I am interested in breeding rabbits for food I am trying to find the right breeds for good meat production and fur quality. If the breeding pairs are a bit expensive to start it doesnt matter. I also wanted to feed them a pellet free diet of stuff I can grow as a lawn and just empty the bag and feed them. I am also trying to figure out how to tan or cure the rabbit furs so I can sell them.
I moved your thread over to the farming and gardening section. There has been a lot of great info on raising rabbits here. So I figured you might get better answers.
It really depends on exactly what you want to accomplish. The New Zealand White and the Californian are the two best for meat production, especially if you're going to do anything on a commercial scale. They are both white rabbits, and the commercial rabbit buyers want the white rabbits, because the fur buyers want white. It's the easiest to dye.
If you're just looking to produce meat for yourself, and your main focus would be furs, you might look at either the Rex or Chinchilla rabbits. They will produce meat, though they won't grow off as fast as a 'meat' breed, and they have lush. The ideal thing would be to find some things you can make yourself out of the furs, add that value to your furs, and sell the products. The further down the marketing cycle you go before you sell, the more profit you keep. It also requires more work. It is easier to find a buyer, and sell him a bunch of furs at one time, and be done with it. You just have to decide which way is best for you.
I'm sure if you do a search on Amazon or other book sellers, you can find a good book on tanning hides. You definitely want to find one that shows how to tan with the fur on, because it is a different process than tanning a slick hide. Most books will at least have a chapter on fur-on tanning, but some go into more depth.
Give it a try. You're gonna eat the fryers anyway, so if the fur doesn't turn out like you think, or won't work for what you want, try something else.
You're raising meat all the while, so don't be afraid to experiment on the fur side. Any pelt would bring at least something on the wholesale market, so even if it was not what you were shooting for, it wouldn't be a total waste.
If you could find a niche market for a grey/blue pelt, I have read that American Blue rabbits are hard to beat. Mike is right there is a lot of good info on this site that should help you look in the right direction.
we have mutts, so we get all sorts of fur colors, and meat production is pretty close to New Zealands. If you have less than 100 rabbits, you won't notice much difference between meat breeds and mutts.
I have always heard that the pelts cost more to ship than what you get. You would need to sell them to hobbyists directly to make money. Pellet free diets are tough to do and still keep up production. Having good timothy hay helps. I feed my rabbits dandylions and plantain weeds as a treat but I dont know of a 'lawn' you could cut and feed them. Clover, dandylion and plantain wouldnt be bad but I dont know what proportions you would need. Also, dont forget salt. Pellets have it built in, clippings do not. There are some plants that would work well. For grain, oats, wheat, surghum are a few. Jerusalem artichoke grows a good poatato like root and the top makes a high protein hay.
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