Rabbit Colony

Well, we have made the decision to move our rabbits into a colony or colonies type setting. We won't have an outside colony, but have decided to use the old feed room in the big horse barn. We have made this decision for several reasons. I have several rabbits that refuse to use a litter box and so their cages must be cleaned since they are wood bottomed regularly. All my cages are full and I either need to build or buy more cages which I have no where to put in the area that the rabbits currently are. The rabbits are not necessarily cooperating on cage breeding lately. So our first step was to clean out the old feed room which had been used as a storage area by the previous owner. Particle board had been put up on the walls, which was falling down and most of the stuff she had in there was rotten and destroyed by mice. We even found what we think was a possum skeleton behind a wooden box. We have spent years getting rid of the junk left on this farm by the previous owner. She never threw anything away and each of the pastures had a large mountain of scrap metal where she just dumped old tools, wire, roofing material etc. She kept saying she was coming to get stuff from the buildings so we were careful to keep it there. However, we need the space and there is so little left in that room that is useable or even recognizable. One large wooden crate had obviously been filled with stuff made of wood which had rotted into one large pile of sawdust. Of course the stuff had been in there since the 70s and there had been leaks in the roof for quite some time when we moved here, but what a mess. So we cleaned all that out yesterday and burned what we could and now have a couple loads to take to the dump and one very small pile of stuff that might be usable. Now we have a clean slate. Today I will measure the area and plan the layout for the colonies along with taking the junk to the dump. I will take some photos along the way to show our progress and how everything is set-up and built. There is so little on the net about indoor rabbit colonies that I thought a pictorial of the progress would really help others thinking about doing the same thing. The cages will be kept as grow-out cages for weaned litters and this way our colonies won't get too crowded and it will be easier to catch the rabbits for butchering. For the posts on our progression I will keep the same title just adding numbers behind it for ease of following. Blessings, Kat