Progress..slowly.

Don't have pictures or anything(I never remember to take pictures), but I wanted to write my progress the past 4 Months or so somewhere so I can find it later, without writing it all on paper or loosing it to a computer file.

I wasn't going to breed again anytime soon, but I received and offer from Rural King to purchase unlimited live rabbits from me for 9-12 dollars.(Thoughts on this are appreciated) I figured up all my costs and labor and realized I could make quite a profit, even with taxes. So I went ahead and bred my two does.

They had small litters, thank goodness, only 6 kits in each. Quicksilver,a doe I was considering culling because she lost so many kits her first litters doing better than my old doe.I was concerned about the heat, it's been 85-90 hereabout they seem fine so far.

All my rabbits are eating pellets and 'weeds' except one doe. (Quicksilver again.You can guess who's the star of my herd.)I attempted to slowly introduce all my rabbits to a grain fed diet a few months ago. It was going alright, they didn't like it, even with molasses,but they ate it. Then they all started getting diarrhea,even though i introduced the grains over a slow two month period.So that was the end of that experiment. (The one doe,QuickSilver is the exception and still enjoys her mix of pellets and grain.) I think all my future does will be hers.

I also finally broke down and bought a pretty New Zealand buck.(White with yellow patches)

I think thats all the rambling I have to do today. :roll:

First of all before selling massive numbers of bunnies be sure you have the proper permits. See posts http://rabbittalk.com/legal-t32879.html.

Humm 9-12 dollars per rabbit doesn't sound like much to me. Be sure you know your local laws on what the minimal age to sell agricultural grade rabbits. Adding weeks to the age will add $s to the feed price.

I know it was me and my neighbors first go at rabbit breading, and that we were not all that careful at efficient feed utilization but that sounds way cheep (like hard to break even). We slaughtered at 8-9 weeks (I know a bit old), and when I did the rough "back of the envelope" calculation, it seems we were not really beating the $5/pound that Pel-freez was charging back in 2007. We might have been doing a bit better, hard to tell. But, I would have noticed if we had came in at half the price of Pel-freez. I don't even think we were beating Pel-freez by 25%. This was ok because we were more interested in the learning experience and the humane raising of animals more than pure cost savings.