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Well, we are officially getting meat rabbits next week.
Picking up a Californian buck and New Zealand White doe on Sunday and then a pair of bred New Zealand/Californian cross does on Monday or Tuesday.
Should be a good start to the hobby farm.
I did get all of the 16 fruit trees pruned, I may have left too much in but I can always take more out later.
The FB pictures of the rabbit cages and pruning are nice.
ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by line052
Congratulations, Fox! You're on your way to some real good eating.
Careful when pruning that many trees to not pass any disease between them. I learned that one the hard way on my poor decimated pear trees.
congrats on the purchases
my lil ones are now a month old, and doing well, growing like weeds... ended up with 3 black ones and 3 white ones, the white ones are starting to take on the california colours, guess the california is more prominent in my buck than newzealand... my champagne d'agent is due in a week and a bit, along with my first batch of chicks of the year...
just bred one of my doe's today and had a good laugh, tossed her in with the buck, and he got right down to business, did his job... well as soon as he was done, she turned around, and pinned him against the side of the cage and gave him the gears... kind of a let me show you how its done haha
We got 2 8 month old cross does from a member on here on Wednesday to bring us up to 4 total for now.
My plan is to keep 2 does from these cross animals so that we have 5 does and 1 buck.
We put the young doe in with the buck last night as they were trying to rip the cage apart trying to get to one another. Well, he was trying at first but I was not sure if things actually worked. I removed her for an hour then put her back in with him and within 2 min it was all done and she was eating his food and trying to get away from him, ha ha.
I was told the does that I got were from large litters, litters of 12 and 10. If the new doe does not lose her litter and everything goes well there is a possibility of having in the neighbourhood of 30 bunnies all born within a week and a half.
when you see the buck fall over it was a sucessfull breeding... return the doe for reserviceing a couple hours later to maximise sucess, but never more then 8 hours after the intial breeding...
my doe that is due next week is a champagne d'agant and they suposedly routinly have 10-12 kits, the breeder i bought her from said he had one give birth and raise 15... its my does first litter though, so good chance she will lose them...
Can you guys share some pics of the setups. My 10 year old boy is trying to talk me in to raising some meat rabbits
http://www.oodmag.com/community/atta...3&d=1424313617
thats what i threw together back in december... need to change a few things on it when it gets warmer, but has worked pretty good... 4 pens, 24X36" each, all wire floor so pee and poo falls through, feed and water is all on the outside, which is good as they tend to dump anything in their cages... it cost me just shy of $100 to build... wire being the most expensive part... most growers use all wire cages, either suspended above the ground, or with trays underneith that they can remove to clean out...
like i say i need to change a few things on the next one... as u can see the pee runs down and stained the bottom doors, also into the lower bunnies feeders... they also always poo at the back and it gets stuck in the tight spot from the angle, so ultimatly i think i will make it flat and put a clean out tray on it... 24'X36" is a good sized cage for a bunnie, but how my doors are situated it makes it hard to grab them when they are in the back corner, and guess where they decide to go when i try to grab them lol also rabbits chew wood... dirty buggars lol
what im gonna run into soon is space... like fox said, it dosent take a couple rabbits long to become 30 rabbits, and they like to eat lol
nice looing bunnys but I have never seen them staked with one cage on top of another like that .not sure that's a good idea ,,My uncle raised hundreds of them and had all the cages at shoulder height hanging from the ceiling ,with wire bottoms ,,easy to clean ,,easy to access ,but if it works for you ,,D
well thats why i have a board on a angle so pee and poo runs down out of the way, dosent fall onto the bunnies below... designed it like that to utilize limited indoor space...
heres the setup at the rabbity i got my champ'dagent from
https://www.facebook.com/hotbunsrabb...type=1&theater
i need to sell a few bunnies before i can get a setup like that haha
Thanks Steve , good looking set up. My boy would love to raise some but unfortunately the wife is dead set against it as she always had pet rabbits growing up as a kid and to her rabbits are friend not food.
I will grab some pictures tomorrow, we moved them outside today, the confined garage was giving my asthma issues, outside I am fine but in a confined space I guess I am allergic to them.
We have individual hutches with runs attached, 5'x2' in total for each rabbit.
