 Hi everybody. Thank you for coming. My name is Jarrah Pettybone. I'm a farmer in Columbus, and my farm is called Pettybone Urban Game. I've been raising rabbits for about six years. So I'm here to tell you all about it. Sorry about that. All right. So the first thing, obviously, that you want to do when you are deciding whether, you know, what to do with your rabbits is what's your purpose for them. Are you raising for meat? Are you raising for fiber? Are you raising for the pet market? Are you raising for pelts, etc. And that will help you choose your breed. There are hundreds of breeds of rabbit. Obviously, some of them are available locally, and some of them are not. I'm just going to talk about a couple of them today. So when you're trying to source, I'd recommend basically, you know, doing a little bit of research, finding like your dream rabbits, maybe your top three breeds, and then looking in your area to see if those are available. So I'll talk about it, or I'm going to talk about four different breeds today. All right. So the first two I'm going to talk about are the modern meat breed that you'll see. They're really common to find. That's the New Zealand and the California. These, again, you can find them pretty much everywhere in the country. These rabbits are bred to have a like, like thin, light bones and a lot of muscle. They're bred to breed, to grow quickly. And also some of them are selected for high, like, you know, like a large litter size also. So that's those two. And then this one, this is the Silver Fox. This is a great heritage rabbit. It was developed in Ohio. And there are still a lot of breeders in the area, so they are available. And I always recommend folks take advantage of our local breeding history and support those people who are still doing that. The breed that I raise is the Champagne Dargent. This is a French meat breed. They are heavy breeds. So they weigh between, like full grown, they weigh between nine and 12 pounds. So they're like the size of your cat. I like these rabbits a lot. They have a really nice kind of docile personality. They make a lot of meat, and they have really, really nice pelts. And then, oops, sorry, let me go back. Another, some breeds I didn't mention for fiber are Angora and Rex. And those are rabbits, you harvest fiber from them as it grows. All right. So I talked a little bit about sourcing, but obviously starting with like a healthy stock from a reliable source is really important for your success. I would say that you want to find somebody in your area who is known, maybe has shown a few times and can provide you with any pedigree or breeding information that you might want. And that is also someone who's willing to talk with you at least for a little bit about how they raise their rabbits. Maybe if possible, if they're local enough, you can go and see how they keep their rabbits. You just want to make sure that you're talking with someone that you trust. One way to meet breeders is to go, you can go on Craigslist. There are a lot of different Facebook forums. There are even some local ones. And there are lots of, well, there used to be in the before times, a lot of sanctioned rabbit shows in the area that you can go to and meet breeders that way. I have some more detailed information at the end of the presentation that will give you some specific places to go to find breeders. Another great resource is the National Rabbit Breeders Association. They do have a website. There's tons of info on there and there is also contact info for breeders. All right. If you would like to learn more about champagne to our gents, I do sell processed rabbits. I sell breeders and I sell young rabbits for pets. My email address is right there and you can always contact me after the presentation if you want to know more about that. All right. So for housing, there is lots of different ways that you can house your rabbits. Some are more conventional and some are not. I'm going to go through three different types and I'm going to show you what kind of works best for me. As you can see, this is a cage that has a wire bottom. This is a really common style for rabbit cages because rabbit poop is circular and it just falls right through the wire. So it really does cut down on your cleaning time and also just sort of keeps the cage a little bit more sanitary for the rabbits. I have used a lot of wire cages. There are a few drawbacks. One of them is that the wire doesn't protect your rabbits from the elements. So in the winter time, you might have to skirt them to keep them out of the wind depending on where your cages are. Also, if you have a heavy breed, it can be really hard on their feet. They can get sore hocks and they can get sore and stuff. So you need to just watch for that. A lot of times, I'll put down something these are just old linoleum tiles. You can put down silicone mats. You need something in that cage to give your rabbits feet a rest. This particular hutch has a wire side and a solid side and then the solid