I have an issue.
And this issue is I never stop trying new things. Jack of many trades, master of none – as they say. That's me. I'll never be a great baker for this very reason. I prefer to learn to do things well enough, but never too perfect.
I'm sure this may drive some people crazy, but for me, it works.
That being said, I'm always on the hunt for new hobbies and new things to try and learn. Just like my vermicompost system, I'm mostly interested in pursuing hobbies that will be beneficial to the homestead self-sufficiency long term. Especially when it comes to food production.
Gardening is obvious. And I'm always trying to learn how to do this better. Speaking of which, remember those potatoes we planted a few weeks ago in the make-shift pallet box? They're sprouting! I'm hoping for a big ‘ol fat potato harvest from it. If it works well, we'll still have time for one or two more harvests before next winter. Puttin' up a bunch of potatoes would be AWESOME. The bonus is that the entire project only cost $2 in potato seed – so it could potentially be a very small investment for a large return.
All that being said, Stuart and I have been toying with the idea of building a few rabbit cages in the backyard as well. Yes, for meat rabbits.
Because we'd eventually like to raise the rabbits on a larger scale for meat, we thought it would be a great way to get our feet wet learning how to breed, feed, and butcher them.
From what I've read (and heard from my readers via Facebook), it's very easy to raise and breed the rabbits. What appeals to us primarily about rabbits right now is that we're able to butcher them easily (they don't have any feathers to pluck!) and they are quiet, so as not to bother the neighbors.
Plus they're very low maintenance. And with two little rascals, that's a very good thing.
On average, they say you can expect to harvest about 180 pounds of meat per year by purchasing two does (females) and one buck (male). The females will obviously be bred and will give birth to a litter of bunnies, which after being fed vegetable scraps, forage material, and grain, will be ready for harvest in about eight to ten weeks. It would be especially wonderful if we are able to grow containers of wheat grass to feed them (which should be very easy to do here) instead of buying hay. And as far as grains go, I could probably find a local source of oats or wheat. I'm not sure what other grains they'd like to eat.
Because rabbit meat is so lean, it's important that it is eaten along with other fatty goods, like butter, organ meats, beef, eggs, etc. If this was your only source of fatty protein, you'd be in trouble. But lucky for us, that isn't the case. We have plenty of fat in our diets and lean, inexpensive meat from the rabbits would be a great protein addition.
We could even learn to tan the hides and find a use for them. I love the idea of being able to utilize all of the animal.
Stuart's lovin' the idea of the rabbits. Which means I need to strike while the iron is hot. I've been trying to convince him we need chickens for months now, but heck – I'll take rabbits.
That being said.
Girlfriend needs some rabbit cages. We have a great spot for them, under the patch of bamboo that will provide shade and shelter from the rain. But I'm trying to figure out what sort of set-up will function best. Obviously, the buck will need to be separated from the does on occasion, and eventually the babies will need to be separated from the does as well. A multi-compartmental setup seems necessary. And in my frugal fashion, I'm currently trying to design one out of pallets and chicken wire.
Maybe something like this?
Awesomeness is about to happen.
I found this article to be extremely helpful in presenting a run-down of the entire process. Seems pretty straight forward. And really a great way to be slowly introduced to the practice of breeding and scheduling harvests accordingly.
I'll spent some time on our trip out West planning the housing and deciding on a breed, as well as figuring out where to order the does and buck from to start with.
Hopefully, in a few months time, we'll harvest our first batch of home-grown meat!
This is happening. And it's going to be rad.
Have YOU ever raised rabbits? Have any advice for me?!
Daisy Hill Homestead
We have a doe and are looking to purchase another one and a buck this spring hopefully to start our own raising of meat! It will be a fun adventure!
Jaimie Ramsey
Oh boy. You are brave. It sounds like a fantastic investment–I mean, you should make an impressive profit if you get as many rabbits as you think you will.
But rabbits are cute. Bunnies are ADORABLE. Maybe I’m a wimp, but I could hardly bear the thought of raising a whole bunch of baby bunnies just to kill them and eat them. The word “harvest” does not make it sound any better.
