What you should know about breeding meat rabbits

1. Select high-quality meat rabbits

At present, there are mainly German giant Zika rabbits, New Zealand rabbits, Belgian rabbits, California rabbits, giant flower rabbits, and Japanese big-eared white rabbits. The average weight of 75-day-old rabbits can reach 2.5 kg.

Selection skills: Choose meat rabbits with fast growth and development, strong adaptability, high reproductive performance, stable genetics, and strong physique.

2. Rabbit Farm Construction

1. Rabbits are timid and afraid of shock, have poor resistance to animal damage, and are afraid of heat and humidity. Therefore, there must be corresponding measures to prevent rain, moisture, heatstroke and cooling, animal damage, and severe cold in buildings.

2. The design of the rabbit house should conform to the living habits of rabbits, which is conducive to the improvement of growth and production performance; it is convenient for feeding management and improving work efficiency; it is conducive to cleaning and sanitation to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases.

3. Rabbit house building materials, especially rabbit cage materials, should be strong and durable to prevent damage from being bitten by rabbits; measures should be taken to prevent rabbits from burrowing and escaping into the building.

4. The form, structure, and internal layout of the rabbit house must meet the feeding management and sanitation, and epidemic prevention requirements of different types and different uses of rabbits, and must also adapt to different geographical conditions.

5. The ground of the rabbit house is required to be flat, solid, and moisture-proof. The ground inside the house should be 20-25 cm higher than the ground outside the house. There must be slopes on both sides of the aisle in the house to prevent water and urine from staying on the aisle; indoor walls, The inner wall of the cement prefabricated board rabbit cage, and the dung-bearing surface of the dung-bearing board are required to be smooth and smooth, easy to remove dirt, and easy to clean and disinfect.

6. The window lighting area of the rabbit house is 15% of the ground area, and the incident angle of sunlight is not less than 25°-30°. The door of the rabbit house needs to be strong, heat-resistant, and animal-proof. Doors are sized for feed and manure truck entry and exit.

7. For epidemic prevention and disinfection, a disinfection pool or a disinfection plate should be set at the entrance of the rabbit farm and rabbit house, and it is convenient to replace the disinfectant.

8. A drainage system should be installed in the rabbit house. The defecation ditch must have a certain slope so that the feces can be smoothly discharged outside the house when flushed with clean water, leading to the septic tank, and it is also convenient for the urine to be discharged outside the house at any time, thereby reducing the humidity and the concentration of harmful gases in the house.

9. Ventilate the room. Natural ventilation is mostly used in hot areas in southern my country, and mechanical forced ventilation is used in cold northern areas in winter. Natural ventilation is suitable for small rabbit farms. Mechanical ventilation is suitable for large rabbit farms with a high degree of intensification.

3. Feeding management at different stages

1. Breeding during the eye-opening period. The puppies open their eyes about two weeks after birth, and the period after opening the eyes until before weaning is the eye-opening period. The eye-opening time of puppies is directly related to their growth and development. If it is found that the eyes of the pups are stuck, then gently clean the sticky matter. Then during this period, let the puppies transition to eating feed. But be careful not to change too fast, and do it step by step, and don't change suddenly, otherwise, the young rabbits will not be able to adapt and will cause mass death. Therefore, attention should be paid to feeding and weaning during the eye-opening period. After 3 weeks, adding some bactericidal stomach-invigorating drugs to the feed can enhance the physique of meat rabbits and reduce the incidence of diseases.

2. Rabbit feeding and management. After the puppies are born, pay attention to observing the milk production of the female rabbit. If milk production is insufficient, then do a good job of artificially assisted lactation. The tool can be used as a syringe, and the temperature is controlled at about 37 degrees. The speed of feeding should not be too fast, generally within 5 days after the puppies are born, mainly milk. With a small amount of cod liver oil, salt, and other substances. Only in 5 days, feed some cow milk or soy milk. After another 5 days, make some condensed milk and feed it.

3. Breeding of young rabbits. Young rabbits are young rabbits that have been weaned for three months. The growth and development speed of young rabbits is very fast, but their disease resistance is relatively poor, so pay attention to doing a good job with foxes. Young rabbits should be kept in a warm and dry place, preferably in cages, and the feed must be clean and free from pollution. Green feeding is fed about three times a day, and intensive feeding is about two times a day. When feeding, it is necessary to feed less at noon, eat as much as possible in the morning and evening, control the dosage, and eat as much as possible without leaving any feed. Adjust the drinking water temperature and feed ratio according to seasonal changes to ensure the growth of young rabbits. Feeding utensils should be disinfected about once every 4 days to avoid bacterial contamination.

4.Breeding rabbits. When the female rabbit is empty, it is necessary to pay attention to allowing the female rabbit to recover. Promote female rabbits to be able to estrus and breed normally. Then to control the body's condition, you can feed some appetizing and spleen-invigorating drugs appropriately. Then increase the proportion of green feed and reduce intensive feeding. In winter and spring, some carrots should be fed appropriately to promote estrus. Then the doe's rest time should be extended, and the nutritional level of the diet should be increased before breeding for 3 weeks. **Comprehensive and diverse nutrition, balanced nutrition. You can also buy some special feed for rabbits in the market, just mix some grass and fruit.

4. Breeding

Homogeneous mating selects male and female rabbits with the same traits, consistent performance, or similar breeding values for breeding, in order to obtain similar best offspring. The more similar the mating partners are, the more likely they are to pass on the common quality to the offspring so that the excellent traits can be maintained and consolidated. For example, selecting male and female rabbits with large body sizes and good fur quality for breeding can further stabilize and consolidate the genetic performance of the important traits of weight and fur quality in Rex rabbits.

Heterogeneous mating can be divided into two situations: one is to select male and female rabbits with different excellent traits to match, in order to combine the two traits together to obtain offspring with different advantages for both parents. For example, if you choose rabbits with long hair and dense hair, or choose rabbits with medium size and high coat density to match with rabbits with low hair density but large size, you can gather the excellent traits of dense hair and large body together, which can improve the quality of life. The fur quality of the offspring; the second is to choose male and female rabbits with the same traits but different degrees of pros and cons to match, to change the bad from the good, to change the bad from the good, and to correct the bad traits with good traits, so that future generations can achieve greater improvement and improvement. Some rex rabbits have thin hair and good uniformity, while others have dense hair but poor uniformity. After heterogeneous selection, offspring with dense hair and even hair can be obtained.

Age matching generally adopts the methods of young male rabbits matching mature female rabbits, adult male rabbits matching mature female rabbits, mature male rabbits matching mature female rabbits, mature male rabbits matching young female rabbits, and mature male rabbits matching elderly female rabbits.

Kin mating, also known as inbred mating, is the abbreviation of inbreeding or kin mating, which refers to the mutual mating of individuals whose total generations from both parents to the common ancestor do not exceed six generations.

5. Disease Prevention and Control

1. Regular cleaning and disinfection. There are many diseases in summer. Clean the rabbit house, sink, and feed trough 1 or 2 times a day to keep the rabbit house clean and tidy. In addition, disinfection is performed 2 to 4 times a week, and under normal circumstances in winter, disinfection is performed once a month.

2. Carry out vaccination.