side is also enclosed. This is great for nesting. It's great for winter time. But you just need to give your rabbits a break from the wire if that's the route you choose to go. This is a cage that is common. This style is common. They're stacked. If you need to keep a lot of rabbits in a small space, this is a way to do it. I used this cage for a little while. This is not my favorite style. But again, everyone's situation is different. Then when you hear people describe holes, when you talk about rabbit cages, that just means how many doors there are, how many spaces there are to keep rabbits. The other thing is some people call for sore hocks. They're committed to wire cages and that works for their system. If you have a rabbit that doesn't fit into that, then they'll call. I don't call for that though. My rabbits are too large for that. This is a wire-bottomed pasture pen. Rabbits do well on pasture. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the rotational pasture grazing of poultry. It's very similar. These cages have worked really well for me. I've had them for years. They can either be set up off the ground or you can put them on the ground and move them every day so that your rabbits can get fresh forage. This is the inside of this cage. As you can see, it's divided into two. This side is for water and food. Then this side is for nesting. Then this goes out to the run. Then this side is covered, obviously, because you want them to be safe from elements when they want to be. Then you can also use this style cage for a lot of different things. These are partridge. Then behind them, I have rabbits in this style. I'm sorry if I'm going a little bit quick. I was a little ambitious with this. I'll try to get through everything, but if not, you can find the link to this presentation in the chat box. I will also find a way to get it to you guys if you can't access it that way. Either way, you'll be able to look at it later. This is my preferred way of housing rabbits at this point. I like to keep mine in a colony. This is a less common way of housing your rabbits, but it's really been awesome for my particular situation. It cuts down on my short time a lot. It makes it so that the rabbits are better socialized. They get better exercise. They have better protection from the elements. Colonies are really adaptable. You can build a colony in any space. Actually, if you have an old barn with a bunch of old horse stalls, that would be a great place to have rabbit colonies. One thing to keep in mind is that rabbits will climb and they will dig. I have a cement floor in this colony, but if you don't, then I recommend putting down wire or burying your wire so that they can't dig under it. Just like with a lot of other poultry to protect from predators, if you have a run, which you can see here's my door. This goes out to a run in the summertime and they have wire buried 12 inches so that the rabbits can't dig out and predators can't dig in. Then I do also recommend that you have your top of your run closed because hawks or whatever predators come from the sky and also rabbits are amazing climbers and they can climb up eight feet of hardware wire. Also, all chewable materials need to be wood out of the way unless you want the rabbits to chew. I have used just some old vinyl siding and that protects the walls of my wood shed from rabbits chewing it. These have worked really well. Another thing that you want to keep in mind is that when you keep rabbits in a colony, obviously you'll have your dough, your dough and your bucks will kind of all be in the same spot. A lot of people keep their dough separately. Most of the time I keep my dough in my colony, but when I don't want him to breed, I instead of this tray up here, I put a cage right here and he has his own separate cage. That way he can still be in the colony and socialize with everybody, but I don't get more kits than I want. That works really well for me for controlling breeding. Then you want to make sure you have enough hiding spots. There's one here. There's one here. There's some all along this wall. Everybody has a place to nest or to sleep in the colony. One more thing. If you are keeping individual breeding records for your rabbits and that's a really important part of your system, then a colony may make that a little bit harder. I have two does and a buck. I have a breeding trio in my colony. I keep individual records for my breeding stock, but not necessarily for my growouts if they are going to be meat rabbits. If you are keeping your rabbits in a cage, you're going to need to keep each adult in their separate cage. Dows in particular can be really territorial, so you don't want to keep does and bucks in the same cage. I have kept sister rabbits in the same cage, so two does who are raised in the same litter their whole lives and they did very well, but it really just depends on the personality of your rabbit, whether that works for you or not, but I recommend when you start that you keep each adult