Cost of Raising Rabbits on Pellets?

For me success would be growing/raising food for lower cost than buying it in the store and/or being less dependent and more self-sustaining. Please review below my calculated cost for raising rabbits on purchased pellets from what info I have read, I have no experience in raising rabbits.

Pregnant or nursing doe eats 6.7% of body weight or 10.7 oz pellets/day

Mature rabbit not nursing eats 3.8% of body weight or 6.1 oz pellets/day

So one buck and two pregnant/nursing does consume 10.7 x 2 + 6.1 = 27.5 oz pellets/day = 1.72 lb./day

If everything goes like clockwork you can raise one litter every 10 weeks for each doe. Using 5lb as the rabbit weight at 10 weeks and two litters of 8 kits you should have 80 lb of live rabbits and 40 lb of meat at 10 weeks.

Feed for the buck and two does for 10 weeks is:
70 days x 1.72 = 120.4 lb.

Feed for the litters:
Feed conversion efficiency 3.5:1 so 40 lb of meat x 3.5 lb of feed/lb of meat = 140 lb of feed

Total feed for 10 week period:
120.4 + 140 = 260.4 lb.

Cost for feed:
Purina rabbit chow $18 + tax = $19.80/50 lb bag (Tractor Supply cost)
260.4 lb feed x $19.80/50lb. = $103.12

Cost of meat per pound:
$103.12/40lb. = $2.58/lb.

This cost of $2.58 lb. assumes everything goes perfectly which I assume will not happen.
You can buy chicken in the store for $.88 per pound when it is on sale or about twice that normally.
So it looks like you cannot win using pellets. I would be happy if someone can point out how I am wrong because I would like to make this work.

Thanks,
Allen

Hello
You might want to check out the Backyard Meat Rabbits group on facebook, they talk a lot about ways to use rabbits as a cost efficient, sustainable meat source
IMO you might have a hard time, when trying to just compare to price of rabbit to the price of commercially raised chicken. Purina is good for show rabbits, and its what I feed, but there are cheaper pellets out there. You might also be able to supplement the pellets with hay/fodder and reduce pellet consumption.
Some of the advantages to raising rabbits for meat over cheaper chicken you might find in stores: pelts (if you plan to use them or know somebody who will), selling rabbits (people who raw feed their dogs and keep large snakes often buy rabbits), and manure (it's a cold manure, and can be applied immediately. Very high in nitrogen.) If you care about this stuff, too, it is also organic and well cared for. But just price vs price, commercially raised chicken is hard to beat.

Allen, please add your location to your profile. (Your state or province if US or Canada; country if elsewhere.) Questions like this are influenced by location.

Pellets are a complete ration but they cost more. When I was raising rabbits on pellets (2005-2007) my cost per pound of dressed meat was $1.50. When I transitioned my rabbits to a natural diet of alfalfa-and-grass hay, plus gathered greens and small amounts of whole grain, my cost per pound was cut in half. But it's a lot more work, requires access to good hay and enough land to gather forage for them. If the idea of natural feeding interests you, we have a forum for that where you can learn more about it.

SableSteel is right that it is next to impossible to raise rabbits for as little as buying commercial chicken on sale. But it depends on whether price is most important to you or the quality of the meat.

Basically I will repeat what was said above, - but add two things..
1,
-it will be a lot easier to calculate the cost of your feed for raising rabbit meat, ...by locating a feed you want to use, then multiply the cost of your feed @ 4x the live weight of the rabbits produced. When starting out raising rabbits your feed conversion will probably not be quite that good... because of your learning curve, but as you get experience, and good meat stock, 4 lbs is a realistic "whole herd" , live weight ,feed conversion rate. before you have a realistic meat cost ... the butcher yield is about 60 % unless you also skin and use the head ... then, it can be as high as 75% [if animals are "empty" when they are weighed] ...

2
I can raise rabbit meat for my family virtually free, [I buy sheep mineral to supplement them]
the rabbits are a part of an organic gardening project.
Rabbits eat all the weeds, and vegetable scraps from the garden, as well as "ALL" household food scraps [except avocado, and citrus ]
A few rows of root crops are grown for the rabbits [carrot, sugar beet, Jerusalem artichoke] all of the corn stalks, and J. artichoke tops are carefully dried, for feed. [for long stem fiber] .

