# Is breeding rabbits cheaper / more cuter way for snake food? (Advice Aswell??)



## toximac (Jan 13, 2010)

Just curious if anyone is breeding rabbits and if they could post some photos or give some advice on the set up..

Rats smell too much, I figure rabbit babies would be much cuter and even thou they have em once a year, I don't need that many adults to feed 4 pythons & figure if I had 10 females breeding it should be enough..buy less food for the rabbits... (well..rabbit hay/straw mix would be cheaper)

Let me know if you made a rabbit rack -- like shown OR have diff. way of keeping them - I would pay for someone to make me the rack below lol...

p.s. I heard from PETA you can get the male to rape the female by just holding them down, quick pregnancy..I know its horrible but it gets your line going fast..cause sometimes rabbits are really stuborn and may never get preg. cause the female acts up allot

Rabbit Rack







So much cuter than rats :'(






Easy Food...?? :-O


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## pyrodarknessanny (Jan 13, 2010)

why do you want cute food?, 
i get that rabbits are bigger than rats, but cuteness as a pluss for food?, if you get attached to them wouldnt it just make them harder to kill? then you would be stuck with lots of bunnies


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## JrFear (Jan 13, 2010)

hahahaaa omg there coooo cute here u go snakey!


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## Jungletrans (Jan 13, 2010)

Breed once a year ? Ever heard the expresion 'breed like rabbits ' ?


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## LullabyLizard (Jan 13, 2010)

If you get too many bunnies, you could just eat them yourself


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## beeman (Jan 13, 2010)

Your so called rabbit rack in the top pic would be at best useless, They urinate at a lot larger volume than rats and it would rot out in a very short time.
As far as feeding, like rats they are an atlib feeder and consume large quantitys of feed especially when lactating.
From the look of it in this thred and a few others you have made comment on you are a card carrying member of PETA as you seem to like dropping the word a lot and refer to thier rantings such as, "holding down a doe rabbit to let the male rape her so she will be in kitten" what complete and utter CRAP!

I sugest to you to buy the food you need as you dont even have the most basic of clues of animal husbandry or reproduction appart from what you are quoting from a extreemist animal right group, Or better still sell your animals as PETA would not approve of you keeping them for you own pleasure.
You come accross as a real goose!


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## sammy_sparkles (Jan 13, 2010)

oh....my...god....


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## euphorion (Jan 13, 2010)

beeman said:


> Your so called rabbit rack in the top pic would be at best useless, They urinate at a lot larger volume than rats and it would rot out in a very short time.
> As far as feeding, like rats they are an atlib feeder and consume large quantitys of feed especially when lactating.
> From the look of it in this thred and a few others you have made comment on you are a card carrying member of PETA as you seem to like dropping the word a lot and refer to thier rantings such as, "holding down a doe rabbit to let the male rape her so she will be in kitten" what complete and utter CRAP!
> 
> ...



ditto. epic fail dude, epic fail.


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## Vixen (Jan 13, 2010)

Rats shouldn't smell if you keep them clean anyway..


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## Costa (Jan 13, 2010)

you dont need to "hold the female down"
my girlfriends rabbits breed so often she had to seperate them. they ended up with 10 from 2 to start with in only 4 months.


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## pinkmus (Jan 13, 2010)

Just keep one good sized male on its own and a few breeding females. Make the male's cage sort of round without corners (so that the female can't get into a corner and thus not allow mating to occur) and put the females in for 15 minutes when you're ready to breed them. Also wood and rabbits don't mix imo, use thick galvanized mesh for the sides and use the type of thicker mesh that is narrow rectangular shaped for the floor. Elevate these cages and let the poo + pee fall on the concrete/tile, then you can easily wash/clean up the droppings. Make sure you have a nice cool place to keep them in as they are very susceptible to heat. Overseas we used to get commercial caging availible with integrated feed systems + nesting boxes. I don't know where you can get them here but they are quite expensive. Maybe PETA (lol) was referring to artificial insemination which I have seen in use, the female is placed in a tube etc etc......

-Will


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## Troy06 (Jan 13, 2010)

thay will breed every 4 weeks 1 female and 1 male will do you for 4 snakes


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## pyrodarknessanny (Jan 13, 2010)

Troy06 said:


> thay will breed every 4 weeks 1 female and 1 male will do you for 4 snakes


 

too bad i cant have them. the cost seams out of balance with these things 
wounder about hares (but there slower to breed)


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## Noongato (Jan 13, 2010)

Rabbits never stop eating, they reduce everything to dirt and replace it with mountains of rabbit pellets (poo) and they urinate like a tsunami. 
Ive had 2 pet rabbits in a 3x2m area and within a week you could smell nothing but caked up urine and feaces. So in a wooden box you are going to be quite repulsed in a matter of days.
IMO its alot easier to keep 100 rats than 2 adult rabbits.