in their own separate place. That means when you're breeding, you need to put them in a neutral place so that there isn't any violence. If you put a buck into a doe's cage, there will likely be some violence on the part of the doe. They can be really territorial. This setup that I have is just a folding table. This is a mat that you would use to wipe your feet at the door, and I used this because it's got a really thick, like rough texture, so the rabbits can dig into it with their claws while they're mating and then they feel a little bit more secure. Most of the time when you put a rabbit buck and doe in the same spot, they'll go ahead and do their thing. Sometimes you do need to coach them and help them, but what you're looking for is three observed fall-offs. The buck will mount the doe, and after he's done, he'll go like that and then just fall down. That's what we call a fall-off. You want that to happen three times ideally to make sure that you have a breeding that will stick. Then if you can, you want to try to re-breed that same pair after eight to 10 hours because after breeding, the doe is compelled to ovulate eight hours later. You want to make sure that there's still sperm there when she ovulates. Then obviously, when you're planning your breedings, you're just going to select for whatever qualities you're looking for in your next litter, and that can be whatever you decide. After you have bred your rabbits, the gestation period for a litter is about 30 days, and you're going to wean your kits at six weeks. Depending on your cage, if you have a cage, you want to put a nesting box in the doe's cage about three days before you're expecting the kits, and that gives her an opportunity to build her nest. You want to put a bunch of material in there for her. Sometimes I use wood chips at the bottom of the box, and then I'll give her a bunch of hay. This is a video. I hope that you can see it. I don't know why it reduces by half every time I press play. If you put hay in a doe's cage and she gathers it in her mouth and does this building ritual, then this is a really good sign that she's pregnant. Then you can see that here, she's already taken fur. Dows have this doulap here on their necks, and they pull fur from it to make their nests. You will see them doing that. They'll build their nest, and then they'll line it with their own fur. This is a doe, and she's already had her litter, as you can see. Most does are good. They have the instincts that they need. If you have a new doe, I usually give new does two times to figure out what they're doing. If their instincts haven't kicked in after two litters, then I can decide whether they're right for my flock or not, but new does do need practice. Sometimes they don't get it right. Consistent breeding does keep the rabbits more productive. I've found this to be true in cage settings. If you wait six months between breedings, then you're going to get a smaller litter than you would if you bred every two months, just for example. But keep in mind that overbreeding is hard on the doe's bodies. A good doe will last you five or six years, but if you breed her every month, you may get three. Just depends on what works for you and your system. This is a litter that I had just a few weeks ago. The litter size, like I mentioned before, with heritage breeds tends to be smaller than the conventional meat breeds. I have seen conventional meat rabbits have litters of 27. I usually get anywhere between three and 12. I personally like a heritage breed of anything because I feel like it's just a little bit, that's just my personal opinion. A 27 rabbit litter is very large and very hard on a doe's body, in my opinion. Also, kits should be weaned at least two weeks before the new litter is born. This gives mom a chance to recover, gives her some rest before she has her next litter. Rabbits are pretty sensitive. Adult rabbits are pretty sensitive to heat. They're wearing their coats all the time, so hot weather can be really tough on them. In the summertime, I usually take a couple months off of breeding so that my does don't have to breed in August, July, August, whatever is the hottest months of the year. I usually let them have a break. You can pull down their cages with fans. You can put ice packs in there for them. You can freeze tiles and put them in their cages. Just keep an eye on them and make sure that they're doing okay in super hot weather. Most of the time they're fine and cold weather. You just need to keep them out of the wind and out of the snow. When you do have a new litter, I check my litters when they're first born to make sure that all of them are in the nest and that all of them have been tucked in there and are warm. Then I check one or two to make sure that they've been fed. You can actually tell when a newborn kit has been fed because their belly will be round with milk. If they look a little bit dehydrated or wrinkly, then they may not have been fed. This kit actually is a good example. You can see this