Raising Meat Rabbits For Beginners
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ต.ค. 2022
- Raising rabbits for meat isn't really that difficult. But if you are just getting started you need to know the basics and what to expect. In this video I try to cover that for you.
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This is one of those videos you keep saved just for future reference no matter how seasoned you are with raising rabbits. Thank you for so much information in one spot!!! I love all your videos but this one will be my forever go-to now.
Thank you so much for the kind comments.
Absolutely!!
A true teacher of his passion will always reveal himself... Thank you for all you shared with us
the BEST wire floor is PVC coated half inch square mesh.. Tractor Supply carries it.
Rabbits chew on everything. They can nibble at it and swallow the pvc....
Just had my minds eye flipped from chickens to rabbit and that tarp system is beautiful. So simple yet sooooooooooo ingenious.
Lot of info, straight to the point. Thank you for taking the time to make this video. I really think videos like this will save lives as food becomes an issue at some point. More people trying to become more self sustainable. Thanks again.
We are first time raising rabbits for food. Neither of us came from families who produced their foods so this is so new to us both. I love your attitude. I really like how you get down to business. Rabbits are a great source of protein and can be done in a backyard setting. This is by far the best rabbit butchering I have seen thus far. Thank you. As long as we are able to get ammo, we will use that. It is good to know about the bopping method though. We just aren’t quite up to it yet, but in a pinch ….
Thank you for watching. I am glad to hear that you found it helpful.
Butchering is the key word
Butchering is the key word
@@amandareyneke5596 hater detected
Love the quail roosters in the background! Watched this gentleman for quail info too before I got them. Always super helpful! Thank you!!
I even built his 3x8 quail hutch. It was a solid build and the quail LOVE the sand side!
I used his " build with me" hutch video and it was wonderful! 64 eggs in the incubator now. Oh the potential!
Seriously the most informative video and I have been searching for days!!!
Thanks for the "refresher" video. This came at the perfect time for us. I (the mom of the family) have raised rabbits off and on most of my life, but we haven't had rabbits for breeding in the last 3 yrs. My older boys (11 & 13) are now just building a breeding program with the intention of providing part of our family's meat source.
This is a well rounded, informative video for us to save and use as reference in the future, not just today.
Thank you so much for the kind comments. I am glad to hear that you found it helpful.
Great video! I’ve recently started having some interest in raising rabbits. I don’t have any plans yet, but you have some great points and information in this video! Thank you! Keep up the good work 👍
Love the quote on the shirt, and I'd of quoted it back at him if he were still alive and he found me smoking weed.
Thanks! I have watched a few rabbit videos and everyone forgets to say HOW you breed them, bring the doe to the buck. I mean, it's probably something that you don't even think about once you know....but it's something you HAVE TO KNOW!
Good information here, I appreciate it greatly!
Flemish giants need hay at all times for sitting on in a wire cage. The extra weight will cause sores on the feet. I breed a giant mix for meat rabbits. One end of the cage always has hay to sit on. I stopped having issues when I started setting it up this way.
Where are you located ? Im looking for a couple Flemish giants and having a hard time finding them
@@kimcovington4395 In Oregon. I have had a hard time finding non related rabbits. Giants have large size but in the growth stage they eat double to triple what another breed eats. I have found 1/3 Giant is about right to get larger animals but not so much food.
Been watching you for a few years when I started breeding rabbits. I see you went to Silver Fox now. I started with Californians, then New Zealand's and now then switched to Silver Fox this year. Thanks again for all your wonderful videos.
So awesome to find your channel... Found it by your quail content and totally wanted to have both quail and rabbits for meat. You're totally the one stop shop ! Thank you for the content.
Thank you so much for the kind comments. I am glad you are finding the content helpful.
Fantastic video. You have so much knowledge, and you are very good at sharing what you know in a way that anyone can understand. You should be a teacher.
And God bless you as well!
Excellent video! Thank you for all the great information over the years you have been doing this! As always, God bless
Thank you for watching. I am glad you liked it.
The wild snow shoe hairs up here in Montana are HUGE!!! I want to catch a breeding pair of them!
Thanks for the complete run down. Great new video, Chris! Traded my 6 mo old doe for a pregnant NZ White. New breed for me... The fun never ends!
Awesome. Good luck with your new rabbit.
Hey Chris. Nice looking Silver Foxes! Production values aside, I found your old cage video very helpful when I was learning about building cages.
Good video, thanks for sharing. Cheers!
Thank you so much. I am glad to hear that you still found that video helpful and were able to make it through it all. :)
Its been quite a long time since you've done rabbits video!!
