Comparing rabbit raising to chicken raising

[Mrs. Mucket]

I have chickens but have never raised rabbits. If you have had both, can you give a general comparison about level of maintenance and processing? It looks to me like rabbits require less maintenance than chickens and experience fewer potential problems. Is the processing similar?

 

[20kidsonhill]

I would say, a big question would be, " Do you prefer to eat rabbit all the time?" I have to say even though I have had my fair share of rabbit stew, smoked rabbit, fried rabbit, rabbit salad. I prefer cooking and eating chicken, Not that I mind a rabbit stew once and a while, but chicken is more versatile when cooking.

 

[lovinglife]

I buy boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for 1.70 a pound and stock up. Personally I love rabbit meat, tender and yummy, and they are way cuter than meat birds. Cleaning is far easier than chickens and I think the meat is healthier also. I will raise meat rabbits before I will raise meat chickens. If you have never raised meat chickens you can always pick up a dozen and give it a go. Track your food costs, animal costs and if you don't process yourself processing costs. I can almost buy a whole fryer for the price of processing here, not a good investment for me, but that is just my opinion. Guess you can tell I am voting for RABBITS!

 

[Mrs. Mucket]

Actually we're thinking of raising both. I should have clarified...We'll keep raising chickens but some of my (adult) kids are interested in adding meat rabbits. Our meat chickens take 10-12 weeks to mature and rabbits are ready in what, a few weeks?

Also it would be easier for us to raise rabbits in the winter--chickens do take up more space. Right now with our setup we can only raise meat chickens from April through October. Our winter coop is maxed out with laying hens and our meatie breeders.

We process our chickens and would do the rabbits too. No one in our family has eaten much rabbit but I remember it tasting similar to chicken, which we all eat a lot of. So we (extended family of 21 and counting) would eat both.

 

[20kidsonhill]

I liked it when you said "kids" you clarified with "adults." My now 9 year old son started raising his own meat rabbits last summer. He is so interested in butchering, skinning, cooking, that we decided letting him raise rabbits would be easier than constantly trying to take him squirrel hunting.

My husband's family pretty much grew up on rabbit meat, my father n'law still raises lots of them, so it wasn't a big step for us to get our son going on it, and to ask grandpa to mentor him. He has just 2 does and a buck right now, I didn't want to wear out my welcome with asking for too much help from grandpa.

My husband can butcher, very well, but refusses to. His dad used to make him butcher the rabbits when he was a boy and he hated killing them. So he has a bait of an attitude about it. But he has acknowleged with some pride recently how much interest his son has in the process.

Raising meat rabbits is pretty easy, and my son can now almost do all the butchering by himself and does all the chores by himself.

 

[hoodat]

If you have the space by all means keep both. If you have to choose, rabbits are not the escape artists chickens are and can be processed much easier and faster. Since they are confined to (hopefully) varmint proof cages you are also less likely to lose them to predators. Too bad they don't lay eggs or they'd be the perfect backyard animal.

 

[rabbitman]

I have had them both. It is much easier to process chickens, rabbits you have to skin them, than gut them it is a long and gross process. And chickens you just have to chop their heads off and I boil the bodies in a heated barrel, that way the feathers come off much much easier. Personally I think rabbits taste better, if you are serving a fancy meal than defianlty use rabbits.

 

[DianeS]

Wow, looks like you're getting a variety of opinions!

To me, chickens are much easier. Easier to house (one big house), easier to keep clean (use more shavings), easier to feed and water (one big bowl for each no matter how many chickens), and they provide food each day for me without me having to do anything to get it (eggs).

Rabbits on the other hand... Each one needs its own hutch (unless same sex and raised together from a young age), you need a sanitation system if you have more than just a couple rabbits (something to keep urine from soaking into the ground where it will stink), food and water must be put in each cage separately (time consuming), and in order for me to get food from them I have to butcher one.

They feel about the same amount of work to process to me.

As far as maintenance: I have had one chicken die, but never had any other issues with the chickens. Rabbits on the other hand - I've had one with an infected eye, one that wouldn't breed, one that got stolen, one that wouldn't mother her kits and in fact did not even have milk, one with splay leg, and so on.

That said, rabbits are still worth it. They're "more" work than chickens, but not "too much" work, for me.

 

[norcal]

I'm not too experienced, but since I have both I will chime in.

To me rabbits are WAY easier to process. Plucking chickens is painstaking, unless you have the equipment to do it.

Rabbits take more room, but you don't, generally have the same social issues. I've had MEGA problems w/ my chickens pulling each others feathers - to the point of complete exasperation on my part.

I don't like home-grown chicken unless it's young.

I will say that our franken-chicken grew to eating weight by 6 weeks, we slaughtered at 8. He was huge - at the BYCs sight they said they just call them meaties. Got him at TSC.

The eggs are great, but I thought we were talking meat....

 

[dewey]

After many years of having both I can say that my poultry processing days are pretty much over unless by special request. And I love chickens and chicken meat. I'd rather process 20 rabbits than 1 bird. Rabbits are so very much easier, quicker, and cleaner to process than chickens, and I've processed probably hundreds of each over the years.

They have the lowest feed to meat conversion ratio pound for pound of any livestock. That's if quality meat stock has been invested in to begin with, and carefully managed so they can be processed at around 8-10 weeks, 12 wks on the very outside, because after that the feed cost invested is not worth any potential weight gain and the grower will realizes a loss, plus the meat quality will be inferior.

Rabbits can provide much more meat than even cattle can for a large family, if managed properly, but like everything else they require good husbandry skills and management.