This week I received a small surprise in the mail, a month or so ago as a part of my Mother Earth subscription I ordered a "Pack" of 6 additional one time publications but I had pretty much forgotten about it.. In reality I ordered them for the chicken based magazine and and the one about self reliance skills. One of the additional magazine however was one in raising backyard rabbits. Raising rabbits was really not something I had considered as everything I had seen previously with raising rabbits was raising them in individual cages which was something that goes against most of what I wanted to do with raising animals as the goal is to raise them as humanly as possible as close to a natural situation as I could.
Reading the publication how ever did open my eyes to something I had not realized before, one was how much protein one set of rabbits could generate in one year. Where a cow can basically generate about 40% of her weight in a calf in a year a doe rabbit can produce up to 1000% (500% is more realistic) of her weight in offspring in a year and is probably the most efficient conversion of vegetation to meat possible. If you are looking at an animal to increase your ability to feed yourself in a bad economic situation rabbits would probably be the best option as far as live stock is concerned. On top of that rabbits have the ability to produce more meat quicker then even chickens with the ability to reproduce after about 90 to 120 days and a gestation period of only 30 days. Rabbits are ready for harvesting at about 8-12 weeks of age and depending on the breed each rabbit will dress out at about 3-4 lbs. Basically from the time of birth one set of rabbits can dress out about 20 lbs of rabbit in 6 months and repeat that every 45-60 days or so for up to 6 years.
I am sure most of you have heard the term breeds like a rabbit but I am not sure we really realize exact what that means! As mentioned above rabbits are capible of breeding at 3-4 months of age and the time from breeding to birth is about 30 days. The rabbit can be breed immediately following birth (not the best condition for the rabbit however). Each litter averages between 6-12 kits, so if a doe has 6 litters of 9 kits, that means that one doe will produce up to 54 offspring a year. That is a lot of bunnies off of one breeding pair!
Of course there is still the issue of raising them in elevated cages that I do not really care for, that was before I read about raising rabbits in a colony environment rather then in hutches or cages. In raising as a colony the rabbits are raised in a larger area all together rather then separated. The colony can be set up either indoors or outdoors, if set up outdoors you really have consider how to proof your colony from escape which can be difficult with burrowing rabbits! If I would to do it, it would most likely be set up in an indoor building with a concrete floor and the deep litter method on handing waste similar to the chicken set up.
With the rabbits again very little would go to waste. When we processed the rabbits the entrails wold be boiled and feed to the chickens and pigs and the hides would be tanned and stored for future use or sales. The waste would be used a fertilizer, unlike chicken waste rabbit waste can be used directly on plants and do not need to be composted.
I am still not completely sold on the idea of rabbits however with everything else I am looking at doing. If I do decide to go with rabbits it will not be until the fall of the year of my retirement rather then the spring time with everything else. Reason being is with the way rabbits reproduce what I do not want is to have to come up with a lot of out of pocket costs for food while waiting for my crops to mature so I would not want to start that until I already knew I had a ready feed supply and would only have to worry about occasional supplemental pellet purchases. Just another idea in my overflowing bin of ideas!!
The picture below is a breed called the Silver Fox, yes they are also a rare heritage breed, would you expect any different from me? They grow to be about 10-12 lbs. If anyone as any experience raising meat rabbits your input would be appreciated!!
Reading the publication how ever did open my eyes to something I had not realized before, one was how much protein one set of rabbits could generate in one year. Where a cow can basically generate about 40% of her weight in a calf in a year a doe rabbit can produce up to 1000% (500% is more realistic) of her weight in offspring in a year and is probably the most efficient conversion of vegetation to meat possible. If you are looking at an animal to increase your ability to feed yourself in a bad economic situation rabbits would probably be the best option as far as live stock is concerned. On top of that rabbits have the ability to produce more meat quicker then even chickens with the ability to reproduce after about 90 to 120 days and a gestation period of only 30 days. Rabbits are ready for harvesting at about 8-12 weeks of age and depending on the breed each rabbit will dress out at about 3-4 lbs. Basically from the time of birth one set of rabbits can dress out about 20 lbs of rabbit in 6 months and repeat that every 45-60 days or so for up to 6 years.
I am sure most of you have heard the term breeds like a rabbit but I am not sure we really realize exact what that means! As mentioned above rabbits are capible of breeding at 3-4 months of age and the time from breeding to birth is about 30 days. The rabbit can be breed immediately following birth (not the best condition for the rabbit however). Each litter averages between 6-12 kits, so if a doe has 6 litters of 9 kits, that means that one doe will produce up to 54 offspring a year. That is a lot of bunnies off of one breeding pair!
Of course there is still the issue of raising them in elevated cages that I do not really care for, that was before I read about raising rabbits in a colony environment rather then in hutches or cages. In raising as a colony the rabbits are raised in a larger area all together rather then separated. The colony can be set up either indoors or outdoors, if set up outdoors you really have consider how to proof your colony from escape which can be difficult with burrowing rabbits! If I would to do it, it would most likely be set up in an indoor building with a concrete floor and the deep litter method on handing waste similar to the chicken set up.
With the rabbits again very little would go to waste. When we processed the rabbits the entrails wold be boiled and feed to the chickens and pigs and the hides would be tanned and stored for future use or sales. The waste would be used a fertilizer, unlike chicken waste rabbit waste can be used directly on plants and do not need to be composted.
I am still not completely sold on the idea of rabbits however with everything else I am looking at doing. If I do decide to go with rabbits it will not be until the fall of the year of my retirement rather then the spring time with everything else. Reason being is with the way rabbits reproduce what I do not want is to have to come up with a lot of out of pocket costs for food while waiting for my crops to mature so I would not want to start that until I already knew I had a ready feed supply and would only have to worry about occasional supplemental pellet purchases. Just another idea in my overflowing bin of ideas!!
The picture below is a breed called the Silver Fox, yes they are also a rare heritage breed, would you expect any different from me? They grow to be about 10-12 lbs. If anyone as any experience raising meat rabbits your input would be appreciated!!
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