specifically, the acronym stands for Texas A&M University—Kingsville (located about 45 miles south of us). And this breed of rabbits bears that name.
So, we knew even in the stage of setting up our rabbitry infrastructure that the names of our first does would reflect the breed. A&M students are collectively known as Aggies, so our first doe was named Aggie. Our next doe was named Tammie, which is also a nod of sorts (“Gimme a T for Texas”) to the breed/university name.
My wife chose the name Gavin for our buck. He’s a white buck, and she found some online source that said Gavin meant white falcon (or hawk). The white part of the meaning was good enough in her thinking. I think it’s a bit ironic to name a rabbit buck after one of his predators, but my wife liked the name. Anyway, it was her desire to name them, not mine, and she has since painted the name above the door of his hutch, so Gavin it is.
Speaking of hutches, we made them for our breeding stock, and a grow-out hutch for their offspring is in the works. We had a good bit of scrap lumber from other projects, as well as from a find of eleven discarded pallets that were in really good condition. My wife did a lot of online research on hutch design of other rabbitry operations and came up with a mix of those designs and her own ideas. I helped with the grunt work, but the design is her own.
All of this is within the Corpus Christi city limits, BTW. (We wish we could move from the city and live in a more rural/agrarian community, but we can’t afford to do that, yet.) We’re (mostly
) in compliance with city ordinances regarding chickens and such.
Most of our operations and infrastructure (chicken coop & run, quail aviary, rabbit hutches and most of our gardening) are in our back yard. But we do some (food) gardening in our front yard, and plan to move even more in that direction. And I’ve posted previously about having a “chicken tractor” to let some of our chickens “mow” the front yard. The chicken tractor will double as a “rabbit” tractor on occasion.
Our neighbors’ reactions to what we’re doing is mixed. Several marvel at us, seemingly in an admiring way. They make affirming statements and gladly receive the produce we share from our garden. Others have looked askance at our projects as they walk by, and from one neighbor we got a thinly veiled backhanded “compliment.”
I’m assuming that the TDPRI dictum “Pics or it didn’t happen” applies to such things as well, so pics to follow in this thread.
We found growers in the area, and had made arrangements to buy two does from one breeder, and a buck from another. Obviously, ours will be a small rabbitry operation but that’s fine for just my wife and me. We’re growing them for meat and maybe fur and anticipate that we’ll have a productive enough operation to sell a few. Anyway, that’s the plan.
But there was a hiccup to the plan. The husband of the grower that had the does for us didn’t get the memo on which does were spoken for, and culled one of the does before his wife caught the error.
So we did more searching, and found another source for a doe. This third rabbitry outfit wasn’t raising rabbits the way we want to (they were overcrowding them, IMO), and they were more expensive than the other growers. But even in this we caught a break, because the doe they sold us was pregnant, so we got more bang for our buck…or better said, for our doe.
The rabbitry operation that has the buck we picked out lives farther away, and since we’re going to be in that area of Texas in a few weeks anyway, we’ll pick up the buck then.
Our breeding stock rabbits are all named, BTW. And the names chosen are a nod to the breed of rabbits we’re raising, which is the TAMUK breed. For those not familiar with rabbit breeds and/or aren’t from Texas, TAMUK is the name of a university, the university where this breed of rabbit was created. Specifically, the acronym stands for Texas A&M University—Kingsville (located about 45 miles south of us). And this breed of rabbits bears that name.
So, we knew even in the stage of setting up our rabbitry infrastructure that the names of our first does would reflect the breed. A&M students are collectively known as Aggies, so our first doe was named Aggie. Our next doe was named Tammie, which is also a nod of sorts (“Gimme a T for Texas”) to the breed/university name.
My wife chose the name Gavin for our buck. He’s a white buck, and she found some online source that said Gavin meant white falcon (or hawk). The white part of the meaning was good enough in her thinking. I think it’s a bit ironic to name a rabbit buck after one of his predators, but my wife liked the name. Anyway, it was her desire to name them, not mine, and she has since painted the name above the door of his hutch, so Gavin it is.
Speaking of hutches, we made them for our breeding stock, and a grow-out hutch for their offspring is in the works. We had a good bit of scrap lumber from other projects, as well as from a find of eleven discarded pallets that were in really good condition. My wife did a lot of online research on hutch design of other rabbitry operations and came up with a mix of those designs and her own ideas. I helped with the grunt work, but the design is her own.
All of this is within the Corpus Christi city limits, BTW. (We wish we could move from the city and live in a more rural/agrarian community, but we can’t afford to do that, yet.) We’re (mostly
) in compliance with city ordinances regarding chickens and such.Most of our operations and infrastructure (chicken coop & run, quail aviary, rabbit hutches and most of our gardening) are in our back yard. But we do some (food) gardening in our front yard, and plan to move even more in that direction. And I’ve posted previously about having a “chicken tractor” to let some of our chickens “mow” the front yard. The chicken tractor will double as a “rabbit” tractor on occasion.
Our neighbors’ reactions to what we’re doing is mixed. Several marvel at us, seemingly in an admiring way. They make affirming statements and gladly receive the produce we share from our garden. Others have looked askance at our projects as they walk by, and from one neighbor we got a thinly veiled backhanded “compliment.”
I’m assuming that the TDPRI dictum “Pics or it didn’t happen” applies to such things as well, so pics to follow in this thread.
