Rabbit Farming

• Start with a buck and two does.
  
  
• The does will each need TWO cages measuring 36 inches by 30 inches. One cage will house the doe, and her litter up until 6 weeks of age. At this point the cage will be getting crowded, and the doe will be glad if you move her to the second cage. The kits will remain in the first cage until market day.
  
  
• Butcher when the kits reach 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 pounds -- 8-12 weeks of age, depending on breed and quality of feed.
  
  
• Down the road, when it’s time to think about replacing your brood does, you will want a couple more cages. These can be the same size as the buck’s cage. You’ll select a couple large and healthy young females out of your litters, and grow them to 6 months. At this point you can retire the older doe, and put the new doe into service.
  
  
• When these cages are not in use growing out replacement does, you can use one of them for a replacement buck. Hopefully you won’t need to replace the buck for several years.

Get inspiration from examples of rabbit farms here

Consider building your own cages and rabbit hutch frames, as we do: PVC rabbit hutch frames.

Building your own rabbit cages allows you to increase your rabbit farming project at your own rate. When you run out of space, just build more.

Rabbit Farming Chores:

Cooling Rabbits

Feeding Rabbits

Breeding Rabbits

Conditioning Rabbits for Show - or improving your pregnant and/or lactating rabbits' nutritional status

Keep a continual eye on Herd Health:

• Rabbit Health - the foundational ways to achieve and maintain rabbit health
• Rabbit Diseases - how to manage the most frequently encountered rabbit diseases, parasites, infections, and non-infectious challenges to rabbit health

Butcher your meat rabbits or euthanize your culls

Slaughtering Rabbits - how to remove the rabbit pelt, clean the rabbit carcass and cut up the rabbit meat

Rabbit Pelts - how to tan a rabbit pelt

Need any rabbit supplies? Please Visit our Amazon store for just about all the rabbit supplies you might need.

Cleaning the rabbitry (link coming soon)

Are you of the opinion that butchering rabbits is cruel or that humans don't need meat?

Then consider this: I don't know a single human being that has four stomachs. Most folks are trying to staple shut the one that they have. Why? Too many carbs, either simple OR complex, that trigger an insulin response, putting calories into fat instead of into energy. You'll feel SO much better eating enough meat and fat to balance the carbs, turn off the excessive insulin response, and provide the fatty acids, vitamins and other nutrients required for optimal health.

Without a doubt, humans have been meat-eaters through the entire time frame of human history. Our digestive systems are still a meat-eater's digestive system, and we're healthiest when we eat a substantial part of our diet in animal protein and fats.

TWO NOTES:

• Websites that say humans are herbivores have an ulterior motive and are being less than honest.
• Current dietary opinions are based on either dishonest science (paid for and covered up by Big Pharma), or faulty science, as demonstrated by the explosion of chronic illness and obesity in the USA and developed countries. If current dietary recommendations were healthy, humanity as a whole should be brimming with health. But since every chronic disease is at epidemic levels, including among vegan populations, it makes sense to reevaluate our dietary protocols.

Learn more about animal welfare here.

Rabbit Manure Collection
Rabbit farming results in lots of manure. Some outdoor systems allow the rabbit manure to fall to the ground, where it can be shoveled before the piles grow too large. But, we wanted to bring your attention to an ingenious manure collection system that our friend Lisa in Connecticut set up: Easy Rabbit Manure Collection System. Maybe something like this could simplify your life, too?

Maximizing Rabbit Farm Products

Excellent husbandry practices are the best way to keep your rabbits healthy, to kindle a large number of kits, to minimize losses, and to maximize the number of fryers going to market. Raising-Rabbits.com is here to provide you with these excellent animal practices and all the info you need to succeed at rabbit farming.

Utilize the nav bar at left or the search box at the top to find the info you need.

(The shears pictured at right are excellent for butchering and cutting up a rabbit carcass.)

Rabbit farming is not a "Get Rich Quick" scheme. But the more products that your rabbit farm can market, the more likely it is that you may be able to someday quit your day job.

• Meat. Choose a meat rabbit breed with rapid weight gains and adaptability to your climate. New Zealand Whites, Californians and Altex are well known for their commercial potential, but some strains of Silver Fox, and American rabbits compete very well. The success of your larger commercial rabbit production enterprise will depend on getting fryers to market by 8 - 8 1/2 weeks.

