My housemate's are raising meat rabbits and a few days ago they had their first litter. The litter was HUGE and the first time mom just couldn't handle it. They just lost the two smallest (the rest are going GREAT though, so is mom ^_^). They gave them to me for Ryuk and Gambit. I plan on keeping the skulls so I'll be chopping the heads and burying them (our dermestid beetles will be arriving soon but I don't want rabbit heads in my freezer until then...) to strip them but can I feed the bodies raw?


Are there any issues I need to be aware of? I figured I'd just toss them to them frozen as a breakfast treat. They'll get a normal kibble dinner later on. This sound like a safe plan?

My lab used to eat whole rabbits in the field. He loved 'em.

If the baby rabbits are big enough I usually feed them clover and rabbit pellets....oh wait, you mean feed the rabbits to the dogs...

I don't think that there would be any problems with domestic bunnies, wild ones may have tapeworms, freezing for 30 days in a warmer freezer would kill them, or just a few days in a really cold freezer.

The skulls will be paper thin and easily damaged, be carefull.

Okay, feeling dense here. WTH are you going to do with baby rabbit skulls (and please don't be puttin' no curse on me!)?

 Quote: Duane Hull

Okay, feeling dense here. WTH are you going to do with baby rabbit skulls (and please don't be puttin' no curse on me!)?

YooHoo... Jamie?

lol, my housemate and I both draw (and sculpt). Studying various skulls is a great way to improve your anatomy of all creatures and using young animal skulls (then later when we slaughter the meat-age rabbits) and compairing them to older versions can teach you a lot about how that animal matures.

We currently have various (CLEAN) skulls in the house fore reference including a couple of coyote (eastern, which are essentially red wolves and western "true" coyote), bobcat, skunks, black bears, etc. We also have a museum quality resin human skull for reference(don't want a real version as they are often far from ethically sourced, most are from India or China and are robbed from graves or prisoners not taken with permission), a few resin animals as well. I have a resin red fox and raccoon cast with full museum quality detail in glow resin which make for interesting drawing subjects on their own (and look amazing on display at night).

We're looking to expand the collection to particular breeds of dogs (sourced only from reputable companies of course), and as soon as the studio is up we're going to try to get our hands on a full horse skeleton as a weekend project to articulate and stand in the studio for reference. I'm hoping for a mini but they are MUCH harder to find affordably (cheaper to ship though). We'll also be getting our beetles as soon as the studio is done so we can harvest our own roadkill for skeletons ^_^

Jamie, that is quite an 'interesting' sounding hobby. Little bit creepy, but interesting. I would like to see the horse skeleton once you puzzle it together. lol