breeding rabbits

[andrea]

if this has been asked way too many times and you guys are tired of answering it, let me know and i'll try to find the thread when i have time.
i recently asked about breeding rabbits for our burm, just for our snakes, ya know, in another forum. i was promptly made to feel stupid.
we currently have a rabbit. i know how to take care of them, i raised them for 4H as a kid. the rabbit we have is a pet for my four year old daughter, and my three year old son wants a boy one. they watch us feed, even kill the rats and mice for the snakes and have no problem with it. they know the snakes have to eat, too. i was wondering if it was not proper to breed the two pet rabbits and use their babies as food. this may sound stupid, but it just didnt seem wrong to me. both kids want pet rabbits. our burm will be eating them before too long. seemed economical, hehehe.
also, anyone who has done this, any info you could give on it would be appreciated. i know how to take care of a few rabbits at a time but never bred them.

[frogman]

I don't think would be wrong to bred pet rabbitts and use the offspring as food.

I bred Rabbitts for food for awhile (human food) they are about the easiest thing to bred all you gotta do is put the together for like a day they bred and seperate them (the male will kill the babies most of the time if you leave them together). In about 30 days you should have babies and depending on the species probially alot of them.

Feel free to ask anything you need.

Hope this helps
Charles

[Pythonian]

if ur worried about the kids seeing the bunnies get killed don't worry about it... my dad raised bunnies for his snake. and i saw him kill them for the snake... and i think i turned out perfectly fine *twitch*
LOL j/k.. sorry i really couldn't resist...

anyway the babies could be "let go" outside, or "given to a friend at work" as a pet. until the kids are old enough to understand.

mike

[andrea]

LOL that is freakin hilarious....hehehehehehehehe

nope, not worried bout the kids seeing it, just that someone on another forum said not to breed a pet rabbit for food. didnt make sense to me......

have you considered therapy? lol
j/k

[Pythonian]

lol yea.. i guess it was kinda funny ;) .. well i'm starting to breed rats for my pythons.. what's so silly about that? free food ;)

Mike

[andrea]

how big are your pythons? once they get a certain size, isnt it better for them to eat a rabbit rather than several rats or does it matter?

[Pythonian]

I only have a 4 foot ball and baby bloods.. no biggy .. the bloods MAY get to eat rabbits but thats years away and the ball .. i dun think so
Mike

[Dom]

I see no problem with it .. Id tell the truth to the children .. if well explained, I think th'eyd understand..

Although i gotta say ... its an extra risk to breed rabbits and house large burms and kids together .. Be cautious!

[Linds]

andrea,
I don't see anything wrong with breeding the pet rabbits. The kids get their pets, the snakes get their food, everyone's happy :) As for meal size, IMHO only 1-2 items should be fed per feeding. It's best for the snakes system to try and keep the number of items as minimal as possible. If your burm is sitll small enough that it can take 1-2 jumbo rats, then thats fine, but if its having to take 3 or more than it definitely needs to move up to rabbits (which it will have to do at some point anyways). Good luck with your bunny breeding :thumbsup:

[andrea]

thank you so much guys!

yeah, we have had snakes before, nothing half as big as a burm. our current other one is a JCP. we have had him for two years. we have a dog (outside), and a cat, rabbit, and the two snakes inside. also the kids ;) qualify as animals sometimes. i was concerned about the rabbit being in the house when the burm gets huge. dont want some accident. the rabbit is in my daughter's room, and when any other animal is out, the door is shut. right now more concerned with teh cat getting the rabbit but everything is housed properly. it is stil a concern when the snake will get so big.

[Pythonian]

i'd be more concerned of the burm getting the cat ;) lol

Mike

[JasonBrennan]

Don't worry about what others think of your breeding plans. There is nothing wrong with it at all. I was going to breed rabbits until we found out that my wife is very allergic to them (of course, we did not find out until after we had a couple of bucks and 10 does, lol)

I feed all of my snakes rabbits, even the baby burms. I just give them the right size rabbit. I know several rabbit farmers, so I get them VERY cheap, much cheaper than rats, so I just put them all on rabbits from the start. Works out great for me.

As far as breeding the pet rabbits, go for it. It is not like you would keep all the babies anyways, right?? The kids can understand what is going on. It is not like you just got a snake and brought it home out of the blue and said "look what we are going to feed your pet rabbit too!!" Some people just need to relax a bit.

So, I say go ahead with your plans, and never mind what some "other" people say!!

Take care,
Jason Brennan

[Lisa]

My friends dad used to keep rabbits and then bbq them. Due to the zoning laws they were "pets" until they were big enough to eat.

[unknownclown]

I cant imagine someone who owns snakes condemming another person for suplying food for thier pet... Wierd
Anyways I have bred bunnies for a while now and should warn you if you have an older female rabbit it could cause some problems. Aside from that go for it heck I have a male here just waitin for my snake to get big enough to eat bunnies!The sooner the snake grows the sooner he gets a woman ;)

[andrea]

lol
well i am about sick to death of my daughter's bunny, lol so i will have no problems feeding rabbits to a snake. yeah some people are soooo uptight.