The Rabbit Colony

 
We had two adults who were together from late March through October. They are inside an electric poultry netting, which they respected. There was once one young rabbit who liked to squeeze through it, so we isolated him in the finish compost bin for about a week until he got too fat and broke the habit. We named him Zap. When he was big enough, we ate him.

 
Outside the electric netting is a chain-link fence. At the bottom of the chain link is poultry wire, which kept any escapees from really truly escaping.

 
The rabbits have a number of hides: tilted wheelbarrows, the pile of sticks surrounded by overgrown grass (they were 100% in charge of lawn mowing & chose to leave that grass long), two two-story hutches, a yellow A-frame, the fire pit, the finishing compost bin, and the little hutch with the hole in it. They liked them all differently but equally.

During this period of time, it was fine to keep the turkeys in with the rabbits, but when the turkeys got too big for us to pick up they also got quite interested in pecking out the rabbits’ eyes. We moved them into the space between the chain-link and the electric fence, to protect the rabbits.

In late October, the colony was invaded by a mink. It ate the entirety of a young litter, two month-old rabbits, and a rabbit that was relatively mature before we dismantled the colony. The grow-outs were brought to the balcony with the buck, the 12-week-olds were processed, and the youngest ones had, by then, all been eaten. The doe and one of her daughters were left in the lawn but locked up securely at night.