Urban Rabbit Farming Primer By David M Park
Several years ago, my wife and I decided to become as self-reliant as possible. Part of that goal was to raise small livestock on our small urban homestead. Rabbits are perfect for urban husbandry, as their size, self-feeding, and feed-to-meat ratio is very good. They provide inexpensive meat, furs, leather, manure and great entertainment and learning opportunities for children. And for those who have the ability, they also indirectly provide biogas, glue, saltpeter, and more.
Historically, rabbit meat was something the farmer gained when he fought them for his crops. In spring, farmers in rural counties would form hunting parties and harvest hundreds of pounds of rabbit meat to supplement their diets and protect their farms. During the depression, many families wouldn’t have survived as well as they did without raising rabbits. In World War II , Britain and America urged their citizens to keep rabbits for food until the zoning laws were adjusted to allow goats and chickens.
1 buck and 3 does are recommended as breeding stock; this is the maximum allowed by most zoning laws. The best medium meat varieties for food/pelts/manure are New Zealand Whites and Californians. Flemish Giants can be used but consume more rations and don’t provide much extra meat. Do not use Lops or other varieties for meat, as they’re not good for consumption. The one’s we have are all purebred New Zealand Whites, so that’s the breed I’ll write about exclusively. So, when I write ‘rabbits’, I’m talking about this variety.
Picture Credit Rabbit Hutches
Okay, this is odd, but doe’s have 2 uterus’s. The average increase for one doe per 56-day gestation period is 9-12 bunnies if both sides are fertilized that could provide 9-12 pelts, between 45-86 pounds of meat, and roughly ¼ ton of highly concentrated manure per year. Most of the time, the buck will only ‘service her on one side’; that’s between 4-7 bunnies.
Housing
The hutch was the easiest and most expensive part of this whole thing. You don’t need to buy one; we made ours mostly out of 1X4′s and some other materials. Would’ve been better to use scrap materials. The first one I made is a four-hutch model I found for free on some state’s extension website. It needed a lot of tweaking, but it’s now escape proof. Best to keep in mind that breeding rabbits need a space 2′ W x 3′ L x 3′ T.
Best to use small animal fencing or hardware cloth. Never use chicken wire – we found this out the hard way: they can bite through it! We built a second, smaller hutch to house the bunnies so they’ll grow to harvesting maturity separate from the breeding hutches – freeing the parents to be bred again.
For wintertime, experts said the rabbits should be brought inside before the first frost, or cover the hutches with canvas and install a heater. We covered them with a .3 mil plastic tarp with heated stones underneath for the first year we had ‘em and fretted about them every night. That winter was one of the worst: sub-zero temps, heavy winds, killing frosts. Turns out, they can survive -15 F temps without coverings and heaters. In fact, they just found a sheltered spot in their hutches and slept through it all. After last frost, make sure they get some sun and exercise. Ours just stay in the hutches as we paid a lot of money for UV protected plastic sunroof material. They get plenty of protected sunlight as well as direct sunlight at times in the day.
Photo Credit Pinterest, and here.
Feeding Rabbits
Something else that isn’t well known is that rabbits eat their night feces. Now, the reason for this is that most ruminants have more than two stomachs; rabbits don’t. So, what they do is digest their food and then re-eat the high protein stuff that comes out. Similar to cows eating cud; but they have four stomachs and can push it all back up for further processing.
Yes, you can use your lawn to feed rabbits. Just don’t use chemical fertilizers with pesticides or weed killers in it. Adding legume hay coupled with some parts of your meal leftovers, weeds and garden wastes is enough to feed the rabbits with all their rations. Now, what they like most and the safest to feed them is pretty much anything from the Old World. A lot of things native to the America’s are toxic to them; tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and the like. Best to keep the types of veg and fruit they eat similar to that of cattle for best results.
Rabbits are grazers and feed themselves. Our favorite feeds are alfalfa hay, grasses like bluegrass and crabgrass, fruit peels, celery and carrot bits, lettuce and cabbage leftovers, certain garden scraps, and on occasion dandelions and milkweeds. If you want to regulate how much they eat that’s your call, we found it best to let them get their fill as they grew fast enough and provided plenty of manure. We left for a 4-day vacation once and made sure they had a lot of foods and water. When we came back they were just fine!
Addition of a mineral/salt lick is necessary. We made some when money was tight using a liquid animal vitamin from the Ag Co-op and some salt dissolved in a bowl. Then we added some clean, dried wood to soak it up. They thrived in it well enough.
It’s very important the your rabbits not go for more than one day without food. They go into what’s called GI stasis and that is difficult to reverse and they usually die. Check daily to ensure they have clean water and a good mix of foods.
