Goal Setting

1 year goals: 1) Assemble the necessary equipment, tractors, and F1 breeding stock 2) Have 5 litters with 1-2 breeding does and get comfortable with care routines and breeding cycles 4) Try out some rabbit recipes and eat rabbit once a week

2 year goals: 1) Try to sell a few bunnies on Craigslist or to Rural King. 2) Increase freezer meet to 100 lbs a year

3 year goals: 1) 250ish lbs a year in bunny meat in my front porch stand up freezer 2) 5 breeding rabbits--2 male and 3 females 3) A network of buyers so I can sell a couple kits from each litter to offset feed costs 4) Sell some poop

5 year goal: 1)Find a way to use or sell batches of hides. 2) Add a second breed like Silver Fox or Chinchilla
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I'm kinda figuring with 2 does and 1 buck, 6-8 kindles a year, I'll be spending $65 on pellets every 12 week breeding cycle. Pellets here are $17 for a 50 lb bag. 1 freezer bunny will likely cost me $6.12 at least if there's no waste (yeah right ha). Which is comparable to chicken. If I can drop my per fryer cost down to $3, it would be really nice.

I haven't figured in cost of timothy hay yet, because I'm not sure which hay/how much to use yet. They have a lot of options at the feed store. One time I got a 50 lb bale of orchard/alfalfa mix. We wasted most of it because my toddlers decided to pull it apart and throw it and roll in it. Such a bale is $22 right. But I also might could get square bales of horse hay local and stick them in the shed overwinter. Good local horse hay is usually hard to come by, and it's fesuce. Do rabbits do well on fescue?

I can also supplement some foraged feed and sell some buns to help with costs. I have 6.5 acres to forage on. I have red maple and apple trees right out the back door. I have 4 pastures, but none are fenced. They are basically a pain in the butt for us to mow all summer. I can't lease them to a farmer because they are either too small, too steep, or too boggy to be worth seeding for hay. So dragging tractors around the lawn by the house is probably the way to go. Or putting the bagger on the lawn tractor. But the grass in my pastures is not great quality. I have no idea how the rabbits would do on it. When I offer the some grass, they do seem to like it tho.

If all goes well, might do some 4-H with my kids. They will be old enough in a year or so for that. But I've never tried it before so we'll see.

Am I on the right track more or less? Think I can get my per fryer cost down below $6? Tips for that?

If I were you I would bump selling bunnies to your first year. The sooner you establish a customer base and start getting your name out there the sooner your sales will start offsetting costs. Sounds like good goals to start with though.

savedbygrace979 said:

If I were you I would bump selling bunnies to your first year. The sooner you establish a customer base and start getting your name out there the sooner your sales will start offsetting costs. Sounds like good goals to start with though.

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Ok sounds good.

avoid the red maples leaves (if they are the ornamental type) as some rabbits find them toxic.

For your acreage, I would walk over it and see what you can identify in the way of plants etc before running tractors over them. Remove anything that is toxic before letting the bunnies at it. If you have acreage though those rabbit tractors will have to be VERY secure against predation. Boggy soil...not so good for bunnies as they don't handle "wet" well, but useful for you if you want to do the work of foraging safe plants for them.

ladysown said:

avoid the red maples leaves (if they are the ornamental type) as some rabbits find them toxic.

For your acreage, I would walk over it and see what you can identify in the way of plants etc before running tractors over them. Remove anything that is toxic before letting the bunnies at it. If you have acreage though those rabbit tractors will have to be VERY secure against predation. Boggy soil...not so good for bunnies as they don't handle "wet" well, but useful for you if you want to do the work of foraging safe plants for them.

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The maple tree out back is not the ornamental type of maple. It's the large type maple that grows wild through Virginia. But I think it can be toxic to horses if the leaves are wilted or dried so I suppose I'd better avoid for bunnies too. Thanks for the warning! That's exactly the type of advice I need. As for other poisonous plants. I think I need to keep an eye out for horse nettle (though I haven't seen any at this property). And yes, the boggy soil is too far away for rabbit tractors. I was thinking more of just mowing it for feed...if I can clear a level road to get the tractor even down there without getting stuck. >__<

Predators: Besides having a problem with wolf rats, we also have red tailed hawks, chicken hawks, black snakes, and skunks. Coyotes and bears are also local, but not seen on our property as our neighbor is an avid hunter who keeps the big predators cleared out.