one has not been fed yet. You can see that she's got some wrinkly skin here. She looks a little bit dehydrated. This is before their first feeding. If you notice a kit that looks wrinkly and dehydrated, you might want to keep an eye on that litter to make sure mom is going to feed them within a day or two of them being born. This is the same litter from the last page. This is a litter of 10. They were just born two weeks ago. After about a week, I'll take them out of the nest and check on them and see how they're doing. You can see that they've grown hair and they're really wiggly. I pulled out one small one and one larger one so you can see the variance in size. That's pretty normal to have them be kind of like different sizes. They should even out. If you have a dough that can't take care of your litter for any reason, you can foster kits to another dough who has had kits recently. I would say within a three to five day period, which is common if you're lining up your breeding that way. If you don't have another dough who can take care of your kits, you can hand feed them. Goat's milk is the type that I recommend, but don't give them cow's milk because it will make them sick. Also, guys, just so you know, I can take questions at the end, so I'm sorry if I'm sort of ignoring the chat for the time, but yeah, I'll get to all your questions. All right, so diet. Rabbits can eat a very, very diet. One of the things that makes them work so well on my farm is that they can just sort of eat so many different things, and I have found a really economical way to feed them. It sort of changes seasonally, but there are a few basics that you want to keep in mind when you're doing that. One of them is that if you are introducing greens to any rabbit at any age for the first time, you want to do it really slowly. If you get a rabbit from someone who isn't feeding greens to them before, you just want to gradually, I would say, give them a little handful, and then increase it a week later, and then increase it a week later. Rabbits are prone to gastroproblems, and they can get bloated, and it can be really dangerous for them. There are a bunch of lists on the internet of things that rabbits can't eat. Those lists can be helpful, but I would say that they're not necessarily always accurate. I have found a lot of things on those lists that my rabbits could eat very well. It just was a matter of meat introducing them properly into their diet, which is, again, slowly and gradually. Never feed rabbits any meat products or any fat, citrus, and then nightshades. You do want to limit. I don't give my rabbits tomato vines or anything in the nightshade family. It's just not a great idea. Yeah. All right. Then here is a list of the things that I have had success with feeding. I use Kent brand pellets. You want a pellet that is 16 to 18 percent protein. I use a pellet just as a base for my diet to make sure that the rabbits have the nutrition that they need. I really advise this for new rabbit keepers because it just makes sure that they have what they need. Then as you go, you can start to replace. You can supplement. You can figure out what works for you. Some things that have worked for me are small-sized alfalfa pellets, calfmanna. This is something that I give. This is really rich in nutrients. I give it in tablespoon doses for those who are lactating or for like in the winter time to keep everybody healthy. Wild greens and grasses. Rabbits need hay and hopefully every day, if you can, alfalfa or Timothy is the best. Alfalfa can be a little bit rich, so you want to feed that in moderation. Fruit and veggie scraps, fresh fallen leaves, whole barley, and oats. This is a great thing to feed in the winter time. I don't recommend corn though because rabbits don't really digest it and just kind of go straight through them. No one's getting any nutrition from that. You can absolutely feed organic pellets if you would like to. The only company that I know of in the area who produces them is New Country Organics, but I'm sure many of you are already familiar with that company. They're a good one. Yeah. I am going to talk about slaughter and processing. I do all of my own processing at the farm at this point, so I'm going to go through the process. There are several pictures, so if that's not something that you're into, it might be a good time to grab a cup of coffee or whatever you'd like to do, but I'm going to go ahead and show a bunch of slaughter pictures. This is what I use. There are lots of ways to slaughter and process your rabbits, and this is just kind of what works for me. Some of the ways that people do it is cervical dislocation, and I'll talk a lot more about that. You can use a bolt gun. You can lead them out. I've seen people use a club. This is really old school. I have never seen anyone do it in real life, actually. Then there is a product called a rabbit ringer, which you can buy very affordably. It's produced by a small farm. This is the rabbit ringer. It's just a piece of