Meat rabbits

[chinbunny]

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Depends on the rabbits. Th eones I had grew a lot slower.

i raise fancy show breeds. But i often meat out my culls. Florida whites also make a nice meat rabbit. they take a little longer to finish out, but don't consume as much feed as the larger breeds do.

 

[RabbitMage]

Pet peeve of mine: hybrid refers to different kinds of animals being crossed. Mules and wolfdogs are hybrids. Crossing two different breeds just gives you a crossbred animal and no 'hybrid vigor' should result.

 

[Teach97]

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interesting...not what I was taught in Animal Science 101.

 

[sens-5]

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i do have some.not sure about the breed i was told they were flemish i will try to take pictures and post them maybee someone here can help me out knowing there real breed i have 2 buck and 1 doe

 

[FlashPointFarm]

I used to raise rabbits. NZ's are the way to go, so are Californians. My NZ's always tended to be better mothers.

 

[dntd]

does anyone have a good brooder box, I read somewhere that some farmers use a sloped box so that the kits would fall back into the nest if accidently still on the mom, we used to lose kits in the cold weather do to attatched kits and thought this idea would work for our new rabbits.

 

[bagendhens]

a hybrid is mixing 2 animals form the same FAMILY but different species...ie a wolf and a domestic dog would be a hybrid, a zebra and a horse would be the zorse, a lion with a tiger, the tigon or liger...

breeding 2 animals of the same species but different BREEDS however creats a cross breed, crossbreeds are NOT hybrids and do not get the benefit of hybrid vigor...

a boxer crossed with a gsd would be a cross breed, they are different breeds but there both DOGS...therefore a mutt NOT a hybrid.
same goes for rabbits, a new zealand is a rabbit, a california is a rabbit, their offspring wil be a mix of both breeds but will still be RABBITS...

unfortunatly theres lots of false hype over hybrid vigor with all the "designer breeds" of dogs right now, "breeders" use the "hybrid" talk as a line to get buyers to think their "product" is better...when in reality the offspring unlike true hybrids tend to get all the FAULTS of both breeds.

if that makes sence at all...

so to recap,
2 different species = hybrid
2 different breeds = crossbreed
only true hybrids get the benefit of hybrid vigor.


ive been told flemmish dont make good meat rabits simply because they have too much bone to meat, there a LARGE rabbit not a meaty one...(like the english lop, there huge but there not very meaty considering their size.

ive been told, newzealands and californians and mixes of them make good meaties, ive also known one guy who uses a flimish buck on his rex x calis for a large meat rabbit with a larger luxurious hide (he uses the meat and hides) but says the meat form the flemish mix is never as good as the straight rex x calis.

standard rex bunnies make a pretty pet that can be good in the pot and a very nice craft hide if your looking for an all purpose type breed.