If you can feel the backbone but it doesnt feel sharp, you probably have a well-nourished rabbit. You can throw rabbit poo directly into the garden as you suggested. We were trying to move away from GMOs. Others reported getting bad batches of feed that killed adult rabbits as well as kits. The carcass yield of a pig is 70% so you will have a 175 pounds of hanging weight. But right now, I've got a yard full of weeds and shrubbery (what I've affectionately termed the jungle) that are happy to die for the rabbits nutritional gain. A mixture of fresh foods and a pellet will answer us on how to fatten up our rabbit. Count the days religiously. According to RabbitBreeders.us, a single commercial doe can produce offspring to yield 300 # of meat per year! Regarding feed, if you live in an area where the 50 pound sacks of brand name feed are all that is available, youll have to spend significantly more money on feed per animal.
The Easy Low-Cost Rabbit Feed You Can Grow At Home What are we going to feed the meat rabbits? - Shaye Elliott Then, theres still the extra cost of feeding the mother in-between litters. Advanced Search . If you should choose to bone-out your butchered rabbits, expect between 1 to 1-1/2 pounds of meat from a 4 to 4-1/2 pound rabbit. I know that storeys guide for raising rabbits recommended some sort of ratio for making your own feed. The brine solution is a chemical mix to supposedly enhance flavor-the packages I have seen list the solution at 8%. For example, layer mash (the ground up feed for laying hens) is $15 for 50 pounds in the local farm store but it is $16.30 for 100 pounds at the feed mill. The buck, upon climax, with typically fall over backward and roll away. I am green to this also and by no means an expert but there are two things I want to put out there in case you didnt know. Most livestock will require at least some equipment even if it is just a water trough or small feeders for chicks. Here's a list of the best rabbit breeds for meat: It is important to know that when raising rabbits for meat that the older the rabbit gets, the tougher the meat becomes. They work, while I work and my chickens scratch through their poo, everybody has a job on a homestead including the animals! Rabbits will pig out on high-calorie foods if you let them. Let me start out this post with a disclaimer: I don't know anything about anything. Crockery, glass, or metal bowls can be purchased for as little as a dime apiece. No need to grind them. I built a wood ledge to hold the dirt, then realized the slope was not ideal for getting dirt rearranged to fill the flat bed I wanted inside the wood ledge. 52 weeks x 1.25 pounds of feed at $0.163/pound=$10.60. The best sign that a pig is pregnant is missing her estrus cycles. Im even considering switching their diet up more by growing fodder soon =), Ive been pasture raising my rabbits for quite a while now, and the worm issue is easily solved by putting a tiny bit of DE(Diatomaceous Earth) in their feed every day. The second main attraction to raising your own meat is that you know exactly how the animal was raised, what it ate, what it didnt eat, and if it had a happy life. The rabbits are colony raised so we just dump the entire load and the rabbits chomp away. If you have good pasture, grazing animals become much cheaper. When my family decided to raise meat rabbits, we checked out several books about rabbit raising. Protein is especially important for growing kits and nursing mothers. Very little of the pellets get eaten and the rabbits are doing great. 570 pounds of feed x $0.30/pound=$170.00. Thecheapestmeatanimaltoraiseisthebroilerat$0.97perpound. If this should happen, you can make your own medicine using a 50/50 mixture of camphor oil and baby, olive or cooking oil. This is more workable for folks living close to produce growers, even farmers market growers have non sellable veg! If you can get your steer for a better price and have plenty of grass to feed them, then grass feed beef becomes the cheapest meat to raise using the current prices.
Becoming A Rabbit Farmer As A Beginner - Profitable Livestock Farming However, its easy to tell whether your rabbits are overfed, underfed or just about right. Pellets contain foodstuffs that have been ground mixed, cooked and then left to sit at the mill or the feed store for an unknown period of time. If you are able, another option is to grow the corn and purchase the other ingredients like soybean meal and the mineral supplement mix then grind the feed yourself. With their help, we learned to feed our own rabbits with locally available ingredients. You do need to be aware that it can be really easy to overfeed pellets and end up with obese rabbits.