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## Noongato (Jan 13, 2010)

Oh and their urine is whitish and is like milk. Really grose.

Mind you i still have a pet rabbit, but she is litter trained and its emptied everyday.


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## mysnakesau (Jan 13, 2010)

I bred rabbits for pet and show purposes for about 6 years during my teen years. Trust me they stink just as bad if not worse than any other animal. It didn't matter how clean I kept them (bedded on shavings, even tried rice hulls), ask my "non-animal" friends to step into my rabbitry and they would let me know it smelt bad. The males spray, every animal needs to be housed separately. The heat will kill them just as quickly as it can the rats and you want something cuter to feed your snakes. 

I didn't exactly have the room for commerical set up, I had cabinets similar to that in your photo, and I had 80 rabbits, even imported 4 from England before the ban was put in place. It works out ok but you should have some large, outdoor pens where they can jump and stretch their legs. Give a rabbit more room than it normally gets and watch them play. They run fast, jump in the air and scratch, roll, and eat. They are really funny to watch.

Oh and you need to cover open areas with fine insect screen to protect them against mozzies and fleas. Both these pests, and no doubt any other blood sucking pest can and do carry those two dreaded diseases - myxo and the calica virus. Have fun constantly repairing the screens too as the rabbits like chewing them.


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## toximac (Jan 15, 2010)

beeman said:


> Your so called rabbit rack in the top pic would be at best useless, They urinate at a lot larger volume than rats and it would rot out in a very short time.
> As far as feeding, like rats they are an atlib feeder and consume large quantitys of feed especially when lactating.
> From the look of it in this thred and a few others you have made comment on you are a card carrying member of PETA as you seem to like dropping the word a lot and refer to thier rantings such as, "holding down a doe rabbit to let the male rape her so she will be in kitten" what complete and utter CRAP!
> 
> ...


ROFL

"Holding down a doe rabbit to let the male rape her so she will be in kitten:"????
I said..
"I heard from PETA you can get the male to rape the female by just holding them down, quick pregnancy."
Obviously that ties me to PETA and I Obviously make posts about PETA to everyone cause you say so :-S 
Please also don't suggest something unless its useful, its quite obvious rabbits wee more and I know wood rots with anything wet

********************************************************************************************************************************


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## cris (Jan 15, 2010)

Im fairly sure most proffesional breeders use AI these days(there was a show about it on landline a few months back), it works much better although it may be a bit technical for for some.



VixenBabe said:


> Rats shouldn't smell if you keep them clean anyway..



Exactly, they actually are very clean if you provide a good habitat, their crap only stinks if you dont clean it up. In saying that though there crap does stink worse than some other animals like quails, which have no clean toileting habits and arnt cute or clever so are much easier to kill. You also dont have to steal the young from the parents which is pretty mean. But i guess im just a bit of a bleeding heart.


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## toximac (Jan 15, 2010)

pinkmus said:


> Just keep one good sized male on its own and a few breeding females. Make the male's cage sort of round without corners (so that the female can't get into a corner and thus not allow mating to occur) and put the females in for 15 minutes when you're ready to breed them. Also wood and rabbits don't mix imo, use thick galvanized mesh for the sides and use the type of thicker mesh that is narrow rectangular shaped for the floor. Elevate these cages and let the poo + pee fall on the concrete/tile, then you can easily wash/clean up the droppings. Make sure you have a nice cool place to keep them in as they are very susceptible to heat. Overseas we used to get commercial caging availible with integrated feed systems + nesting boxes. I don't know where you can get them here but they are quite expensive. Maybe PETA (lol) was referring to artificial insemination which I have seen in use, the female is placed in a tube etc etc......
> 
> -Will


Fantastic Advice, finding rectangular mesh for the bottom cage (retangular not square) is hard, none at bunnings I can find :-S - Also its extremely easy to potty train em, just put there poo/wee's in a tray and they'll always go to the toliet in it. Looking into building the circular cage now, thx for advice


Troy06 said:


> thay will breed every 4 weeks 1 female and 1 male will do you for 4 snakes


omg I thought they only had 10 babies a year ROFL


mysnakesau said:


> Oh and you need to cover open areas with fine insect screen to protect them against mozzies and fleas. Both these pests, and no doubt any other blood sucking pest can and do carry those two dreaded diseases - myxo and the calica virus. Have fun constantly repairing the screens too as the rabbits like chewing them.