Biggest problem is likely our family dog if he is loose. Baxter is half Tibetan mastiff and half bloodhound. He has killed several of our chickens from time to time. I found that putting concrete blocks on top of a tractor keeps him from being able to flip it. I'm working on training him with the rabbits to accept them as ours or ignore them all together. If he shows any interest in the rabbits or gets too close to them, we spray him in the face with a water bottle. He has taken the habit of lying down near the cages and guarding them from a distance. I'm not sure if that's a positive or a negative. If I turn rabbit hides into chew toys, I'm a bit worried he'll take it as encouragement to eat any bunny he can reach if one gets loose or if he gets loose.

I would start selling manure the first year, that stuff piles up quick and sells fast. What we do is, once the feed sack is empty that means its on the ground in pelleted gold, then we fill it back up with poop, stalk pile at the back of the yard till the beggining of spring, and sell for $5 buck per sack (Realistically, we could get $10-$15 or more per sack, but we just want it gone).
We roughly have 15-20 rabbits for for 8 months out of the year, 5 of which are permanent/breeder rabbits. From them we get about 50-75 sacks (50lb feed sack) full of manure a year. When we post our add on Craigslist it's all gone within a week

jaxmarblebuns said:

I would start selling manure the first year, that stuff piles up quick and sells fast. What we do is, once the feed sack is empty that means its on the ground in pelleted gold, then we fill it back up with poop, stalk pile at the back of the yard till the beggining of spring, and sell for $5 buck per sack (Realistically, we could get $10-$15 or more per sack, but we just want it gone).
We roughly have 15-20 rabbits for for 8 months out of the year, 5 of which are permanent/breeder rabbits. From them we get about 50-75 sacks (50lb feed sack) full of manure a year. When we post our add on Craigslist it's all gone within a week

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Sounds like the same approach I use; some months of the year I make way more in poop sales than in rabbit sales! I really like the fact that I'm basically getting paid to muck out my barn. I appreciate keeping my rabbit hobby finances in the black, too.
I've found that manure sales in the fall are at least as brisk as in the spring, since up here prepping the garden for winter is as much a thing as getting it going in the spring... and I don't have to store the manure more than a few months at a time.
As my son says as he hauls the re-filled feed bags away, "New Look, Same Great Product!"

jaxmarblebuns said:

I would start selling manure the first year, that stuff piles up quick and sells fast. What we do is, once the feed sack is empty that means its on the ground in pelleted gold, then we fill it back up with poop, stalk pile at the back of the yard till the beggining of spring, and sell for $5 buck per sack (Realistically, we could get $10-$15 or more per sack, but we just want it gone).
We roughly have 15-20 rabbits for for 8 months out of the year, 5 of which are permanent/breeder rabbits. From them we get about 50-75 sacks (50lb feed sack) full of manure a year. When we post our add on Craigslist it's all gone within a week

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That's an incredible amount of poo!
Do you sell it poo only or mixed with the soiled straw/hay/bedding materials?

ihatedarkroast said:

That's an incredible amount of poo!
Do you sell it poo only or mixed with the soiled straw/hay/bedding materials?

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I just shovel up what's under the cages and bag it. I do make some effort to distribute the hay/wood shavings/fur/dropped rabbit food kind of evenly among the bags, partly to give the buyers a better fertilizer, and partly to make the weight more even for me to handle (it's a bummer to try to move a 100 lb bag of wet poo while other bags are 30lbs because they're mostly hay).

I just note on the craigslist ad that they are "50lb feed bags full of rabbit poo, also containing varying amounts of rabbit pellets, hay, pine shavings, and shed rabbit fur." I also note that the feed is no "corn/no soy" if that's what I've been feeding them.

I have waiting lists both spring and fall for bags of manure; I generally can't shovel fast enough. Last year I sold 106 bags, roughly 5,300 lbs of fertilizer. Makes me tired just thinking about moving that much weight by hand, shovelful by shovelful... and that doesn't include what we used in our own gardens. But my bottom line is happy.

Alaska Satin said:

I just shovel up what's under the cages and bag it. I do make some effort to distribute the hay/wood shavings/fur/dropped rabbit food kind of evenly among the bags, partly to give the buyers a better fertilizer, and partly to make the weight more even for me to handle (it's a bummer to try to move a 100 lb bag of wet poo while other bags are 30lbs because they're mostly hay).

I just note on the craigslist ad that they are "50lb feed bags full of rabbit poo, also containing varying amounts of rabbit pellets, hay, pine shavings, and shed rabbit fur." I also note that the feed is no "corn/no soy" if that's what I've been feeding them.