Raising Rabbits for Meat - Cost, Legalities & How to Start Farming If you dont keep an eye on your feed costs you can spend more than you had planned. By Dennis Douthart Rabbits make delicious eating! What's cool is that after a few weeks of having natural feeds introduced into their diet, their activity and energy levels have been noticeable higher! By 6 weeks, rabbits are pretty much completely done nursing. Great write-up! All my neighbors kids come over and love feeding the rabbits and playing with them. Still figuring 4 litters per doe per year, lets see annual feed consumption with more breeders.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'northernhomesteading_com-leader-2','ezslot_5',123,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-northernhomesteading_com-leader-2-0');doesbuckslitters/yearbunnies/year# meat/year# feed/year# feed per # of meat11432805506.8:1218641601,0006.2:13112962401,4506.0:141161283201,9005.9:151201604002,3505.8:161241924802,8005.8:171282245603,2505.8:181362566403,7005.7:191402887204,1505.7:1101443208004,6005.7:1Three does and a buck is 16 percent more efficient with feed than a single doe and buck. Can/do you ever take them out and let them munch around in a clover patch? Commercial rabbit pellets are mostly alfalfa.I have fed rabbits exclusively on alfalfa hay and they did well. You should not feed them cabbage, broccoli, or brussels sprouts. Did you slowly wean them of the pellets while introducing more and more forage? They believe that animals raised for meat should be free-range, natural production, and humane. Depending on the breed, a live weight of 4-1/2 pounds will generally net you a 2-pound dressed-out rabbit. In Britain during World War II when grain was scarce, a study showed that rabbits could be raised to market weight on a diet of only sow thistles and cooked potatoes. So I put some of these in there, too: So here we are. http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Pellet-Urban-Rabbit-Project-ebook/dp/B00FZF1FCW. Thank you so much for any suggestions you could offer!! 4 Must Have Items For Raising Feeder Pigs goes over your basic equipment needs. For those using rabbit tractors or colony methods.dont you have problems with predators, snakes??? They love clover, purple clover flowers, dandelions, fresh grass, hay. If you google the DE cleanse you should find tons on it, if you are unfamiliar. Your pig will have cost you $50 to purchase. The pellets have been dehydrated, ground, heated, and formed they still have nutrition, no doubt, but it's hardly the same as a freshly harvest bucket of foliage. Four pounds of meat will generally net one pound of jerky. Although it will take planning, it is more time efficient for me and is always super fresh. So your total cost per pound of meat if you pay for butchering and use the farm store feed is $372.50 which is $2.13/poundofmeat. Meat rabbits can produce 6 pounds of meat on the same amount of feed it takes to produce 1 pound of beef. You can use netting to keep them in but bunnies are pretty good at escaping! This site is a resource for people seeking to learn sustainable, practical, and productive family-oriented homesteading skills. When theyre sitting in a normal arch-backed position, feel their spines.
The Cheapest Meat Animal To Raise (Chart And Cost Per Pound Of Meat Alfalfa is one of the major ingredients in rabbit pellets, and most commercially produced alfalfa in the U.S. is genetically modified. Youll get about 5 eggs per week per good layer then have a stewing hen later. Additionally,eggscanberaisedfor $0.33perpound. No thanks.
How To Fatten Up A Rabbit? 4 Great Foods To Feed Them! Feed Rabbits for Cheap Archives - That Homestead We all need to start somewhere! On to equipment. We wanted to know what our rabbits were actually eating, and we wanted to grow as much of it as possible.
50 DIY Rabbit Hutch Plans to Get You Started Keeping Rabbits . If feeding wild fodder or high-quality hay, feed costs can be lowered dramatically. These are feeder pigs running through the livestock auction, not special breeds or private sales, just piglets in spring. Not high in acid. Pressure canning can be another way to preserve your meat. By raising meat rabbits ourselves, we secure a low-cost and incredibly healthy meat source to use as our staple protein. 232 rabbits are needed for your family and friends to eat for the year. Adding in that additional feed, that brings the total feed up by 37% for a single breeding pair. Add in low mortality rates of well-kept rabbits, how often they can healthily give birth, and the usefulness of manure, they jump in value. Along with some leaves, it's the perfect compost/mulch for building up around the plants! I would suggest the little book, Beyond the Pellet, by Boyd Craven, Jr. Its a pretty short read, but very helpful! Use leather gloves to inspect the nesting box. If the doe is looking quite thin still after the week, She might get another few weeks. I DID have a bunch of rabbit poop. And as experience is the best teacher, Im here to share with you how to bake better bread at home. Gas for hauling was the only cost involved. Said scraps (which are fairly few) also go into weed and grass bucket. ), these are just a few ideas to get you started thinking! You can dramatically cut your costs if you use feed from a feed mill and butcher yourself. I think that having a fresh supply of greens and such is good for rabbits and we do give them some stuff from around our yard on occasion. We bred them for meat and they were fair.
