EnviroLink Forum

Sorry....

The bee-hives would have to be heated or highly insulated.

Heaping soil up about them might work. It'd keep the high temps down during the day and keep the lows up during the night.

Boy! Being a farmer in this story would be a lot of work!

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And the birds of prey will love you !

'Morn, J!

Good pointAbout the bunnie-runs. Hmmm Let me try to figure this one out!

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Hi there Nic !
You're on a roll today .Been at the Gnomeade again ?

Keep going !

You can make a nice sized area....lay some type of chicken wire (the heavier one) under the surface of the ground.....just kinda like what you do for dogs, along fence lines, so they can't dig out. The grass will grow like normal and if the enclosures are enclosed with and area or two for shelters, like dog houses(heated of course), they will be fine. You can even put a small pond in there.[/quote]

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And the birds of prey will love you !
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No because they are "enclosures" not open pens. I had already thought of that when I suggested the enclosures and not open pens.[/quote]

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Inclosure \In*clo"sure\ (?; 135), n. [See Inclose, Enclosure.]

[Written also enclosure.]

1. The act of inclosing; the state of being inclosed, shut up, or encompassed; the separation of land from common ground by a fence.

2. That which is inclosed or placed within something; a thing contained; a space inclosed or fenced up.

Within the inclosure there was a great store of houses. --Hakluyt.

3. That which incloses; a barrier or fence.

Therefore 'enclosure does not necessarily mean roofed over !!!

A enclosure could very well work; provided it's not too big and you can move the whole thing around, from one part of the pasture to another.

I wonder in you could allow the bunnies some 'open-air' hopping about but provide a guard? It's be a good chore for responsible kids. A young lad or lass with a good swatting stick(For predators, not the bunnies) and maybe a faithful doggie along to keep a extra eye out.

How to keep The dog from going after the bunnies himself is another matter!

In my outdoor winter cages give them cardboard boxes stuffed with hay. They hay doesn't stay in there long, but when it's windy they do sit in the boxes - and chew them, so they have to be replaced often. The wood and wire cages have wooden houses which they also chew on, but last longer.

* chicken wire on the bottom of cages will not be strong enough, they can bite right through it.

* If you colony raise rabbits, the best method of making the pens dig-proof is to build a 'basement' about 4 feet deep and then fill it with dirt. The fence should be anchored into the foundation so rabbits can't dig their way out. Using this method you could manually cut grass and bring it to the pens. Ratio of bucks to does should be 1 to 4-6, and live traps can be used to catch the fryers once they emerge from the burrow nests at weaning.

* Regarding dogs & rabbits, the right breed will not see the rabbits as food. My heeler is very protective of the rabbits, even the newborn ones. He once alerted me when he found a kit that had been born outside the nest and fallen to the floor, and I was able to save it. A good dog will see anything that 'should' be there as something to protect and anything that shouldn't (ie cats) as a threat to be eliminated.

Mobile cages

We originally built this as a chicken tractor for the 2 bantam hens, but now I use it as a mobile rabbit run. I wouldn't use this for long term housing, because the rabbits would dig out too easily. (Ignore the look of the grass, it was early spring)

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Cripes, that was a blast from the past ! It reminded me of WW11 when we had an indoor air-raid shelter. It was cage-like and made of (steel ?). It wouldn't have withstood a direct hit IMO but would have sheltered us from falling debris.

Golly! So much info! Thanx you folk!

Which are better for weed control, bunnies or goats?

I'm 'feeling out' the pest-control potential of each critter.

Goats, I think. They'll eat brush, thistles and stuff that other livestock won't touch. And my friend says that the milk tastes better when her goats are eating weeds rather than grass.