Keeping Meat Rabbits

[BoboFarm]

@Tale of Tails Rabbitry I do agree that how she keeps her rabbits seems very labor intensive. I laughed at the toilet paper rolls too The concrete inside looked to be smooth and the outside concrete looked to have a broom finish, which is what I plan on having. The sealer that I've used will seal broom finished concrete and still leave traction. I've used it in kennels and have never had a problem with dogs slipping. Have you ever used aspen or pine pellets with your rabbits? I wonder if several inches of that would be better than shavings.

 

[Pastor Dave]

I use pine pellets in my catch pans. My feed/hardware store lady told another customer that I used them for my rabbits, but she failed to tell her my rabbits have no contact with the pellets. So, she bought some and put her rabbits on them. They ate them and all died. I don't know what others would do. I can't imagine shavings being much better either. I don't know.

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

@Pastor Dave beat me to it. I think that if you are going forward with this, you might want to consider not using any kind of absorbents on the floor on which they could slip or try to eat and try a litter box with wires on top like she has. I actually was going to suggest that before I saw the video, but forgot. Rabbits are easy to train to a litter box.

 

[BoboFarm]

I've read a bit more on different bedding types. With that knowledge and with what you guys are saying I think we're going to skip the shavings and look more at litter box training. Our pet rabbits were litter box trained and it didn't take much at all. We figured out which corner they liked to use as a bathroom and stuck a litter box there. Thanks @Pastor Dave and @Tale of Tails Rabbitry

On to some of my other questions:

I was planning on getting two trios. I've been calculating approximately how much meat we will expect if we breed each doe four times a year. That's a lot of meat! We will have chickens too. We rarely eat red meat and if we do it's pork. That's maybe once a month. So with chicken and rabbit being our primary meats I still don't think we're going to consume all that much. We are a family of four (with an almost 3 year old and an almost 4 year old). Can anyone give me an idea of how much rabbit meat they eat in a week?

I was initially looking at Californians but I may be leaning towards NZs. Is one more heat tolerant than the other? Does one have larger litters? Is one easier to handle than the other? I had a friend that had a Florida White, his name was Bunz. Does anyone have experience with them as a meat rabbit?

What do you guys do with hides? We have Tandy Leather outlet in town that sells hides for $9.99 each and she said they sell a lot of them! Clearly there's a market for them here but how would one #1 tan a hide and #2 advertise them? I've heard of tanning with brains, egg yolks or alum. Does anyone have experience doing this and is it worth the time and effort? I've read that a hide from a 10 week old fryer is too soft and not worth tanning at all. Some recommend the rabbit be over a year old to get a good hide. Opinions?

 

[Pastor Dave]

We eat rabbit abt once a week. It just depends what we want to eat: fried, grilled, barbecued, crock pot slow cooked and made into casserole or with noodles, etc.
I had two trios and was stacking up in the freezer, so before winter culled a trio and down to just one.

I too agree with an older specimen on the hides. Young rabbits have tender hides hard to scrape without punching holes. Alum works ok, but brain tanning is oretty easy. The Native Amercians would say each animal's brain is the size needed to tan its hide. I used pork or beef, whatever was available. A blender makes a giid brain smoothie. I just did one batch in the late 80's. Haven't wanted to since. I throw mine away. If you vsn freeze them, and offer to someone wanting green hides, may have something.

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

@BoboFarm You are welcome.

There are three of us, but one is gone a lot. When everyone is home, we eat rabbit about once to three times a week. I like my bunny burgers, but ground rabbit must be mixed with something more fatty, like ground beef, because there is not enough fat to make it stick together well on its own for a burger. I really love making rabbit stew or mock pot pie in a crock pot for church dinners and see the look on people's faces when we tell them is it not chicken. Fun times!

We started with just two NZW does and one NZW buck and we had plenty of meat, but then my does never had less than 8 kits and usually 10 to 12. We even feed our dog raw meat and bones, but rabbit can be too rich as a regular diet for dogs, so rabbit meat and organs (and dead newborn kits) was more of a supplement. Why not start with just one trio and see how that goes as you can always add more later? The only problem with having just a trio is being sure that you either breed your own replacements or have a breeder where you can purchase them. If inline breeding is something you want to avoid, you will need to get replacements from another breeder.

I believe that Florida Whites are a bit smaller than NZWs and Californians and the more heat tolerant, from what I have read as I do not have any experience with them. New Zealand Whites were good enough for us as to the heat where we had them. Even my Silver Foxes have tolerated the summers where we have them, but we do not breed any of rabbits in the summer and we do use fans on the hottest days.