Would I have to switch the rabbits back to pellets for the winter? Well use 2.5. Raise Rabbits on Your Property Most municipalities allow rabbits to be kept as pets, but that's a different proposition than raising rabbits for slaughter. Whatisthebestmeatanimaltostartoutraising? But, since "it depends" is not a helpful answer in the slightest, let's dig into the things that 6 Reasons Why People (Just Like You!) That being said, I've taken on the challenge of naturally feeding our meat rabbits. So, bucket in hand, I went through my yard and picked up stuff like this: I read somewhere they like to eat flowers. Usually, that means I have plenty to sell or give away, but in a bad year, Ill still have enough to feed my family. Have raised rabbits for over 17 years, and am an avid gardener and can tell you, rabbit manure is one of a very few that can be put straight from the rabbit to the plant. One thing to consider might be that, assuming your comparing meat rabbits to meat chickens, rather than laying hens, the commercial chickens often raised for meat aren't something you can generally breed for yourself. The cost to butcher is $100 plus $0.30/pound packaging costs. I keep the weed and grass bucket right next to the bucket of pellets on top of the cages. that way the doe is more eased off nursing. Initially, I began to study up on all the local grasses and weeds so as to be able and identify the safe vegetation for the rabbits. The total cost is $295.41 which is $1.69/poundofmeat. The carcass weight of a broiler is 4.55 pounds (6.5 pounds live bird x 70% meat yield)=$2.10/poundofmeat. You will need a nesting box for the does. Jump to Latest Follow 1 - 13 of 13 Posts . Save yourself years of bad loaves. Tag: Cheapest way to feed meat rabbits. That is a tough question to answer, since the real answer is "it depends". Click here to subscribe to my email list. Originally published as "Raising . They also designed foods that have more nutrients provided for rabbits alone. Wow. They dont need much water because they get most of it from the grass. I have built cages from pallets and used, rusty chicken wire for no cost. I am not sure where to put the cost for the breeding stock, since price varies substantially by breed and location. Great post, thanks for sharing! Did you notice any flavor difference in their meat after eating grasses and weeds? Rabbits love dandelions. If you decide to purchase the ready to lay pullet she will cost between $12-20 each. They will nibble on the pellets after their natural feed is gone, but not nearly with the same enthusiasm. The doe should have her young anywhere from day 31 (this is typically when they are born) to day 35. This bird costs you $0.97/poundofmeat. Plus the butchering cost which is $9.50 each. I found if we move them often enough, they are less likely to escape. Ive got you covered. National Research Council 1194 about Nutrient Requirement of Rabbits, Raising Rabbits for Fur: Best Fiber Breeds, Housing, Feeding, Breeding, and Grooming, 10 Common Rabbit Diseases, Illnesses, & Ailments (and How to Treat Them), 31 Delicious and Easy Rabbit Recipes You Need to Try, How to Butcher a Rabbit Humanely in 6 Quick and Easy Steps, 4 Tips to Help Your Meat Rabbits Gain Weight Faster and Healthily, Raising Rabbits for Profit: 7 Ways to Make Extra Money with Rabbits, Rabbit Care Guide: 10 Tips to Care for Your Backyard Meat Rabbits, 50 Free DIY Rabbit Hutch Plans & Ideas to Get You Started Keeping Rabbits, A Complete Guide to Breeding Rabbits for Beginners, Tanning Rabbit Hides: Easy Guide to Skin a Rabbit and Tan the Hide, 3 Ways to Tell Tomatoes are Ripe If Youre Red-Green Color-blind. In places where feeder pigs are hard to come by, $200-300 each is not unheard of. No other livestock can have a feed conversion of 2:1 outside of a factory farm setting. Keep clean fresh water available. Then, I gathered up the scraps from the kitchen, which includes mostly cabbage leaves, tops of strawberries, old lettuce or greens, carrot and celery ends, apple cores, and pieces of leftover or old bananas. Your email address will not be published. Where to start your journey to self sufficiency? Plus, raising meat rabbits is relatively easy, and if you shop around for bargains, the materials needed for raising meat rabbitscan be inexpensive to purchase. Free food. And I love to see them nibbling on the roots and stems and leaves it's so natural! Thats a huge difference! for the details on a pig raising budget. I am feeding diverse greens, grass and willow, but feel like I should feed a small amount of pellets for the reasons you said exactly. Rabbit meat is very low in cholesterol and high in protein. That's