I am a highschool student who needs some help. I need to do a senior project to graduate and I thought of starting a "bunny farm" to complete this task. I am a freshman so I have time to set it up but I was wondering if there were some regulations or rules I had to follow if I were to sell the rabbits for meat? Also, which would be a better choice? Selling them as pets/ the owner could do whatever they wanted with them or sell them for their meat? If I did the second choice, do I need some special breed? I have six rabbits two were bought, one was given to me and I have no idea how old it is, and the other three are the babies of the two that were bought. Also how do you determine the gender of the babies? I hope someone can answer my questions and I will be extremely gratful.

Bunny farm, um, that brings up, to some a bad connotations,

That said, find your local Future Farmers of America, or 4H chapter, or reach out to local breeders (check the ARBA website, they have local clubs listed)

HAVE A GOAL,
this is important, otherwise you end up with 50 million little bunnies and have neighbors calling the county to shut you down, and you really don't want to end up on TV as that 'crazy rabbit girl'

if you do small breed, good for dog food, some breeds hair, mostly your money will come from selling them as pets, expect $5-15 a head, and only moving them maybe 2-4 at a time, a shown winner might bring $100 from another breeder or rabbit fancier, if you can sell directly to the pet wanter, you can get 25-50 (25 for rabbit, 25 for pedigree)

For meat rabbits, many people have what they call 'meat mutts' where they have mixed larger breeds to get what they want out of a meat rabbit, BUT most also maintain their purebred lines.

PLEASE, if you are going to do this, get with a reputable breeder, the six you have, NO pedigree, if they don't have a pedigree, and are not ear tattooed, then assume they are only pet quality, if you want meat and they are meat breeds, it doesn't matter.

once again, it's what you want out of the rabbits.

I think you have plenty of time to get this done, do you not? I didn't have to do my Senior Project till I was a SENIOR in HS, so you have a ways to go.
Plus, you might want to wait until you know the rules/guidelines of the Senior Project before you actually start it. And it might be different by the time you become a Senior, so I think it's best to wait. You should check with your school because I know that we weren't allowed to start our Senior Project until the summer before Senior year, and EVERYTHING had to be approved by the teachers, etc. There were steps that had to be tracked, so I really think it's just best to wait.

As Jack stated, a bunny farm brings up bad ideas, so maybe you mean starting a rabbitry? Breeding quality animals?
Seems like you are relatively new to rabbits, so perhaps you should join 4-H or FFA and learn about rabbits before you start breeding them. Do some research on determining gender. It's not too difficult if you look at some pictures. The bucks will have a penis, and does should have a v-shaped slit; bucks' slit should be circular. You can usually tell at about 6 to 10 weeks, but some breeders can tell earlier, some later.

Emily

PLEASE tell me those rabbits are housed individually, colonies are great for meat production (you want meat not purebreds) and for single genders, but just dumping a bunch of rabbits in a pen, will get you more rabbits in a month (28-34 days)

If you did just dump them in a single pen, PLEASE GET HELP NOW, cause you got tribbles (star trek reference, wikipedia it)

No. All the adult rabbits are in seperate pens. The babies are in the same pen because when my dad tried to determine what they were he said they looked the same. But the two adult males are seperated from each other and the adult female. That brings up another question. What would be the best way of housing them other than four seperate pens?

I am not sure what you mean by pens? Do you mean, on the ground? Cages above ground?

If you don't want a ton of babies right away, separate cages above ground would be a good way to go. You can build them, or buy them.

What ind of rabbits do you have? Do you have pictures?

and how old are the 'babies' cause rabbits start reproducing at about 3-4 months of age

best is all what you want, I'm a show breeder, I don't really want to go through the pain of a colony and rabbit dynamics, so I just keep them individually
bucks fight, bad, does do too, but to a lesser extent, I think some do colonies with a single buck and a few does, others just does, most keep the bucks seperate, I believe.

Many do (I do) use grow out cages for weenlings, I try to separate them by three, three and a half months, that way you cut down on surprises. If you can't tell sex, you need to keep them separate, sorry but... it's bad form to have a Jr. (less than 6mo) doe pregnant.

Welcome to RabbitTalk, i<3bunnies!

Read, read and read some more before you dive in. Forums like this one are great places to ask questions, but you need to learn quite a bit first so you know what questions to ask. I really recommend that you do not start your breeding project until you have some experience caring for the rabbits you already have.

Maybe you can share some more details of your current set-up so we can help you make your bunny adventure a happy one.

This site has a lot of good basic information

http://www.rudolphsrabbitranch.com/rrr.htm

and a special section on determining the sex of young rabbits:

http://www.rudolphsrabbitranch.com/sexing.htm

http://arba.net/Locals.htm
this is the list of clubs

http://www.pasrba.org/
the pen club, please contact these people, you aren't really telling us about your setup (apartment, farm, suburban house) nor do you have expectations, and I hate to think that you get burned out, 4 years is a long time, and actually longer than most hobby breeders last.

Welcome! I think this is a GREAT idea for a senior project, and since you're starting now, you will have a lot of information by the time you need to do the report. Good thinking!

I second the suggestion of contact local 4-H and FFA. They will have resources for you to help form this into a cohesive project. They will help you get set-up with the basics and give you ideas for what kind of record keeping you should do. They may also be able to help you with more information on local laws pertaining to selling rabbit meat as this is something that varies widely from place to place.

I'm pretty sure, however, that it is legal everywhere to sell live rabbits for meat purposes, so that is always a fall back plan, if you think you can sell them. Perhaps an early part of your project would be market research, figuring out what kind of rabbits are in demand and what prices people would be willing to pay, how much it will cost you to raise them, and whether or not there is a profit margin that will make it worthwhile.

Try to locate some breeders close to you to take you under their wing. They can give you a lesson on sexing rabbits, show you their set-up, and offer advice on what feeds are available locally, etc.

Good luck, I hope you keep us informed along the way!

I think this thread would be seen by more people in another category, since it does not relate to RabbitTalk blogs. I will move it to Rabbit Care.

The rabbit that was given to me I have had for three years but he was already an adult rabbit when I got him. I was actually given two adult male rabbits that were the same age but the one died last year. Then after the one died in march I bought two rabbits at tractor supply company (the other male and the female) and it has been roughly 10 months. Then when they were five monthes old they had the three babies who are about five months old because they were born in early August. In july the mom had one baby but it didn't move much and ended up dying and then she had the actual litter in on the first weekend in august. She had four but one died. The parents were seperated when the single baby was born. The mom was seperated from the babies when I saw them drinking water and eating normal rabbit food. All the rabbits are housed in cages outside that are up off the ground. Babies together, mom seperate, and the males are seperate.

Um, the mommy rabbit and the daddy rabbit
from the same place??
likely the are siblings, and this is why a good breeder can help you, nothing wrong with the babies, except now you run into the usual problem, what are you going to do with them.

stew is good, there was a great recipe over in meat the other day.

It sounds like a great project idea and along with the suggestions to contact your local 4H and FFA I have another.

First, decide what you want your goal to be. Purebred rabbits for showing? Meat rabbits for butchering? Hair rabbits for selling the hair?

Once you have made that decision see if you can find a rabbit breeder in your area, doing the same thing you want to do, and see if they will mentor you.

The best advice comes from someone who has "been there, done that" and can help you get started in the right direction.

Please check if you are allowed too raise rabbits in your location.The library is a good place too get books,read several.