Is raising rabbits for meat really worth it? Learn all about this deceptively difficult animal to grow for meat.
Rabbits are prolific, they grow fast, they are the perfect meat animal! Or are they? These cute little creatures are deceptively hard to raise, my goal is to hopefully help you round out your view of rabbits and know whether it’s worth it for you to raise rabbits for meat.
The REst of the Meat Rabbit Story
Meat rabbits look like the ideal meat animal on the surface, it’s true. They are prolific! Rabbits can have 12 babies every litter easily. Their pregnancy is only about 28 days. Bunnies only take 5-6 months to reach sexual maturity. They can breed and get pregnant the day they give birth (I don’t recommend doing this, but still you get the picture.)
Rabbits are also touted as being easy to feed and space efficient. These things are all true, but there is more to the story.
Breed Like Rabbits
Yes rabbits are easy to breed…. However, all the babies don’t necessarily live. When we were raising rabbits we almost always lost the entire first batch of babies of each doe. Now if you have an awesome set up and are on top of it you can definitely mitigate losses here. BUT it isn’t as easy as the saying breed like rabbits makes it sound, be aware.
Housing
Rabbits can be housed in a very space efficient way and they are a good option if you don’t have a lot of space. Their housing does take careful planning and consideration. The size of mesh used is important, if it is too big baby bunnies can get caught in it and killed. If it is too small their poop won’t fall through.
It is worth it to spend the money on a good rabbit pen. The materials for a rabbit pen can be pricy. If I remember correctly ours cost about $500 and housed 6 rabbits. But its worth it.
Colony raising rabbits has it’s benefits, it is cheaper on the fencing side, but it is WAY harder to manage successfully. Rabbits aren’t herd animals. They are VERY territorial, even to the point of killing each other over their space. Not only this but diseases are much harder to handle in colony type housing.
Easy to Feed (?)
Rabbits are herbivores, which means they live off grass and other plants, right? Yes and no. Most of rabbits today have been bred to thrive off pelleted feed and sometimes hay. If you feed a modern rabbit fresh grass, they can’t handle it and end up getting sick and dying. So they are easy to feed if you plan on feeding a pellet. But if you were shooting for a pasture based feeding program, plan on a portion of your rabbits dying till you can find the genetics that can handle the grass.
Disease
Rabbits are disease prone! And they are tricky… a lot of the time rabbits don’t show any symptoms (or very subtle symptoms) of disease until they are so sick there is nothing you can do about it. And if one rabbit gets something, count on most of them getting it. I had a bug wipe out half my rabbits in a week.
Rabbits require vigilantly cleaned pens and disease management.
Selling Rabbit Meat
If you are looking to make money with rabbit meat, I would consider selling them as pets first. I could sell a baby rabbit as a pet for the same price as fully grown, dressed out, ready to cook rabbit.
Butchering and eating
This is the only area of raising rabbits that I found easier and better than I thought it would be. If they live long enough to butcher, rabbits are fairly easy to butcher and they don’t require a lot of equipment to butcher (no boiler or plucker for example.) You also get a pelt out of the deal, which are fun to try doing crafts with and tanning.
Is raising rabbits for meat worth it? Well the meat is good! Rabbit is like a really moist chicken and is delicious!
Proper Managment is KEY
Most of the things that go wrong with meat rabbits can be mitigated by proper management. If you are looking for a meat animal you throw food in and make sure they have water and that’s about it rabbits aren’t for you. They are the hardest meat animal I have raised. But if you are willing to put in this time, work and do diligence they can be AWESOME.
The more you can research and learn from the others management mistakes the better and the faster you will have an operation that works. LISTEN to what successful rabbitry owners have to say. Do what they they say (almost) exactly. Master it before you tweak it.
Joel Salatin has raised rabbits with great success, check out what he has to say on the topic. As well as like a basic rabbit book, like Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits.
This video talks about sheep for the first minute or two but then goes into rabbits. Well worth the time.
This video is a more updated.
Rabbits are good, their not Easy
Is raising rabbits for meat worth it? Rabbits can make excellent meat animals. They do check many of the boxes that people are looking for in a meat animal: small, prolific etc. They just take more finesse and effort than they are often presented as taking. But with proper care, work and diligence they could be a great meat animal for you.
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