Here is a hutch/run setup outside for one of the rabbits, I built hay feeders today but they have J feeders on the back of the hutch as well. We will be going with water bottles and crocks at the moment as it is still getting too cold at night for just water bottles.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...y%20Feeder.jpg
Here is the setup for the 4 rabbits that we have so far. They are beside the house for ease for us, they will be moved back onto the back acre after things warm up and dry up a bit.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i4...ow%20melts.jpg
Very good point and keep in mind to clean pruners with rubbing alcohol before pruning the next tree to prevent disease transfer.Quote:
Originally Posted by scarkner
I like your rabbit condo's. I always wanted to raise meat rabbits but my father in law had a butcher shop and I could get rabbit any time I had a hankering for it. The landscape in your backyard looks familiar . Is it the Oxford Mills area or Bishops Mills ?
Oxford MillsQuote:
Originally Posted by yellow dog
Nice setup Fox.
I like that I can move individual rabbits around and keep them in the shade.
All lids and access have raccoon proof latches (2 actions to open), including spring hooks on the wood lids and spring close snaps on the wire.
I still want to paint the outside of the hutches white to reduce the heat for the summer but that will not happen for a little while yet.
how you making out fox? any kits yet?
i just had 11 more yesterday... was her first litter so hoping she takes care of them... so far she has... she started making the nest at day 20 so she definately has the instinct... my other litter is now 9 weeks old and 5 lbs each. 2 more rabbits due in the next 2 weeks... gonna go broke feeding them lol
I have one litter of 13ish that is a 9 days old, another litter of 11ish at 7 days old and the last doe had her first litter this morning, there is about 10 in her litter total but 2 died at birth.
It looks like the first 2 had 14 each but the one lost 1 and the second lost 3 at birth.
I have not been able to do a proper count as they are really squirmy and the moms are a little nuts, I was bit through my coat and into my skin by the one, ha ha.
They are eating more but I would not say going poor. I had 1 guy at the gun club as me about buying some, a couple friends want to buy some and family as well.
The plan is to keep 2 does from the first 2 litters, they are from an outside buck and that will give me 5 does and 1 buck, if I need a different buck I can get my does studded by a neighbour.
Things are starting to work out.
wait till the little ones start eating... with 6 of them at 6 weeks old they were eating a full J feeder of food a day...
i picked up another buck, hes a pure bred NZW, so gonna try some pure bred NZW's, see which buck throws better litters... if i cant sell any rabbits wont be keeping this many rabbits for myself. i also had people say they would buy rabbits when ready, so far no takers lol
probably this weekend i will put the first couple in the freezer, and let a couple more fatten up
After about 5lbs the growth rate flattens out.
I met 3 people this past week who want rabbits at 8 weeks, if I can sell 30 over the entire year at $15 each I will not pay a dime for food for the 6 that I keep around. My goal is to reduce my food costs and offset my hobby farm expenses, not trying to make money on this.
My thoughts are to have the rabbits, chickens, ducks and garden pay for themselves, if I can do that then my food becomes free off the property, cross your fingers I guess on that end.
Fishy, I am getting food at $0.56/kg or $0.25/lb in quantity from a commercial operation. At this point in a month with the 4 meat rabbits (3 pregnant) and 1 pet for the fiancee we are at 1 bag down, so about $15/month to keep them. If the fryers are a full bag a month, even 2, that is $30/month or $60 to take them to market weight. If I just keep them for the freezer I am well under $1/lb, not bad at all.
don't forget to weather in unexpected expenses due to weather or predators. I used to live off farmer's hobby farm/air rifle tag game land. I heard and saw chickens and ducks go missing due to predators; that hobby farm was well fenced too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Of course, you have to work all that in, but you cannot expect to lose nothing or everything, you have to work out costs as they come and develop data for the future.Quote:
Originally Posted by poltrojan
At this point in time I have minimal expenses (approx $700) total into full operations including a stash of food, hutches and runs with all feeder and waterers. This is for 6 mature production rabbits and 2 fryer cages/hutches as well as a quarantine and over 300lbs of feed sitting in the basement which is rodent free.
I need to get approximately 250lbs (100 rabbits) of meat to build back the expenses if I just have it in my freezer, or offset that by the cost of live sales at $15 each at 5lbs.
You will always have predators but you do what you can to mitigate that.
These cages are latched and locked and there is nothing else I can do.
I also don't plan on free ranging anything, that is just like throwing money away.
Did a count tonight, 13 alive from the first litter, 12 alive from the second litter and 6 alive from the third litter, 31 meat rabbit bunnies in total, day 10, 8 and 2 for the 3 litters.
One of the 6 from the third litter is a runt, it was in the back corner of the nest, I pulled it out and put it at the front and on top of the pile, we shall see how things all work out in the end.
oh here is an advise, not sure where you keep the food. but my previous landowner/hobby farmer had a shed of food.
she used an old non-working fridge or freezer and put it on the skid. the reason is so the rats/mice or other mammals won't chew their way through. pretty hard to do that through metal as opposed to wood.
