My Rabbit Journey~New Pics pg 17

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Ok here are the pictures of my waste collection on one of my hutches, the other hutch has this design too but it isn't finished yet (it's not at my house, its at our meat co-op families home.). I cleaned well over a week ago, so it looks messy now. I do a spray cleaning every so often to get the urine crystal build up off the catcher, but since it gets the rabbits wet and moving them is stressful I didn't do that this time.


Front:

Back:

Semi-side view:

 

[wolftracks]

I need to move mine and spray the cages, but been soooo cold lately I just can't do it. It's supposed to be a little warmer the nect few days, so I'll have to do it for sure then.


Smiles-N-Sunshine do you have pics on any threads here? I really need more worm farming info. Lost track on the mill worm farming thread, but it would be nice to make a couple of bucks on worms and poop. LOL

 

[muddylilly]

Hi all,
fairly new here, mostly expecting to find bird related info sharing, but pleasantly suprised to find the rabbit thread. I've been raising meat rabbits now going on 2 years. It's been a rewarding learning experience, not to mention the yummy dinners (we had Caccitore last night), and no real problems thus far......knock wood! I've been lucky enough to have a local mentor "walk me through" a lot of the start-up.
Jamie....nice to see another western WA person here

I'm located in the Skagit Valley! What can you tell me about your "meat co-op" you mentioned in an earlier post? I've been curious about how it works, and maybe starting one up myself.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Hi Muddylilly

Nice to see another local here too. The meat co-op is just a few families that I know with like-minded views on food. We also did a pork co-op and veggie garden co-op this past spring/summer. I was the one to do the recruting of the families, I got to know them through church mostly. The rabbit co-op will be the longest running to the one's we have done so far. My friends were interested in "getting in" on some meat but didn't want the hastle or responsibility when they didn't really know where to start. We worked it out this way: They took my largest hutch (four separate sections) and they keep our buck and feed him year round. I keep one or two does at my house and transfer the kits over to them when the kits reach 6 weeks of age. The friends take over at that point and raise the litters to 12 weeks. They buy their feed and I buy mine and we split the litters 50/50. We have the option of eating or selling our portion of the litters.

If I wanted more people to do this with I would use word of mouth or do a "cattle call" on a local bulletin board.

 

[muddylilly]

Thanks for the info Jamie. Sounds reasonable. I have a few friends that are interested, but mostly I find that they are just interested in the final product....Ha, ha....go figure

As you know, rabbit is easy to care for, and fairly cheap to raise....if you assume you are only raising for yourself and so your own labor isn't figured in, AND you enjoy the high quality meat. I remember when I special ordered rabbit from the grocery in order to make sure we would actually eat it, how expensive it was! Glad to have the hutches full now!
I think that for most of my friends, the obvious "oh they are so cute" is what stops them. I suppose I should have been European! My friends are always eager to find out what I'm "up to" next.

I even got a few of them to try some fresh goat's milk cheese!
Renee

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Quote:
Mmmmm fresh goat's milk sounds heavenly. I get the same comments from friends and family. In fact, my In-Laws thought I was pretty crazy for a while..that was until they tasted their half a hog that we raised together

 

[muddylilly]

Ha! Isn't that the truth about the response after they taste it. I think sometimes friends and family believe I am just trying to be a hippie-wanna be. Really, for me anyway, it's about health, environmental responsibility, happens to be pretty cost effective in some ways, but mostly it's about taste..........HEY wait a minute......maybe I am a hippie wanna be? Oh well, so be it. Happy Solstice everyone!

 

[Dead Rabbit]

Quote:
Thank you! We butchered them today, they were both just over 4 pounds @ 16 weeks old -- that is dressed weight. We are really happy with this combination. I found it harder to kill these two pretty girls, but that's 8 more pounds of meat than we had yesterday

no offense intended. but, at 16 wks of age a good meat rabbit should be about 8 lbs apiece. with a good hybrid cross they should be hitting 6-7 lbs at 12 wks of age. ive found a good cross is the NZ X Amer. chin. or NZ X Calf. but even a pure NZ will get up to weight at 12 wks of age.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Quote:
Thank you! We butchered them today, they were both just over 4 pounds @ 16 weeks old -- that is dressed weight. We are really happy with this combination. I found it harder to kill these two pretty girls, but that's 8 more pounds of meat than we had yesterday

no offense intended. but, at 16 wks of age a good meat rabbit should be about 8 lbs apiece. with a good hybrid cross they should be hitting 6-7 lbs at 12 wks of age. ive found a good cross is the NZ X Amer. chin. or NZ X Calf. but even a pure NZ will get up to weight at 12 wks of age.

No offence taken. Those 16 week olds were between 6-7.5lbs Live weight. The weights I gave were dressed weight, fully cleaned without the weight of the liver, kidneys or heart. I am satisfied with my dressed weights. At 12 weeks my dressed weights are between 3-3.50lbs average.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

my apologies. thats what i get for not paying attention. yes. those weights arent bad. im glad your enjoying raising rabbits and building up your rabbitry. its something that needs to be done more so in this country.

this yr i sold most of my fryers to individuals that wanted breeders for their personal use. they all wanted to get into raising rabbits for their own consumption. i was glad to see this happening. i had only one shipment of 20 fryers to the processor for my entire season of raising them. yet the processor had been calling me wanting/needing fryers or culls to fulfill their own orders......... this shows me there is quite a growing interest in this type of healthy meat. not only in upper end restaurants but in backyard use too.