I raised rabbits for about three years. There are do's and don'ts. There are a lot more don'ts.
Don't build hutches out of wood. Rabbits like to gnaw on stuff. You will end up replacing hutches within a year or two.
Don't let the kids/grandkids play with them. When it comes time to eat Fluffy there will be hell to pay.
Don't assume your rabbits are safe in their hutches. A stray dog broke into ours late one night and killed eight of them. Didn't eat them, just killed them.
Don't assume it's going to be cheap. Feed, water bottles, housing, vet bills, it all adds up pretty quick. If you have a way to supplement their diet use it. Those rabbits I raised cost me as much as high dollar steaks. It's the costs that made me finally get rid of them. Our feed store carried one brand of rabbit food, Purina. They cost me $11 a bag. For the first year I fed them that before adding up the costs. I learned there were other grains I could get a lot cheaper.
Mind you I didn't go into it whole hog so to speak. I raised perhaps a total of eighty rabbits in that time. I didn't attempt to make anything out of the hides, I only sold fryers. I never even broke even. You would think lots of people would want rabbit meat but it was much harder to sell them than I thought.
One of the main problems with rabbits is that they breed like rabbits. You have to control the population or prepare to expand often. Yes, you can butcher extras and stick them in your freezer but you also have to ask yourself how often do you want to eat rabbit for supper if they aren't selling well at the moment.
My experience is from a small town of only 2800 people. Your millage may vary. Until I know the exact date of the end of the world I'll pass on raising rabbits again.
Thanks SO MUCH for this!!! I had thought about it, and had sat down and figured much of it out. My intention is to buy used, metal cages. I don't want to raise them in tiny hutches alone, since most of what I've found says that they do better in groups. I intend to keep males firmly separated from females unless they're being bred or are not weaned yet; all weaned males will be separated to a different area until they are ready to be weaned.
At a maximum, in 1 year with 2 females I will produce 90 rabbits. 40 will be sufficient to provide meat for my family and my grandparents' family twice weekly (though, it probably wouldn't be that often) for a full year. The remaining 50 do not have to be killed; they can be traded at my local feed store as suggested above (they sell rabbits when they can get them) for food for the rabbits, or I can sell them as pets (which factored into my decision to hunt down Rexes, since they're cute and cuddly also).
As for kids...well, I have no kids. The only kid that lives in the house is 2, and he wouldn't know the difference (or be allowed to handle the rabbits!) anyways.
As for supplementing the rabbits' diet...my plans for their cages include being able to move the cages, and include the cages being on the ground with wire mesh directly on top of the grass, so that they can nibble that all they want. I also plan to grow a good amount of greens such as mustard greens, collards, kale, etc. for the purpose of feeding the rabbits, since we found out the hard way last year that for whatever reason, those things grow like wildfire in our yard. Even after three harvests and weeks of below-freezing weather, we still have about thirty lettuce plants that WILL NOT DIE. I know people tell you not to feed them greenery, but that's ridiculous, because that's what rabbits eat in the wild. Wild rabbits loved our garden and our grass, and they had solid stools (I should know, I step on them sometimes).
I know I want to make things with the hides. I'm not sure what I want to make, but I've sewn rabbit hides before, and it's not that hard.
However, I AM concerned about making the cages predator proof. We have lots of stray dogs and cats around here, and I've seen coyotes, foxes, raccoons, possums, hawks, eagles, and bears within just a mile of our house. Any suggestions on animal-proofing? Also...snakes. I don't THINK they'll be an issue. Generally speaking, snakes aren't interested in larger prey than they can consume, but at the same time, I don't want to come out and find a rattlesnake in my rabbit cages, either. I'm just not sure how you can prevent some predators from getting in. The hawks and eagles will be foiled with just a tarp cover, but I think the dogs, cats, *****, etc. will need something more heavy-duty.
Not to mention neighborhood children who might want to "play with the bunnies".
Hmm. This gets more complicated the more I think about it.