I have waiting lists both spring and fall for bags of manure; I generally can't shovel fast enough. Last year I sold 106 bags, roughly 5,300 lbs of fertilizer. Makes me tired just thinking about moving that much weight by hand, shovelful by shovelful... and that doesn't include what we used in our own gardens. But my bottom line is happy.

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As flipping weird as it is to say, I can't wait to have this much rabbit poo on hand. I'll be adding every bit of bedding and poo to my compost piles. My garden needs every last bit and will continue to need it as it expands to almost 10 acres of market garden. Right now it's just rabbit and chicken poo but in 2 years we will add a lot more of both plus, goat, sheep, turkey, game birds(pheasant, quail, grouse, snipe, partridge). LOL

If there's repeat fertilizer customers, is there any way to get them to bag up the manure themselves? Fertilizer is too expensive here due to shipping, so all the bunny 'berries' we get goes pretty much all into our garden. We generally range between sixteen to forty rabbits so the amount they produce varies. It sits under the hutches and composts a bit, then gets spread on the garden several times a year.

hotzcatz said:

If there's repeat fertilizer customers, is there any way to get them to bag up the manure themselves? Fertilizer is too expensive here due to shipping, so all the bunny 'berries' we get goes pretty much all into our garden. We generally range between sixteen to forty rabbits so the amount they produce varies. It sits under the hutches and composts a bit, then gets spread on the garden several times a year.

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Many have offered to come shovel it themselves.
But I don't really want strangers in my barn, and actually I kind of enjoy the work. Moving it in feed-bag increments makes it manageable, and I can go at my own pace and just let them know when to come get it.
Also, I like the cash - I'd feel like I have to sell it for less if they did the shoveling!
Yes, we use the manure ourselves as well. I have to watch that I don't sell all of it! We have chickens too, but I like the rabbit manure much better.

ihatedarkroast said:

...

I haven't figured in cost of timothy hay yet, because I'm not sure which hay/how much to use yet. They have a lot of options at the feed store. One time I got a 50 lb bale of orchard/alfalfa mix. We wasted most of it because my toddlers decided to pull it apart and throw it and roll in it. Such a bale is $22 right. But I also might could get square bales of horse hay local and stick them in the shed overwinter. Good local horse hay is usually hard to come by, and it's fesuce. Do rabbits do well on fescue?

...

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Orchard grass should not cost more than $5 per bale. The regular rectangular bale. Find a hay farmer, not the feed store. Direct from the hay farm Orchard grass is $2.50 per bale. I pay my local rancher $5 for the convenience of not driving an hour out and back to/from the hay farm.

Rabbits will do well on fescue. If you have 10 acres look into Sudex. It can be grown for hay, or green manure. My rabbits absolutely loved it. It is often grown to break up fallowed soil. I bought 10lbs of seed for something like $20. That's more than I will use in 10 years! But they loved it so much and it is great nutritionally.

Alaska Satin said:

Many have offered to come shovel it themselves.
But I don't really want strangers in my barn, and actually I kind of enjoy the work. Moving it in feed-bag increments makes it manageable, and I can go at my own pace and just let them know when to come get it.
Also, I like the cash - I'd feel like I have to sell it for less if they did the shoveling!
Yes, we use the manure ourselves as well. I have to watch that I don't sell all of it! We have chickens too, but I like the rabbit manure much better.

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How do you filter the hay fall through from the manure so as to sell it as slow release fertilizer? I'd love to establish some self filtering thing or drawer that catches hay on the top layer (discard or reuse for compost), berries on the second layer, and the wee goes right through. Then would just be easy to pull the berries out and leave them in the sun to dry if needed, then bag and sell. At the moment all my waste goes into the compost, and I have amazing rich compost - but sometimes it would be nice to have fertilizer and compost separate. What does everyone else use for filtering systems?

Bunnies4me said:

How do you filter the hay fall through from the manure so as to sell it as slow release fertilizer? I'd love to establish some self filtering thing or drawer that catches hay on the top layer (discard or reuse for compost), berries on the second layer, and the wee goes right through. Then would just be easy to pull the berries out and leave them in the sun to dry if needed, then bag and sell. At the moment all my waste goes into the compost, and I have amazing rich compost - but sometimes it would be nice to have fertilizer and compost separate. What does everyone else use for filtering systems?

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I'm sure they probably make sifters for this specifically, but for diy you just need to find a screen like hardware cloth with small enough gaps to only allow the poo pellets fall through. You probably would need a secondary screen with smaller holes than the poo pellets to filter out debris, fines, and leftover food pellets(if using them).

