new to meat rabbit keeping i have a few questions

[GLENMAR]

Breed them ASAP. 1 1/2 is pretty old for a first litter. My breeder said to breed them before a year old.
How old is the buck??

 

[sawfish99]

I'm new here too. You mentioned not liking the growth rate using standard Rex rabbits- are you breeding pure or just using the Rex as one of the parents? Reason I ask is we have a Rex doe and plan to use her in our meat herd, we maybe adding a pair of Californians to our herd and would cross her to the buck. We are raising at this point solely for our own use but also thinking ahead if the kids decide to show rabbits for 4-H.

Yes, we are breeding pure Rex. The New Zealand and American Chinchilla does we have are just bigger rabbits. They grow through an acceptable harvest weight much earlier than a Rex. Obviously, the traditional meet breeds are better for the purpose.
HOWEVER, when we have people visit the farm, the Rex and usually the ones they are interested in getting as pets. And if I can sell a pet for $15 at 8 weeks or meat at $18 at 15 weeks, I'll sell pets.

 

[trcarlton]

Hi everyone, I'm painfully new to the world of rabbits, and meat rabbits in particular. We are getting into rabbits as a small source of side income and to provide meat for our table and fur for crafts. I'm a stay at home mom in Lacey, WA, my husband works full time, and we have 2 kids, 3 & 5 years old in May. We already have 5 hens that we were keeping for fertilizer, garden tilling capabilities, and of course eggs - then I recently found out I'm allergic to eggs We're still keeping the hens; I'm going to sell/barter the eggs the rest of our family doesn't use, and use the eggshells in crafts, but I wanted to add another animal that could share the hens fenced yard and provide something beneficial to our family. I looked into some different animals, balancing cost with benefit, and rabbits came out the clear winner. I was worried about being able to harvest/kill them for meat - I've killed a chicken before, and I was ok with that, but a friend that has experience years ago with harvesting rabbits warned me that they scream, and when they're skinned they look like babies. So I turned to the internet for couch experience I found a video showcasing a product called the Rabbit Wringer (which can also be used for chickens) - the harvest is amazingly fast, painless, noiseless, and probably the most humane kill I've ever seen. Then the video went on to show how to skin the rabbit that was harvested - sooooo fast! I know I won't be that quick by any means, until I've had a lot of practice, but it was almost entirely mess free throughout the whole process. Reassured that I could definitely handle harvesting and skinning, I moved on to finding a breeding pair of rabbits and a permanent outdoor hutch. I found all three on craigslist.

The doe is a Mini Rex mix, broken black, with a lovely personality. I know, I know, a MINI, for MEAT??? lol But my main purpose for the breeding pair themselves will be as family pets and possibly a 4-H pet, so personality was the most important. She's gentle, tolerant, and adorable. Plus she's not TINY - she's a good 5-6 pounds.

The buck is still a baby, a broken orange Mini Rex mix, so I won't have him until mid June. I think I will mostly use these 2 as the breeding pair for pet bunnies I can sell, or focus on the pretty fur they should turn out in their litters.
I may also have a Flemish Giant doe in the next couple months, and am seriously considering getting either a Silver Fox or American Chinchilla buck from a local breeder.

The hutch needs some modifications. It was a great craigslist find, BUT it needs to be a permanent outdoor coop, so I know we need to tweak it before we can use it.
It's a raised wooden double hutch, with a solid wooden floor, and mesh on the doors, sides, and upper ventilation at the sides up by the roof. I think this set up is mostly great for summer to allow for lots of ventilation, but I want to replace the wood floor with heavy wire mesh and a catch pan to keep the cage as clean as possible and to block unwanted wind during the winter, and make a removable side panel to cover the sides during the winter also to help the rabbits stay warm enough. It's about 3' off the ground, each section/cage is about 2' wide/tall/deep, with a solid wood back wall. The divider between each side is wire mesh. I'm thinking after modifications, this will be perfect to house my Mini Rexs in - unless the male might spray everything, including the female through the mesh? Should I replace the mesh divider with solid wood also?
What do you guys think so far?

 

[Bunny-kids]

Welcome, trcarlton. I'm still pretty new and don't usually post much myself. Your post just caught my attention.