There is no market for rabbit hides here unless you have a huge commercial operation that can meet demands of a wholesaler. Homesteaders are not consistent enough to bother with and even then most want to buy tanned hides for about $1 each. So, I have tanned a few for personal use that were probably still too thin skinned to do well, but I wanted to try it. I have tried a few tanning methods and do not really have a favorite yet, but I have not tried brains...I would not be opposed to trying it, once I had the brain, but I am not yet to the point that I can stop cringing about the extraction process of getting it.

I really have not pursued using the hides to make much of anything yet, but I have a few creative ideas I would like to try when I am done with homeschooling my teenager, so for now I freeze my keepers and tan a few when I have the notion, saving them up for some grand creative thing(s) I will be making in the future.

 

[BoboFarm]

It sounds like one trio will be the best to start with. I was thinking we'd eat rabbit once or twice a week. We'd probably be doing the same with chicken but I've already figured numbers for them.

I'm not sure I'll be doing anything with hides. It seems like a lot of work without much return unless I use hides for personal use.

I just contacted a breeder just north of me and she has NZW and NZR. The breeder that I contacted has a FAQ on her page and this is what she recommends to feed:

"Ideally you should free feed a commercially milled alfalfa pellet. When you choose a feed, it should have between 17% and 18% protein, no more than 3% fat, no less than 20% fiber, and no less than 4,800 IU/LB of Vitamin A. Those are just the basics. To get even more in depth, it should not include corn or yucca (or very little yucca). It should have Sun-cured alfalfa (unprocessed), unprocessed grains, and the minimum amount of vitamins and minerals that are needed to sustain life and maintain excellent condition. Avoid feeds that have processed ingredients which have meal, millrun, distillers, processed grain by-products, supplements, exess yucca, et cetera. Also completely stay away from the Timothy pellets. It does not contain the necessary nutrients the rabbit needs.
Depending on your breed you may need to limit their feed intake, but ideally on breeds both big and small you should free feed the alfalfa pellets. You can occationally feed fruits, vegetables, and hay or hay cubes as a treat only. Hay is not a good source of nutrients and only acts as a filler. Your rabbit will end up malnurished and will become ill (personal experience). The fruits and vegetables do contain good nutrients for them, but too much of them, just like chocolate for us, is a bad thing. DO NOT feed any greens to a rabbit, with the exeption of dandilion greens and fresh picked grass. Greens such as lettuce, cabbage, celery, parsley, carrot tops, et cetera are toxic to them. There is an enzym in them that can kill a rabbit within 24 hours (again, personal experience). Don't feed tomatoes either. Although, you can feed rabbits, apples, bananas, carrots, watermelon, papaya, and strawberries."

What are your thoughts on not feeding hay? I see that a lot on here feed hay as a primary source of food. I even found a ranch down the road that grows Timothy, fescue and meadow grass mix for $12 for a 100+lb bale (as a newbie I have no idea how large that is ). I was going to ask what you guys thought of that and then I second guesses myself when I read what this breeder said. I'm asking anyway...

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

I don't even know where to begin with this.

Does anyone ever eat the same things every day? I will guarantee you if someone did that person would become malnurished. I have been published research writer for nearly twenty years about health related subjects and diet for human beings. We eat things that could actually poison us IF that were the only thing we ate all the time or in mega doses.

Rabbits in the wild do not eat one thing, like hay, alone but a variety of things. If a rabbit was ONLY fed hay, the same kinds day after day, then I would think it is probable that it would become malnurished. If you feed a rabbits pellets only, it is going to need something to chew on to wear down its teeth and it will chew on anything in its cage or part of it, like bars, wood, etc. My rabbits do not chew on the cage wires.

I give my rabbits treats of cilantro, kale, celery, chard, spinach, carrot greens, dandelion leaves, violet leaves and flowers, strawberry leaves, etc. Basically, whatever is available, I just do not make those things the main part of their diet.

The lady obviously has strong opinions based on bad experiences but she does not give enough information to understand what she did to know what happened exactly. It sounds like she fed them too much of certain things when she was not providing enough variety at the same time. That is never a good thing.

 

[BoboFarm]

Thanks @Tale of Tails Rabbitry I thought it sounded kind of weird but I wasn't sure. I think a variety is important for most animals but I also know that rabbits can be sensitive, I guess so can any other animal depending on what's fed. So would you recommend free feeding the hay that I mentioned above and offering a certain amount of pellets daily? Then treats of select greens here and there? Does feed depend on life stages/sex? Would I feed grow outs differently?

 

[BoboFarm]

I'm currently in contact with a breeder. What kinds of questions should I ask? One of her NZ broken red bucks just took grand champion at a show here in NV last summer. Her rabbits are pedigreed and quite nice looking. She said she commonly gets 5lb fryers at 12 weeks.