Rabbit Farm

[silentnine]

Hi all..

we have quite a large hydroponics lettuce farm up-country.

hence huge amounts of lettuce offcuts .

so i have been haveing the crazy idea (so my wife says) that we should setup a rabbit farm as we have food for them

is there a market for rabbit meat in thailand ?

are there any problems i need to consider ? i've read about ant issues and things

are they easy to take care of ?

will they thrive on huge amounts of lettuce or is that not a stable diet ?

any advice apreciated

[Gary A]

I like rabbit meat and mentioned to my wife that maybe we could raise a few rabbits. She was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits. She says Thai people regard rabbits as cute pets and would never consider eating them.

[silentnine]

I like rabbit meat and mentioned to my wife that maybe we could raise a few rabbits. She was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits. She says Thai people regard rabbits as cute pets and would never consider eating them.

i'm not sure but do not think the meat rabbits are fluffy white bunnies

[Dakling]

I like rabbit meat and mentioned to my wife that maybe we could raise a few rabbits. She was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits. She says Thai people regard rabbits as cute pets and would never consider eating them.

Perhaps not all Thai people. My wife thinks rabbits make good eatin'. My guess is that while you wouldn't likely get much of a premium over pork or chicken on a baht/kilo basis, you could definitely sell the meat. Not sure if it would be worth the bother though. For some reason I have it in my head that rabbits are hard to keep in quantity, they get stressed, diseased and fight and die. I would say go for it for a small scale fill your own pot approach. Rabbit meat is a bit fatty but definitely delicious in stews and meat pies. Yum.

[kikoman]

Rabbits are easy to care for, they need plenty of clean water,and grass ,supplemented by bagged rabbit pellets.

Their pen area must be kept clean, we have not lost any rabbits to disease, we have lost about 20 baby bunnies to red ants, and no longer allow the rabbits to have their babies under grounds. We have placed quite a few clay pots in the rabbit enclosure and if a doe digs a hole at night, we take the babies out of the hole and place them in a clay pots, the majority of the does have their Bunny's' in the clay pots. also you need to keep the males apart as they have some very bad fights.

I have found them quite easy to care for, not all Thais' will be put off by eating rabbits as a few of my wifes' family said to let them know when I was going to cook one, they want to taste the meat.

Having said that you will not have the market you need in the Thai community to sell your meat to, one of the other posters had a great idea set up a few rabbits for your own needs and if you find there is a market for them expanded your operation.

We found a pet shop that will buy all the bunnies we have had. Not a great profit margin as my wife raises them more as a hobby.

Good luck;

Cheers

[h90]

My wife was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits as well. She told rabbits are lovely and noone would consider eating them (beside me barbaric farang).

But she is from the south....always complaining that the north eastern people eat everything.

Rabbit

[jazzed]

It's a cultural thing. In France it's common to see skinned rabbits at the butcher.... whereas the Europeans would be horrified to see chicken heads at the dinner table :-)

Rabbits are healthy + yummy, easy to raise and care for.

Those who still have doubts, I strongly recommend Novella Carpenter's book the Urban Farmer. Her misadventures along the way to becoming a farmer in the city -- including learning to raise/butcher turkeys, rabbits etc -- make for a great read.

[bina]

rabbits dont eat lettuce it gives them the run. hay and pellets.

[oldestswinger]

I recently saw a research paper on keeping rabbits as a cheap and, apparently, healthier alternative to chicken or pork. Although the research was in Africa, I couldn't see why it wouldn't be applicable to Thailand. There was no mention of of large numbers of rabbits being stressed: the opposite really as it was pointed out how quickly the numbers increase.

One of the main points is that the fur is as large a profit area as the meat, as it sold to the fashion industry for clothing and accessories.

i do think that there might be a problem selling large quantities of meat in Thailand, although exporting it might be considered.

[David006]

I like rabbit meat and mentioned to my wife that maybe we could raise a few rabbits. She was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits. She says Thai people regard rabbits as cute pets and would never consider eating them.

:cheesy: :cheesy:

yup I love rabbit casserole ( hare pie is good too..lol)...but wifey said the same....much better to eat curried bugs,larvae, frogs, tortoises,terrapins,squirrels, birds and lizards..yum

..oh well ..pass the spam

I think bunnies eat carrots and Scots porridge oats too?

[slapout]

rabbits dont eat lettuce it gives them the run. hay and pellets.

bina, not to dispute the eating habits of the kosher rabbits where your located, but the little free roaming, varmints will clean out a garden from the lettuce patch thru the corn (thats why it is called rabbit corn) ears are low enough for the bunnies to reach.

Young rabbit is a treat once in a while, old rabbit makes eatable soup/stew, the mink farms buy them also, but thats a long shot in Thailand.

