Meat Rabbits

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Grimm

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Dec 5, 2017
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2,396
We all got sick with chest colds. K brought it home last week and I got it 2 days later but no where as bad. The girls got it from us just a a few days ago but not as bad as me. We are all getting better. I made a batch of honey lemon today as I haven't left the house since early last week. Better late than never. Now I need to figure out how to keep a lemon tree alive and bearing fruit in NE Texas...

Our grow outs will be 6 weeks in a few days. Two more weeks before I wean them and start sexing them. So far I haven't gone nutty with the bunny photo shoots but that will be coming this week. I have one picture I want so it can be our Holiday card for next year. I will share it once I take it. K thinks I am weird because I like to play with my food and my dad will not look at the pictures of the buns because he knows we eat them and "they are too cute to eat!" He will come around when he has a choice between rabbit and 'eatin ze bugs'!

Anyone know where I can get common plantain seeds? I can't find them growing wild here at all and want to add some seeds to my storage and grow some for my herbal cabinet and to feed the buns.
 
Carrots are bad for rabbits. It sounds weird but high carb foods cause their systems to bloat. G.I. Stasis is not something I like dealing with. I don't like medicating my rabbits if I can avoid it. High fiber foods are preferred.
Carrots are actually a great source of fiber, the darker the variety the more fiber. Even though they are a root vegetable they do not contain enough carbs to mess with blood sugar.
 
Carrots are bad for rabbits. It sounds weird but high carb foods cause their systems to bloat. G.I. Stasis is not something I like dealing with. I don't like medicating my rabbits if I can avoid it. High fiber foods are preferred.
I probably will need some help with setting up for rabbits. Jake wants to do rabbits for his FFA project. If you have time for questions that is.
 
I probably will need some help with setting up for rabbits. Jake wants to do rabbits for his FFA project. If you have time for questions that is.
All I know about rabbits is breeding date pertaining to county show. Hope someone else can help. I do know quick process for butchering them too. Husband won’t let me have rabbits. Says he doesn’t like rabbit.
 
Carrots are actually a great source of fiber, the darker the variety the more fiber. Even though they are a root vegetable they do not contain enough carbs to mess with blood sugar.
While they are good for humans too many (more than 1-2" chunk) is bad for a rabbit. They can become obese and breeding is out the window. I have to re-evaluate my buns after the holidays and see what their body conditions are for late winter breeding. Roo is sneaking them treats (black oil sunflower seeds) when ever she goes out to the garage.
 
I probably will need some help with setting up for rabbits. Jake wants to do rabbits for his FFA project. If you have time for questions that is.
Ask me anything! You can PM me here or contact me through Fakebook. I have an account set up just for the rabbitry. We can even set up a thread here for future members about rabbits.
 
Ask me anything! You can PM me here or contact me through Fakebook. I have an account set up just for the rabbitry. We can even set up a thread here for future members about rabbits.
A friend said he dropped some cages off at the barn today. I’ll have to go see what they are I’m betting they are rough but I know how to build most things so I’ll see what I have in the morning and go from there.
 
goats work that way too!
Goats escape pens though. You gotta make the pen like a gulag to keep them in, with guard towers and razor wire. I saw one get a running start at a fence corner once. He jumped, turned his body in the air so it was parallel to the ground and all four feet were off to the side. Then he hit the fence on the right side with his feet, ran on the fence like that for about six feet, with his body still parallel to the ground, and then shot upward onto the corner of the fence and went straight over. Never seen anything like it since. That sonofagun was part ninja. He also ate the vinyl top off of a 1978 Mercury Cougar.

I'm pretty sure rabbits won't do that...😁
 
I would think rabbits would be fairly simple. Make a pen, keep food in it, put boy rabbit and girl rabbit in it, and Presto! More rabbits!

😁
Yes and no. If a doe does not lift her rear the buck may not hit the mark even if he does finish the job. Not to mention keeping babies alive to see butchering day. Don't get me started on does castrating bucks.

Search buck fall off on youtube...
 
A friend is allergic to chicken and turkey so they also raise rabbits to eat on a continual basis. Does it taste any different than wild rabbit?
YES! They girls swear it tastes like turkey. I think it tastes like chicken crossed with duck without the greasy.
 
Goats escape pens though. You gotta make the pen like a gulag to keep them in, with guard towers and razor wire. I saw one get a running start at a fence corner once. He jumped, turned his body in the air so it was parallel to the ground and all four feet were off to the side. Then he hit the fence on the right side with his feet, ran on the fence like that for about six feet, with his body still parallel to the ground, and then shot upward onto the corner of the fence and went straight over. Never seen anything like it since. That sonofagun was part ninja. He also ate the vinyl top off of a 1978 Mercury Cougar.

I'm pretty sure rabbits won't do that...😁
I have a doe who knows how to open her hutch and will make the jump down to the floor to run around. Her mother also figured out how to escape her hutch and I found her running around the garage last weekend.
 
A friend said he dropped some cages off at the barn today. I’ll have to go see what they are I’m betting they are rough but I know how to build most things so I’ll see what I have in the morning and go from there.
Use these as examples. They are nice if you don't want to make them but great guides if you do. I have several of the Rabbit Space cages in 30"x42" for my grow outs.

KW Cages
 
I figured we needed a general thread to dump about raising meat rabbits.

Share, Ask, Post pictures and info.

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I was already over whelmed when I got rabbits. Dad had been sick, we expanded the herd that year which meant more hay and, and, and...

I didn't even want rabbits, had to take them as part of a deal to get roosters I actually needed.

I hung my cages in a side shed of the pole barn. It made pellets easy to deal with and keeping them clean generally. I'd add hay from time to time, lots of hay in winter. They did fine on the coldest nights.

My biggest issue was no electricity at that barn. Their water bottles would freeze.

My biggest battle... fire ants. Ants would climb a pole, cross rafters, then crawl down the small cables I used to suspended the cages. More than once ants killed baby bunnies the night they were born.

Would I do it again? Yes but I rather raise chickens. About the same amount of time and $$ but I get eggs everyday. But rabbit meat makes a nice change of pace.

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I raise giant "Snowshoe Hares". They are easy and super cheap.
 
I had promised K we would not get meat rabbits until after the move but with the way things were going after Biden was elected I pushed to get them so we had them in case everything just crumbled. Well I got a doe. Then I got a buck. Then a second doe and a second buck! Rabbit math is real!

All of our rabbits were young- about 8-12 weeks when I got them. I figured the younger I got them the easier it would be to handle them and get them use to me and the kids. I had rabbits in a large colony as a kid but I was not the only one caring for them. With the loses, unplanned kindling and health issues with the colony I went with cage raised this time.

I didn't get a traditional meat breed as I figured I could sell a few kits here or there to cover feed costs. I ended up with a Rex doe, 2 Rex bucks and a New Zealand/Rex cross doe who was bred for meat and growth rate. I kept a kit from my cross girl and she is also a NZ/Rex cross so they both carry the rex coat gene but do not present it.

They are in the garage for the winter as rats like to eat newborn kits and I have 2 does due around Christmas (hopefully!) and a litter of 6 week old kits.

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I am thinking this next year I may look into rabbits. We have the room and I have an area or two to grow grass or other rabbit feed. And, I am interested in learning how to tan and make use of the hides. We need to do away with our turkeys because they tend to not play nice with our chickens and ducks. I am interested in a thread on this subject.
 
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