If you're wanting to make money off the rabbits, your best chance is probably selling them as pets. Generally, you can sell them for more $$ at a younger age, while for meat you need to invest more feed (and thus more cost). Especially if they are small rabbits ... I'm not at all sure about using ones like that for meat. I suspect your feed/meat ratio is not going to come out well as far as your cost basis.

Mine don't scream when they are killed. I really REALLY don't like the idea of stressing animals, even in slaughter. IMO, it's far better if they "never see it coming" and a quick blow to the back of the head will accomplish that with rabbits.

I wouldn't consider that hutch to be well ventilated for summer, but I don't really know what your summers are like up there. Heat plus humidity play a factor for rabbits. I'm guessing you are not as hot up there, but I heard it's humid in WA, so heat may be an issue for your rabbits. It's scorching hot here in summer, and my rabbit cages are ALL wire, even the roof, and I put them in a frame to keep weather off them, but nothing touches the sides of the wire cages, so they are fully ventilated. I'd think that hutch might actually make a nice winter hutch for you, but can't see it all that well. Maybe you'll get lucky as far as the buck spraying. Mine rarely spray anything other than the cage legs.

Are you allergic to duck eggs too, btw? Many duck breeds lay quite well, and the eggs can often be eaten by those allergic to chicken eggs. I find the ducklings to be great in the garden eating insects, and you can get more for the eggs too. They are much messier than chickens though. Just a thought.

Cute rabbits. I don't know a thing about color genetics, since I breed for meat. But they sure are cute. I want to learn to process the fur myself.

 

[mama24]

As some who used to be allergic to eggs, I just wanted to warn you DO NOT try to eat duck eggs. I had a WAY more severe reaction to duck eggs than I did to chicken eggs, probably bc thru are higher in protein and it is the same protein in chicken eggs. Luckily for me, I lost my egg allergy during my 4th pregnancy. Pregnancy does some weird things sometimes.

 

[sawfish99]

I may also have a Flemish Giant doe in the next couple months, and am seriously considering getting either a Silver Fox or American Chinchilla buck from a local breeder.
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/6581_outside_front_hutch.jpgThe hutch needs some modifications. It was a great craigslist find, BUT it needs to be a permanent outdoor coop, so I know we need to tweak it before we can use it.
It's a raised wooden double hutch, with a solid wooden floor, and mesh on the doors, sides, and upper ventilation at the sides up by the roof. I think this set up is mostly great for summer to allow for lots of ventilation, but I want to replace the wood floor with heavy wire mesh and a catch pan to keep the cage as clean as possible and to block unwanted wind during the winter, and make a removable side panel to cover the sides during the winter also to help the rabbits stay warm enough. It's about 3' off the ground, each section/cage is about 2' wide/tall/deep, with a solid wood back wall. The divider between each side is wire mesh. I'm thinking after modifications, this will be perfect to house my Mini Rexs in - unless the male might spray everything, including the female through the mesh? Should I replace the mesh divider with solid wood also?
What do you guys think so far?

Ok, I'm going to give it to you straight. We had mini-rex last year and it was a huge flop. Ads on Craigslist to sells as pets are against the terms of use and getted flagged (around here) in a matter of hours. Most pet stores don't sell enough rabbits to be a steady outlet for the litters. A 5-6 lb mature mini-rex will be big enough to make a dinner, BUT you really have to raise to maturity to get that weight. So by the time you have raised them, you have fed them so much, you are no longer making any money selling the meat (that's based on rabbit meat at $6/lb in my area). Also, you need multiple cages to grow all the kits to full size, including separate cages for the males and females because they will be sexually mature long before ready to harvest.

In the end, we GAVE AWAY baby rabbits to stop feeding them. We were able to trade some of the breeding stock for other breeds we wanted, included American Chinchilla.

Flemish Giant - also not ideal for meat because they grow too much bone mass prior to meat mass.

Of the breeds listed, you will be better off with American Chinchilla.

On the hutch, yes take out the wood floor and put in wire. We do not use any trays under the wire because it is easy to rake up the poop under a cage and let the urine soak into the ground. I would put a doe on each side (or 1 doe and use the other side for growing the litter after weaning). If you don't have a place to move the litter to, you significantly lower the number of litters you can have on an annual basis.

