I am a firm believer of letting a rabbit get exercise. Their cages in the barn are like their "stalls", they're never in them for 24 hours straight.
I feed in the morning at 10am and give them 2 hours to clean up their grain, munch on some hay and let their little bellies digest it all, then at noon time I start putting them outside in front of the barn in their exercise pens. I usually put the anxious juniors out first, they're so full of energy and ready to get outside as soon as I walk in the barn. While I have the bigger rabbits (hares & flemish) outside, I let some of the woolies and mini rexes stretch their legs in the bigger cages while they wait their turn to get some sunshine. All my large breeds are on solid flooring, and the mini rexes really love to flop around and roll in the shavings of their pens. I'm constantly moving rabbits around like this during the day, it makes for a happier, healthy bunny! Although it becomes a chore to rotate 20+ rabbits in and out of the barn, it's definitely worth it. As my rabbitry grows I've been purchasing bigger cages for the smaller breeds. Typically I've had them in 18x24 cages which suits them just fine, but as I have more and more rabbits and less and less time to spend rotating them ALL out throughout the day, I've bumped up to housing them in 24x24 cages that way if they don't get outside a couple days in a row they still have ample room to run around. Not every rabbit gets out EVERY day. Some rabbits go out one day and stay in the next while the ones that were inside the previous day go outside. I've worked this routine in for when I don't have time to be out in the barn rotating rabbits.
All in all life is good at the rabbitry this month! My belgian hare senior doe Annabelle missed...I'll have to rebreed her and hope for babies this time (fingers crossed). I got 2 mini rex does bred this past week. Lyra a red doe and Doozy a black doe with smooth, smooth, smooth HQ's and fur to die for. So dense, black and SHINY! I've never seen a mini rex with such a shiny coat before, the feed switch over has worked wonders, even my slow growing Flemish are getting their coats in earlier and man are they looking good! I'm very excited about the litters from these 2 does, this is the first time I've used my black junior buck Kang in a breeding, he has been a little pistol on the show table! The judges DROOL over him. The pairing with Doozy has me very anxious for babies in my nestboxes! I also decided to go ahead and use a red buck Archie with my doe Lyra. Initially I wasn't going to breed these two rabbits together because they both have a bit longer ear then I like on my mini rex. Archie's type however balances out Lyra's weak spots and if anything I'll get some nicely typed reds, I can work with the ear size later.
This has been a long post, phew. I'll post updates and new pictures of the rabbits as soon as I can get a new camera. A lot of my mini rex's have hit their senior ages and weights since I last took their photos, and they are looking GOOD. More to come soon!