I guess if its double mesh with a cm gap with wire on the outside cage would work and not be bitten..:-S Ive had rabbits live over 6 years without mesh, no dogs and some mosquitos around, virus only happened once early 90s but since then no virus, nothing and no mesh :-/ 80 rabbits lol I would have a run and not that many hehe, they'll be outside, wouldn't stink as bad as my rat room.


pyrodarknessanny said:


> why do you want cute food?,
> i get that rabbits are bigger than rats, but cuteness as a pluss for food?, if you get attached to them wouldnt it just make them harder to kill? then you would be stuck with lots of bunnies


Yes but don't you ever cuddle the baby rats and give them veggies and think their cute with their fat fury heads and when they use paws to clean their face, hehehe


VixenBabe said:


> Rats shouldn't smell if you keep them clean anyway..


 I clean the rat rack room every 5 days, every 4 to stop em stinking and I use concrete tubs, Ive had escapies and they steal the food and store it under the work bench. The cost of rat food aswell, rabbits would be cheaper.


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## Jen (Jan 15, 2010)

Hundreds of millions of rabbits feral in Australia came from just 25 brought here in the 1800's. So, no, they don't just breed once a year. Why do you want 'cute food' for your reps?


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## toximac (Jan 15, 2010)

Its not that I want cute food for my snakes, its just that I want cute bunnies to look after rather than rats


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## Gecko :) (Jan 15, 2010)

sicko


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## Lonewolf (Jan 15, 2010)

maybe you should have done a bit of reserch be for you asked these types of questions if you google it you will easly find what you are looking for 

sorry but im with beeman


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## pinkmus (Jan 15, 2010)

Just build a normal rectangular cage and put a circular length of mesh (tied at the ends) around the sides so that the corners are blocked off......This is just for the male you use as a stud.

EDIT: bunnings probably won't have this mesh biut if you come across a heavy gauge mesh that has shapes small enough for the rabbits to be comfortable but large enough for the poo to pass through then use it.

-Will


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## cement (Jan 16, 2010)

I've bred rabbits and feed them on, they aren't cheaper then rats. But they smell good when you thaw them out in hot water!


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## toximac (Jan 16, 2010)

Lonewolf said:


> maybe you should have done a bit of reserch be for you asked these types of questions if you google it you will easly find what you are looking for
> 
> sorry but im with beeman



Sorry I don't get you, why would I not post a thread on what I want to know from a rabbit breeder on a reptile site under 'other animals'.. ? I don't get how thats the same as researching on google or why its any diff.

Id much prefer to get advice from people who have been through trial and error than go through it myself. Thats why we have this forum Lonewolf, and this section, its called "Other Animals"..If you cant handle it then stick to the reptile threads


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## mysnakesau (Jan 16, 2010)

I can't believe the likes of PETA told you how to hold the doe down so the male can rape her. They are suppose to be looking after animals, not giving advice on how to hold them against their will.

In most circumstances you won't need to hold her. And most of time it will be over fairly quickly. You said you have kept rabbits so I guess you know how they do it  - when the male does a kind of back flip you know the job has been done right. But if you're gonna hold the doe you might need to help him out by sticking her butt up and holding her, with her tail up, also. She flattens that tail down he won't be successful.


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## wokka (Jan 16, 2010)

We breed and sell both rats and rabbits.Rabbits end up cheaper per kilo (600 gram weaner rabbit about $6) but about the same dollars per head as larger rats. Feed is about the same price but feed is not the major cost. Caging for rabbits is dearer as you need more shed space. They are both about as tolerant to heat as each other.


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## toximac (Jan 26, 2010)

wokka said:


> We breed and sell both rats and rabbits



do you sell live stock aswell? and is there any breed of rabbit that generally has more babies/larger .. .better off breeding rather than the mini lop ones lol???


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## pythonmum (Jan 26, 2010)

If you want big rabbits, get a meat breed like full size lops, NZ whites or the Austraian meat strain developed by the CSIRO. They also have large litters, but need large cages. I kept them outside in elevated hutches for good airflow. This was in the USA, so no worries about myxo or calicivirus. It sometimes helps to dig a toilet pit underneath. After a while you throw in some lime and fill it up, then move to another location. I didn't have too many hutches - only bred rabbits for a year.

