Growing up

[so lucky]

Have you ever figured up how much the meat costs per pound? I have chickens and I think the eggs cost me about $100.00 a piece! lol. Its a good thing the eggs are so tasty!

 

[hoodat]

How much per pound depends on a lot of factors. The cages are the most expensive part of the setup but if you buy the wire and make them yourself they aren't that bad once you consider how many years you can get out of a well maintained cage.
Since I have only myself to feed I keep only one or two does and raise on a small scale. The advantage to that is that I have to buy very little feed. I keep pellets around for emergency use but almost all of my feeding is done with greens. I grow red clover and broad leaf chicory plus a special strain of dandelion that is extra large. during our rainy season I can gather almost all of their food wild. I can get all of the burr clover, wild oats and prickly lettuce i need right within a few blocks of my house. At most it's only a short bus ride to several good patches I have spotted and harvest regularly. I only have to buy a little grain to supplement the protein. The money I spend on grain is pretty much paid for by the rabbit manure for my garden, so most of my food is free. The young rabbits I sell as pets help a bit with the expenses.
Selling the meat gets a bit involved since the laws on that are very contradictory so I don't bother except for the few people that feed their dogs and cats a raw food diet.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Hoodat - do you harvest the clover, chicory, and dandelions and dry it for hay or do you feed it green only? I have planted a new 80'x30' plot of red clover (mostly for winter cover) and I want to harvest in in the spring before I till it under. I would like to dry some for next winter too. I also have a new plot of white sweet clover on the dam and spillway of our pond for the honey bees. With most clovers a mowing once or twice a year is necessary for hardy growth and I would like to dry that also. I don't have experience with growing my own rabbit feed but I sure do want to start. Well, that's not entirely true . . . my rabbits eat lots of trimmings from the apple orchard, lots of veggies and greens from the garden, and lots of orchard grass. But I'm going to make a strong effort to store my own hay for winter use. The price of feed is going sky high - but it's still much cheaper than buying our meat at the store.

 

[Jared77]

Smiles what about tractoring them and putting them right over the clover and other green? Ive seen a few set ups that looked pretty successful. The tractors were rectangular shaped with one end closed off as a nest box. The sides were regular hardware cloth and the bottom had long metal strips that ran the length of the tractor so the greens could pop up through the tractor but the rabbits couldn't dig through. The metal strips were not thick either. I thought it was aluminum...? Im not sure. Not a ton of info on rabbit tractors. Most folks use them as a temporary pen, something they can put weanings in and give them a few hours of fresh grass and sunshine. I was trying to come up with a design that would hold them from weaned to processing throughout the spring/summer/fall.

I've thought long and hard about meat rabbits and I would want to tractor them to save on cage space and food costs. I figure I could rig up a drinker of some kind with a 5 gallon bucket to replenish the water source, and a feeder with some kind of hopper attached so they'd have access to pellets but from what I've read they'll hit the greens before the pellets.

I also have no interest in selling them, I just want to feed my family, and eat better/healtier and save money in the process.

Just thought Id share what I've had rattling around in my head for a while now since it came up in discussion.

 

[RustyDHart]

Nice rabbits...I really miss having the little ones in the nest boxes. I use to breed and exhibit Rhinelander rabbits. I'm just concentrating on the Bantams and sheep for now. Great photos!!!

 

[catjac1975]

They are so cute. We have eaten our own chickens, pigs, and beef. The bunnies might just be too cute for me to eat if they were my own.