  If you're simply raising rabbits in your backyard for your own use, your rabbit breed choices are far greater, since "all rabbits are made of meat."

  • Rabbit recipes for the dinner table
  • Like to cook? Gourmet even? Then try creating and marketing a rabbit meat cook book

• Homemade Pet food. Both dogs and cats are carnivores. It's almost miraculous how quickly their health improves when they're on a species-appropriate diet.
  • Save money by not buying commercial dog and cat food.
  • In some areas of the country, you can sell live rabbits for pet food. See Whole Food 4 Pets.

  

• Rabbit pelts. Rex pelts are in high demand in the USA and in Europe. The big name furriers need "bundles" of at least 40 matching pelts in order to craft their fine garments.

  Rex is not the only breed that is sought after. Black, chinchilla and wild agouti pelts of various breeds are also desirable.

  The most valuable pelts are the senior primes, harvested between October and March (in the Northern Hemisphere) when the adult winter coats are fully prime (no sign of molt).

  • Sell 'green' (preserved but not tanned) pelts
  • Sell your professionally tanned pelts to a furrier
  • Tan your own rabbit pelts (or have the professionals do it) and make and market the garments, mocs, blankets, pet toys (and more)

• Wool (fiber). Angora wool can be sheared or plucked every few months. Sell the loose wool, or spin it, and sell the fiber. Or, create your own angora products such as shawls, sweaters, socks and blankets for sale. For more info on wooled breeds, see Angora Rabbits.
  
  
• Manure/fertilizer/mulch. Rabbits poop a lot! And there's a plethora of uses for the brown gold that accumulates under the rabbit cages. Sell it by the pick-up load - gardeners LOVE it. Sell it by the used feed bag. Sell it composted or fresh. Offer a low "U-Shovel" rate to your gardening buddies.
  
  
• Worms. Several species of worms can inhabit rabbit droppings. Large, well-fed earthworms and red wrigglers (and whatever other name they go by in your area) are valuable to fishermen and to others wishing to populate their own worm bin projects.

More resources.

COOLING RABBITS - How to keep meat rabbits cool in summer. Tips work for pet rabbits as well.


CONTROL AMMONIA LEVELS:
Ammonia smell in animal urine can be dangerous to your animals, so eliminating ammonia odors is essential. And all the better if it's easy to do. With Spalding Labs’ Bye Bye Odor, rabbit farming is that much easier - just ‘spritz spritz spritz.’ Voila, odors minimized. Learn more at Ammonia Levels. Or:

Go straight to Spalding Labs and get the straight scoop.


FLY CONTROL:
Rabbits are quiet, timid, and unobtrusive. In other words, very easy on the neighbors, as long as you keep the flies under control.

• Keep the droppings raked up and tilled into the garden or moved to a covered compost heap
• Set up worm beds under your cages
• Keep a few chickens, ducks or both, to snap the flies out of the air and to devour the fly maggots and other insects before their numbers get out of hand. There's a huge benefit to this last suggestion - "free" eggs!

Fly Predators are a fabulous and very effective way to wipe out your fly population. It's safe, non-poisonous, and completely natural. Plus, Fly Predators CAN be used successfully in conjunction with chickens to nearly eradicate flies.

Click on the banner to get started on freedom-from-flies today!

Learn more at our Fly Predators page.


CHECK OUT THE RABBIT REVOLUTION, a blog centered around raising your own meat (namely rabbits) as a way to be free of the 'evil' meat industry.

For thousands of years, folks have raised their own meat. It is only in the industrial age that we've forgotten what innards look like.

Maybe it's time that we decentralize our food supply by raising our own meat and tending our own gardens!

Our Rabbit Supplies Store comes with Amazon.com's full A-Z guarantee. Buy with confidence...

Subscribe to Yahoo! MeatRabbits Group

Take advantage of their expertise! Join the Yahoo! MeatRabbits Group.

Then, when you feel capable, be sure to pay it forward, and help other newbies with their questions.

Comments? Experiences? Questions?

We'd love to hear from you.

Perhaps your comments or experiences can help others who read them.

So, comment away, and if you have pictures, you can post up to four of them.

What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Go from Rabbit Farming to Rabbit Supply
Go to Raising Rabbits Home Page

New! Comments