There are some specialist rabbit strains developed by medical research for things like congenital high cholesterol which need a bit of help with mating. The rest manage just fine on their own. The physical stimulation of mating causes the female to ovulate, so no worry about her being 'in heat'. I never left a doe with a buck for 15 minutes - he'd die of exhaustion! He'd usually done her two or three times by the time I stopped laughing.

I see no real advantage over rats. As wokka says, space is the big issue.


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## beersdave (Jan 26, 2010)

4 pythons, NOT alot of animals to feed. just buy rats.


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## toximac (Mar 16, 2010)

pythonmum said:


> I see no real advantage over rats. As wokka says, space is the big issue.



We have a big property so space isn't the issue, its really the costing of rat food/chaff & cleaning (time).. I know rabbits are less work, and they can be toliet trainned easy by cleaning their poo and re-distributing bits in their trays...that way you just clean their tray..

I was wondering if mini lop ears could be fed off? If Im having lots, I can sell some aswell..??


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## ShaunMorelia (Mar 16, 2010)

When my old girl was breeding rabbits for pets she had an elevated cages made of mesh above the chook pen.
All their crap just fell to the ground and was mixed in with the chooks crap.


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## JAS101 (Mar 16, 2010)

beersdave said:


> 4 pythons, NOT alot of animals to feed. just buy rats.


yeah seems like a lot of stuffing around for 4 snakes . i have 10 snakes and im no where near breeding ANY food source as its not cost worthy for me yet.


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## cris (Mar 16, 2010)

toximac said:


> I know rabbits are less work, and they can be toliet trainned easy by cleaning their poo and re-distributing bits in their trays...that way you just clean their tray..



Rats can also be toilet trained this way, but if you give them a decent amount of space they figure it out themselves. They may be called Sewer Rats but that doesnt mean they like living in filthy conditions, they are actually very clean animals.


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## mark83 (Mar 16, 2010)

You might be better off buying a freezer and buying frozen rats in bulk. It will save a heap of time and buying in bulk will be cheaper. 4 snakes don't eat that much.


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## Snowman (Mar 16, 2010)

sammy_sparkles said:


> oh....my...god....


 

lol


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## toximac (Apr 5, 2011)

I think im gonna buy them now. Sold my rabbits, too much cleaning. Would of been diff. with a wire galvanised flooring over a garden troff - would hunting local rabbits and freezing for a few months be alright to feed snakes?


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## KaotikJezta (Apr 5, 2011)

mysnakesau said:


> I can't believe the likes of PETA told you how to hold the doe down so the male can rape her. They are suppose to be looking after animals, not giving advice on how to hold them against their will.
> 
> In most circumstances you won't need to hold her. And most of time it will be over fairly quickly. You said you have kept rabbits so I guess you know how they do it  - when the male does a kind of back flip you know the job has been done right. But if you're gonna hold the doe you might need to help him out by sticking her butt up and holding her, with her tail up, also. She flattens that tail down he won't be successful.


PETA kills more dogs and cats in a year than any other welfare organisation, they rehome only about 2% of all animals surrendered as they refuse to adopt a no kill policy and they don't want aanimals o be pets so they'ed rather kill them. They are pretty hypocritical all round.



cris said:


> Rats can also be toilet trained this way, but if you give them a decent amount of space they figure it out themselves. They may be called Sewer Rats but that doesnt mean they like living in filthy conditions, they are actually very clean animals.


 And intelligent and cute in my opinion


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## sookie (Apr 15, 2011)

Please oh please don't breed anything,im not sure you know what you are doing.Rabbits breed like crazy,how many females did you say you were going to get.an average litter size can be from 9 to 14 kittens (baby rabbits).are you not going to let them grow at all?


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## solar 17 (Apr 15, 2011)

Rabbits like Rats ideal temp is 23-24c start getting into the upper 20's and their breeding starts to slow up where at 30 it virtually ceases and @ 35+ in "most" cases everything ceases [life]. There are heaps of websites some very techinical that all come to this one conclusion and one other point is that its considered by most producers that there is a shortage of "domestic" food rabbits in Oz because of our weather [summer/winter] and cleaning/feeding expenses its not easy, except maybe for hobbyists on a very small scale...solar 17 [Baden]..ps one final point female rats cycle every 96-100 hrs female rabbits [does] every 28 days


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