* like was mentioned above.. if you buy your rabbit pellets at the store, you will not get your meat as cheap as walmart chicken.

michaels4gardens":up6m4j6o said:

Basically I will repeat what was said above, - but add two things..
1,
-it will be a lot easier to calculate the cost of your feed for raising rabbit meat, ...by locating a feed you want to use, then multiply the cost of your feed @ 4x the live weight of the rabbits produced. When starting out raising rabbits your feed conversion will probably not be quite that good... because of your learning curve, but as you get experience, and good meat stock, 4 lbs is a realistic "whole herd" , live weight ,feed conversion rate. before you have a realistic meat cost ... the butcher yield is about 60 % unless you also skin and use the head ... then, it can be as high as 75% [if animals are "empty" when they are weighed] ...

2
I can raise rabbit meat for my family virtually free, [I buy sheep mineral to supplement them]
the rabbits are a part of an organic gardening project.
Rabbits eat all the weeds, and vegetable scraps from the garden, as well as "ALL" household food scraps [except avocado, and citrus ]
A few rows of root crops are grown for the rabbits [carrot, sugar beet, Jerusalem artichoke] all of the corn stalks, and J. artichoke tops are carefully dried, for feed. [for long stem fiber] .

* like was mentioned above.. if you buy your rabbit pellets at the store, you will not get your meat as cheap as walmart chicken.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, using your whole herd conversion and 60% with the Purina cost I get $2.67 per pound and that is a lot easier to calculate.

I think what you do is what would make sense for my goals. Do you raise or buy alfalfa? I will start reading in the feed part of the board. In some places I have seen dire warnings of disaster if you feed anything but pellets and other places that say you can raise rabbits on what you grow just fine.

Currently I am in the city and plan to retire within a year or so. I have purchased a retirement place in the California Sierra foothills near the entrance to Yosemite with 11 acres, mostly hills but enough flat ground to do what I want plus it has ~1/4 acre fenced garden/orchard area. So I am working on learning and planning for when I get there .

Hi, fellow Californian!

Sounds like you're doing some good research, Allen! I tried to work out the food costs before-hand as well, but I never did get the math entirely right. Thank you for laying it out so neatly!

We are currently feeding a complete pellet diet to our rabbits (no space to grow enough food for them year round, not to mention the water bills would cut deep into any savings the home-grown food would provide). While our rabbit meat costs more than the commercially-raised $0.88/lb chicken, it's comforting and worth it knowing that our rabbits have a good life and are raised in a healthy and responsible environment until butcher day. I'm happy to "spend" a little more on our meat for that. Not to mention it's still a relatively "cheap" meat compared to pork and beef, and I can use rabbit in such a variety of recipes that we've cut back our consumption of other meats a good deal.

The Sierra foothills should be lovely, especially with a little land! I'm sure you'll have an easier time raising food crops out there than in the high desert I call home. I'm gonna keep my eye on this thread for sure, I love having others do some of the math for me! :lol:

If I use alfalfa hay, I buy it-- however, it is getting much harder to find alfalfa hay that is not "roundup-ready" [soaked with glyphosate] , glyphosate negatively affects rabbit reproduction rates-- and is bad for those [especially children] who eat the meat. I prefer grass hay,- as long as the rabbits have enough calories in their diet from root crops, or grain.

michaels4gardens":k2zdxmv8 said:

If I use alfalfa hay, I buy it-- however, it is getting much harder to find alfalfa hay that is not "roundup-ready" [soaked with glyphosate] , glyphosate negatively affects rabbit reproduction rates-- and is bad for those [especially children] who eat the meat. I prefer grass hay,- as long as the rabbits have enough calories in their diet from root crops, or grain.

Click to expand...

This is an important point, Michael, and one that didn't occur to me since it's been a few years now since I raised rabbits.

Here, one could grow one's own alfalfa quite easily if good seed is available (and, in fact, I did have a nice patch for fresh cutting for rabbits and chickens) but with all the problems that come with it nowadays, I'd likely look for other solutions too, if I were still raising rabbits.

[ " In some places I have seen dire warnings of disaster if you feed anything but pellets and other places that say you can raise rabbits on what you grow just fine. " ] When I began to raise rabbits in the early 60's I had no pellets available. I raised rabbits very successfully, and even commercially [on a small scale] growing all my feed. An understanding of rabbit nutrition is important. Long stem fiber is the most commonly overlooked important ingredient in the diet. Mold and mildew toxins are another danger most of us learn about from sad experience.
If you want to raise rabbits "the old way"-- I recommend you get a copy of " Keeping Poultry And Rabbits On Scraps " 1941 Penguin Press. [ https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Poultry- ... 1445512319 ] [ https://www.ebay.com/itm/Keeping-Poultr ... :rk:1f:0 ]
that's the book I started with - although it misses some great feeds like Jerusalem artichokes-- it contains enough info to help you be very successful raising your own meat from feeds you can grow.

