How do domestic rabbits survive the winter?

The main differences between winter and other seasons are low temperature, insufficient light and lack of green feed . These factors have an adverse effect on the reproduction of domestic rabbits, so winter breeding and feeding should be carried out according to the characteristics of winter. So how do domestic rabbits survive the winter? Let’s take a look below.

1. Pay attention to heat preservation

The drop in temperature will affect the estrus of female rabbits and the sexual behavior of male rabbits to a certain extent. More importantly, it has an adverse effect on the survival of young rabbits. It is recommended to add heating equipment to the rabbit house to keep the temperature inside the rabbit house at around 10℃ and the lowest at 5℃. Be sure to place the farrowing box 2 days in advance and add appropriate amount of straw in the farrowing box to help keep the baby rabbits warm.

2. Supplement multivitamins to ensure pregnancy

Whether it is the production and development of sperm in male rabbits or the ovarian activity and estrus in female rabbits, vitamins play a very important role and are irreplaceable by other nutrients. It is recommended to supplement electrolyte multivitamins in drinking water, or add multivitamins to feed, so that the vitamin A content reaches 10,000 units/kg and the vitamin E content reaches 50 mg/kg. For rabbit farms with the necessary conditions, it would be more effective to supplement each breeding rabbit with one carrot every day.

3. Increase light and promote estrus

The suitable lighting time for female rabbits during the breeding period is 16 hours and the light intensity is 60 lux. At present, most rabbit farms in my country use three-layer overlapping rabbit cages. When natural light is insufficient, this type of cage causes uneven light from top to bottom. Half of the light is on the top, the upper cage has better lighting, while the middle and lower layers have poor lighting, which will seriously affect the estrus of female rabbits due to insufficient light. It is recommended to adopt three-dimensional lighting, arrange the light sources (bulbs or energy-saving tubes) into three layers vertically, and set up a group of lamps every 2 meters in the head-to-head cage. A 10-watt energy-saving lamp can be used to supplement the light for 6 to 7 consecutive days.

4. Pay attention to ventilation

In order to keep warm, ventilation is often neglected, causing the harmful gases in the rabbit house to seriously exceed the standard, greatly affecting the health of the breeding rabbits. It is very important to maintain sufficient fresh air in the rabbit house. The standard is based on human sensation, and the degree of discomfort should not be felt when entering the rabbit house, as the eyes and nose do not feel irritated. Rabbit farms with the necessary conditions should be equipped with automatic ventilation devices, which will automatically start the ventilation fans when harmful gases (mainly ammonia and hydrogen sulfide) reach the upper limit of the standards.

5. Ensure nutrition

The temperature is low in winter, and the nutrients consumed by rabbits are significantly higher than in other seasons. Ensuring the supply of nutrients is the key to improving the production performance of rabbits. On the premise of providing complete nutrition, the proportion of energy feed should be appropriately increased, and the feeding amount should be appropriately increased.

6. Prevention of key diseases

The main ones are rabbit plague, respiratory diseases, digestive diseases, skin diseases (fungal diseases and scabies) and coccidiosis. Except for rabbit plague, which requires vaccination, other diseases mainly require feed control, air quality control, rabbit house humidity control and hygiene control. If the above work is done well, you can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

7. Commercial rabbit production

When fattening meat rabbits in winter, it is important to pay attention to timely market release, because the nutrients consumed in winter fattening are higher than in other seasons. The feed efficiency is higher in the early stage of fattening, while the production potential is smaller in the later stage of fattening. Therefore, mastering the market release time is an important part of improving efficiency, whether it is meat rabbits or Rex rabbits. During the fattening period, the stocking density can be increased appropriately. Of course, ventilation must be ensured. The value of Rex rabbits lies in their fur, and winter is the best season for fur growth. Except for the need for a higher temperature in the rabbit house before 2 months of age, the temperature during fattening can be kept above 0℃ and below 10℃ thereafter, and the lighting time and intensity can be controlled, which is more conducive to improving the quality of the skin and coat; similarly, low temperatures help the growth of the rabbit's coat. Except for the need to keep warm within 2 weeks after shearing, moderately low temperatures can promote the growth of hair, especially undercoat. As long as the nutritional supply is guaranteed, the coat production and quality in winter will be significantly better than in other seasons.

That’s it