NAVIGATION
I started raising rabbits for meat on my homestead because it’s easy, takes minimal time, and provides quick turn-arounds in tasty, lean meat, rapid production, and opportunities for profit. While fairly simple, meat rabbit breeding does require some knowledge about the best breeds for meat rabbits, how to ensure successful breeding, and how to house and care for your livestock.
Thankfully, I’ve picked up quite a few rabbit farming tips over the years — tips that have helped me raise breeding rabbits that consistently produce healthy litters.
Hi, I’m Ryan
When I first started raising rabbits for meat, I only had experience with raising chickens. I found that rabbits require less patience and work than chickens do, and they come with extra benefits. Here are my best tips to get you started!
Raising Rabbits For Meat In Your Backyard
Your goal for breeding rabbits for meat can be a simple homesteading hobby that provides you with delicious, healthy meat for your family, or a profitable business opportunity you can easily scale up to sell at farmers’ markets and the like.
I recommend carefully considering your primary and long-term goals before you get started rabbit farming, which will help you pick the right breed for your needs.
One thing I quickly learned is that rabbit meat is exceptionally lean, so it’s not my only meat source, because we need a bit more fat in our diets than rabbit meat provides.
Therefore, you’ll likely still purchase some other meats or raise more animals on your homestead to round out your monthly meal plan.
Steps To Successful Rabbit Farming
The hardest part about raising rabbits for beginners is the thought of processing these cute little fluffy animals for meat. If you can get past that, bunny farming is almost all benefits.
Benefits Of Backyard Rabbit Farming
- Ideal for small, medium, or large properties
- Minimal startup costs
- Healthy meat, and a lot of it
- Sustainable food source
- Requires minimal care
- Quiet and neighbor friendly
- Profitable when selling meat, pelts or organs
- Free manure that’s an excellent fertilizer
- Easy meat to process
You don’t necessarily need a lot of space to get into meat rabbit breeding, especially if you’re planning on keeping your operation fairly small. What you will need to do is plan for how you’ll house, feed, and care for your rabbits. I also highly recommend having a solid breeding plan from the start because rabbits reproduce rapidly.
How Fast Do Rabbits Actually Multiply?
The short answer is fast — very fast. An average rabbit doe has four to five litters every year resulting in 20 to 50 babies per doe per year, and her offspring will be ready to reproduce from between four and six months of age. With rabbit pregnancies/gestations only lasting around 31 days, and young rabbits reaching their ideal butchering weight by or before three months old, you can expect quick turnarounds with meat.
If you want to keep your rabbit farm small, you can control how many litters you have by separating your males and females. At the same time, their speedy reproductive rate is great news for you if you want to expand and bring in a profit.
If you’re new to raising rabbits for meat, I recommend starting small with two does and one buck. Starting with more than three rabbits can get overwhelming quickly when you’re just learning the ins and outs of meat rabbit farming.
Be cautious of buying adult does for your rabbit farm. Generally, people don’t sell adult does who are producing well, so starting out with some young bunnies that haven’t bred yet is best.
Step 1: Choose The Right Breeding Rabbits For Meat
When it comes to rabbit farming, the breeds you choose really do matter. Overly large breeds will take longer to grow and are more expensive to raise, as they eat a lot of food for a longer period of time. I recommend steering clear of Flemish Giants and Checkered Giants for this reason, as they both generally weigh well over 12 pounds.
Avoid purchasing former show rabbits. These rabbits are often housed in close quarters with sickly rabbits that still look show-worthy and can be carriers of disease.
Which Rabbit Breeds Should You Buy And Where Should You Buy Them?
My preference when rabbit breeding for food is to raise pure-bred, medium-sized rabbits (between 6 and 12 pounds). Mutts are cheaper and appealing to some homesteaders, but a good pedigree from a clean, well-run rabbit farm will usually get you the best meat, the healthiest rabbits, and the best buyers.
Best Breeds For Meat Rabbits
- New Zealand White: Weighing in between 9 and 12 pounds, this is the most popular meat rabbit in the United States because of the high quality of their meat.
- Californian: The second most-popular rabbit breed for meat, these rabbits weigh in between 8 and 10.5 pounds, though their pelts are too coarse to be sold.
- American: Averaging between 9 and 12 pounds, American rabbits produce good meat and pelts and are a fairly docile breed.
- Florida White: Running a bit small, between 4 and 6 pounds, this breed nevertheless has a great meat-to-bone ratio and is known as a hardy breed.
- Champagne D’Argent: Weighing between 9 and 12 pounds, these rabbits have fairly large litters and an excellent meat-to-bone ratio.
- Cinnamon: Both gentle and hardy, these rabbits weigh between 8.5 and 11 pounds, and, while they have gorgeous pelts, they tend to produce small litters.
- Silver Fox: Though they’re hard to find, Silver Fox rabbits weigh an average of 9 to 12 pounds, have medium-sized litters, and beautiful pelts.
- American Chinchilla: Medium in size (averaging between 9 and 12 pounds), these rabbits are known for their sweet temperaments, good meat, and high-quality furs, used often in glove and coat linings.
- Standard Rex: Averaging between 8 and 10 pounds, Rex Rabbits are known to produce good meat and fur.
- Palomino: Weighing between 8 and 10.5 pounds, these gentle rabbits are known for being great mothers, but they also have small litters.