I second Michael's book recommendation--found it helpful for both chickens and rabbits. My other thought is that so much depends on what you have to work with. I live not that far from Maggie so have somewhat similar climate, but our attempts to grow alfalfa were pathetic (think it may have to do with soil differences) But we have lots of willow--7 different varieties growing wild on our farm. Discovered here on RT that willow is one of the better trees nutritionally and have been feeding it year round for 5 years--fresh in spring and summer, then dried when it starts looking scrappy in fall through the winter. It dries easily and chewing on the woody bits keeps the rabbits happy without chewing on everything in sight. Have never fed pellets after we gradually shifted our first trio onto natural feed. Michael and Maggie were so much help to me getting started, knowing nothing.

Location definitely is important... in the desert where I live, we don't many plants at all we can forage from the wild ; )

Michael and Rainey, thanks for the book recommendation , pretty expensive so I will probably buy the kindle version and get the free reader app. I was wondering about the free downloads on the website are there any in particular you recommend? My bunny bucks are pretty limited at this point.

As far as free food I can gather the property has oak and pine trees so no help there. In the spring there will be all the wild grasses I want, I will need to mow them down around the house just to reduce fire danger, but I suspect they would not be calorie rich enough for growing rabbits? The grasses then all go brown because of no rain in the summer here. The dry grasses might be useful for bedding and composting with the urine but would not have much nutritional value would they?

I should be able to grow Jerusalem artichokes, root crops, alfalfa, corn stalks. I would probably buy alfalfa hay since from board comments it should be inexpensive. I suspect the challenge would be storing up enough food to get through the winter and spring until the high calorie content foods start yielding again.

Nymph and Sable, I see you are in desert areas, besides food the other major issue at my place will the the summer heat. A typical August day will hit 95 F and a heat wave could hit 105 F. I think daily frozen water bottles is not a practical solution. I was thinking of providing an underground cell linked to the cage where the rabbit could retreat to during the day. It would have an insulated lid that could be opened, walls and floor would be lined with cinder block and pavers, the depth would be about 2.5 ft, so I could reach everything inside. What do you guys do and what do you think?

Thanks,
Allen

ebay was $4 .25 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Keeping-Poultr ... :rk:1f:0 <br /><br /> __________ Sun Dec 09, 2018 10:56 am __________ <br /><br /> If you cut and dry the grass when it is still green it will maintain most of the nutrition. The underground thing works, and your access door solves the only issue I had with such systems.
If alfalfa, and grass hay is cheap, then maybe focus on growing the high calorie feeds, like the above mentioned root crops, I also grow a lot of kale for me and the rabbits...

Allen":k7hxfg4q said:

Nymph and Sable, I see you are in desert areas, besides food the other major issue at my place will the the summer heat. A typical August day will hit 95 F and a heat wave could hit 105 F. I think daily frozen water bottles is not a practical solution. I was thinking of providing an underground cell linked to the cage where the rabbit could retreat to during the day. It would have an insulated lid that could be opened, walls and floor would be lined with cinder block and pavers, the depth would be about 2.5 ft, so I could reach everything inside. What do you guys do and what do you think?

Click to expand...

We had heat waves up to 120 F this past summer, and kept our rabbitry cool with shade cloth, fans, and a misting system linked to a thermostat. It works really well for us, since we have stacking cages, but we still gave ours some frozen water bottles on the hottest afternoons... big soda bottles last a little while at least.

If your cages will be on the ground though, I think your plan for underground cells is a cool idea. Just make sure to dig deep enough that the burrow actually stays relatively cool.
:goodjob:

Allen, here's a link to an article on underground housing:
http://om.ciheam.org/article.php?IDPDF=95605275

You should price alfalfa hay before you firm up your plans. Here it is quite reasonable, but in other areas it may be pricey.

Try this site for cheap second-hand editions of the book. I got one for less than $5, IIRC.
https://www.abebooks.com/

You're putting a lot of thought into this before starting and it will pay off for you, I'm sure. :goodjob:

Allen":n6f1vqed said:

Nymph and Sable, I see you are in desert areas, besides food the other major issue at my place will the the summer heat. A typical August day will hit 95 F and a heat wave could hit 105 F. I think daily frozen water bottles is not a practical solution. I was thinking of providing an underground cell linked to the cage where the rabbit could retreat to during the day. It would have an insulated lid that could be opened, walls and floor would be lined with cinder block and pavers, the depth would be about 2.5 ft, so I could reach everything inside. What do you guys do and what do you think?

