Another round of rabbits
- Details
- Published: Sunday, 03 August 2014 20:52
- Written by David DeCiero
The next batch was due on May 5. I had planned everything out so that the birth would happen on a Saturday night so I could have all Sunday to check on them. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way and the babies did not come on Saturday night. Instead, they were born on Sunday night, so I only got to check on them on Monday night. Frannie had built a good nest and when I came home on Monday I lifted apart the fur to only find 6 little ones. There were no runts or dead ones, but still only 6. I was a bit disappointed and was wondering what could have gone wrong. The only thing I had done differently was that I gave the doe (Frannie) 2 weeks off after weaning. This was the only difference so in the future I am going to avoid giving that much time off.
I was really worried going into this next birth. Frannie had not been building a nest and was bleeding. I saw blood in the cage and was wondering if she had some sort of problem. When I gave her hay, she was just eating it, not gathering it in her mouth like normal. I thought that she wasn’t pregnant but just decided to keep preparing in case she was. I put the nest box in on Friday, but she wanted nothing to do with it. On Saturday, she still wasn’t gathering up the hay in her mouth. I had expected her to give birth on Saturday night (as I had bred her early on a Friday morning), so I thought something was wrong. However, I came out on Sunday, and seeing no babies, gave her some hay. She immediately started gathering it into her mouth and digging around for a nest. I was relieved, but was still concerned about the blood. The next morning, I came out and there were a bunch of new babies all huddled together in the box. I didn’t disturb them at that time, but I did pet the doe and give her some scratches on her head and behind her ears. That night, I did the most difficult counting as they were all squirming around. There were 8. I guess the 6 from before might have been from the long rest as I only rested her 1 week after weaning.
The next day was around 93 degrees, so I was worried they might overheat. They were fine though as I put ina frozen 2 Liter bottle for the doe so she could cool off, but the babies didn’t seem to be affected. So far, so good.
It was time to butcher the rabbits that were 9 weeks old. I decided to let a couple grow out a little bit more, so I only did 4. My system is pretty well set up now. I have the copper pipe to separate their spinal cord and then hang them on a gambrel in my garage. I make one quick cut to remove the head and then start removing the fur. I can now do it in about 15 minutes with few problems. Once done, I quickly place the carcass in ice water to get it down to 45 degrees as quickly as possible. I’ve read this is crucial to disrupting any pathogens. I then clean the knife with a 1% bleach solution and dry it. This will also reduce any potential cross contamination. I then take the carcasses that have been chilled in the ice water and place them in a separate fridge to cool down overnight. You don’t want to freeze them right away as that can toughen the meat. So, keeping them chilled in the fridge for 24 hours is good to pass the rigor mortis stage. I then vacuum seal the bags and put them in the freezer.