Maybe someday I’ll be at the point where I could handle that… and for now I’ll be interested to see how it goes for you guys. But I’m very thankful that I can get ground beef for a dollar a pound from a friend of mine, and chicken for 75 cents a pound at Walmart. It might not be the highest-quality meat, although the beef IS of quite an excellent quality, but it fills our tummies (and hasn’t killed us yet!), and for that price, it’s worth it!
Julie
I don’t think you actually make a profit. Think about how much you have to spend just when you get the rabbits, cages, rabbits, supplies, meds, and of course food! Giving them scraps and stuff out of the yard is one thing but you do have to give them some kind of rabbit pellet to make sure they are getting all the vitamins and minerals they need to thrive.
I am just starting out and they eat way more than I expected!
Tiffany
We raise meat rabbits and have spent very little money at all on them. They get pellets (50lb bag costs us $14) and we get hay ($5 for 70lb bale) from our friends who have a farm and sell it t spring and summer, they graze on grass. Wild rabbits eat grass and don’t need anything else. There’s plenty of vitamins in their natural food. I will only give my rabbits a probiotic when they’re sick and that isn’t expensive at all. We have 3 rabbits currently and are getting a meat buck this week ๐
Heath
Hi Jaimie, Yet is the key word. These chickens are grown in deplorable conditions with respect for neither the birds or the consumers of the birds. Please do yourself a favor and watch food inc or some other educational material on the factory food debacle and try to find a more responsible source of protein for you and your family. When we eat unhealthy animals we become unhealthy ourselves. That is the very least of that equation. I have just purchased a rural property to begin an enterprise to feed my family and hopefully several others in the process. Obviously, you are interested in the same by your choice of internet searches but maybe you just have not found the right information set to convince you. I would encourage you to find more information and keep in mind that any time you put a morsel of meat in your mouth something had to die to put it there. You owe it to that animal to make sure they had a good life and your family and local farmer will thank you for your efforts. The beef industry is even worse. I am not a animal rights activist, or a vegetarian, or anything of that ilk. However, I would like to see better educated consumers forcing the Walmarts of the world to reconsider how they source their proteins. That is when we will know that we are really making a difference. Please watch some youtube vids with Joel Salatin. He knows how it should go. He also puts the situation in a much more eloquent manner. He has about 25 books at my last count and I am working on reading them all.
Vanessa
Excellenly put! Now they(the USA) are shipping chicken to be processed in China!
Amanda
We raised rabbits when I was a child. Needless to say, us kids thought they were pets, not food, so we ate a lot of “chicken” in our household. So funny to find out years later from my Mom that the majority of the time we thought we were eating chicken, it was rabbit. Since your kids are still very young, you likely won’t have the stigma attached to eating the rabbits like we did! Good luck on this new adventure!
Sarah Wilson
we’ve found the best results come from getting a buck of one good meat breed and both does of another breed (so, a Californian buck and two New Zealand does, or vice versa). The reason being (according to my brilliant hubby who actually researches these things and weighs his rabbits and makes spreadsheets!) that the first generation of a hybrid like a New Zealand/Californian mix does really well and grows extremely fast, but their children do not grow as well. So if all your babies for eating are crosses, they’ll grow quicker for ya, but you won’t have to worry about them passing on genes to their offspring (since they’ll be in the stew pot). Good luck! We’ve found that rabbits are crazy popular to trade with neighbors and friends and farmers for whatever other meats we need ๐
Sarah Wilson
ps- I just read some of the other comments, and to make Jaimie Ramsey feel a little bit better, meat rabbit breeds are not as cute as pet bunnies. I actually have a pet Dutch rabbit, who is adorable as can be, and looks nothing like the big, fat, all white (albino) meat rabbits with red eyes in the backyard. Just google Californian rabbits or New Zealnd whites if you have troulbe imagining it ๐
Kailyn
We built “rabbit tractors” to house the meat rabbits at the camp I run. The cages have wire bottoms and are light weight so we can move them around and they can keep our grass short.
See what I’m up to at: http://www.kshippee.blogspot.com
Debbie
Says you have to be invited to read your blog post….so, I was unable to sign in and read.
Homestead Dad
You have the same desire as me. I am hoping to be in a place by summertime that I can get my chickens back, and start on rabbits so I will be following this closely. Good luck!
P.S. Chickens are really easy to keep for eggs, I have never had to butcher one(yet), but keeping them for eggs doesn’t get much easier. Hopefully you can convince your husband of that.
