How to decide your rabbitry size

Deciding how many rabbits you want to own depends on a lot of different factors. I know of folks who have as few as 12 holes, and some folks who have over 200!

So what are these factors? How many breeds you want to work with, for one. Do you have one breed, or three, five, nine...? If you have only one serious breed, you can do a lot more with less space. It's going to be hard to be competitive if you have only 10 holes and 3 breeds. Not to mention you're going to have no opportunity to grow your juniors.

Space is another issue. When we started out, the rabbits lived in Tim's living room! Do you have a barn, garage or other place to put the bunnies? How many cages can you put in there? If you have a garage with space for only 20 cages, and don't have the money or inclination to expand your area, you may have to be content with a 20 hole or less rabbitry.

Some folks may have a huge barn, but still only maintain 20 holes. This brings us to the next consideration- how many do you want? If you don't have someone to help you take care of them, a lot of cages can be a huge task! Maybe you want to be able to spend plenty of time with every rabbit, every day. In that case, I wouldn't recommend a 200 hole rabbitry.

The less holes you have, the less feed you have to buy, less time spent cleaning, feeding and watering, and more time to devote to each animal. However, less holes means harder culling, which can be a good thing- you'll be forced to keep only the best. It can still get extremely frustrating.

With a larger rabbitry, you can have multiple breeds, or space for color projects (such as BEW), or you can afford to keep that rabbit just to see how it turns out.

There are pros and cons to each size. Our policy was- keep adding cages (starting at 3) until I find the point where I do not want to take care of any more. :D. We've found that point now at 40 cages or so.

Good luck! I find it's better to start out slower, than to grab 40 empty cages. You'll be more inclined to buy crap and keep it just because you have the space! :)

-Kristen
Keep's Rabbitry