MMC Farmstead

10/11/2026

I need a local Rabbit supplier in Indiana (Greene, Owen, Monroe co area) while I'm out of Indiana for the forseeable future for one of my regular customers.

She has dietary restrictions, and goes through 1 large (4lb+ after processed) rabbit a month she prefers larger stewers becuse they are easier for her to work with while cooking But right now will take what she can get .

This is for human food not pet food .

Please contact me if you have a regular supply of rabbit stewers preferably. She takes whole frozen, but I belive IN you can now sell cut also . Just make sure your certs are updated to the state requirements.

10/11/2026

Rabbit Soup is on the Menu Today!

One of my favorite things about raising meat rabbits is having good, homegrown meat ready for easy meals. Today, it's homemade rabbit soup in the crockpot!

I start with a whole rabbit in the crockpot, adding enough water to cover it. Season with salt, pepper, and your choice of spices. I use Kentucky Chicken Rub, a little turmeric, and a bag of frozen chopped seasoning vegetables (onions, red peppers, and green peppers).

Right before setting it to cook I add:

- About 2 cups of chopped portobello mushrooms
- Chopped green onions
- 2–3 cups of cubed or diced potatoes
- About ½ cup of diced carrots
- Any other vegetables you enjoy!

Set the crockpot on LOW for 8–12 hours. I usually let mine cook while I'm at work so its ready when I get home. .

Collard greens are also excellent in this soup, although I recommend adding some pre cooked bacon if you're using collards. It adds a wonderful flavor.

Remove the rabbit, carefully debone it, shred the meat, and return it to the soup. Give everything a good stir, and it's ready to serve!

Meal Prep Bonus: I portion mine into individual serving containers. I froze over half the batch and put a few servings in the refrigerator for easy grab-and-go meals throughout the week.

Simple ingredients, very little hands-on work, and plenty of hearty meals from one rabbit!

10/11/2026

NEW ZEALAND RABBITS: SPORT COLORS DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN CROSSBRED!

There seems to be considerable confusion about what constitutes a purebred New Zealand rabbit and which colors can naturally occur within established bloodlines.

The ARBA Standard of Perfection recognizes five New Zealand varieties: White, Red, Black, Blue, and Broken (the accepted colored brokens are Red, Black, and Blue).

Their basic genetics are:

White (REW): cc, which masks all other coat-color genes.

Red: A_B_C_D_ee, or A_bbC_D_ee, with wideband and rufus modifiers influencing color quality.

Black: aaB_C_D_E_

Blue: aaB_C_ddE_

Broken: Enen, combined with an accepted colored variety.

However, these are NOT the only colors genetically possible in New Zealands!

Because of the breed's development history, recessive genes and other inherited color variants can remain in established lines for generations. Breeding different recognized varieties together can reveal those hidden genes.

Examples of nonstandard colors that can occur include:

Chestnut: Agouti with normal extension (A_B_C_D_E_).

Chinchilla: Agouti carrying chinchilla (cchd).

Steel: The steel allele (Es), which can be concealed in self-colored rabbits.

Chocolate: Two recessive chocolate alleles (bb).

Lilac: Chocolate combined with dilute (bbdd).

Opal: Dilute chestnut (A_B_C_ddE_).

Fawn/Palomino: Dilute non-extension agouti (A_B_C_ddee).

Tortoiseshell: Self combined with non-extension (aaC_ee).

Chocolate agouti and chocolate chinchilla: Different combinations involving bb.

Californian/Pointed White: The Himalayan allele (ch), historically associated with Californian outcrosses.

Chinchilla and Californian genetics are particularly unsurprising given the historical use of other breeds in developing and improving New Zealand lines.

Now, there ARE colors and patterns that should raise legitimate questions about undocumented outcrossing.

These include Vienna (blue-eyed white or Vienna markings), Dutch markings, true silvering, Harlequin/Japanese patterning, and shaded varieties. These are not ordinarily expected simply from mixing the standard New Zealand varieties and deserve investigation.

Also, silver-tipped steel is NOT the same genetic trait as true silvering!

Here is the distinction people need to understand:

A SPORT is an offspring expressing an unexpected or nonstandard color. It does NOT automatically mean the animal is crossbred.

