Thinking About Rabbits On Your Homestead.
Many people start with rabbits on their homestead. They are great to start with if that is what you want. We were not thrilled having rabbits, here is the down and dirty of our experience with rabbits. I know some of you will say they are great and for you, they may be but they were not for us.
We were planning on breeding rabbits for meat. Then quickly realized that for a family of seven it would take to many at one time to feed us all. They do breed fast but getting them to freezer camp weight took a while and lots of food. The food was about 27 dollars for a fifty-pound bag and we went through that in almost two weeks. I would not have been cost effective for us to raise rabbits. If you could use two rabbits for a meal it would have been great I believe but the four rabbits we had would almost feed us one meal.
The great thing I liked about rabbits is the fact that the manure could be used right away on the garden around the plants as it was cold fertilizer, not like chicken manure which has to compost down because it is considered hot fertilizer. We had 4 New Zealand rabbits and I believe it is the most common for homesteading. I am not saying they are not right for you, we will have to try them and figure that out for yourself. For us, they were not the right type of animal for our homestead. We are thinking of goats and/or sheep and maybe some pigs and a mini cow for milk and meat. For a new homesteader research your animals and learn what you can and then get some and see how they do for your homestead. Every animal is not for every homestead. You have to find the right fit for you and your homestead. Thanks, everyone and have a great night/day, whatever it is in your neck of the woods!
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We have a few rabbits to supplement our other meats, not as an only meat because you are right, you need a lot to feed a family. So we rotate what we eat be it chicken, duck, turkey, pork, lamb or rabbit.
Yeah, it seems when we cook rabbit it is all everyone wants. LOL
So we have a place to get some when we want it, still cheaper than feeding them till they are big enough.
@cecicastor do you have your post about animals ready for tomorrow??? I hope to see you there :)
I will be there, my post isn't ready yet. I have had a few busy days and I am behind. The story of my life! LOL
I just need rabbits to feed my cat. ;)
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We have only ever had rabbits once but as pets.
One died within 3 days, and the other after a year or so
The rabbit's person (my daughter) cried for days because it was her first pet...
I know this is not a homesteading story, but I can only imagine the kids getting attached to food we raise haha
I have to say, homesteading is really inspiring, thank you for sharing @basictoliving
We teach them what an animal means to us and get them to understand what it is for and they are good with that. We just got lucky in that aspect of things I guess.
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Too bad I don't eat rabbit meat coz they are too cute to be eaten. But thank you for sharing this :)
They are cute but they are really tasty too. You would not believe how mean those little cute things can be though.
Ooohhh we have rabbit satays (barbequed meat on sticks) here and they are tasty!!! But oh dear the homesteaders sure took a long time to breed them to supply the meat.
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I had those when we lived in Mexico, at least that is what we were told they were. LOL. They are really good!
Awesome post :) I agree not everyone would be thrilled to raise rabbits for food as the processing takes time and the feed is expensive :)
That was the kicker for us, it takes lots of feed to raise rabbits and then the processing time for so little meat.
Funny, I never considered the possibility of rabbits for homesteading. We had them as pets when I was little, and again (for a short while) when I was older - the second time, even though they belonged to a sibling, cured me of ever wanting them again. LOL!
Thanks for sharing this experience - definitely food for thought... 😉 😊
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Thanks! I know a lot of homesteaders that do not consider them as a food source for the homestead. They are really easy to breed and produce lots of meat but it is expensive to feed them and maintaining an enclosure that they can not dig out of is hard sometimes.
Yep, definitely makes sense. 😊
We had Californians for several years and just recently got a few New Zealand rabbits. It sounds like your feed is much more expensive than ours. We just get the generic feed and is cost around $14 dollars. I think we checked several years ago and found that it took about one 50# bag of feed to get a baby rabbit at weaning to 12 week butcher weight. We haven't seen if there is a difference between the Californians and New Zealands though, but it sounds like something we should check into.
The rabbits we got would only eat one certain food so we had to get that food for them. I do not think that New Zealand's put on as much weight as the Californians do. It was surprising to me that they ate as much as they did. Raising them and keeping them in a non-dig out enclosure would have been to hard and expensive to maintain here as we have soft sand here.