Step 2: Choose A Housing Method For Meat Rabbit Breeding
- A colony setting where you let your rabbits live together in a communal area
- Hanging cages that utilize air space and hang at an easy-to-work-with height
- Stackable cages where you utilize vertical space to stack cages up from the floor
Another term you’ll hear is rabbit hutch. This generally describes a more spacious outdoor cage for a pet rabbit to enjoy, often made of wood. I’ve also heard this term used interchangeably with more commercial rabbit cages, though, so it really depends on what you mean by it.
While you can still keep your rabbits outside (in good weather) if you’re meat rabbit farming, the extra spacious, expensive hutches you’ll see pretty pictures of online aren’t super practical for breeding and raising litters.
I prefer sturdy metal cages, either hanging from an indoor/outdoor structure or stacked from the ground up. Remember, these rabbits are food, not pets. As long as they’re well cared for and in healthy living conditions, the aesthetic and extra space isn’t as important as a functional, streamlined system.
A functional setup will save you money, help you avoid getting too attached, and aid your ability to quickly expand your housing as needed while your rabbits multiply.
Step 3: Provide The Best Food For Meat Rabbit Breeding
The whole purpose of meat rabbit farming is to produce healthy, tasty meat, and the best way to do that is to pick the right food for your stock. Lactating rabbits need pellets with 16% to 18% protein to properly feed their young. The brand isn’t as important as the protein percentage, but avoid anything with corn or sweet feed in it (which is often fed to horses or goats), as these types of feeds are too fattening for rabbits. Stick with a feed designed specifically for rabbits when possible.
I always mix some good quality hay with my rabbit pellets to aid their digestive system, and I’ve found that rabbits love it when you throw in some treats like dandelions, carrots, and clover for tasty, nutritious snacks.
Step 4: Determine A Breeding Schedule For Your Homestead
Every homestead will time their breeding schedule a little differently, but if you’re going to raise meat rabbits, it pays to keep written records for each rabbit along with a calendar for which rabbits to breed when, expected due dates for litters, etc.
Considerations For Arranging A Breeding Schedule
- The age of your rabbits (they can begin breeding between four and six months of age)
- How many litters you want at once (up to 12 babies per litter, with an average of five)
- Whether you want to stagger your litters so they aren’t all born at once
- The age of your does and bucks, as well as which ones tend to produce well
- Any breeding issues you’re having with your bucks or does
- Gestation period (approximately 31 days of pregnancy)
- Frequency of each doe’s litters (she can breed again when her litter reaches four to seven weeks)
- Number of litters per doe in a year (each doe can have up to seven litters in a year)
Step 5: How To Breed Your Meat Rabbits
If you’re breeding rabbits for meat, you’ll always want to have more does than bucks, as one buck can breed with multiple does. You’ll want to ensure that you’re able to have a pregnant doe and a doe with a litter at the same time. Depending on your goals, you might never need more than three productive rabbits, as two does and one buck can produce up to 600lbs of meat in a year!
For the most part, breeding your rabbits is pretty straightforward. Does don’t go into heat; rather, their ovulation is triggered by stimulation, so they can breed at any time. If you put a buck and a doe together in the same cage, they should take care of matters for themselves.
Since does are territorial, I always move the doe to the buck’s cage, not vice versa. You can move the doe back to her cage after the buck has mounted her twice.
Reasons Your Rabbits May Not Breed
- Weight: If your rabbits are too fat or too thin (both a result of incorrect nourishment) they may struggle breeding or lactating. A change in their daily diet (see above) will take care of this problem.
- Temperature: If your bucks are too hot or too cold, they can become temporarily sterile, meaning that even if they’re going through the motions of breeding, they might not produce any litters. Moving your stock outdoors or indoors depending on the season and climate can help with this.
- Light: To be productive, bucks need eight to 12 hours of exposure to light (natural or artificial) in order to have good sperm. A doe needs a minimum of six hours of light to be fertile.
If your does aren’t getting pregnant on the first try, it often helps to bring a doe back to a buck’s cage around 10 hours after their first breeding session, since ovulation results from stimulation.
Choose To Slaughter Your Meat Rabbits Humanely
Processing meat you’ve raised is one of the less pleasant, but ultimately very practical homesteading skills out there. Farming rabbits for meat can be difficult for those who tend to get attached to animals, so try to keep everything as clinical, quick, and humane as possible. The most common ways to dispatch a rabbit are to quickly break its neck or to use a blunt object to strike its skull behind the ears.
Raising Rabbits FAQ About Caring For Rabbits
When you’re focused on raising rabbits for meat, keeping them happy and healthy while in your care is important. Here are a couple of the more frequent questions I get asked about taking care of my stock.
How Much Water Do Rabbits Drink Daily?
An 8-pound rabbit, for example, will need between 8 and 20 ounces of water in a day. The drier the rabbit’s diet is and the hotter the weather, the closer your rabbits will need to be to the top of that range.
Do Rabbits Need Shots?
Yes, rabbits do need shots to prevent diseases from spreading among your stock. Their first set of vaccinations is usually given at around five weeks of age, and they’ll receive their booster shots every six to 12 months after that if you’re keeping them for breeding and not processing them.
Whether you’re a beginner at raising rabbits or you’re shifting to a new venture of raising rabbits for meat, I hope you feel empowered to start a rabbit farm on your own property. You might live on a spacious homestead or have a small suburban backyard, either way, there’s almost always room for a few bunnies to produce healthy, tasty, nutritious meat for your family and community.
Your Turn!
- What are your favorite rabbit meat dishes?
- Have you had any success selling rabbit meat locally?
Leave a Reply