# Giant X meat breeds



## kel (Oct 17, 2010)

I have a couple of NZ Whites and a couple of Californias. I have heard of people crossing their meat rabbits with Flemish Giants, and I was thinking of doing this. Is the point to keep the cross-bred does and/or bucks to breed, or do you use the pure meat does and use a Giant buck on her to produce a litter of crosses that will all be eaten? I'm just trying to develop a good strategy for producing the most meat, and perhaps get more interesting colored litters. Even if the feed conversion ratio isn't quite as good with this cross, if it is close I'd rather have slightly bigger rabbits, as I'd rather have more meat per "kill."


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## TheSheepGirl (Oct 17, 2010)

Despite their size flemish giants will not give you more meat, just more bone. Flemish giants have a higher bone/meat ratio. You will be getting less meat and more bone by crossing these into your herd.

We have culled several of these crosses for this specific reason. They had no meat.

I just wouldn't even do it.


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## kel (Oct 18, 2010)

Aahh, thanks. I guess I'll just stick to the meat breeds. Maybe I can find some colored NZs or Palominos.


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## TheSheepGirl (Oct 18, 2010)

What about Champagnes. I may be biased, but they are beautiful. I'm pretty satisfied to have the silver champagne color be my only color. They also make an excellant cross with a cali and are calmer.


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## kel (Oct 18, 2010)

I would actually LOVE to get a couple of Champagnes, but I've never heard of any for sale around here. I'm in North Alabama.


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## TheSheepGirl (Oct 18, 2010)

Champagnes are pretty common around here. You can try looking at lists of rabbit breeders in Alabama. There might be some there. Also there might be some at an ARBA show near you.

I got lucky with mine when the breeder was getting out of them.

I'm in Oregon and rare things seem more common here.


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## CrimsonRose (Oct 21, 2010)

I'm like you I like more meat for the amount of work going into it all... 

I raise Flemish Giants and if you grow them out you do get more meat... yes it is more costly in feed and takes a tad longer but but you get a lot of meat out of them as well... 

As for crosses I haven't tried it yet as I just got my new zealands about a week or so ago... but will try and cross them soon and see how it goes! 

Here is an article with a lot of good info and test on meat ratio... and from the results the Flemish crosses had more meat at slaughter time (yes they took the bone ratio into factor as well...)

http://www.csiro.au/proprietaryDocuments/BreedMeans.pdf

Hope this helps!


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## kel (Oct 21, 2010)

Thanks for the link. It was very interesting. Since I know someone locally with some Flemish Giants and some crosses I might get one just to try and see how I like them. That way I can compare to what I already have. I'm looking for some Champagnes or Silver Foxes, but there doesn't seem to be any near me.


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