Rabbits
Rabbits are initially caught by dropping carrots. After a certain amount of time, some of the carrots will be replaced by rabbits, which you must grab quickly. The rabbits may then be placed in a hutch, where they will breed if provided with carrots to eat.
A female rabbit in a hutch will eat 1 carrot every 3 game hours, while a male rabbit will eat 4 carrots in the same time period. If the hutch runs out of food or becomes overcrowded (approximately 30 rabbits), the rabbits will break out of the hutch and will be lost. Rabbits breed quickly, and should not be left unattended for long periods of time.
Our rabbits are monogamous, like our sheep. If you have an EQUAL number of males and females they will eat 5 carrots per couple per game hour, and will have one baby per couple every 4 game hours. That's 20 carrots per baby.
This may explain why I've observed rabbits to stop breeding after I slaughter some (Your rabbits are fine but are not breeding). There is a delay while rabbits mourn their lost mates... er, while the game reshuffles the pairs. -JulianJaynes
Be very aware that this is a geometric progression. Your rabbit population will DOUBLE every 8 game hours.
Assuming that you have at least 600 carrots in the hutch, and that you start with 1+1 rabbits, then you'll have 2;4;8;16;32 > 30 Rabbits after 16 GAME hours or about 8 smelly hours.
DO NOT leave rabbits in a hutch overnight. There's some random varience, and you're really taking your chances if you have more than 11+11 Rabbits in your hutch. They might ALL have a baby during the next cycle, and you'd lose the entire hutch.
 | This is really taking your chances, and it's the most rabbits we've ever seen in a hutch. |
I think this is scaremongering. While it may be mathematically possible to wind up with more than 30 rabbits (and hence a potential breakout) in 8 hours, in my experience this almost never happens. To test this, I left two breeding pairs of rabbits in each of 3 hutches on 3 separate nights (9 total trials, starting with 2 Males/2 Females per hutch). I went to bed, got up in the morning and checked (so roughly 8-10 real hours later). One morning there were 9 rabbits in one of the hutches; this is the most I've managed after 8 hours -- every other sample hutch ended with 7 or fewer total bunnies (including the original 4). Also, keep in mind that this is from 2 starting pairs, not 1. It has been suggested (thanks Hasani) that new bunnies may not breed their first cycle. I don't know if this is the case or not, but it is quite rare indeed to get the full number of potential bunnies in a cycle. Often, with 2-3 breeding pairs, you won't get any bunnies at all in a given breeding cycle. -Guum
It would be much more like Teppy to use the Fibonacci Sequence in this case. --Sedelyan
Rabbits in a hutch may be slaughtered to generate 1 rabbit meat and possibly a rabbit pelt. High dexterity will improve your chances of getting a rabbit pelt. In Tale 1, +14 was sufficient to always get a pelt. In Tale 3, at +30ish I got 4/4.
In the Test of the Safari, rabbits may be fed to falcons to track the bird back to its roost.
Could someone tell me how many carrots you dropped per pile? -Greyhawk
Current research for me shows 80min between spawns in game. ~ AuronXIII
Dropping carrots one at a time across the landscape is the way to get this elusive critter. I've only ever caught them once in T3. I dropped about 30 carrots in lines and they spawned replacing the carrots they ate. One thing I noticed that is different is these things spawned with me still there, dropping carrots. The time they spawned for me was 12:12AM at 1117,4336 in our camp, although that might not be a factor. (or it very well could be related to the carrot growing waves)
- Delerium
I dropped almost 50 carrots in rows at night and waited. At 1025 pm several were replaced by rabbits. I managed to grab 3 before the rest disappeared. I put more carrots out and waited some more. They spawned 2 more times for me 30-60 egypt minutes apart before I had to leave. Each time a random number replaced some carrots and I had to grab them as fast as I could. Next time I'll drop the carrots a little closer together to give myself time to collect more. - Aziza
I started a little after 4am Egypt Time dropped 75 or so carrots in a grid in tufts of grass. An Egypt hour or so later about 20 random carrots were replaced by either male or female rabbits. I managed to grab 5 before they despawned. It seems they only last about 10 seconds. Perhaps working with someone else increases the chance to catch more when they spawn. I dont know if it matters but I was collecting grass walking through the carrot grid when they spawned.
-Potamo
After trying several carrot layouts, I had success with 3 rows of 6 single carrots. I also was gathering grass, runing around and through the rows, when they spawned. I got 5 males and 1 female, approx. 10 mins realtime after dropping the carrots in the grass. It was just after 8 pm game time. June 28 06 ~ EveF
I dropped roughly 60 carrots in a grid at 11:00pm (Egypt Time) and waited until about 12:20am with no signs of rabbits. I then picked up my carrots and moved 50 coords or so away to 1167 6588 (near UHarmony in LE) and dropped a grid of 60 again. At exactly 1:00am, 10 carrots were replaced by rabbits. I managed to grab 5 before the rest vanished-- you really do have only 10-20 seconds to pick them up. I picked up most of the remaining 50 carrots and tightened up the grid in the hopes of grabbing more if they spawn again in the same area. It's about 1:45AM, so if the pattern is that they spawn on the hour (and it doesn't look like it from the other info on this page), I should be able to get a few more.
Also, to verify what others have said, it doesn't appear to matter if you're far from the carrots or nearby-- they spawned while I was standing there.
Solipsistos -- 8 July 06, Year 1 Akhet IV-22
...of course, if you wait TOO long, the sweeper will get your carrots.
How long is too long? Maybe rabbits don't show up at all during daylight hours? Dropped at about 1:00PM, vanished due to the sweeper at about 4:18PM. So, don't leave your carrots on the ground for more than 1 REAL hour (which should be less than 1 Teppy Hour, and thus help you avoid the sweeper).
Solipsistos, out 80 carrots.
Mathematics of Breeding
Going to make a lot of assumptions here. A LOT. All information here is based on what we -probably- know, but don't for sure. So use it at your own risk. -SedelyanFirst, figure that rabbits are monogamous, and breed once every 4 in-game hours.
1 pair of rabbits, therefore, will grow along the following cycle, maximum...
- 1. One pair (male and female), breed a male.
- 2. One pair, breed a female.
- 3. Two pair, breed one of each.
- 4. Three pair, breed one extra male (5 male, 4 female)
- 5. Four pair, breed two pair.
- 6. Six pair, breed three pair.
- 7. Nine pair and one extra male, breed 4 males and 5 females.
- 8. Fourteen pair, or 28 rabbits.
In general, you can expect to see a MINIMUM of 32 in-game hours, or roughly 10.5 RL hours, before a single pair of rabbits will overcrowd. Of course, because things don't turn out nice and neat, there are good chances it would be double that - so you CAN leave a single pair, or even two pair, in a rabbit hutch overnight.
That said, do it at your own risk.
The biggest assumption, of course, is that rabbits will breed every cycle. They don't. Four pair will often produce only two babies, and often of the same gender. Rabbits really are a lot safer than people give them credit for. --Sedelyan
One trick that is well-known but not stated here is to store spare rabbits in snake pits. Even with snakes, snakes eat rabbits very slowly. And with a single snake pit, snakes won't turn up too often. -- Cappu
