This fall we’re experimenting with a rabbit colony setup. This experiment is ongoing, so we cannot yet say whether or not it’s successful. One nice characteristic of the colony, though, is that we can quickly feed and water several rabbits at the same time.
To feed the rabbits, we made a rabbit feeder comparable to our poultry feeders. We use a plastic storage tote from Costco, PVC elbows, a jigsaw, PVC glue, and duct tape.
The construction process was very similar to the poultry feeders, so see that post for more details. There were only a couple of differences, both of which were necessitated by the fact that rabbits have wider faces and necks than chickens do. That changed how they could utilize the PVC elbow.
The first adjustment we made was that we had to cut off more of the PVC elbows, as the rabbits aren’t able to reach as far down a narrow tube.
The second difference is that we had to use duct tape to hold the elbows in place. With the rabbits’ wider heads and necks, when they were reaching through the elbow they’d move it. Often, it wouldn’t end up reaching down, instead reaching to the side. They cannot access the food unless the elbow faces down. Taping it in place has corrected this issue.
The tote holds about 3 50lb bags of pellets, which means we don’t have to feed the rabbits daily. Instead we just fill up the feeder every couple of weeks! That’s a big timesaver.
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