A purebred New Zealand can produce a sport that is disqualified from exhibition under the SOP while still belonging to an established New Zealand pedigree.

Conversely, a rabbit displaying a perfectly acceptable SOP color can have undocumented crossbreeding in its ancestry.

AND we are judged on Phenotype, so ancesty natters less on a show table then conformation to SOP. Where this needs to be considered is when selection of breeding stock.

Send a message to learn more

10/02/2026

Why Rabbit Keepers Moved Rabbits Off the Ground: History, Biosecurity, and Buying Stock

One of my biggest concerns when buying rabbits is something many people never think to ask about: Has this rabbit been allowed on the ground?

That does not mean a rabbit that has touched grass is automatically sick. It does not mean every outdoor rabbit is carrying parasites. It means something much simpler: ground exposure changes that rabbit’s biosecurity history.

If someone wants to pasture their own closed herd, use rabbit tractors, or let rabbits play in the yard, that is their husbandry decision. What concerns me is when rabbits with that exposure are sold into other breeding herds , or put on a show table. , without the buyer being told. I deliberately maintain my rabbits off the ground. If I purchase an animal that has been running through soil visited by wild rabbits, raccoons, cats, rodents, ticks and other wildlife, I may be importing exposures I specifically designed my management system to avoid.

And keeping rabbits separated from the ground is not a strange modern invention. It has a surprisingly long history.

Rabbits have been confined for centuries

The Romans maintained European rabbits in managed enclosures called leporaria, and later medieval rabbit production developed around warrens. Those systems were not equivalent to modern cages and generally involved managed populations rather than individually housed domestic rabbits.

As rabbit domestication developed, husbandry changed. Agricultural writings from 1572 and 1600 distinguished wild rabbits, warren rabbits and domestic rabbits maintained in clapiers. Breeding does were maintained separately, while bucks were housed apart except for mating. Individual confinement was therefore already part of domestic rabbit husbandry by the beginning of the seventeenth century (Lebas, Tudela & Gidenne, 2010).

Historical research from England shows the same general transition. Domestic rabbits were being raised in hutches, sheds, pens, courtyards, lofts, cellars and specialized rabbit pits during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Thick, 2016).

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, rabbit housing was increasingly being physically separated from the soil. Historical descriptions and illustrations document elevated wooden cages, and an 1842 husbandry recommendation described approximately one-square-meter compartments raised about 20 cm above the ground and constructed to improve drainage (Lebas, Tudela & Gidenne, 2010).

Later systems increasingly incorporated false or perforated floors so that urine and f***s could move away from the animal rather than accumulating on its living surface. Modern galvanized wire cages are comparatively recent, but the idea of separating domestic rabbits from soil and accumulated waste is not (Lebas, Tudela & Gidenne, 2010).

The ground is not sterile

Grass itself is not the problem. Dirt itself is not the problem. The problem is that an outdoor surface is an uncontrolled biological environment.

Coccidiosis is one of the clearest examples. Rabbit Eimeria species are transmitted through the f***l-oral route. Oocysts are passed in f***s, develop in the environment and become infective. Rabbits then ingest those infective oocysts from contaminated feed, water, bedding or surfaces. Young and recently weaned rabbits are particularly susceptible to clinical disease (Pakandl, 2009; Coudert et al., 1995).

This is one reason separating rabbits from accumulated f***l material has practical value. A properly designed perforated or wire floor allows f***s to fall away from the rabbit's primary living surface instead of remaining underneath the animal where repeated f***l-oral exposure can occur. It does not eliminate coccidia, but it can interrupt part of the transmission cycle.

Environmental exposure can also introduce parasites that do not originate with domestic rabbits. Baylisascaris procyonis, the raccoon roundworm, is shed in raccoon f***s. Its eggs can remain infectious in contaminated environments, and rabbits can serve as paratenic hosts after ingesting them. Migrating larvae may invade the central nervous system and produce severe neurological disease (Gavin, Kazacos & Shulman, 2005).

