Time has flown by; we've been on our little chunk of hobby farm land for nearly 5 years. Yep. 5. My brain stopped at 3 years. I've been telling folks, yeah, we've been here for about 3 years...lol joke's on me, because, nope, it's been almost 5. Embarrassing but true. We've made a lot of changes over the years, mostly trying out different types of livestock and housing for said livestock, to see what critters we like here, and what does and doesn't work.
What I kept circling back to with the rabbits is the idea of a colony. I would have liked to build a bigger one, but the one we have is more than sufficient for the 3 does, 1 senior buck and 1 junior buck that it will hold (after processing day on Monday - there is 1 mature Rex buck and 3 junior bucks that are headed for freezer camp). I really love having my rabbits in a colony. They're fun and relaxing to watch, it's a realistic way to safely raise rabbits, and it takes an awful lot of the work out of my daily routine. Win. No contest. I currently have one mother/daughter pair of Dwarf Hotots in one of my oversize quonset cages, which will be offered for sale to dedicated breeders in the area, and then I'll just have my colony. So calm and refreshing, truly!
I was hesitant to make the final decision on selling my cages, because I've never raised rabbits in ONLY a colony setting, but the previous colony struggled with raising any litters because it was at a low point on the property, and only 1 doe figured out how or where to dig her burrow so that it didn't end in catastrophic loss of kits (she was the best momma ever, I swear), and even SHE was only able to raise 3 kits to weaning age in that location. The current colony is at the absolutely highest point of our backyard, and sheltered by our neighbor's trees, so I was anticipating successful litters. I got my first glimpse of the first colony babies the other day, when Jo had excavated her way into the active litter den to feed them. I waited until she emerged, then got on my hands and knees, got as low to the ground as possible, and stretched my arm in up to the shoulder, with my smartphone recording and light on, when I finally felt the tunnel open up into the den itself. I carefully did a blind sweep with the phone's lens, hoping there was worthwhile footage it caught, because Jo was very insistently shoving at my side, making it clear just how little she appreciated the intrusion. I reviewed the video, and was tickled to see a small bunny rump retreating into the roiling cloud of fur! Hooray! BABIES!
This by no means guarantees that our colony is or will continue to be a successful cycle of life, but it is a strong indicator for a positive outcome. In about a week or two, I'll expect to see kits emerging from the den and joining colony life alongside their dedicated momma, Jo.
In the meantime, I've come to realize that rabbits in cages, while effective and a completely reasonable way to raise rabbits, just isn't something I enjoy as much as colony style. I've already sold the majority of my cages, and will only keep one or two large rectangular ones as spares for grow outs in the garden, which may be converted into bunny tractors to help keep the small garden walkways cleared while the youngsters grow to processing size, and keeps them separated by gender. We'll see how that part of it goes when we get to that point.