Jan Vessell
I grew up helping my mother “dress-out” rabbits that we sold, ready to cook. The hard part is clubbing them behind their ears then cutting off their heads. But back to their living arrangements. My dad built hutches about 30″ off the ground with a crack between the floor and walls for the manure to roll out. Yes, the manure s in little round balls. That helps with the cleaning out of bedding. Our does and babies stayed together for a short while, while the babies learned to eat and grow. Then were moved to the “growing pen” where they all went to finish maturing. Then to the butchering day. So, a nest for mom and future babies and a private box home for daddy. Then the growing pen. Worked well. We kept 40-50 rabbits in our freezer and sold excess. We totaled about 8-10 does and 2-3 bucks. Moms produced in the neighborhood of 7-10 babies per breeding. Good luck.
Noel McNeil
I say go for it! I’m not sure about the weather where you live, but where I live (Northern CA) it get’s extremely hot here in the summer. I’m talking we can have up to 115+…no bueno. Anyway, my point is I’ve had a hard time with rabbits in the past getting overheated. So if it gets really hot in the summer, plan on doing a steady rotation of frozen water bottles to keep them cool. Other than that, they will be great to raise with kids. Looking forward to watching the progress. ๐
Sarah C.
We currently raise French angora rabbits for wool and meat. So the parents are our breeders and “pets” and all the babies are either sold to wool spinning homes or are sent to “freezer camp”. I love your idea of using pasture grazing shelters, but keep predators in mind when building them. I don’t know what kind of predators you have in your area, but raccoons can be vicious and even rip through chicken wire. Maybe go with a heavy gauge wire like hardware cloth and wire the bottoms with a bigger mesh allowing for grazing without the opportunity for rabbits to dig out!
Good luck! I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
justine
Hi! I just bought a pair of breeding angoras and was wondering about the whole if I couldnt sell all of them (babies) dilema. How do they weight out? My buck ia french and my mom is english (big english) so im hoping they will have medium sized to large size babies.
Michelle
My advice is to be sure you can handle the harvesting before you breed the rabbits. My husband hunts rabbits and brought one home the other week. I butchered and cooked it, but I could not bring myself to eat it. Perhaps with practice it will become more commonplace for me. Perhaps it was because the wild meat is so much darker than the clean white rabbit meat we’ve procured from the farmer’s market. It might’ve been the gaping hole in its ribcage…. We will persist, however. Knowing that you can kill, clean, and cook an animal all by yourself is empowering.
Fogcity Rabbitry
Rabbits are great but I suggest you answer two questions before you get started. What is your goal of having rabbits (make money, produce meat, sell breeders etc.)? How much space, time, and labor do you have to devote to your rabbits? Once you get these down everything else will fall into place. Feel free to hit me up on Facebook if you want help. David
Jenn
We raise Californians for meat and have for about 6 years. I have some suggestions. We have cages that are up on legs because of predators. We had neighbor dogs who got loose two years ago they got into our rabbit barn and even though we had our cages up they still were able to maul our rabbits, pulling off their feet right through the bottoms of the cages. The other problem with having cages down on the ground or any where near the ground is that rabbits are easily frightened. They have been known to freak out by people, other animals, loud noises, etc to the point of racing around their cages and breaking their legs.
Research carefully what is best to feed them. Vegetables or certain types of scraps are not, good for them except for as treats, especially for the young. We feed a high protein alfalfa pellet, hay that we grow, and when we are trying to fatten them up field corn that we also grow.
To get the amount of meat suggested above for a year. You would need to breed wait a month for the babies to be born, wean at about 5-6 weeks then re-breed your does. I suggest a time for the does to put on a bit more weight and for the bodies to rehabilitate after birth and nursing. You would also need more cages than just 3 (one for each of the two does and one for the buck.) You would need cages for the young to grow and mature in.