metal that you can attach to whatever you want to. Let me see if I can draw the shape of the rabbit ringer, because if you're a welder or someone who is, you could even probably make this yourself. Here's the back of the rabbit ringer, the part that attaches to the wood, and then there's just a little piece of metal that comes out like this, so it kind of makes a triangle. Then you stick your rabbits, the neck between these two things, and you pull. This works for a lot of people. There are a lot of demos of this particular product on YouTube. I have personally found that the rabbit ringer is too large for my rabbits, which is really saying something, because I raise really large rabbits. What I do is I just use a garden tool and a tarp on the ground, or sometimes not. This thing is actually quite useful. I did build this, and it's useful for hanging rabbits while I clean them, and I'll show you pictures of that soon. This is the cervical dislocation method that I was telling you about. This is just a regular garden tool handle. You put your rabbits, you put it across the rabbit's neck, and then you step on both sides and you pull up. This is a really, really fast way of, and in my experience, a less painful way to process your rabbits. It takes just a couple of seconds, and then you're done. I like it for that reason. This is the brace I have, and this is how I hang my rabbits. The first thing you want to do is you want to use really sharp knives. I like to use just a regular boning knife that you would use in a restaurant kitchen. You don't need anything expensive. Just keep a sharpener on hand. The first thing to do is to take off the skin, take off the hide. Once you get it started, the hide will just come off like a pair of pajamas. I have a little video here. Hopefully you guys can see why it keeps reducing like that, but he's just pulling it off there. Once you get it started, it's actually pretty easy to take off. The next step is to cut it along that middle line right there and expose the organs. Then you can take them out. You want to be careful. When you first open up the rabbit, the bladder may be full, so you want to pinch it at the top and then either just tear it with your fingers or you can cut it with a knife and then just get that out of there so that you don't get urine on your meat. Then you're going to take out all of this. Then you're going to want to cut into this cavity. This has the heart and the lungs. I'm going to take those out too. This is called a rabbit flap. It's the muscle that goes under the belly of the rabbit. This is very tough. I have heard of people who like to make jerky from their rabbit flaps or feed them to dogs. I have never had a piece of jerky that was tender enough to eat, but I've tried many times. Feel free to experiment with your flaps and see what works for you. I am not going to play this entire video, but this is a video of how to cut down a whole rabbit. When you go back and look at the presentation later, you can watch it. This is just a nice list of things that you might want to have when you're processing. A large cutting board, clean towels, your preferred sanitizer, a hose works really well for spraying everything clean while it's hanging. Clean buckets, ice packs, and a vacuum sealer works great if you're going to freeze them. Just a home-scale vacuum sealer will work well. If you would like to tan your hides, I do sometimes. This is really easy to do on a home-scale. The quality of your hide will depend on the breed of rabbit that you choose. Butchering and storage. This is a whole rabbit. I process my rabbits at 12 weeks, and I usually get, at that point, I get a rabbit that's four pounds dressed out. I get about three and a half pounds of meat. It's about the same size as a chicken. That's one of the really nice and convenient things about raising rabbits is that if you take a rabbit out of your freezer, it will make about the same number of meals as a very large chicken. You can feed four to five people, and then you can use the rest, the bones to make stock. The organs make great pate. Rabbit meat is really very lean, and it's very versatile. Some people compare it to chicken, but it really is a very delicious and very versatile meat. I really think that rabbits have a great place in the family freezer, to be honest. Then I love to cook. These are just some of the things that I have made with rabbit. I basically just took some classic recipes that I would make anyway with chicken, and I made them with rabbit. You don't need a special recipe to cook with rabbit, but rabbit curry is really wonderful. This is just a classic chicken soup recipe, except I made it with rabbit meat and rabbit stock, and it was fantastic. Then this is a rabbit salad, so kind of like a chicken salad. I think this might be a curry one. Then this is rabbit flap jerky. There is a link to an article on rabbit recipes at the end of the presentation that you can go and check out if you like, but honestly, in the past I've also raised