Toxoplasma gondii represents another soil-associated exposure pathway. Cats are the definitive host and can shed environmentally resistant oocysts in f***s. Rabbits become infected primarily by ingesting contaminated vegetation, food, water or soil and can serve as intermediate hosts (Dubey, 2010).

Tularemia requires a little more precision. Francisella tularensis should not simply be described as a “dirt disease.” In North America it circulates among wildlife and arthropod vectors, particularly ticks, with rabbits and hares playing an important role in some transmission cycles. Moving domestic rabbits into outdoor areas increases their interaction with the wildlife-vector environment in which F. tularensis occurs (Ellis et al., 2002).

RHDV2 adds another biosecurity concern. Rabbit hemorrhagic disease viruses can spread through direct contact, contaminated objects, carcasses and mechanically transported infectious material. RHDV2 has also established itself in wild lagomorph populations, meaning domestic rabbits can potentially encounter contamination originating outside the rabbitry (Mahar et al., 2018).

So, no, ground contact does not equal disease.

But ground contact does create additional exposure pathways.

“Everything has risks” misses the point

Of course everything has risks. Biosecurity has never meant creating a completely sterile rabbit.

Biosecurity means identifying exposure pathways that can reasonably be controlled and deciding whether the benefit of an exposure justifies accepting that risk.

If someone keeps a closed herd and decides that allowing rabbits onto grass is worth that additional exposure, that is their decision.

The equation changes when that rabbit is sold.

The buyer may maintain a closed breeding herd. Their rabbits may never have been exposed directly to soil used by wild rabbits, raccoons, cats or other wildlife. They may show rabbits, ship breeding stock around the country or sell animals to other rabbitries.

At that point, the rabbit's previous exposure history becomes relevant information.

Preventive medication does not erase that history either. A coccidiostat may reduce disease caused by susceptible coccidia. It does not protect against RHDV2, tularemia, Baylisascaris, Toxoplasma, ticks or every other organism encountered outdoors.

What I want to know before a rabbit enters my herd

When I purchase breeding stock, I want to know whether the rabbit has ever been housed directly on soil or grass, whether it has been kept in a rabbit tractor, whether wild rabbits have access to the same areas, whether raccoons or cats routinely enter those areas, whether the breeder has experienced coccidiosis or unexplained neurological disease, and what quarantine and sanitation practices are used.

None of those answers automatically makes a breeder good or bad.

They tell me whether that breeder's biosecurity practices are compatible with mine.

That is my biggest objection to selling ground-exposed rabbits without disclosing it.

A buyer cannot make an informed biosecurity decision about an exposure they were never told happened.

Keeping rabbits off the ground is not “against nature”

Domestic rabbits are not simply wild European rabbits living in cages. They are the result of centuries of domestication, controlled reproduction and selective breeding.

Controlled housing developed alongside that process.

Historical rabbit keepers learned that separating animals allowed more control over breeding. Later housing systems improved sanitation, manure management and predator protection. Modern rabbit production systems continued refining those principles (Lebas, Tudela & Gidenne, 2010; Thick, 2016).

That does not mean every cage is appropriate or every outdoor system is inappropriate. Cage dimensions, flooring, ventilation, sanitation, thermal protection, resting opportunities and enrichment still matter.

It simply means that keeping rabbits physically separated from potentially contaminated ground is a legitimate biosecurity practice with centuries of historical precedent and a biologically defensible purpose.

For me, access to grass is not necessary for a rabbit to have a good quality of life. Exercise, forage, chewing opportunities, resting areas, hiding opportunities and enrichment can all be provided without deliberately introducing an exposure pathway I otherwise have the ability to control.

And if another breeder chooses differently, that is their management decision.

I simply want to know about that exposure before their rabbit becomes part of my herd.

09/26/2026

Rabbits Are Social Animals. That Does NOT Mean Every Rabbit Needs a Roommate.

Rabbits are social animals.

That statement is true.

But somewhere along the way, it often gets translated into a much broader claim: every domestic rabbit should live with another rabbit.

Those are not the same statement.

Wild rabbits live within social systems, but those systems include territories, dominance relationships, mate selection, dispersal, avoidance, and the ability to put distance between themselves and another rabbit. A domestic rabbit placed in an enclosure with another rabbit does not necessarily have those same options.