[h90]

I like rabbit meat and mentioned to my wife that maybe we could raise a few rabbits. She was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits. She says Thai people regard rabbits as cute pets and would never consider eating them.

:cheesy: :cheesy:

yup I love rabbit casserole ( hare pie is good too..lol)...but wifey said the same....much better to eat curried bugs,larvae, frogs, tortoises,terrapins,squirrels, birds and lizards..yum

..oh well ..pass the spam

I think bunnies eat carrots and Scots porridge oats too?

:cheesy:

[sbk]

My wife was horrified at the thought of eating rabbits as well. She told rabbits are lovely and noone would consider eating them (beside me barbaric farang).

But she is from the south....always complaining that the north eastern people eat everything.

Rabbit

A friend and I were discussing what game we had eaten, when we got to talk of eating rabbits, my (Southern Thai) husband looked at the two of us with utter horror on his face and said "You eat bunnies??"

[bina]

rabbits, given lots of lettuce and no hay or outher roughage will get the runs; rabbits that raid gardens are supplementing their foraging diet with desserts from your garden; rabbits in captivity (which btw they are only domestic and not wild rabbits and hares which have different dietary and breeding habits) and feral rabbits (those that were the domestic variety that have become wild) cannot live on lettuce as it is 90 % water and no proteins, roughage or minerals/vitamins. corn is a partial protein... rabbits make both soft and hard feces. the soft feces they eat (sort of like chewing cud) th hard pellets are the reingested food sources shat out, just like other animals that chew cud. only the rabbit cud is from the anal end.

which is why there was as debate as if they were kosher or not: they chew 'cud' but dont have split hooves.

anyhow, rabbits do get stressed from overcrowding and u will lose many babies that way; crowded does will cannibaalize their young, young bucks will eat babies of other bucks, and crowded bucks will kill eachother and if not kill, then injure eachother horribly. crowded rabbits get scabies, 'snuffles' (a upper respiratory disease that kills off the babies and weaker stressed animals); the list is endless.does will throw other does babies from nesting boxes. a stressed doe will abandon her babies. remember, rabbits babies are born blind and naked. they nurse once a day from very very rich mother's milk. wild rabbits (the brown bunny type) and hares both give birth to developed young with fur and mobile from day one. the gestation times are also different.

we culled out most males, (russians eat rabbits as do some arab muslems in our area, though not all, and as mentioned, some thais, not most, chinese workers do). we also culled out bad dams, and kept the good ones; also culled out any biters, if a doe is a biter, the babies become adult biters also; ...

in high heat, there is sudden death (over 30" degrees in our area after cool period); poor cleanliness and build up of ammonia from rabbit urine from wet food (lettuce, veggies, as apposed to pellets and hay alfalfa)kills off babies and weak young adults.

too much handling causes stress and death. rabbits die also from capture myopothy the same way deers do: a dog running and harrassing a group of yarded/caged rabbits will cause both instant death and also deaths even a few days later from chronic stress induced by acute stress. we once lost 60 rabits to a group of dogs hassling and harrassing them all night apparently.

like any other livestock, raising a few is diffent then raising as livestock animal husbandry.

bina

israel

[chuenyongman]

rabbits dont eat lettuce it gives them the run. hay and pellets.

[chuenyongman]

rabbits dont eat lettuce it gives them the run. hay and pellets.

[chuenyongman]

I must agree with slapout. Lettuce is bad for rabbits. My father used to breed rabbits for the pelts and the pot back in 1943. He always taught me not to give them lettuce. Most vegatables are O.K. They also like Dandelions including the roots.

A few crushed oats occasionally will do no harm. That was in the U.K. In the early 70s My family and I moved to Australia. There were millions of rabbits there. We went spotlighting at night and could bag three sacks of rabbits in a couple of hours. They have a rabbit proof fence that that stretches for hundreds of miles. They introduced Myxomatosis which wiped a lot of them out .It was a cruel disease that made their eyed nearly pop out of their head. They recovered somewhat and later the government brought out the (not sure of the spelling) collesis virus and that set the rabbits way back. Sometimes you could drive through the bush and never see a rabbit for 20 miles. . Personally I used to like my rabbits curried.

[Niranut]

Also have heard that rabbit dung makes great fertilizer. A friend in the U.S. keeps rabbits just for the fertilizer. I have seen bat dung for sale in garden shops here and it was 50 baht for 1/2 kg or something like that. When our kids get a little bigger, we were thinking of keeping some rabbits for the kids to look after, and then sell the fertilizer to the neighbors as a way for them to earn a little income (instead of just giving them an allowance).

Anyway, just a thought to further maximize your rabbit venture.

