hi

[Bawnie]

hi new, doing my research before getting into the netherland dwarves :happybunny:

 

[MustNotBuyMore]

Hello, welcome! I'm new here too, but not very new to rabbits. I've been breeding French Lops for years and I am also getting into Netherland Dwarves this Spring.

 

[Tammy B]

Hi Welcome to the forum :bunny17:

I am new to bunny owning and new here on the forum as well,Look forward to hearing more from you and seeing pics of your new bun.:bunnyheart

 

[Imbrium]

Welcome! I'm so glad you found RO - it's a wonderful resource .

When you said "getting into Netherland dwarves", did you mean you intend to show and/or breed them? I ask because there are some significant husbandry differences between pets and breeding/show rabbits - in particular, diet, housing needs and exercise needs differ *significantly* between altered, indoor pet rabbits and intact show and/or breeding rabbits. Everything in this section is applicable to house rabbits but some of it should be disregarded if you're showing or breeding.

[As a note, it's a good idea to be aware when reading or creating forum threads that by default, most people seem to give advice/information regarding diet and/or housing based on what's ideal for *their* type of rabbits (ie pet owners will often give advice that's right for house rabbits but inappropriate for breeding/show rabbits and vice versa). The vast majority of our members are pet owners; if you're breeding/showing, you'll want to note this in any questions you ask and learn to recognize the names of folks who reliably give you breeder/shower-specific responses .]

Anyway, here are some great sites to browse while researching:
http://www.rabbit.org/index.html
http://rabbit.org/faq-spaying-and-neutering/
http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/spay.shtml
http://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/Default.aspx
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=75235&forum_id=48 - first aid kit info
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f21/ - rabbit savvy vet listings
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=53690&forum_id=93 - great litter box system; I highly recommend the grid even if you don't want to build the whole thing (check 1/3 of the way down the first page)
http://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/ (Blueeyes' website)

Also, I've got some tips and information on the bunny page of my website - you'll need to scroll about halfway down the page to get to it (it starts just past a block of four little embedded YouTube videos)

Diet:
http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html#babies
http://www.rabbit.org/care/veggies.html
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Food/Food_main.htm
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/diet.html

NIC/C&C cage info:
These two sites lay out the basics very clearly:
http://breyfamily.net/bunnycage.html
http://www.guineapigcages.com/cubes.htm (shows how to do coroplast floors if you'd rather use that than plywood)
And this site that JBun found gets into the nitty-gritty details - lots of different designs, some in-depth videos, all that good stuff: http://rabbitcondo.com/lara-and-harrels-deluxe-wide-rabbit-condo

The best deal on grids for the cages (in the US) is - surprisingly - at Sears (if your local store doesn't stock them, you can do site-to-store to avoid shipping fees):
http://www.sears.com/stor-floor-sta...p-00913332000P?prdNo=1&blockNo=1&blockType=G1
How many boxes you need obviously depends on the design, but you'll need at *least* two boxes to build an appropriately roomy condo unless the bunny is 100% free range and only uses their cage/condo as a home base for their food and litter box.
Each box contains 23 grids.

Here are the two condos I've built:

~~~~~

If my assumption that it sounds like you intend to work with the breed (ie breeding/showing) is correct, then I also highly recommend these sites:
http://oakridgerabbitry.weebly.com/articles.html (OakRidgeRabbits, this site's author, is actually a veteran (and very active) member of RO)
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/rabbit-genetics/dwarf-gene-dw-falsedwarfs-peanuts/
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/rabbit-genetics/color-information-easy-to-understand/
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/rabbit-genetics/rabbit-color-genotypes-chart/
http://www.welshrabbitry.com/birth.html
http://www.welshrabbitry.com/becomearabbitbreeder.html
https://www.arba.net/index.htm

 

[Imbrium]

Oh, and my (half-*ssed) apologies to anyone reading this thread for not making things look infinitely "tidier" by embedding most of the links in my previous post - I wanted to, but with so many links it just seemed like more effort than it was worth, lol (I have them all saved as a notepad file so I have the option to copy/paste it all in one big chunk). What can I say, sometimes laziness trumps OCD!

Also, grr... I see when I edited it, something caused the photos to appear on separate lines instead of side-by-side (a cleaner-looking space saver) >.>

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[lovelops]

Hi Bawnie

There are several people on here that have that breed of rabbit. So if you have questions about the breed, you might want to ask several individual that own them in case you have questions about traits of the breed. Lady, who is a netherland dwarf who lives with her owner in France is one I know off the top of my head. I know because Lady looks similar to my Agouti Chica. I'll enclose a pic of Lady here so you can see, but she is a beauty and most of the netherland dwarf's are quite
pretty.

(Ok Jennifer, when can I get you on a plane to build some condos for me since I'm recovering now!!!!)

Welcome to the board and I look forward to seeing more post from you and hopefully pictures of your new rabbit in the future!

All the best
Vanessa