Rabbit farm Design Techniques

Technical request of design the rabbit coop

The coop must be clear and clean, the direction is suitable to climate in the tropical and temperate zone.  The coop should be made by local material (usually is available and cheap materials). However, when design the housing should be ensure for rabbit easily activities and also unaffected on rabbit heath.
Beside, install any equipment inside the coop has to pertinent with feeding and careing and the structure of coop, some materials are easier to disinfect than others. Wood is very hard to clean, but it can be periodically replaced in countries where it is plentiful such as Viet Nam. Plywood can be disinfected by steeping it in disinfectant solutions. Galvanized iron is easy to clean and disinfect but, unlike wood, is a poor insulator. Concrete, provided it is smooth, can be cleaned and disinfected, but portable concrete installations are virtually ruled out by their weight. Glazed earthenware can be used for some accessories (eg troughs, or even nest boxes). Therefore, the selection material use for rabbits housing depend on each equipment so that is comfortable and pertinent.

Design the housing and rabbitry equipments

The rabbit housing can be made by any material that is easier to find in local and also inexpensive. The temperature more affected on rabbit health so the wall and the roof of housing must be insulated. Usually, design the rabbit housing ceiling and shutter system to reduce the hot weather air inlet, and the building have to right direction (the best of direction Incoterms central of Viet Nam is north to south). Moreover, when design the rabbit housing, we was inlet the door system with purpose controlling the lighting and wind inside the house.

Fig 1. Setting up the coop inside rabbits housing

Fig 2. Dispose of rabbit housing foundation

1-Food processing areas Incoterms 24 hour, 2- Rood use for take care and food supply, 3-Rabbit coops, 4-Main door, 5- gutter

Design the rabbit coop should be depend on animals density and scale produce. The rabbits density as show in table 2.

Arcoording to husbandry condition in central of Viet Nam and the technical request of animal coop that are safity in convenient supervision and handling of animals, long life for the material used, animal and producer comfort, no elaborate ventilation system required. so we design the rabbit coop is show in the figure 3.

Figure 3.    The structure of rabbit coop

Coop systems.

 Coop systems vary in accessibility, supervision and comfort for the animals, as well as in convenience of waste removal. Straw-litter coop will be examined first. These are either single level (coop with wooden or plywood framework) or built on several levels (concrete coop, with watertight floor beneath straw litter). The principle is generally the same. Access is by a door in the front of the cage, usually made of mesh, or hardwood latticework that must be replaced fairly often. The other walls have no openings. They must be built in such a way that the rabbits cannot gnaw them. A rabbit cannot chew on a flat wall but will slowly but surely gnaw away any protruding part of the cage that is show in figure 3.

Structure of coop floor

The floor verry important on techniques  the coops, in this study we are mentions on the problems of floor there are other advantages and disadvantages with both mesh floors and traditional straw litter. With a mesh floor, through which droppings can fall, automated or very infrequent cleaning is possible because droppings accumulate under the coop. But it also makes the rabbits very dependent on the microclimate or ventilation in the rabbitry. Straw litter, on the other hand, has to be cleaned often (at least once a week) so the producer has to have the material on hand (straw, wood shavings, etc.). An advantage is that a cage with a straw litter floor can be put almost anywhere, as the cage itself partly insulates the animals from variations in the external climate. However, the better for floor of rabbit cages is wire mesh as show in figure 4.

Figure 4. The structure of rabbit coop floor

The equipment use for rabbit’s husbandry

Equipment usually uses in the rabbit coop include: feeding trough and racks, drinker, the nest box and rabbit keeping cages. With each the equipment we are design for convenient to rabbit farms in Viet Nam and also in Central areas. Equipment in direct contact with the rabbits or their excrement becomes contaminated by the bacteria, viruses and fungi that accompany the animals. Cages, fittings and building walls must be designed so they can be easily cleaned, disinfected or replaced and not in turn become sources of contamination. Portable components which can be cleaned outside the rabbitry building are especially recommended. Away from the rabbits stronger cleaning agents and more effective methods can be used - powerful disinfectants, lengthy soaking, prolonged exposure to the sun's rays.