Always fun
I was without rabbits a while. But I have new rabbits now so you can expect some more rabbit videos to come.
We had 400 angora rabbits for their wool, my uncle took care of them and groomed them for their wool. Flemish giants were talked about by my dad.
Your uncle had some amazing husbandry skills . Angora rabbits are a post-graduate course!
I jokingly told my gf I was going to go on Craigslist and find all the “free rabbits to a good home” ads to start a meat rabbit project 😂😂😂😂 I wouldn’t actually… maybe as breeders though LOL
Lmfao! That’s good shit.
Thats a bit dark. Let the poor pets find a home. Last thing the people who need to get rid of theirs is for someone to just eat it
@@Batchat2352 that’s why it was a joke. But honestly even if I did I’d probably give them a better home as breeders than some kid keeping it in a cage and never cleaning it. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna eat anyone’s pet 🤣
I've grabbed couple before for snake food 🤫
My uncle raised fryers when i was a kid and my aunt was the best at rabbit stew with brown gravy. Yum. He ran a very clean process and I don't remember anyone ever getting sick from their cooking. My uncle is in his eighties now and he still has a huge garden every year and you would swear the guy was only maybe in his 60's. He's a handsome and hard working man.
Lots of good, practical info. Thanks!
Thank you so much for all this fantastic information.
So very helpful!!
Thank you for watching. I am glad to hear that you found it helpful.
Thank you. Blessings. Great info. Good review also there is always a new nugget.
Thank you so much. I am glad you liked the video.
I like to put a piece of PVC board in the bottom of the nest box to help with warmth, and it is easy to clean.
Good video! Thanks for sharing the knowledge!
Fantastic. A ton of useful information...thank you.
Tried the colony idea. After cleaning numerous wounds I now understand why people use cages. I now use individual pens with space for each. Good point about being on the ground and parasites.
I know what you mean. I have seen a few people that make it work but only a few.
Great video, Chris.
Thank you.
Thanks for the fantastic information!
Just doing my research. Thank you for all the great information 😀 I'm in middle Georgia. I need to find out the best breed for my area.
Thanks so much!, you helped with so much information
Appreciate the video and I love your shirt! Nice to know that you're on the right side.
Excellent, concise, information. 👌👍
Great rundown! While I appreciate the more detailed videos I also like the good overall rundown you've got going here.
Thank you. I am glad you liked it.
Gracias men for all this information god bless u
I've begun raising rabbits in Philippines and surprisingly, they've had no health problems for 3 yrs.
I build my cages 30"x 36"x 24" with 16 guage, galvanized ½" wire mesh with 2 installed feeder bins and auto waterers. I feed one handful of feed pellets per rabbit in early morning and late evening.
I built a 5-cage condominium growout cage, where they have greater movement and enjoyment.
No way! I always take the Buck to the Doe. My Bucks are my pets. Doe's are territorial and will bite if messed with.
I raise a NZW/Brazilian cross.
Proper handling of rabbits is necessary. You grab by the skin the neck (never by rhe ears) and craddle like a baby on it's back.
Avocado oil is not toxic, it's second only to olive oil.
One doe can typically produce an average of 30, 1.5 kg friers per year.
I don’t have a channel for myself but your videos inspire me to
Awesome video. Subscribed instantly.
I did the colony. Out of 15 rabbits lost them all but 2. Perfect health to dead in 12 hours. One by one.. went back to cages. And the last 2 have survived the last year and are breeding well. Sticking to cages.
I am sorry to hear that. That is the reason I use cages as well. Hope it is all going well now.
Maybe your rabbits got rabbit hemorrhagic disease
@@iruwild it was something they were getting from the yard. As soon as I put a stop to the colony free roam set up ..and kids playing in the grass with the rabbits . They stayed alive.. went back to good ole cages. No problems after all that
Thankyou so much! I just had my first litter. She was pregnant when I got her.
Great tips, thasnk so much! and nice tshirt :D 😊
Very helpful, thank you
I am glad to hear that. Thanks for watching.
Great information, I recently started rearing the new Zealand whites and one died 😢. I believe it was the caging that caused it. So I decided to change their cage and get the galvanised wired one. Though it's a bit expensive, I know it's better, and with your video am convinced I made the right decision. I was concerned about their feet and the wires, your suggestion about using tiles is just perfect.I was wondering why,they didn't make babies? After she had a miscarriage and the next ones died. Now I know they were overfed! Thanks for all the useful information.