poultry and game birds, and I think that rabbit is one of the most convenient and versatile meats that I've ever had around the homestead. It's pretty sought after. Lots of people are interested in eating rabbit and getting rabbits. The last thing I want to talk about is a SARE project that I worked on a few years ago. I was at the time raising quail, partridge, and rabbits at the farm, and I had some waste that I needed to mitigate. Black soldier fly larvae are a type of fly that can consume waste at a really high rate, so I was using them on the farm to see if I could mitigate some of that waste. These are some soldier fly bins, and I purchased larvae from a company called Northwest Red Worms. If you want to have soldier flies on your place, you can wait until they populate naturally because they often do, or you can introduce them. Since I was on a timeline, I went ahead and got them, but this is how they come. You can see them worming around in there. The idea is that I was using rabbit manure in one bin and game bird manure in another bin, and then these flies, the larvae will grow larger and they're a very, very high protein food for other animals. Part of my project was to basically turn rabbit manure into food for game birds. That was, I would say, was moderately successful. I did have a little bit of an issue getting the soldier flies to continue mating inside the bins that I made, but I did have a lot of success with them mating in other spots, which actually really helped with my waste mitigation, but not necessarily too helpful for collecting the larva. These are just a few photos of the quail and the partridge having their first larvae experience. I found that it was really important to introduce this food to the game birds early in their life. I introduced them later to the partridge and they were very skeptical, and it was just like, they weren't used to them, so they weren't eating as many as I wanted them to, but the little ones really did immediately take to it and help poultry live's protein. This is a picture of a cage that had rabbits in it and a population of soldier flies settled under the cage, and they took care of all of the waste under this particular cage. Now, rabbit manure is also really a great fertilizer. I use it on all of my garden beds at home. I have amazing soil, so that's something that to keep in mind, too. It's a really valuable fertilizer, but if you have too much, soldier flies are a good way to go. If you'd like to read the entire report of my SARE project, you can find it on the SARE website, and then you can also find more information about game birds and rabbits and the farm at either my website, which is pediboneurbingame.com, or you can find me on Instagram at pediboneurbingame.com. Okay, so the first question is, how cold is too cold? My barn doesn't have electric or heat. I think this was probably when you were showing the colony. Yeah, so my rabbits are outside in the colony right now with no electricity or heat. Rabbits are good in the cold as long as you keep them out of the wind and you keep them dry, and then you provide places for them to nest, and though enough nesting material, they can go through, I mean, I think people keep rabbits in like Minnesota in the winter, and it's fine. I have had issues when I was breeding in cages, I've had issues with kits freezing in the past, but that's why I say just make sure that you're really giving your does enough nesting material, and they're keeping their kits warm, but it is possible to breathe throughout the winter in a cage setting. And then what about, so your colony was on a concrete slab, what about thick gravel as a base? Would they dig through that? I've never tried it. I don't know, the answer is I don't know, it kind of, but probably depends on how thick it is and like maybe how large of like a grade of gravel that you have. I would say, I mean, if you have like a foot of gravel, it's probably fine. I thought does are really territorial, but these are mostly does with one buck. Yes, I breed for temperament as well as meat production. So I have, I've had a few aggressive does in the past, and they're no longer in my herd. And I got really lucky, I got a bunch of really sweet does and a really sweet buck. But the other thing that really helped with my colony is that I put them all in there at the same time. So it was a neutral space. And they all kind of like got to explore the space and use it at all at the same time, the way they wanted to, and they worked it out. I didn't have any violence. You may of course, like I don't, you know, every rabbit has a different personality, every situation is a little bit different. So be careful when you're introducing rabbits to one another in a colony situation. But I can say that in my experience with like, for example, introducing poultry to other poultry, it is so much easier with rabbits. That's good to hear. Poultry is like a whole nother story. But rabbits are easy. Absolutely. And all of your rabbits look