Compatibility is a major part of the picture.

Age, s*x, reproductive status, temperament, available space, resource placement, introductions, previous experience, and changes associated with s*xual maturity can completely alter how two rabbits interact.

Two young rabbits sleeping together peacefully does not guarantee they will remain compatible adults.

Two littermates are not automatically a stable lifelong pair.

And aggression between rabbits is not evidence that rabbits somehow stopped being a social species. Social species can still compete, establish territories, fight over resources, and reject particular individuals.

Good rabbit welfare therefore requires more nuance than simply asking:

“Does this rabbit have a friend?”

We also need to ask:

Is the rabbit actually compatible with that individual?

Can each rabbit move away from the other?

Are there enough feeding, resting, and hiding resources?

Are we seeing relaxed social behavior, or merely two animals tolerating one another because they have nowhere else to go?

And perhaps most importantly, is this particular rabbit doing well in this particular housing arrangement?

Individual housing does not automatically mean social deprivation, just as group housing does not automatically mean good welfare.

There is a lot more research behind this subject, and we’ll dig into that separately.

For now, I’m curious about everyone’s actual experience.

Have you kept rabbits successfully together long-term?

Have you had littermates or previously compatible rabbits suddenly become aggressive toward one another?

Or do you have rabbits that very clearly prefer having their own space?

09/23/2026

still seeing if anyone is going to Lowell MI show Saturday that can bring 3 rabbits back to Bedford area Indiana.

text me at 812 929 0574 or message this page..

09/22/2026

Rabbit flooring is one of those subjects where very different systems often get lumped together under one word: “wire.” A 3-inch rectangular mesh made from relatively thin wire is not functionally identical to a 1 × ½-inch floor made from heavier welded wire, and neither is identical to that same floor with an appropriate resting surface.

So before arguing about whether “wire floors are good or bad,” it helps to establish what we are actually talking about.

Starting with the USDA Blue Book

The USDA Animal Welfare Act Blue Book provides a useful basic husbandry benchmark for rabbits. The rabbit standards are found in 9 CFR Part 3, Subpart C.

The basic flooring requirement is remarkably simple:

“The floors of the primary enclosures shall be constructed so as to protect the rabbits’ feet and legs from injury. Litter shall be provided in all primary enclosures having solid floors.”

The Blue Book therefore does not prohibit wire flooring. Wire and mesh systems are clearly contemplated elsewhere in the sanitation requirements as well.

It also does not specify a required wire gauge, mesh dimension, or universal footrest design. The regulatory question is functional: does the floor protect the rabbit from injury while allowing the animal to remain clean and dry?

For production rabbits raised solely for food or fur, these AWA provisions are not being presented here as regulations governing every farm. I am using them as a useful published baseline from which to discuss practical rabbit husbandry.

What I use

My normal rabbit flooring is 1 × ½-inch welded wire, generally 14-gauge flooring in my own cages, galvanized after welding. Depending on cage design, rabbit size and application, heavier or lighter gauges may be appropriate, but gauge alone should never be the entire specification.

Wire diameter, weld quality, tension, supporting framework, corrosion, sagging and mesh spacing all change how a floor actually functions.

I also use resting surfaces where appropriate. This is particularly important when individual animals, breed characteristics or size make additional foot support useful. Rex-type coats, narrow feet, heavier giant breeds, older breeding animals and individual rabbits with developing foot problems should not simply be treated as though every rabbit has identical feet.

That combination is important because my recommendation is not “bare wire at all costs.” It is a well-supported, appropriately sized wire floor plus management and resting surfaces where they are useful.

What does the research actually tell us?

There is some good research on rabbit flooring, but it is important to read the dimensions of the floors being studied instead of treating every wire floor as interchangeable.

Morisse, Boilletot and Martrenchar (1999) studied 384 growing meat rabbits given access to wire flooring or straw-covered deep litter. The rabbits spent about 89% of their time on the wire at seven weeks and 77% at ten weeks.

That is useful preference evidence, but their wire floor was approximately 3 × 1 inches, not the 1 × ½-inch flooring I use.

