From what little I know, raising rabbits can be a big headache. This post from Thaivisa by bina who knows a few things about bunnies:
Posted July 29, 2011
rabbits, given lots of lettuce and no hay or outher roughage will get the runs; rabbits that raid gardens are supplementing their foraging diet with desserts from your garden; rabbits in captivity (which btw they are only domestic and not wild rabbits and hares which have different dietary and breeding habits) and feral rabbits (those that were the domestic variety that have become wild) cannot live on lettuce as it is 90 % water and no proteins, roughage or minerals/vitamins. corn is a partial protein... rabbits make both soft and hard feces. the soft feces they eat (sort of like chewing cud) th hard pellets are the reingested food sources shat out, just like other animals that chew cud. only the rabbit cud is from the anal end.
which is why there was as debate as if they were kosher or not: they chew 'cud' but dont have split hooves.
anyhow, rabbits do get stressed from overcrowding and u will lose many babies that way; crowded does will cannibaalize their young, young bucks will eat babies of other bucks, and crowded bucks will kill eachother and if not kill, then injure eachother horribly. crowded rabbits get scabies, 'snuffles' (a upper respiratory disease that kills off the babies and weaker stressed animals); the list is endless.does will throw other does babies from nesting boxes. a stressed doe will abandon her babies. remember, rabbits babies are born blind and naked. they nurse once a day from very very rich mother's milk. wild rabbits (the brown bunny type) and hares both give birth to developed young with fur and mobile from day one. the gestation times are also different.
we culled out most males, (russians eat rabbits as do some arab muslems in our area, though not all, and as mentioned, some thais, not most, chinese workers do). we also culled out bad dams, and kept the good ones; also culled out any biters, if a doe is a biter, the babies become adult biters also; ...
in high heat, there is sudden death (over 30" degrees in our area after cool period); poor cleanliness and build up of ammonia from rabbit urine from wet food (lettuce, veggies, as apposed to pellets and hay alfalfa)kills off babies and weak young adults.
too much handling causes stress and death. rabbits die also from capture myopothy the same way deers do: a dog running and harrassing a group of yarded/caged rabbits will cause both instant death and also deaths even a few days later from chronic stress induced by acute stress. we once lost 60 rabits to a group of dogs hassling and harrassing them all night apparently.
like any other livestock, raising a few is diffent then raising as livestock animal husbandry.
bina
israel