One of my favorite breeds of meat rabbits are Florida Whites. They are a bit smaller weight wise but have a smaller bone structure and dress out with about as much meat as a New Zealand per a pound of feed used. Smaller rabbits need smaller cages and less feed for the same production. Not easy to find as other breeds but they can be found and are well worth it when you do.
When you discussed how well adapted the rabbits were to living in cages and how they want to go back inside after being outside the cage I could only think of America right now. We love being in our cages ruled over by big brother. It took generations to breed the wild freedom loving genes right out of us but they did it.
Same
Yep. Love that T-shirt quoting Ronald Reagan!
Why do you depressed losers have to make EVERYTHING about politics? My god, stop commenting.
We aren't rabbits.
There have always been people who prefer to stay in their house, and there have always been those who prefer to go on adventures.
From what I have seen, that hasn't changed.
Humans have the domestication traits.
Great Video!!
Love your shirt!
Keep up the Good work. May God Bless
Thank you so much.
great vid! Thank you!
Thank you for info!!!
Excellent video -
Hi my name is David I live in Redmond Oregon Central Oregon we are going to have chickens and I also want to do meat rabbits. So thank you for all your info and you captured me at the very end with God bless. Thank you my brother in Christ. I just subscribed to your channel
Great Video thanks!!
Great video, Question. At six weeks when you separate the does from the bucks, do you need a separate cage for each rabbit, or do you just group the does and the bucks together in separate cages for the remainder of the time till harvest? Thank you for you attention to this question!
Florida white are a slighly smaler breed but have a great meat to bone ratio. They are basically a solid block of meat. Litters of 6-8 kits (babies) aren't as big as New Zealands ( up to 11 😮) so butcher day isn't so overwhelming.
Excellent video
Wow! Great video. Thorough and obvious experience and easy to understand and follow. Thank you!
I love the nesting box idea. This is a great video.
Very good thank you 😊
Love the shirt.
Thanks. It is one of my favorites too.
Thanks great info👍
thank you for the kind comments. And thank you for watching.
I raised rabbits for a couple of years when I was a kid but I cleaned their hutches daily and they were super cute as pets. I sold quite a lot of them. The main part was wire and there was a wooden box they could go into thru a hole but we built our own.
I do the tile thing to m our rabbits love laying on them to cool off.
Good information ty
I just realized that you had a weekly live podcast. I have watched a lot of your videos and I will tell you I have enjoyed them tremendously. I have a 4 month old pure bred New Zealand and a trio of Tamuk that are all unrelated and around 3 months old. I do want to put meet in the freezer but would like to sell some to recoup some of my expenses. These should be at butcher weight around 10 weeks. If someone wants one as soon as it is weened, what should the cost be compared to butcher. 50 percent, 60 percent? What do you think. Thanks. Happy Easter and God bless. CLR Arkansas
Love the shirt
Ton of excellent info. New subscriber. I’ve got an multi story old stone building. Would that suffice. I hear rabbit meat sells in the $8 per pound range. Love the channel
Sore hocks are a genetic issue. Basically, they are pressure sores, caused by lack of a good fur coverage. Rabbits that don't groom their hocks are prone to them as well.
If you buy a rabbit with sore hocks, brush the hocks out with a pin brush, apply tamed iodine. Once healed, if hair growth is not dense enough to completely hide the skin, it should not be kept in the breeding program.
Also, triggered by obesity and/or lack of bone
Two Questions- you showed your wire nesting boxes; do you ever have a problem with the kits getting their little legs caught because they burrow to the bottom?
Also, my one doe had her first litter and she refused to feed them, we couldn’t tell until the second night when they didn’t look as good, the third morning they all died one after the other. We tried to supplement but I think they were too weak to bounce back. Is there anything we need to do to help her with her next litter? Or was it just a first time fear of hers?
Thank you for all your great information!
Thank you
I flipped the calendar to Uncle Eddie, while watching this video.🤣🤣
lol. It took me a minute to figure out what you meant by that. :)
Lol! I changed the page, and just had to comment.🤣
Solar panel fans for rabbits in summer works great
That is a good idea.
@@Slightlyrednecked Amazon
I use 1” x 1/2” on my entire cages. I have Rodent and snake problems so I wanted to prevent that. Had a wood rat squeeze into an old hutch with 1” x 2” wire and ate an entire litter of babies. I refuse to use anything else other than 1” x 1/2”.
35:10 now that you mention all of the potential problems that could be introduce into your rabbit fluffle, maybe it would be worth having a quarantine cage so you can monitor their health before bringing them near the others? This is what I used to do with my fish tanks whenever I added new fish to the community.
