Many people start with rabbits on their homestead. They are great to start with if that is what you want. We were not thrilled having rabbits, here is the down and dirty of our experience with rabbits. I know some of you will say they are great and for you, they may be but they were not for us.
We were planning on breeding rabbits for meat. Then quickly realized that for a family of seven it would take to many at one time to feed us all. They do breed fast but getting them to freezer camp weight took a while and lots of food. The food was about 27 dollars for a fifty-pound bag and we went through that in almost two weeks. I would not have been cost effective for us to raise rabbits. If you could use two rabbits for a meal it would have been great I believe but the four rabbits we had would almost feed us one meal.
The great thing I liked about rabbits is the fact that the manure could be used right away on the garden around the plants as it was cold fertilizer, not like chicken manure which has to compost down because it is considered hot fertilizer. We had 4 New Zealand rabbits and I believe it is the most common for homesteading. I am not saying they are not right for you, we will have to try them and figure that out for yourself. For us, they were not the right type of animal for our homestead. We are thinking of goats and/or sheep and maybe some pigs and a mini cow for milk and meat. For a new homesteader research your animals and learn what you can and then get some and see how they do for your homestead. Every animal is not for every homestead. You have to find the right fit for you and your homestead. Thanks, everyone and have a great night/day, whatever it is in your neck of the woods!
@steemitbloggers
Congratulations @basicstoliving! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
SteemitBoard and the Veterans on Steemit - The First Community Badge.
We have a few rabbits to supplement our other meats, not as an only meat because you are right, you need a lot to feed a family. So we rotate what we eat be it chicken, duck, turkey, pork, lamb or rabbit.
Yeah, it seems when we cook rabbit it is all everyone wants. LOL
So we have a place to get some when we want it, still cheaper than feeding them till they are big enough.
@cecicastor do you have your post about animals ready for tomorrow??? I hope to see you there :)
I will be there, my post isn't ready yet. I have had a few busy days and I am behind. The story of my life! LOL
I just need rabbits to feed my cat. ;)
Awesome post :) I agree not everyone would be thrilled to raise rabbits for food as the processing takes time and the feed is expensive :)
That was the kicker for us, it takes lots of feed to raise rabbits and then the processing time for so little meat.
You can find the community announcement on Discord :) and it has also been shared on our Steemit Bloggers FB Page and Twitter feed.
We have only ever had rabbits once but as pets.
One died within 3 days, and the other after a year or so
The rabbit's person (my daughter) cried for days because it was her first pet...
I know this is not a homesteading story, but I can only imagine the kids getting attached to food we raise haha
I have to say, homesteading is really inspiring, thank you for sharing @basictoliving
We teach them what an animal means to us and get them to understand what it is for and they are good with that. We just got lucky in that aspect of things I guess.
This post is sponsored by @SteemitBloggers in collaboration with @appreciator. Just keep up the good work.
Too bad I don't eat rabbit meat coz they are too cute to be eaten. But thank you for sharing this :)
They are cute but they are really tasty too. You would not believe how mean those little cute things can be though.
Ooohhh we have rabbit satays (barbequed meat on sticks) here and they are tasty!!! But oh dear the homesteaders sure took a long time to breed them to supply the meat.
Great post and supporting your from #steemitbloggers!
I had those when we lived in Mexico, at least that is what we were told they were. LOL. They are really good!
We had rabbits once upon a time too. Not my favorite homestead animal to have. I prefer chickens as they are multi-purpose (eggs then the freezer or soup pot). Rabbits are only there for stews and a nice smothered in gravy meal.
Chickens are great because of that. I like rabbits but it is not really that cost effective in my viewpoint to raise rabbits. I agree with you on chickens, processing them are a pain though. LOL
We had someone who lived "up the road a-ways" that did our butchering of the chickens. They charged us $1 for each bird.. that included (obviously) slaughter, plucking and putting in plastic freezer bags. We paid the fee and always gave them about six butchered birds. He was an elderly man and his wife was disabled.. so this was their income (processing chickens, ducks, turkeys, etc) and I know they were grateful for the birds for food.
If you find someone like that it is a great thing. Helping each other is the way to go. It builds a strong community and also helps the community. I think nowadays it is hard to find someone like that though, unfortunately. Growing up the community around my grandparents place was like that too.
Like the generational homes... three generations under one roof (aka The Waltons) <--- LOVED that TV show!
I used to live near a family like that. Grandma got the kids ff to school on the bus, dad and grandpa were out in the fields by sunrise and mom was off at work.
Yeah, The first years of my life we lived in a mobile home on the property of my grandparents. That was the best years of my life.
Funny, I never considered the possibility of rabbits for homesteading. We had them as pets when I was little, and again (for a short while) when I was older - the second time, even though they belonged to a sibling, cured me of ever wanting them again. LOL!
Thanks for sharing this experience - definitely food for thought... 😉 😊
Oh, and congrats on the #steemitbloggers member boost!
Thanks! I know a lot of homesteaders that do not consider them as a food source for the homestead. They are really easy to breed and produce lots of meat but it is expensive to feed them and maintaining an enclosure that they can not dig out of is hard sometimes.
Yep, definitely makes sense. 😊
We had Californians for several years and just recently got a few New Zealand rabbits. It sounds like your feed is much more expensive than ours. We just get the generic feed and is cost around $14 dollars. I think we checked several years ago and found that it took about one 50# bag of feed to get a baby rabbit at weaning to 12 week butcher weight. We haven't seen if there is a difference between the Californians and New Zealands though, but it sounds like something we should check into.
The rabbits we got would only eat one certain food so we had to get that food for them. I do not think that New Zealand's put on as much weight as the Californians do. It was surprising to me that they ate as much as they did. Raising them and keeping them in a non-dig out enclosure would have been to hard and expensive to maintain here as we have soft sand here.
This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
Lovely bunnies! Use to have 2 but sadly they got ransacked by neighbors dogs. :-(
Yes, That is one of the problems here too. Sorry about your rabbits!
Yes, That is one of
The problems here too. Sorry
About your rabbits!
- basicstoliving
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
So you are saying I am a poet and don't know it! LOL
I prefer Chickens! Enjoyed reading about rabbits. 🐓🐓
Yes, I think chickens would be much better. When we get things built here, as that has become the priority right now, That is what we will be getting first.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Basics To Living (Mike) from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.