Click to expand...

Before I set up evap. coolers and AC in my barn for show rabbits, I had misters on my rabbits to keep them cool

I ordered the book "Keeping Poultry And Rabbits On Scraps" from Ebay, it was a great price and free shipping.

once upon a time, ..... raised rabbits near Victorville Ca.
I have also raised them commercially ,near Red Bluff Ca.
Both places had temperatures over 120 [F ] at times.
I had misters in the barn over their [covered] cages, and fans.. there were thermostat operated sprinklers on the roof. There was 2 huge thermostat controlled swamp coolers . They survived and produced very well as long as my "systems" did not fail.

When I was able to build a 7' high concrete retaining wall, with holes in it, and compartments for them under the ground behind the wall, the rabbits did much better than in the barn.[with no cooling systems] My only design problem, was-- I had very poor access to the compartments behind the wall. [I had to literally lean my entire upper body all the way into the cage, and then stick my arm/hand into the 2' deep compartment] I could not easily check litters, or check on "sick" rabbits. - and "man eating" does, all had to go to the freezer] Fortunately, problems were very rare.. the rabbits lived, and produced great in that situation. I had a slide door to block off the access to the compartment[slid down from above the cage] ,so does and litters could be caught, and bucks and does could be bred. [this was only 22 cages]
When I did the math, . .. building the expensive retaining wall, and cages attached to the wall, was actually much less money than building a barn, adding the "cooling systems", and paying the power bill.

:group-hug2: Can I just say how much I LOVE RT? I learn new things all the time on here.

Have to add Soy as a thing I try to avoid feeding in any of its forms and by gods it is in everything now.

What I came up with was lacto fermented scratch grain which has been working really well at maintaining adult rabbit condition. Now that I am starting to breed (yay, the buck finally did the job) I was THRILLED to find organic alfalfa pellets to add to my mix and I add crushed oyster shell grit now and again as well.

As we use the meat, offal and hides for us, the heads, feet and gutty bits for the dogs and when breeding usually sell all the doe kits it is really hard to figure the cost of it all. Actually, I have never ever managed to come up with a per pound price and having now seen that rabbit hide blankets go for almost a THOUSAND DOLLARS :shock: :shock: :shock: how can I figure a meat cost when we are all covered with rabbit hide lap throws when watching telly in the evenings? :lol:

For me it comes down to knowing what I am eating and the calming fun - and sometimes troubleshooting frustration - of having the rabbits themselves. They are a never-ending source of interest to me and such good fun to have AND you can eat them as well! Win Win!

C

GBov said:

:group-hug2: Can I just say how much I LOVE RT? I learn new things all the time on here.

Have to add Soy as a thing I try to avoid feeding in any of its forms and by gods it is in everything now.

What I came up with was lacto fermented scratch grain which has been working really well at maintaining adult rabbit condition. Now that I am starting to breed (yay, the buck finally did the job) I was THRILLED to find organic alfalfa pellets to add to my mix and I add crushed oyster shell grit now and again as well.

As we use the meat, offal and hides for us, the heads, feet and gutty bits for the dogs and when breeding usually sell all the doe kits it is really hard to figure the cost of it all. Actually, I have never ever managed to come up with a per pound price and having now seen that rabbit hide blankets go for almost a THOUSAND DOLLARS :shock: :shock: :shock: how can I figure a meat cost when we are all covered with rabbit hide lap throws when watching telly in the evenings? :lol:

For me it comes down to knowing what I am eating and the calming fun - and sometimes troubleshooting frustration - of having the rabbits themselves. They are a never-ending source of interest to me and such good fun to have AND you can eat them as well! Win Win!

Click to expand...

an I ask, how do you process your hides? I am running a small meat rabbit operation to feed my family and we are invested in using the whole animal. I have tried the salt and egg yolk method and the hide ended up rotting but I suspect my log cabin home has poor circulation and this was the issue. Do you have a tried and true tanning recipe?

im sorry to deviate from the topic: for us we feed hay, and a natural non GMO no grain pellet (not sustainable long term) it is expensive and kits are so wasteful!! (We have suspended self cleaning wire cages) we are moving towards growing our own feed, and that looks to be the most sustainable option. I want to move away from pellets all together but we are in norther Canada and the winters are harsh and extra calories do help the buns stay warm. So during the winter I don’t raise kits and just sustain the does and bucks. Then in the spring I give each doe two litters for meat.