[timberboy]

rabbits dont eat lettuce it gives them the run. hay and pellets.

bina, not to dispute the eating habits of the kosher rabbits where your located, but the little free roaming, varmints will clean out a garden from the lettuce patch thru the corn (thats why it is called rabbit corn) ears are low enough for the bunnies to reach.

Young rabbit is a treat once in a while, old rabbit makes eatable soup/stew, the mink farms buy them also, but thats a long shot in Thailand.

Hi there:

Just to clarify, rabbit is not an animal for kosher consumption. None of the rodent family is.

[bina]

Just to clarify, rabbit is not an animal for kosher consumption. None of the rodent family is.

trust me, i can teach u more then u could possibly want to know about kosher and non kosher among the animals of the world. rabbits are not kosher. there is a big contreversy about 'shfani sela" rock hyrax(Procavia capensis) of the mediterrenean, possibly being the non kosher rabbit mentioned in the part about 'not eating shfonim (wild rabbits/or rock hyraxes) since they 'chew their cud' - ive described the reason why peoplethought that rabbits chew their cud in a previous post- however,

there were no domestic rabbits at the time of the food laws being created so no one is quite sure what was meant...

secondly, rabbits are not rodents/ to quote from wiki, "Rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can be distinguished from rodents, with which they are often confused." however, they are mostly similiar so get lumped together.

and when we taught about rabbits in the petting zoo, this is what we taught.

either way, rabbitz need good quality hay (we gave alfafa hay and 'dry' veggies like carrots, some cabbage but not too much, some green apples, no lettuce, and edible wild greens).

and i, as u may have noticed , eat non kosher.

seen bat dung for sale in garden shops here and it was 50 baht for 1/2 kg

-- didnt anyone ever see that ace ventura animal detective movie "when nature calls" when he has to find the great white bat, shakira (or whatever it was called)?? that was kidnapped because of bat guano?

[321Rich]

There are many rabbit species suitable for raising at home. The "White Rabbit" image is simply one of the more popular breeds, it is usually a New Zealand White Rabbit. They are prolific breeders and when fed the proper diet (pellets specifically formulated for rabbits) they gain weight rapidly. Fry a rabbit and tell someone it is chicken and unless they recognize the different bone structure, chances are they will not know the difference.

When I had a 68-acre farm up in Tennessee (USA), I got this itch to raise rabbits years ago. Got one male and two female rabbits. Six months later I couldn't give them away fast enough! I followed the guidelines and kept them in an elevated pen made out of wire mesh. Their poop would fall thru the bottom and the cages were very sanitary. And, yes, the rabbit dropping is very good for garden or flower fertilizer.

Google the words "Raising Rabbits' will turn up about 6.5 million hits. lots of good information on what to do to raise rabbits for pets, food, or just for the fun of raising them.

My next door neighbor had a 6-year old daughter that would come over and play with our daughter all the time. When she found out we ate one of the fluffy bunnies, as she called them, the friend relationship went sour really quick. She hated my guts from that day on.

[Latis]

I would like to buy some Standard Rex rabbits. Anyone know where I can get them (not the Mini Rex) variety that you see dressed up in toy clothing at Chatuchak weekend market.

[andycrosby]

I think everythings been said here, about not to feed it to rabbits, so what else can he feed it to or do with it ? compost, insect food, would be ok for ducks. just a few ideas

Edited September 13, 2011 by andycrosby

[David006]

maybe good time to post this oldie?:

This guy comes home from work one day to find his dog with the neighbor's pet rabbit in his mouth. The rabbit is very dead and the guy panics.

He thinks the neighbors are going to hate him forever, so he takes the dirty, chewed-up rabbit into the house, gives it a bath, blow-dries its fur, and puts the rabbit back into the cage at the neighbor's house, hoping that they will think it died of natural causes.

A few days later, the neighbor is outside and asks the guy, "Did you hear that Fluffy died?"

The guy stumbles around and says, "Um.. no.. um.. what happened?"

The neighbor replies, "We just found him dead in his cage one day, but the weird thing is that the day after we buried him we went outside and someone had dug him up, gave him a bath and put him back into the cage. What kind of a sicko would do that?"

[wdrk7]

Dear All ,Anyone interested in rabbit for meat in Cr area ? Have a lot of it in my area . Pm me if you are interested . Meat or Pet .

[alvinlight]

Any one interested Rabbit Meat or Pet , please PM me in Bangkok area or Pak Chong area.

The breed is New Zealand white rabbit

[Latis]

Out of interest, have you decided to keep rabbits?

[jema]

I'm looking for Meat Rabbits with min.4kg of weight. Heard about a Rabbit Farm in Kanchanaburi Province breeding original White Newzealand.

Does anyone sale large Rabbits?