The food bags I keep in the house.Quote:
Originally Posted by poltrojan
When I need food I have food grade buckets that I put it in and seal it with a lid in the garage. So far we have not had any rodent problems to the point of getting in the house or into the bins in the garage.
My plan for once we have a shed for animals is to use steel garbage cans with the feed in it but I do like the idea of old fridges or freezers, they are generally free, they do have seals that the mice can eat through though.
yes im looking at finding cheaper feed... herd the amish are around $12/bag, havent got over to them yet... currently going through about a bag every 2 weeks at $17... when i start bear baiting i may just buy a ton of feed, get half rabbit, half oats... my plan to is to break even on feed costs by selling rabbits... so far i have sold one at $10 lol hopefully be able to sell some more soon lol probably butcher my first one this weekend...
freezers are a great idea for storing feed... i just run out of space in a freezer pretty quick... rabbit pellets, chick starter, lay ration, alphafa cubes, sweet feed, duck grower, oats...
We had 2 get out of the nesting box yesterday and not get back in, they are fragile and lots of things can kill them, it sucks.
I get my feed from SW Ontario, I go down to see my parents and buy 4 bags. I have 4 still sitting in the basement, our wedding is in a month, maybe I can get dad to bring another 4 bags up with the car. He actually offered to come up with the truck and bring 30 bags but I hear that pellets can go stale and I don't want that.
Processed 21 yesterday, took me 5 hours in total, under 15min per rabbit on average, not bad for the first time.
The dress out weight worked out to about 2.25lbs on average with a high of just under 3lbs and a low just over 2lbs, these were rabbits around 5lbs, so 45-50% yield from live.
These were 11 and 10 week old rabbits, I was not able to get to them as soon as I wanted. I noticed that there was no real difference in weight from the 10 week old to the 11 week old, I guess I won't bother feeding them another bag for that last week.
With the feed it took to get them to weight and after dress out numbers I am right around $2.5/lb in the freezer without working through perfect math.
I ended up keeping 3 to boost my stocks so that would have made the numbers even better for me.
All in all this seems to be working out well and the wife really liked the rabbit with white wine sauce last night so things are going win/win.
We also have 22 babies now around a week old, another litter is due today so based on the last litter we should be at 30+ by this evening.
If anyone around Ottawa is looking for meat rabbits let me know, I sell live but I sell at a discount because of that.
Hey fox. If you are coming through toronto i would meet you up at a 401 exit and buy like four or five at a time frozen. We hunt them but farm raised taste so much better. Cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox
Unless I can get them to a legal slaughter house this cannot work, if you can take them live we could do that.Quote:
Originally Posted by flowerjohn
Have sold most mine off... found a buyer that has orders for a 1000 fryers a week :s bought all my stock i would part with... curently im ip to 5 breeding females 2 bucks and another one im rasing up... had a litter of 14 last week and 3 bred rabbits right now... had a false prego 2 weeks ago...
And 4 that are at 9 weeka right now... going in the freezer this weekend...
I had one that did not take, she made a nest and everything but did not have any babies.
We lost one runt but still have 20 young ones at 2 weeks old now, that is with 2 does.
We kept 2 does from the first batch which will have us up to 5 does.
If you don't mind me asking, what did they pay for the quota fryers? I saw someone around here but they were only going to pay $8 a rabbit, not worth it for me to sell them at that then buy meat back.
Sold mine at $10 each at 8 weeks old...
Had got a new buck... pure white new zealand... bred him with my first nzw and had thw false prego... same thing... built nest but no birth... second one also did not take... hopefully this time...
Better than here, at $8 each that gives me under $2 profit a rabbit and that is only if they produce properly.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
I will be trying this doe again but I want to get them all bred together in case there are issues, then I can move all the babies into cages together as well without having many problems.
The new does are about 3.5 months old now, so I will be breeding them once this year, at the end of the summer to see how they do before keeping them all winter.
So far i have bin covering costs and eating for free... when i sell rabbits i take the money and buy feed with it... so nothing comeing out of pocket... sold probably 30-40 rabbits now at $10-$15 each... alot of pet buyers actually...
Got a pair of ducks and she hatched out 15 ducklings and is laying eggs again now... eating well this winter :)
That is my plan, sell enough rabbits, chickens, eggs and veggies to eat for free.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishy steve
I don't count the initial cost setup though, that can be considered into the cost of doing business, ha ha