One great way to ensure you have food in hard times is by raising rabbits. They multiply quickly, and forage on grass if needed, and they grow quickly to a weight worth eating. They are easy to cook as their meat can be prepared exactly like chicken meat. Anything you could cook with chicken, can be cooked with rabbit meat instead.
Care and Feeding
There isn’t a lot of maintenance with rabbits. You just need some good quality raised cages (to protect them from predators), and keep them fed, watered and safe. They are very clean. You can even use a litter box with them if you choose, but most people who raise them for food and not pets keep them outside, and let the pellets fall to the ground, or in a catch basin of some sort. Most breeders will feed them with a pellet style food available from places like Tractor Supply or other feed stores. Rabbits love alfalfa hay, and things you can generally find around your lawn like dandelions or other weeds.
Breeding
Rabbits multiply like, well, rabbits. Adult male rabbits are called Bucks, and adult females are call Does. Their babies are called a kit (or kitten). When they are born they are deaf and blind because their eyes and ears are closed. The average liter is between 5 – 14 kits, with most liters coming in around 8. Most does can be bred once they reach 5 – 8 months of age. They are fertile year round, and their gestation range (from conception to birth) is between 28 – 35 days, with 31 – 32 days being the average length to kindle (give birth). They are able to get pregnant again within one day of giving birth, although most breeders normally wait 4 – 5 weeks so the kits she is nursing will be old enough to wean onto solid food, they can be moved to another kennel, and she can have a short break before becoming pregnant again. Most meat rabbits are ready to eat in 8 – 12 weeks if fed properly. This is one of the shortest durations of any edible animal to go from birth to freezer. If you plan to use the fur, you will need to let them grow to at least 6 months of age, and harvest them during the coldest part of the year when their fur is the thickest. If you want great meat, you won’t get the best fur. If you want great fur, you won’t get the best meat. For this reason, you need to decide up front what their purpose will be.
Fertilizer
Rabbit pellets (poop) is great for gardens. Not only is it able to go immediately into a garden without having to compost first, it contains many beneficial elements. You’re feeding rabbits the same stuff you would throw in a compost pile anyway, they are just letting go of the parts they don’t need. Many breeders will collect and sell the pellets as it is a valuable fertilizer for many home gardeners.
Breeds
If you are raising rabbits for meat, you will want a breed that develops quickly using the least amount of food per pound of usable meat. For this reason, most people will raise one of the following breeds:
New Zealand
Easily one of the most popular meat rabbit breeds, the New Zealand rabbits, contrary to their name, originated in California where they were developed for meat and fur. They come in several colors including white, red, black, blue, and broken. The whites, sometimes called REW (red eye white) are so called because they have albinism (albino) which causes them to have bright pink (redish) eyes. Their fur is all white, and very beautiful. If you let them get older, their fur is great for making pelts. They get up to weight quickly, are very docile, and handle heat and cold temperatures well. If you handle them from infancy, they are usually very docile and loving rabbits, which makes them much easier to handle when you need to move them, establish their sex, breed them, sell them, or cull them. This is currently my favorite breed. A fully developed buck averages between 8 – 10 lbs, with a doe averaging between 10 – 12 lbs. See my rabbit galleries page here for some pictures of New Zealand White rabbits, and the other breeds covered on this page.
Californian
OK, this time, they got the name right. This breed does originate in California. They are actually a breed developed using the New Zealand Whites, Standard Chinchilla, and Himalayan rabbits. This breed was also created for meat and fur. Californian rabbits still have red eyes (albinism) but they generally have black feet, noses, and ears. All other traits and characteristics are the same as, or very similar to, the New Zealand Whites that they originated from.
Rex
Rex rabbits originated in France, developed from a liter of wild gray rabbits. Rex rabbits don’t usually get as large as the 2 breeds above. Some people like this since it means they can use smaller kennels, and fit more in one cage. Adults average between 7 – 11 pounds. There are many different breeds of Rex, which I won’t go into here.
Silver Fox
The Silver Fox rabbit was developed by Walter B. Garland of North Canton, Ohio. Their name comes from their dense fur which resembles the fur of the silver fox (an actual fox). Fully matured bucks average 9 – 11 lbs, with does average 10 – 12 lbs. They are very docile, and “family friendly”. Silver Fox rabbits have one of the best dress-out rates of any meat rabbit, with about 60 – 65 percent of their weight being meat.