MaggieJ":3q9195s8 said:
Disappointing, for sure.
A couple of questions...
What do the parents weigh? And what are you feeding the grow-outs?
NZR buck weighs 8.6 pounds at age 1.5 years. Calif. doe weighs 8.3 pounds at age 1.2 years.
Feed is rabbit pellets, fresh apples, kale, hay. Bad genes??? This is her second litter. Great mothering skills and quiet gentle. Would hate to cull her but this is totally unacceptable. I can't really remember what happened with her first litter. I didn't track them. I guess I'll give her another try and see how the fall batch weighs out.
__________ Sat Aug 29, 2015 3:17 pm __________
Update:
Butchered these today with the following weights.
5.0
4.2
4.2
4.4
4.8
4.4
4.0
This makes a total of 31 pounds of meat and bones. The bag of guts, hides, feet and heads weighed 15.2 pounds. We'll be boiling 5 of these down and deboning the meat for canning tomorrow. If I can get the weight of meat and the bone weight, I'll post that also. Unfortunately, on butchering day, these rabbits were 14 weeks old. Wish I could have got these results exactly 1 month ago!
Maybe I'll just start buying crab meat and lobster ... flown in from Maine .... it would probably save me a fortune.