Put the buck in a different cage, then you don't have to worry about changing the middle or spraying through the wire.

 

[sawfish99]

And trcarlton - welcome to BYH. In the future it is usually better to start your own thread as opposed to presenting your own situation (if it involves a lot of questions) in someone else's thread.

 

[trcarlton]

Thanks, Bunny-kids! The meat production (at least for now, with the Minis I have) is just for my family of 2 adults (actually just for THIS adult; my husband swears he won't eat bunny - he's only had it once and wasn't fond of it), and my 2 & 4 year old kids, so it's mostly for fun and practice until I can convince hubby to let me get a breeding pair of real meaties. And yes, I absolutely agree, and would prefer, selling them primarily as pets. Their litters should be pretty cute, and with my son going to school either this year or next, there will potentially be lots of local families that might become interested in having a pet bunny Since my original post, I've scoured the internet for the best killing and processing method for me (I'm 5'4", stocky to put it nicely, and have become pretty puny since having kids - I really need to start working out again!), so I wanted something quick, painless, and virtually error proof. I found a video of the rabbit wringer (and the hock hanger), and while I thought that would be ideal for me, I'm not paying $50+ for them, not including shipping, when I can make them both cheap out of scrap metal we probably have hanging out useless in our house already. So there's another project lol
I've been pondering that hutch, and while it might work ok for starting out, it's not my ideal. It was available and cheap I posted in another thread about my harebrained idea of using the trees that I was previously considering to be a huge hutch building hindrance as living corner posts, and building a kind of bunny tree house using the trees themselves. Let me try to explain: I liked the idea of a freestanding 3 sided shelter to build, and suspend the cages, giving lots of ventilation, and the ability to cover the sides during winter/harsh weather. The problem: way too many fir trees crowded into that little fenced yard that the chickens share with their hutch, and the compost tumbler. So I had a lightbulb moment, and thought, why not use the trees as living corner posts, and build a shelter similar to the 3 sided shelter idea, ONTO the trees? So I looked up how to build the base of a treehouse (just the part that has the support beams built INTO the trees), and I think it can be done. My husband thinks it can be done, too. So as we build I will take LOTS of pics and post them.
Here's a quick sketch of what I'm thinking:

As far as the eggs go mama24 and Bunny-kids, I didn't even know I was allergic. I'm also allergic to cow's milk and all associated products, and gluten. Ever since my first pregnancy, I've had serious thyroid issues (hypothyroid), and I've been working with my Naturopath to wean off the meds, unsuccessfully. She decided there must be something else going on to prevent me from weaning off the meds, so she did bloodwork to check for food allergies. Those 3 were the highest reaction. I only had a very low reaction to goat's milk, so she said if I REALLY REALLY needed a hit of milk, I could drink that, but I can't have any milk gluten or eggs for 8 weeks to clear my system, and then I can start trying to wean off the thyroid meds again. I was frustrated, and it's been challenging to not ingest any of those, but I honestly feel so much better when I don't have any; better attitude, better energy level, and I sleep better too...not to mention dropping over 10 pounds in a month without even exercising, so it's worth it I decided we would keep our chickens since my family can still eat the eggs, I can sell the eggs, and use the eggshells for crafts and sell those too, plus they're nice hens overall, and they're badass rototilling machines They will do a great job of keeping the bunny manure pile mixed into the rest of the yard soil; I might not have needed my hubby to build a compost tumbler after all; the chickens are keeping that entire yard composted lol I think ducks are cute, but before we got the hens, I was looking into getting those instead, and I decided against them because they were messier than chickens.
Thanks so much for the feedback, and I will post pics on the other thread (http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=230912#p230912) as we go - I'm really excited about our bunny tree house!

 

[trcarlton]

sawfish99 - Thank you! I figured I'd bumble around a little, trying not to make too many mistakes lol I have seen postings for pet bunnies on craigslist here on the Seattle/Tacoma craigslist. I've nixed the Flemish, probably will go with American Chinchillas for truly meat rabbits, keep the Minis as pets/4-H