Orova and colleagues also reported growing rabbits strongly favoring wire over deep litter when both resources were available, with approximately 85% occupancy on wire and 15% on litter under the conditions they tested.

Preference and foot health are not the same question, however.

Research on breeding does shows why resting surfaces deserve attention. Rosell and de la Fuente studied 224 breeding cages using a wire floor with openings approximately 3.27 × 0.43 inches. By the fifth lactation, cumulative sore-hock incidence was 71.5% without footrests compared with 15.1% in cages supplied with footrests.

Rommers and de Jong later followed does housed on 3-mm wire floors across five commercial farms. By the fifth reproductive cycle, only 13.3% of does on bare wire still had intact footpads, compared with 81.3% of does provided with plastic resting mats.

That is strong evidence for providing an appropriate resting surface under those conditions.

But there is another detail that is often lost when these papers are discussed: those floors are not the same floor I am recommending.

A floor with more than three inches between cross wires has a very different support pattern from a floor with cross wires every one inch. Geometrically, changing that dimension from approximately three inches to one inch gives roughly three times as many cross-support lines in that direction.

That does not mean we can automatically claim three times the contact area or three times less pressure on a rabbit's foot. A living foot does not behave like a ruler sitting on a grid. But it does mean that research conducted on a 3-inch mesh should not simply be relabeled as evidence about 1 × ½-inch flooring.

The physical construction matters.

There is also research suggesting that simply making the wire thicker is not enough by itself. A pilot comparison of approximately 2-mm and 3-mm wire floors did not find a significant difference in footpad scores between the two wire diameters, while resting mats showed a benefit.

So the evidence increasingly points toward something much more practical than “wire good” or “wire bad”:

Floor design matters. Mesh spacing matters. Wire diameter matters. Support and sagging matter. Cleanliness and moisture matter. The rabbit matters. And access to a suitable resting surface can matter considerably, especially for breeding animals kept over long periods.

That is also why I am careful about claiming more from these studies than they actually tested. I have not found a controlled experiment directly comparing the complete American-style combination of 1 × ½-inch galvanized-after-weld flooring in the gauges I use against all of the alternative flooring systems.

What we do have is regulatory guidance, decades of practical rabbit-cage use, preference research, foot-health research, and direct husbandry observation. Those pieces can be put together, but they should not be pretended to be one giant experiment when they are not.

This is where I want to start this series.

In the paid section on skool we can dig much farther into wire gauge and actual diameter, mesh geometry, foot loading, resting surfaces, breed and body-weight differences, the individual flooring studies, and what I have observed over years of keeping rabbits on these systems.

For now, I’m interested in the practical side: What flooring is being used in everyone’s rabbitry, what size and gauge is it, are resting surfaces provided, and what changes have actually been observed in the rabbits when the flooring or support system was changed?

09/21/2026

I need someone. That can help transport 3 rabbits from thebmichigan indiana boarder near ish Detroit side .. to just south of bloomington IN . In Sept 25 or 26th .

09/15/2026

When I'm pulling up years old videos on this subject ..... its a ongoing problem

09/13/2026

There Has to Be a Line Between Treatment and Prolonging Suffering

There is a point where “saving” a rabbit stops being rescue and becomes prolonging suffering. Keeping an animal alive is not automatically the same thing as preserving an acceptable quality of life.

I also want to make something clear about my own management practices. Treatment is the exception in my rabbitry, not the default. Probably 90% or more of rabbits presenting with serious infectious, neurologic, orthopedic or other conditions are humanely culled rather than subjected to extensive treatment. Rabbits are remarkably good at hiding disease until they are significantly compromised, recovery can be difficult, and I am managing the welfare of the individual animal as well as disease risk to an entire herd.

There are occasional cases where I elect to treat. That may be because the rabbit represents an important bloodline, fills a particular need in the breeding program, has an especially favorable prognosis, or because I am discussing treatment options for somebody else's pet rabbit rather than making a herd-management decision for my own barn.

When treatment is elected, it is not open-ended. The protocols I discuss are the courses I have used while working with veterinary professionals and the limits I impose on those treatment attempts. They should not be interpreted as instructions to diagnose or medicate a rabbit without veterinary involvement.