a blessing. In this world we share, it can be satisfying knowing the food we have raised is all natural, and not full of chemicals and growth hormones. And yes! A variety of weeds and grasses in bucket. If you breed on a Tuesday, they will usually have the bunnies on a Friday. Dont gather moldy plants or store cut green plants in a way that lets them get moldy. Your cost per bird is $5.50 less than before making your new total cost per bird $2.00/chick +$2.20 in feed= $4.40eachifyoubutcherthebroilersyourself. I prefer the tastes of lamb and venison, but those are costly and I cannot raise them myself. Another thing we do is when we prune our fruit trees, we give the entire branches with leaves attached to the rabbits, they love it! Learn Everything You Dont Know In The Big Book Of Off The Grid Secrets! I planted them really close together because I had gotten them for free from a friend, and I figured that even if some died, maybe dome would live. I find it important to give the doe a rest in-between breedings. Look it up. Here are some great alternatives to rabbit pellets. I feed my rabbits commercial feed and whatever else I can find. link to Is Raising Sheep Worth It? The pellets here are around 22 bucks per 25 kg bag. Some commercial growers breed their does so many as eight times a year. Weaning begins naturally around 4 weeks and by 5 weeks old, bunnies are eating mostly rabbit food. If you raise the pullet and get your feed from the mill she will cost you $4.85. It can kill young rabbits. About Me. So those meats are considered luxury proteins, saved for special occasions. Meat rabbits cost between $4.62 and $6.75 each in feed costs when fed commercial rabbit feed. Livestock Forums. For instance when we roast a broiler we just put it in the oven no preparations at all- just make sure its completely defrosted. If you purchase your feed at the farm store it will cost $15.50/ 50 pound bag so 21 pounds x $0.31/ pound feed=$6.51 in feed per duckling. Other ducks grow slower so they will take longer. Feeding commercially prepared feed is easy because it contains all the nutrition that rabbits need, but its costly. The first thing to consider when raising meat rabbits how many rabbits your family can eat in a years time. Slumped shoulders and sad face but I scrapped as much out as I could and put it into the compost. Stay tuned for the first newsletter in the morning, straight to your inbox. This would save you the $3.50 per bird butchering fee plus about $2.20 (figuring the mill feed at $16.30/100 pounds) in feed. Here are the basics. But we have lots of rabbits for our family because we use them as meat instead of eating chicken (personal preference) and use them for our dogs all meat diet.
Cost to Raise Rabbits for Meat (2022 complete guide) In addition, raising meat rabbits is a low cost way to provide food for your family year round. Except for the holland op, they are all commercial breed rabbits. Since raising your own Hey there, Im Kathy! Your kids can start their own rabbit business all on their own and actually make money. May 5, 2021 KusaM Rabbits. I feed my rabbits commercial feed and whatever else I can find.
How Much Meat do You Get from a Rabbit? - Northern Homesteading Rabbit poop is not acidic and can be directly added to your garden. We are just in the learning stages on rabbits and this was great! You can use straw, cedar chips, shredded newspaper, or shredded sugar cane for bedding. Rabbits are the simplest animals we've raised for meat. Save my name and email in this browser for the next time I comment. The baby rabbits feet may fall through and become stuck, or even broken. A dozen eggs weighs 1.875 pounds making the cost $0.76/poundofeggs. Wed love to hear from you if you have any questions! (Remember to figure up these costs for your specific area. There are many places to buy feed and hay (if needed) for your animals. Plantain and blackberry can help settle upset digestions. This is simply supply and demand. Seeing you do this makes me also want to! You will need a separate cage for the buck, and one for the bunnies once theyve been weaned. Store-bought waterers and feeders will cost you anywhere from $10-$20 apiece. Working out a proper feeding system is absolutely essential to raising any sort of animal be it for meat, eggs, or milk. Sheep are becoming more popular and for good reason, they are a family friendly livestock that fits well into many situations, even folks with minimal acreage available. Raising the pullets to 16 weeks (just before she starts to lay eggs) will cost $3.00 per chick and require 11.36 pounds of feed costing $1.85 of feed mill feed or $3.64 of farm store feed.