Feeding trough and Racks

Cages should be fitted with troughs (feed hoppers for grain or pellets, small troughs for feed mashes) or forage racks, or both, depending on how the rabbits are to be fed. Troughs must be easy to clean and disinfect, so they should be detachable.  Figure 5 shows a hopper for grain or pelleted feed. Troughs and racks should be easy to fill from outside the cage without having to open the access door, but the feed must be protected from bad weather and predators.

  a, The tray made by iron material                    b, Glazed earthenware dish

Fig 5. The structure of rabbit trough

The racks should hold at least one day's ration, the hoppers enough for two or three days, and the mash troughs a single ration. The bars of the rack should be strong enough to withstand the rabbits' teeth and keep out the young rabbits, who like to lie on the forage but soil it. The feed hopper should also have a trap to keep the young out. The width between partitions in the feed box should be about 7 to 8 cm for medium breeds. The bars of the racks can be more closely spaced (1 to 2 cm) to prevent waste.  

Figure 6. Component of racks

Figure 7. Rabbit drinker

A permanent dispenser of clean water is an essential item in each cage, wherever rabbits are not fed green forage alone. Using old cans or glass or earthenware pots as drinkers can create a hygiene problem. Rabbits tend to soil their water, especially if they are reared on straw litter. The drinkers should be fastened so that the rabbits cannot overturn them and so that the breeder can easily clean and refill them once or twice a day. One possible improvement is an inverted water-bottle drinker. A bottle is inverted over a small trough (Figure 7), which is small enough to restrict pollution. The bottle is big so that it needs to be refilled less often and the breeder can see at a glance whether the animals' water intake is normal. Today, for the best solution is an automatic drinker in every coop. The open drinker guarantees that the rabbits will be watered but it is expensive and there is a high risk of water pollution. A nipple drinker requires some learning on the part of the rabbits and wastes water. Even if there is no leak, the rabbits do not drink all the water that drips out but it has hight cost. So usually half that of an automatic open drinker is suitable for husbandry condition in Viet Nam . Above all, it ensures that the rabbits will always have clean water. A nipple drinker is the only kind that can be used if the rabbits are fed meal. Automatic drinkers are fed by water from a low-pressure tank 50 to 150 cm above cage level. This tank can be used to administer medicine with the water. It is usually filled either by water under pressure (automatic watering) or manually (semi-automatic watering). The tank must be in the shade so that the water will not heat, which would be bad for the rabbits.

The nest box

The nest box should be considered one of the most important items of equipment in rabbit production. It directly affects the viability of the young in the preweaning stage, which is the high-risk mortality period (15 to 40 percent of liveborn rabbits). The job of the nest box is to reproduce conditions in the burrow of a wild doe and protect the young against attacks from the outside environment so that they can get through the first few difficult days of life in optimal comfort. To do this the nest box must:
- allow the doe to kindle and nurse her young in comfort;
- keep the young in a healthy, clean environment;
- prevent dampness from the animals' urine;
- keep the young together in cold weather and help them maintain a constant temperature close to 30° to 35°c in the middle of the nest;
- in hot weather, allow the doe to scatter the nest so that the young can adapt to the temperature;
- keep the young from leaving the nest too early and make it easy for them to get back if they do get out;
- allow the producer to monitor the litter, remove any dead animals, introduce baby rabbits to be fostered and change bedding material easily, without disturbing the doe and the young.
We are design of the the nest box with three dimension are: 30cm x 50cm x 35cm, and have a door with dimension are 18x18cm and located at side and the distance about 15cm from bottom.

Figure 8. Structure of nest box

Keeping cages

The structure and shape of keeping cages is decisipion in figure 9. 

Fig 10. Structure of rabbit keeping cages