If you do harvest your rabbits at 8 to 10 weeks you will be looking at a fryer rabbit weighing in at about 3-4lbs. before dressed out. We keep our rabbits for 5-6 months before butchering. This is the roaster stage and the rabbits weigh between 7-8lbs. before dressed. At the roaster stage you will get a lot more meat. I have a family of 6 (3 of them teenage boys) and a roaster rabbit feeds us two meals.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Blessed Homestead
Chicken wire is extremely flimsy, and is easily pulled apart by a determined dog, coyote, fox, etc, or even very bored rabbit. They are very prone to coccidiosis, parasites (pin worms mainly), and predators, as well as being avid, and very capable diggers, so raising them on the ground is a big challenge. I’ve been raising them for 20 years, and really recommend that you at LEAST have options to get them up off the ground, part of the time, and it’s better to keep your breeders up in cages at least, and raise your kits on the ground (again with options to get them into cages when needed). That said, I have sucessfully raised meat rabbits via grains, hay and forages only, no pellets. They won’t grow as fast as formulated feed fed rabbits, and you will have to breed your stock for those that do best for you on your feed, so it may take you time to end up with pellet free stock you can depend on, but don’t let nay sayers tell you you CAN’T feed them anything but pellets.
Shawn
How is it going with the bunnies? I butchered our first 9 last night. Have 4 more getting a little larger and a small litter of 3 coming up the pipeline ๐
Shaye Elliott
Our rabbits are in Alabama with a new owner – we have yet to get a new system set up here. I miss having them!
Stephanie
Note if building your own cages that rabbits can and will chew completely through lumber and plywood. Consider chicken wire on the inside of the wood frames. Plus some chunks for them to chew on to keep their incisor teeth worn down. Watch their feet – bunnies can get sores if on wire all the time. We used hardware cloth for the bottom of our crates – smaller holes. And does with kits may be protective and bite!!
Cherisse
Good to know I’m not the only one who is always looking for something new to try. Rabbits are also on my list of things to try. I like that they are quiet, I live in town, and have a tall fence, so hopefully I can do a few here. I have read, though, that they need timothy hay. It provided potassium and helps with calcium uptake. Just figured I’d put that out there.
KarenI
I raised rabbits for severalyears. I found some does would eat their newborns and some newborns would crawl out. of the nest and die of cold before I would find them in the morning. Using the covered type of kitty litter boxes for nesting solved both of these problems. Also one year we got ear mites that kept coming back repeatedly until we changed to all metal cages.
Melissa
Very sad how you view killing these compassionate loving animals. What a sad environment for your children to grow up in. Know matter how you word what you are doing it is inhumane. “harvest” “how to make a living”.
It is cruel, unkind and what is it teaching yourself and your children?
May karma come back to get you.
Shaye Elliott
Melissa, you’re entitled to your opinion, as am I. Here’s more on it: https://theelliotthomestead.com/2011/07/why-we-eat-meat-the-morality-involved/
Ed
Melissa,
I am picking up a liberal, vegetarian vibe from you and that’s your right. Shayne, myself and many others chose to raise the majority of our food and give every animal the best quality of life possible. We won’t force our meat in your mouth and don’t expect us to taste your tofu.
beverly
hi from Australia,I,ve raised a lot of rabbits here. foxes are a problem , so is the summer heat, but rabbits can handle the cold better. I cook rabbit the same way as chicken, kfc style, rissoles, baked, stewed, stir fry, in tortillas, etc.
we have, here,flemish giant ,new Zealand breed, Californian, & there,s a breed created by the csiro called crusader.
I managed a meat rabbit farm, yrs ago, so learnt heaps about rabbits.
we get ear mites alot here, so fore ever checking ears. I find once the ears are cleaned out(with blunt tweezers) I apply oil, any type, even cooking oil to the ears, & the mites suffercate.
they are lovely quiet animals,
when you mate them , always take doe to the bucks cage, never take buck to does cage, as she will attack him.
her cage is her,s & that’s the way she likes it
good luck with your new venture.
R
Rabbit cages are best elevated about 3 ft from the ground suspended by baling wire. This limits predator access as well as making scooping below their cages much easier. Rabbits deficate and urinate a lot so being able to access to clear out the area with ease is best. Odor can be very strong. Alfalfa Pellet food is sold at the local co-op and they can advise you on daily regiments. I also highly recommend getting some ear treatment oil for the prevention and treatment of ear mites. You will also need nesting boxes, one per cage. Don’t touch baby rabbits as momma will reject them, or kill them if they smell humans on them. Water is the most necessary for rabbits. Be sure their feeders and watering cans are secured to their pens or they will tip them just for fun.
David
https://youtu.be/-ALCZb_uUnI
Great video