Independence Homestead

Rabbits are well equipped for winter with their insulating fur coats, but there are still some measures we take to make care of them easier, and to ensure their wellbeing.

All that fur keeps a rabbit warm in winter!

Housing

Our breeders are housed in wire cages in semi-protected structures, and this is adequate for most winter weather. When weather is especially extreme, such as the recent snowstorm, we do take a couple of extra measures to keep the rabbits out of moisture and wind.

In the front of our rabbitry we have a clear tarp rolled up at the front top. We unroll it in front of the cages to protect the rabbits as needed.

For the rabbit hoophouse, we put plywood boards over the openings to keep out snow and wind in extreme weather. The rabbit tractors, far right, are not used in winter. As you can see, the rabbits would be in a snowy spot in the tractors!

Food and Water

Our standard feeding regimen is that full-grown feeders get 6oz/day. In summer, they eat a little less, and in winter we give them a little more. Part of our winter routine is to monitor how much the rabbits are eating, and ensure they’re getting as much as they need to maintain a healthy weight.

During the summer we use an automatic watering system. Around November we start getting the occasional freezing temperatures, which render the automatic system useless. At that time, we drain the watering system and switch to using water bottles on each rabbit cage. We have double the number of bottles as cages, so we have enough bottles to swap them out.

Every morning the bottles are typically either empty or frozen, so we replace them with fresh bottles. We set the frozen bottles in front our wood stove to thaw out. On the occasional really cold day, where the temperatures stay below freezing, the bottles freeze quickly. On those days we swap out the bottles again in the afternoon, so the rabbits are getting access to fresh water twice a day.

Breeding

In winter warm nesting boxes are important as rabbit kits are born without fur. They need the nesting box to provide insulation for the first two weeks while they grow some fur and put on some fat. Ultimately, the biggest insulation they’ll get in the nesting box is the fur the doe will pull out from her belly and use to line the nest. We try to help the doe as much as we can, though. First we line our wire nesting boxes with one to two layers of cardboard. We hold the cardboard in place with zip ties that attach it to the wire. Then, we put a couple inches of shavings in the nesting box. We top the shavings with as much hay as the nesting box will hold. The doe will eat some of the hay, and use the rest to help prepare her nest. We monitor the nesting boxes daily, and add hay if the doe eats all of it. We make sure there is always hay in the box.

Now all that work we do won’t make a difference if the doe doesn’t add fur and birth her babies in the nest she makes. But for those rabbit does who do make a good nest, the work we do adds to her effort and increases the odds of success. In the picture below you can see some rabbit kits, burrowed in a well-built nest.

We also slow down our breeding program over winter. One reason is to give the does some time for rest and recuperation. We give them this break when the weather is cold because that’s also the riskiest time for rabbit kits. Another reason we slow down breeding is because we cannot graze the rabbits in our rabbit tractors as they grow. With our rabbit tractors out of use, we have less space for growing out rabbits for sale or harvest.

In Conclusion

While rabbits are well suited for winter weather due to their insulating fur coats, they still require a bit more care in winter. We adapt our methods of housing, feeding, watering, and breeding to ensure that the rabbits are healthy over winter. Read about all our winter animal care practices in our Weathering the Winter series!