Buck Jones
Well-Known Member
Bumping up as some on the chat yesterday said they missed this post and might be interested in it.
Buck
Posted: Sun Feb 20th, 2005 09:27 am
DaisyNBuster wrote: [/b]
Did a little researching. Rabbit Production, Eighth Edition, most rabbit breeders' "bible" says,
An ideal temperature is 50 to 60 degrees F. This is knownas the "comfort zone." At either higher or lower temperaturesthan this, the animal has to expend energy to maintain its bodytemperature. Rabbits are much more tolerant of lowtemperatures than high temperatures. A Major considerationunder low temperatures is that feed consumption is increased so theanimal can maintain its body temperature. Thus, the lower theenvironmental temperature, the poorer the feed conversion, because agreater quantity of feed energy is being used to maintain bodytemperature....It is significant that water consumption also increasesas the temperature drops, because of the increased feedintake. Restricted availability of water under coldconditions(e.g., from frozen water lines) will reduce performance morethan restriction at the comfort zone,because rabbits will not eat ifthey don't have sufficient water. page 101.
Conversely, on page 284:
Rabbits are of Mediterranean origin and adapt best to climaticconditions that are not extremely cold or hot. They are notvery tolerant of high temperatures and experience considerable heatstress when the temperature reaches about 88 degrees F.
These comments are pretty much definitive for me as the wholebook is based upon years of experience and hard research by a host ofimminent authors.
Buck
