How to Start your Own Meat Rabbit Farming Business

How to Start your Own Meat Rabbit Farming Business

How would you like to have your own rabbit farm? 

And rabbit farming business running pretty fine this year?

I have shared some quality articles in the past on Rabbit Farming but right here I will be updating you with some quick and useful tips to help you get started and make profits in your rabbit farm business.

Some of you that are planning to get started with this business are used to asking questions like;

How lucrative is Rabbit Farming?

What Feeds do rabbit eats?

How can I make them grow fast? 

How many Rabbits do I need to get started?

How do I construct their cages and hutches?

All these will be address in this article and by the time you are done reading, you will be informed and educated on rabbit farming system, I particularly I have 5years experience in Rabbit Farming both Pet and the Real Business of Buying, selling, breeding and producing rabbit for meat and for market business in Nigeria.

Rabbit are very prolific and lucrative in Nigeria and some other countries like Ghana, South Africa and the rest of New York, Belgium, America, Australia and California.  

Though most Nigerians are yet to understand how the business works because they have not taken into consideration how the breeding goes; rabbit are simple and easy animal that can be versatile at times and require good attention, monitoring and care. 

One of the conditions that as improve rabbit farming and as made rabbit a nortable animal or interest to man is the fact that it converts green feeds and other kind of concentrate into body weight faster and this make it easy to produce more animal protein through Rabbit Breeding.

According to FAO, Nigerians are still consuming less than 18% protein in their total family meal on a daily basis.

One of the reasons for this is; there are more of carbohydrates food compare to protein produced and we can improve this by producing more protein of both animal and plant sources.

Rabbit is very easy to rear and it has high prolificacy which means they can produce many litters “bunnies – baby rabbit”

Normally an average rabbit grows into maturity within 3 to 4months making it easy to produce and breed a lot of rabbit within the shortest possible period.

Rabbit Feeding

Since Rabbits are simple stomach herbivores, Feeding is one of the major factors that determines their well-being and growth it also determine how healthy and productive they will be, rabbit feeds on wide ranges of feeds some of which includes, kitchen left overs, forages and vegetables, wheat, maize and most common vegetable cereals, rabbit can also feed on the concentrate of poultry birds.

For Commercial Rabbit production you must outline their feeding system and provide quality forages and concentrate feeds, rabbit concentrate feeds are often refer to as Pellet, rabbit forages includes; timothy grass, amarantus, aspilia Africana, centrosema spp, calopogonium, Emilia spp, guinea grass, elephant grass, pueraria phaseolodions, maize, corn, rice grain and some other animal edible feeds.

Rabbit are to be fed twice daily and a clean and neat water should be available to the animal always in their hutches and cages, Feed concentrate to the animals in the morning and green forages in the evening, rabbit digestive system makes it needful for them to have green grass and vegetables “majorly fibers” in their feed always because of the rumen system and their teeth the incisors are used for gnawing, which causes them to be worn-down after some time. 

This wearing down of the incisors is necessary to prevent them from growing too long, as their growth is continuous.

 If the incisors are prevented from gnawing, the upper and lower teeth will continue to grow in a curved manner and project like tusks, preventing the animal from biting.

Proteinous forages like calapo, potatoes and pueraria are very good for their growth but to foster their growth pellet concentrate is very important and this is recommended for commercial rabbit production. 

The protein content of feeds for dry Does and bucks should be 12 – 15% while that of pregnant does and nursing does is 16 to 20%.

Consult an animal nutritionist or animal feed experts and consultants to have a list of perfect meal formulae for rabbit concentrates.

Some other forms of feeds that can enhance the growth of rabbit and make you spend less are Rice Bran, Wheat Bran, Soya Beans and lots more are highly nutritious feeds for rabbit.

Rabbit Breeding

Rabbit breeding is easy and I will be sharing with you here on two aspects; reproduction and the overall breeding exercise. If you are starting out on a small scale base on your budget 5 to 10 rabbits is cool 5 does and 3 bucks, but if you are targeting growing a large scale commercial rabbit farm, starting with 20 to 50 rabbits can help you increase the number and make good farming within the shortest period.

Does are ready to mate for reproduction from their 4months and above,  While the does are getting ready it is good to increase the concentration and the level of protein in their feed so as to get them ready for the new intake, even as they go on oestrus cycle.

Always take the female rabbit “doe” to the male “buck” cage and not vice-versa so that the mating can take place without any form of interruption and the female can be pregnant for real because there are some instances where we have pseudo-pregnancy in rabbit, this is often caused by incomplete mating, let the doe spend up to 3days with the buck and separate them for 24hours before returning doe to buck again, let the procedure last for 7days or 10 as the case maybe, after which you separate the both sex and increase the feed for the doe.

Rabbit goes on gestation period for 30 to 31days in some cases they produce their bunnies on the 28day but this is not very common, rabbit feeds their bunny with their mammalian gland and this process last for 3weeks by the 2nd week the bunny must have been eating some soft pellet and greens but it is recommended to continue the breast feeding till their 3rd week before taking them away from the mother into a new hutch.

Pellet and forages are fed to the baby rabbit also in their first two months but the protein should be in 20 to 25% in order to enhance their growth speedily.

The males should be separate from the female after their 1st 1month and two weeks or 1 month exactly based on their improvement and growth.

Rabbit Business and Selling for Markets

So far I have mention so much about the breeding, farming and overall management so now I want to write more about the selling and market, most elites and health conscious personnel are coming to understand the essence of white meat against red meat in their daily eating and how meat like rabbit meat “often refer to as white meat” with low cholesterol are helping people to check-mate their weight and lose some calories so as to stay healthier, aside from the health benefits rabbit meat is a good and delicious recipe and these are some of the reasons why hotels, restuarants, eateries and meat shops are interested in rabbit, there are demands in market for rabbit market but the production level is currently low.

If you are venturing into Rabbit Farming, I congratulate you and I welcome you because this business is lucrative so if you want to sell your rabbit you can reach out to hotels, restaurants, meat shops, eateries, before time to inform them and let them make their bookings.

For those that are into Large Scale Rabbit Farming, whereby you produce between 250 to 500 or even thousands of rabbit, companies are also best deal for you; some of which includes; meat processing companies, fur processing companies this is very common in Australia and California whereby they are into more of processing animal furs and wools, rabbit breeds such as Belgium hare, new Zealand white, chinchillia are good fur producer and there are ready market for this, you can market your business to this companies and you will strike a deal.

Rabbit Meat Processing Industry

Science and Agriculture students are also in need of this animal for experimental purposes so you can make postal in school, you can also place an advert on this Blog and I will help you inform the whole world about your market ready to sell Rabbits.

Currently in Lagos Nigeria, Trade fairs and food market are selling rabbit like hot cake because of the population and demand for white meat and for some a change of taste from the common beef and chicken meat.

I hope you have learnt some new useful tips to help you get started with your rabbit farming business?

If you have further questions you can drop the below in the comment space and I will provide the appropriate reply to them.