Raise Meat Rabbits: Quick Start Guide - Homestead Rabbits The Easiest, Cheapest (And Tastiest) Animal You Can Raise For Food Is You will also need to pay for butchering which will be $100.00 per head then $0.30/pound in packaging costs. I prefer to feed more of a wild greens diet, even though the animals grow smaller. (hope it is not too tacky to link to another blog.) Duck poo can also go straight onto your garden.
How to Feed Meat Rabbits When You Can't Buy Feed - Emergency Prep Guy The result should be approximately 35 growers per doe, times two would equal 70 dressed fryers for the freezer. Sometimes they need a bit more time to get their weight back up. Make it bigger than we should need in case its a bad year. The rabbits love it! 12 pounds of feed x $0.35/pound=$4.20 in feed per rabbit. We just got into raising meat rabbits and Ive debated feeding them weeds or not. Free-choice hay is our major fiber source, supplemented by twigs and brambles, including willow, mulberry, apple, sumac, blackberry and raspberry. It is mostly sold, and it has high fiber with no sugar added. A more practical option for some people is a high-quality pelleted feed. My wife and I go to a lot of garage and yard sales. Additionally, eggs can be raised for $0.33 per pound. Not to say dont do it Im risking it living in the midwest where its not common Im just saying talk to local vets or maybe even DNR and see if the disease is in your area yet. Update for 2022: since the cost of eggs is up significantly, layers may be more of a worthwhile enterprise than in previous years. Log in. I love to play with the rabbits with my kids. To read my article about calm chicken breeds that includes breed descriptions, click here. #1 Okay first, I am not trying to starve my rabbits, just want to cut back on costs so I can feed a raw mainly rabbit diet to my dogs Right now I am feeding TSC 5# rabbit pellets,$14 a bag plus grass hay, (I pull it off of my round bales for the horses costs me $20 for 1200 # bale).. A pullet you raise yourself and feed the less expensive mill feed will cost you $15.45 to lay for one year making the cost per dozen eggs $0.62. Babies can have carrots and apples. Weve never had weaning enteritis, and over the last two years, as weve kept selecting and breeding rabbits who thrive on our diet, our kit growth rates have steadily improved. We saw some warnings about pelleted feeds on some of the online forums, where small farmers shared their experiences. Making my mistakes public for the world to see? Thank you for this information! The cost to buy adult breeding stock quality rabbits is going to be anywhere from $25-80 each for a high quality commercial meat rabbit. Until I chase them off with a broom cursing them. Adult rabbits need to cup of pellets for every 6 pounds of body weight per day. Hi Shaye! Other animals, like pigs and chickens, can live without supplemental feed, if the have the right genetics, you are willing to accept what is likely to be lower production/slower growth and have the animals in an area of abundant other food sources. Im so incredibly proud of you!! Not all vegetables are good for your rabbits. They multiply quickly and the kits reach butcher weight in 3 months. Second when I was looking up rabbit tractors like I made I was warned about that virus going around now mainly in the west USA but its RHDV2 its in wild rabbits body fluids like poop and what not. One rabbit is enough for a pot roast. [optin-monster-shortcode id=wqmf7nrjr7tt6hrmageb]. The cost of the feed per bag is $15.00 per 50 pounds ($30.00 per 100 pounds or 30 cents per pound).
Raising meat rabbits economically isnt just about using the lowest-cost feed and supplies. We will go over costs per animal and per pound of meat. Duckswill be ready to butcher at 7-8 weeks of age if you are raising Pekins. What Needle Felting Supplies Do You Use for Sculpting? If you wean at 6 weeks and give the doe a week to recover, you can get 4 litters a year. Fiber keeps the rabbits digestive systems functioning properly. I just hopped into the meat rabbit realm with both feet! When I first started raising meat rabbits our farm had a whole lot of kudzu. Noah Braun Regardless of whether you're looking to hunt or breed, we're here with the definitive list of the best meat rabbits for eating. link to How to Tell if Your Pig is Pregnant, link to When to Plant Beans in Michigan ( complete growing guide), Mostly high-protein tree leaves, some grass, cheap, local brand pellets (16 percent protein), 4 litters a year, 100 pounds feed per litter, 400 pounds of feed per year, Does eat up to an additional 50 pounds per year in-between litters.
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