The important part is that treatment begins with an endpoint already established.

With suspected neurologic E. cuniculi, a commonly used veterinary protocol is approximately 28 days of fenbendazole therapy, together with appropriate supportive treatment based upon the rabbit's condition. If I have elected to treat, I expect to see a meaningful recovery trajectory. I allow no more than roughly two weeks after that treatment period to determine whether neurological function is continuing to improve. A rabbit that began with moderate head tilt and is progressively straightening, balancing better, eating normally, grooming and regaining normal mobility is recovering. I have had rabbits do exactly that.

A rabbit that reaches the end of treatment with severe persistent torticollis, continues falling or rolling, cannot groom normally, is losing weight, remains profoundly disoriented or has reached a neurological plateau is not, in my opinion, a successful recovery. At that point I euthanize. I also consider significant persistent head tilt itself unacceptable when normal posture and function have not returned. A nearly inverted head is not a cosmetic defect.

That distinction matters enormously when looking at some rescue cases. A rabbit in the middle of a genuine recovery is one thing. A rabbit maintained for months with profound neurological deficits while every deterioration generates another fundraising appeal is something else entirely.

With respiratory disease, the window is shorter. If I choose to treat suspected Pasteurella, treatment begins immediately when clinical signs are identified. In my own barn, when working under veterinary guidance with a long-acting medication such as tulathromycin, I expect obvious improvement during the first week. If the rabbit is not improving, I euthanize. Some breeders and veterinarians may elect a second treatment round and extend that observation period, but even then there needs to be a defined endpoint. I do not repeatedly cycle a chronically symptomatic rabbit through antibiotics hoping that eventually something changes.

Recurrence is another hard line for me. A rabbit that clinically recovers and later develops respiratory disease again is culled. At that point I am no longer dealing only with an individual treatment decision. I am dealing with the possibility of a chronic carrier and the health of every other rabbit sharing that environment.

My approach to Bordetella bronchiseptica is similar. If treatment is elected, I treat once and expect improvement quickly, generally within several days. If symptoms are worsening rather than improving after roughly three to five days, I euthanize rather than continue pushing a deteriorating animal through treatment.

Traumatic injuries have their own limits. A simple injury with an excellent prognosis is obviously different from catastrophic orthopedic or neurological trauma. But severe spinal injury, persistent paralysis, or injuries that permanently prevent normal locomotion are mercy-cull situations for me. Rabbits are quadrupeds. Normal rabbit locomotion, posture, grooming, feeding behavior and environmental interaction depend on coordinated use of the body. Veterinary medicine may technically be capable of maintaining some profoundly disabled animals, but medical possibility and good welfare are not synonymous.

This is the fundamental distinction I think parts of rescue culture have lost:

Treatment is justified by the reasonable prospect of recovery. Treatment is not justified merely because death can still be postponed.

There should always be objective questions being asked. Is the rabbit eating independently? Maintaining weight? Grooming? Staying clean? Remaining upright? Moving normally or progressively more normally? Resting comfortably? Is pain controlled? Is neurological or respiratory function demonstrably improving? Is the amount of nursing intervention decreasing?

Most importantly, is the rabbit actually getting better?

If the answer is yes, continuing treatment can be entirely appropriate.

If the answer has been no for weeks or months, continuing to call the situation “recovery” does not change what the rabbit is experiencing.

For pet owners, the exact decision belongs between the owner and a rabbit-knowledgeable veterinarian. A pet owner may reasonably choose treatment in circumstances where I would immediately cull a production rabbit. But even pet medicine needs limits. Before beginning treatment, there should be a frank discussion about prognosis, what constitutes meaningful improvement, what quality-of-life measures will be followed, and what findings will mean it is time to stop.

That is the piece I believe some rescues desperately need to relearn. Humane euthanasia is not an ethical failure. Refusing to consider euthanasia can be.

There is a difference between fighting for an animal and forcing an animal to keep fighting because humans cannot let go.

A rabbit undergoing treatment with measurable improvement is being given a chance to recover.

A rabbit whose body has clearly demonstrated that meaningful recovery is no longer occurring should be given something equally important: the right to stop suffering.