I just wanted to check with someone. I was thinking about trying a breeding program that would make my does have 3-4 litters a year is that too much and if yes what program is better?
Good point about cold vs hot weather! I'm thinking of setting up a. . . wood frame(? for lack of a better term) for hanging a 2x9' cage row under my unused gazebo. I can't afford caging wire quite yet, but do you think it would make sense to build a quick cardboard model of a cage, for scale, and see how it fits in the gazebo? Or is there a way to do the math without needing to make a model. . .?
I am not really sure what you are asking. You should be able to just measure the space and figure out from there if the cages will fit. Not sure how to explain that better but hope that helps.
Morning just watch ur video, great info! What a bout processing and sales? I know they differ from state to state! How do you sale to the general public? Live rabbits? Send to a processing plant?? I’ve started research here in my areas , but currently I’m just raising for my consumption.
I sell a few baby rabbits from time to time but I don't sell processed rabbits currently. I know that there are some laws about it but I haven't really looked into it in detail so i can't really answer questions about that. Sorry.
My favorite cage dimensions are 24" deep by about 4' wide -- I'm short, and have short arms, and I have even more trouble reaching to the back of a 30" cage than you do! I like to have a fairly wide door on the cage, too, so it's easier to reach all the back corners.
I like your shirt.
I have some dog cages id like to convert to rabbit cages. Do you think I could I line it in 1/2 inch hardware cloth or is the to thin of gauge for the bottom? I was thinking with the 1/2 inch holes it wouldn't really matter as much..
Can you just use a cardboard box with the top cut off for a nesting box and replace it with each litter? I'm just wanting one or two does to start so not a huge operation
Nice Tshirt!
thanks
How are your rabbits are doing in this terrible cold?
Can you share where you bought your wire? I've had a hard time finding wire that is the right gauge.
Do you have any suggestions as far as feeding rabbits without buying pellets? I've got a good sized garden with a fair amount of excess squash and such.
I would suggest checking out the book "Beyond the Pellet". It can walk you through what is needed. Sorry I can't give you the specifics but I will say that most vegetables should be treats and not part of their main diet. You would be mostly feeding fodder like alfalfa, wheat, or something similar.
right. I free range in garage &?they just lay together most of the time
I have 1doe like floor puzzle doesn't eat my others did large breeds need tiles
Also I've 6month buck no testicles
Meat rabbits are also really calm and are not as energetic as bunnies or pet rabbits. I once built a 100 sqft barn for all my rabbits (I personally don't like cages as it is hard to get the rabbit out of there and they always crap in the corners and it is hard to clean off) but they would just choose like one small area next to a food bowl and litter box and stay there for hours I rarely seen them roam around. It is also easier to control the climate
Do you have a video on how to build the rabbit cages?
Hi Chris! This video came at the best time. Watched it the other day, but my 1st time mom had her babies last night. My concern here, she has 9 kits in there! That seems like an awful lot? All appear big and healthy. Am I worried for nothing?
I think this is the question I responded to on the live broadcast last night. But just in case, 9 is nothing to worry about. That is a good size litter.
@@Slightlyrednecked yes that was me. Well Brad and I actually. Thank you. I also did try to put all the babies in the back nest and those little boogers started crawling right back up to get to the front! Guess that's where they wanna be.
Reconciliation on pellets on protein to grow them out and I’m around Ok/Ks/Mo corner do you have anyone u recommend for getting rabbits from ??
Unfortunately I don't have a good source of breeder rabbits in the area. I feed my rabbits 19% protein that I get from Turkey Creek Feed in Joplin MO.
i am trying to plan out my cage system an have 2 hopefully simple questions. 1 does 24'' x 48'' sound ok for size( i ask because i see most are 30 x 36 ) any potential problem with skinny long cage? 2. I also hope to use "rabbit fence 16g 28" high for sides( top n bottom 14g wire just sides 16g wire) as i found it for a real good price, any potential issue you can think of giving them that much hieght in thier cages?
For your dimensions, you'd want 2
Doors on the 4 foot side. One of the important things to consider is how far one can reach, and that reach also depends on how high off the ground the cage floor is.
I bought a heater looks like frizbie under water bucket electric
I bet that works great. As long as the rabbits don't chew the cord.
I live in upper new York it gets pretty cold
My uncle raised a large family keeping rabbits.
really like leaving the tale to be cut last to get end treals out
“He’ll do his thing, and then he’s gonna seize up and fall over” lmao