Manure Processing
This is funny. We really never had much of an issue with the smell of manure. We keep it dry by collecting it into plastic sheets with a few drainage holes in the bottom. We have neighbors about 100 feet away who are more than happy to call zoning on anyone for any little thing, and they have no idea that several rabbits are behind that wood fence! We only have a fly problem due to the local canal, but come over to the pit looking for places to lay eggs. They don’t bother as the manure is too light and dry to do the flies any good. We use a trap made from soda bottles, black paint, and primed with dog droppings to catch those flying pests.
Rabbit manure is composed of 2.4 nitrate/1.4 potassium/.60 potash with the rest being semi-digested materials – excellent for most garden applications. Most folks told us to compost it with kitchen scraps and lawn clippings. We found this unnecessary. The ammonia levels in their manure is quite low. We later learned how to use anaerobic digestion via bacteria to produce methane gas (or biogas). The remnant from the digester is perfect liquid fertilizer.
We tried building the methane digester with mixed results. What we used was three metal containers; two joined at the top on the side of the first one, the second had the connection at the side bottom with a gas pipe; both filled half way with water. The third was turned upside-down and held in place with bungee cords to the second container. The first container was lockable to keep the gases inside. The upside-down one in the water was used as a storage tank that collected the methane from the first tank, which we extracted with a gas hose and valve. There are plans online on how to build these – ours is very basic.
One can also extract saltpeter from their manure. For legal reasons, I probably shouldn’t say for what or how to do it. Just wanted to say it’s possible.
Vetting
For most aliments, check the animal’s diet – this is the usual suspect. Diarrhea is often caused by spoiled foods or too much fresh foods. Most other ailments can be treated much like a human’s problems. Some you just can’t fix. The two that got us bad were Lower Respiratory Infection and Enteritis.
Lower Respiratory Infections are not curable. Upper Respiratory Infections can be treated. This is the thing that killed our first set of does. The symptoms are struggling to breathe, loss of appetite, poor growth, tiny droppings, and lethargic. Best to put it down and burn or dispose of the carcass.
Enteritis is common among 3 – 6 week old bunnies that try to wean off mommy. Signs are similar to Lower Respiratory Infection except they just suddenly develop a terrible illness and then usually die. The best way to treat is to prevent by making sure the nursing doe has a variety of good foods in her diet to begin with. This will mean the bunnies will have the enzymes and nutrients already and can cope easier when they wean.
Cuts and trauma are treated the same as human beings with the same triple antibiotic ointment and bandages. Try to avoid giving medications unless the vet says so.
You can also find a lot of info online about what kind of diseases they might have.
Harvesting Rabbit Meat,
The first time I did this took about an hour and ended up screwing it up in the kitchen. I didn’t grow up doing this, so it’s all pretty much research and practice. The best method to end it is to let the rabbit starve for one day but give it water. Then break it’s neck using a board with a v-shaped slot carved into it. Just slide it’s head over the top with the legs and body underneath. The gap should be about ¾ inch to just make it snug around the neck. One hard, quick pull on the hind legs and the rabbit is now meat. Quick, easy, humane, and painless; this makes the best meat. Abuse is not delicious.
I also skinned and cleaned it wrong for the longest time. Sure, it got the job done, but we ended up with so much sticky fur stuck to the meat that we just couldn’t wash off. The proper way to clean and dress and rabbit is to cut a slit from below the ribcage down to the anus. Pull out the organs: keep the heart, liver, kidneys, intestines, and any fat globules. The lungs make a great dog or cat treat. Set all these aside in cool place. Next, you’ll want to pull the hind legs out of the belly slit and cut off the feet after you pull them through the skin. Cut off feet below the fur and away from the meat or any surface that the meat will come in contact. Keep doing this until you get to the head. Cut that off while the skin is covering it. This is the best method for keeping that nasty fur off the lovely food.
Cooking rabbit is easy and delicious if done right. The meat is very lean and dry; stewing or crock pot is best. The heart, liver, and kidneys makes great gravy additives. The intestines can be used for rabbit sausages. The fat globules are good for greasing pans or my personal favorite; soap making.
The skin can be tanned for clothing and other uses. You can also process the defurred skin into glue. Find a good tanning and glue making method online. My favorite method is the salt tanning method – find this online as it’s a very lengthy process.
Raising rabbits in an urban setting for food and other needs is one of the best ways to prepare for the coming problems we face. Before you start research the matter as much as possible, build a solid hutch, and get food and water ready before contacting a breeder. The breeder doesn’t have to be a professional; I bought my first breeding stock from a wildlife education place that fed them to cougars and what-not. Found myself a prize winning buck for $20! The does were of the worst temperament and health it turned out. Bought three 6-week old’s from a local breeder that advertised in the classifieds. He had the best looking does that I’ve had ever since. It’s been profitable, a major learning experience, and gave us a lot more than just rearing small animals for food.