alike. How do you differentiate them? I don't. I know my breeders. I have had my breeders for years. You know, I know what they look like. I know their specific personalities. They have names. But like I said, you know, I don't name my grow outs. And yes, they look they all look alike. So can confirm they all look alike. You know, I'm going to eat them and yeah. How do you get a cultivated rabbit to taste like a wild rabbit? Oh, that's a good question. I guess you I would probably say you if you want to cultivate a rabbit to taste like a wild rabbit, feed them a bunch of wild things. So you can try and replicate a wild diet. I mean, diet does have a lot to do with the way that meat tastes. You know, you may also want to consider getting a breed that is sort of more wild. I'm thinking of there's there's a Southwestern breed that I'm trying to remember what they're called. I'm blanking right now, but they're very long and angular and they're bred for running. And I know, I mean, you know, also exercise is a good way. You know what I mean? So I would say like, select a breed that is maybe not a traditional meat breed. And then also give them a lot of exercise and replicate a wild diet. That'd be my that's my advice. Lovely. How to find processors. Okay, so the only processor that I personally know about that will sometimes do rabbits is Maysville Elevator. They are in Baltic Ohio. And I have their contact information at the end of the presentation. They are a really wonderful Amish processor that does all kinds of poultry. They'll do any heritage poultry that you can ever throw at them, which is awesome. And they last time I talked to them, they said they will do rabbits in the winter. I have had, you know, a hard time finding a processor that would like to do rabbits all year, which is one of the reasons I do them myself. But yeah, that certainly is something to consider. I think that if you probably if you came to a processor with enough like a large enough quantity, you know, like a couple hundred at a time or something like that, then they would probably be more amicable. And what do you use to keep breeding records? I just I just use like Microsoft Excel. There are programs that you can get that are designed specifically for rabbit genetics and rabbit breeding. I don't use any of them personally because I don't need them. But they're absolutely out there. And so I would just recommend asking like if you can find a good rabbit forum with like knowledgeable breeders who keep really close records, ask them what they use, and they'll be happy to tell you. What do you do with the waste after processing the rabbits organs that you don't turn into pate? I compost them. Could end the secondary question was, could it go to the black float black soldier fly larvae bins? Yes, absolutely. Yep. Yep. Also, if those are territorial and the buck needs to be kept separated, then who is in the colony without a separate cage? Just mama and her kids until six weeks? I love the idea of a colony. Yeah. So my colony, like I keep my book in the colony almost full time unless I don't want any more kids and then I separate him. So I guess like when we talk about how like does are territorial, that is for specifically for a cage setting. So if a doe has a cage that she that she occupies all the time, that is her territory, right? And then you bring a buck from a different cage that she doesn't really know. And you put her, you put them in her space. That's when you can, that's when you can have a problem. But I've never had any issues with keeping a buck in a colony full time. I've never had, he's never messed with any of the kids. I've never had any fighting. And at the end of the presentation, there are a few names of rabbit colony forums. And I know that there have been instances of rabbits that can get violent in a colony. But in my experience with it, I haven't had that problem. So yeah, just make sure that your rabbits are comfortable with where they are and who they're around. I had not ever heard of this, but don't rabbits need to eat their nocturnal poo. If the bottom of the cage is wire or off the ground, how can they do this? They will do that. It is a very natural thing and it can help in, you know, digestion and it can help in, you know, immunity. You know, I have kept rabbits a lot in cages. I've never had any health problems that resulted from them not doing that. