Choicing the right breed from the start can bring allot of joy. There are many breeds suitable for meat product. Homesteaders have often conventional breeds like the New Zealand, Flemish Giant, Rex or the non conventional hybrid.

What do you want?

As a starter you often don't really know what you want. All rabbits will produce fast en all of the races below will stay healthy in general. So the main thing to select on is meat quality, growth speed, size and fur colours. You only get a good result if you care good for the rabbits. You are also responsible to give the rabbit a happy life. They should have a happy life and only have one bad day.

Preserving the genetic material of the breed.

When you have a good breed you need to filter out the bucks (males). If you don't you get way to much pregnant rabbits and you will have many fights. Determining the sex of a rabbit isn't easy so sometimes you end up with an unwanted pregnant doe. This is not a disaster but avoid inbreeding by keeping a small database of all the bucks. The easiest way is to keep the doe and the buck the same. This is ok till they get to old to breed, than you need to breed with the offspring. To avoid inbreeding you replace the buck. The new buck can't share any family genetics.

The best breeds in my opinion

• New zealand rabbit
  This breed is probably the most suited rabbit for everyone. The doe has big litters and is a good mother. She can easily feed all the young and is very fertile. Reproduction is clearly not a issue. The rabbit has a pretty thick white or red fur and weighs in around 5 kilo. Take this rabbit it won't let you down!

• Flemish Giant
  The Flemish Giant is a very old breed that is less suited for meat. The meat is a big tougher and the rabbit needs a longer timer to grow. The big benefit is a much bigger rabbit of easily up to 10 kilo. This also results in a bigger fur.
  So if you don't like to butcher many rabbits, you always make a stew and you like a big fur. Than this is your rabbit.

• Hybrids
  This type of rabbit is frequently used in the commercial meat production. They get breed with strict guidelines to ensure the most profitable production. Some hybrid examples are Hycole, Zika, Hyla and the Grimaud.

Rabbit meat is very healthy

Rabbit meat is very healthy and very lean. Rabbit meat is often advised for heart patients, people with high blood pressure, stomach problems or to simply lose weight. 100 grams of rabbit meat has the following nutrients:

• 133 kcal
  • Vet 5 gram
  • Eiwit 22 gram
  • Cholesterol 164 mg
  • IJzer 4,3 mg
  • Kalium 376 mg
  • Magnesium 31 mg
  • Koper 0,2 mg
  • Fosfor 247 mg
  • Zink 2,2 mg
  • Selenium 43 µg
  • Vitamine B12 2,3 µg

Gogreenbuddy

Gogreenbuddy is a green project were I work with natural building materials, permaculture and animals. My future green plans are to dig a pond, plant many trees, a fruit forest, go solar and write more quality content!
Supporting my project is easy following/like me on Steemit and Dtube! #gogreenbuddy
The most epic awesome way is with a donation+follow. I will check out your posts and see if I like the content!