Raising rabbits

[RJ6Mommy]

I just started raising them and have 4 does and one buck. On friday we had two litters and next week we will have two more litters. if you feed them the right amount of feed you should be ahead when come butcher time. We have rabbits with pedigrees that we will butcher about 20 for ourselves and sell the rest papered to 4-h kids andothers who want to raise meat. hey sell for good money here even as meat. We had a bunny die today just because she has a bigger litter and the bunny was a runt. Everyone was fine afterit and we just make sure we all remember why we are raising them. It helps that our breeders scratch and are not friendly. we have a pet lionhead tocuddle with.

[elizabeth.scalf]

I was thinking we would probably ends up with one or two indoor as pets. The rest outdoors somewhere. That might discourage the kids from playing and thereby falling in love with the meat babies.

[igotmywings]

yuuuup as soon as they enter your house they become a lot harder to butcher LOL

[Kyonarai]

We did meat rabbits for awhile. I didn't have too much trouble butchering them, so long as it was really fast and painless(used to hit them in the back of the head once with a wooden block really hard so they died instantly) and then I would say a prayer for them afterwards and thank them for their contribution. I've never had a problem working with dead animals, so once they're dead, I have no issue.

[NotLad]

Originally Posted by elizabeth.scalf I was thinking we would probably ends up with one or two indoor as pets. The rest outdoors somewhere. That might discourage the kids from playing and thereby falling in love with the meat babies.

It helped too that our pet breeds were different than our meat breeds. I had French lops for pets/shows and Flemish giants (think cadbury bunny commercials) for the farm.

[blessed1018]

I have known a few people to do it, and researched myself at one point. Where we were living at the time (hot, humid MS) it was not doable - they would have needed more shade than we could provide (or an air conditioned shed) in order to survive from what the breeders in my area told me. The one man in the area who had done it for many years said he finally got an air conditioner for his rabbits b/c the heat waves seemed to be getting worse every year and the rabbits were too stressed in the heat.

That is not a concern for everyone obviously though - but just a thought. As for butchering them - I have never had a good "pet" rabbit experience so I don't think it would bother me. Now my chicken babies on the other hand - I couldn't do it! When we moved I sold them and their coop to a sweet family in the country and they update me on how the girls are doing.