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily a need. I think one of the things we do in agriculture is we kind of, we separate animals from their natural, from a lot of their natural sort of instincts. Sometimes that's okay and sometimes it's not. I think in this instance, it's probably okay. And then how often do you groom and cut nails, etc.? As needed. I don't, I don't really groom. Rabbits can groom themselves. Unless you're raising a rabbit that has like a really long, like an angora, you know, that's got really long fur. Or if you have a rabbit, like, you know, some rabbits will get like dirty, you know, and they're nether reasons or whatever and you'll need to kind of clean them off every once in a while. But most rabbits are really good at keeping themselves clean. And actually one of the ways that you can tell that a rabbit is sick if it is, if it's not grooming. But, you know, for, for trimming nails, I mean, once every six weeks is usually fine. Yeah. And that's also another reason, you know, another factor why, you know, I don't recommend keeping rabbits who are aggressive, because it's very difficult to trim an aggressive rabbit's nails. I have many a scar from that. God. Thanks for answering all these. I'm just rolling right through them. For someone just getting started, what would be your best advice and suggestions? Great presentation thanks. I would say that if you're just getting started, make a plan and figure out what you want your rabbits to do for you. And then kind of look around your area and figure out what resources there are and kind of go from there. You know, it's I would also recommend just like getting a few really good reference books. I have a list of reference books at the end of the presentation. And I mean, I would say like read a few of those reference books like cover to cover before you get your rabbits so that you can have everything you need set up and you kind of know a little bit about what to expect. And so that, you know, you're not, you're not surprised. And then you can always go back and look at the, you know, references when you need them. Oh, kind of on that topic, like how long have you been doing rabbits? And where you kind of did you grow up around livestock? And how did you get started? I have been raising rabbits since 2015, I think. They, I don't, I'm trying to even remember why are like how I decided rabbits were a good idea. And I don't really know if I can, but I was raising, I was already raising game birds and poultry. And I had, so I started that in 2013. I did not grow up around livestock. I actually grew up in Columbus. But I got into it because I really love food. And, you know, that kind of like naturally progression brought me to like local food, and then the environment, and then, you know, kind of all of that snowball. But rabbits, I think maybe like a neighbor of mine was like, hey, I always meet rabbits. What do you think? And I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting. And so I got a couple. And obviously like the rest is history. But yeah, yeah. This person has been thinking of using a four by 10 chicken tractor for rabbits. Would need to partition off for each dough. How much space should each dough have? Um, I mean, I don't know if I would do that. I think I think that if you're if you want to keep, I think a chicken, the chicken tractor is a great idea. I think you can certainly keep rabbits in your chicken tractor. But I don't know how to. Anyway, how much how much space does one dough need? I would say like a, like a four, let me think, like a four by three, like a four by three space, like if you think about like the size of a normal rabbit hutch, that would be kind of like the size that you would want to replicate inside your pasture pen. But I also think that if you're going to do that, then you may not need to partition. You may you may be able to keep them all in the same space. But obviously, yeah, little colony. Yeah. One more. Oh, what would you recommend as a buck per dough ratio? One. Oh, a buck per dough ratio. That's a good question. I don't know. I have not experimented with larger colony setups. So I don't know what the like, I don't know what the maximum, you know, mileage that one buck could cover. That's a good question. I'm sorry. I don't know the answer to that. That's all right. I'm sure one of your reference books will yeah have something on that. Do you worry about parasites with pastured rabbits? Yes, it is a concern. Is there anything you do to mitigate that or? Or monitor? I, you know, I've never had an issue with it. I think Diametaceous Earth is probably a good idea. Keeping your rabbits dry is a really good idea. You know, making sure that like the pasture that you put them on is managed in a way like where you know what's on that pasture and, you know, that that what's on it is safe. But yeah, yeah, it is a concern. What size lot is your home on? I love that you're doing this in Columbus. Thank you. I have a three quarter acre lot. Do you have separate spaces for the does in your colony or just separate nesting boxes? Just separate nesting boxes. They're all in the same main space. We got to thank you so much for answering all the questions. Absolutely. Awesome workshop. This has been really fascinating. Thank you. Yeah, thank you guys so much for coming. There is a link to the presentation at the top of your chat. If you'd like to check it out a little bit more, it is a very large file. So I apologize, you may have to download it. But you know, if you have any more questions or if you need anything, you can contact me at email is probably best.