Run all your poo and loose/small bedding through the larger first screen catching into a bucket or barrel. Then run what's in the barrel through the smaller screen and what's remaining on top of the second screen goes in bags or dehydrator etc.

It sounds like a lot of work collecting all the bagged poo. I dont have that kind of free time right now so in the garden it shall go. Lol. Biggest problem is my two occupied cages have flat tray bottoms. But! my doe is now using the litterbox (mostly). That should help a bit. Once I get my baby boy in a bigger hutch, it should be a lot easier.

Sure. I'll look for a hay farmer. 15 years ago i had horses and hay was hard to source. Its kinda a word of mouth thing unless i wanna drive a long distance or buy a large number of bales or spend $50-100 on a round bale...Found some square bales on craigslist for $6-8. I'll have to drive to get them and that will make them a lot more expensive...I think I have some people I can ask where they get theirs for their sheep/horses.

Bunnies4me said:

How do you filter the hay fall through from the manure so as to sell it as slow release fertilizer? I'd love to establish some self filtering thing or drawer that catches hay on the top layer (discard or reuse for compost), berries on the second layer, and the wee goes right through. Then would just be easy to pull the berries out and leave them in the sun to dry if needed, then bag and sell. At the moment all my waste goes into the compost, and I have amazing rich compost - but sometimes it would be nice to have fertilizer and compost separate. What does everyone else use for filtering systems?

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The problem with filtering is that the hay tends to make a nice mat that won't allow the poo to sift through. This happens in wire cages, especially during the winter when it freezes, and I imagine it would do the same on a screen under the cage.

If you want pristine poo you might try feeding hay in the form of blocks or pellets instead of baled hay. When we had angoras we did that to keep from getting the wool fouled with hay. It is, of course, quite a bit more expensive to do it that way.

And really, rabbits fed a good pelleted feed with high fiber don't actually need additional hay. It's nice for them for other reasons, but they can do fine without it. So if your feed is good, just skip the hay.

ihatedarkroast said:

It sounds like a lot of work collecting all the bagged poo. I dont have that kind of free time right now so in the garden it shall go. Lol. Biggest problem is my two occupied cages have flat tray bottoms. But! my doe is now using the litterbox (mostly). That should help a bit. Once I get my baby boy in a bigger hutch, it should be a lot easier.

Sure. I'll look for a hay farmer. 15 years ago i had horses and hay was hard to source. Its kinda a word of mouth thing unless i wanna drive a long distance or buy a large number of bales or spend $50-100 on a round bale...Found some square bales on craigslist for $6-8. I'll have to drive to get them and that will make them a lot more expensive...I think I have some people I can ask where they get theirs for their sheep/horses.

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Oh my goodness, the envy... Here round bales are $175-$200, and squares are $27 plus.

But I guess that's why I make the time to bag the poo!

Alaska Satin said:

Oh my goodness, the envy... Here round bales are $175-$200, and squares are $27 plus.

But I guess that's why I make the time to bag the poo!

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We have a decently long growing season where I live. We have roses blooming in November, and the grass starts to grow halfway through February...although February is when we also get most of our snow and ice.
I think hay is hard to find here because there just aren't enough farmers. Lots of farms are rotting with falling down barns and houses with trees growing up through them and fields turned to scrubby pines. They say the older generation has/is retiring and young people are in the cities working other types of jobs. But I also think it's hard to make hay here because it's always too dry when it needs to be wet and too wet when it needs to be dry. >_< Still, glad it's not as expensive as where you live. Bag that poo!

Well, the rabbit poo for me comes out in a sodden clumpy mess of straw, hay and sawdust and also whatever plastic toys the baby throws into the cages trying to play with the rabbits. The ammonia smell is strong. But part of the problem is one of the rabbit bottles drips more than it should. I had a little baking crock under it to catch the dripping, but the baby (likely) smashed it against a wall and broke it. IDK why she had to do that. Or it could have been the 4 year old. Idk.

Anyway, I weighed my little buck. He is 4.5 lbs at 9 weeks + 2 days. I think he likes his new home and diet. I bet he hits 5 lbs around 10 weeks!

So, I am feeling ambitious after the suggestion of buying a preggers doe so she can kindle before my buck even reaches breeding age and bring more genetic diversity into the herd. But I am having trouble with these Craigslist people who don't answer emails when I inquire about their rex rabbits. So I'm terribly tempted to get a mixed mutt for this, to practice on while we wait for the purebred to mature a little. The people who sell meat mutts seem like they answer texts and emails a lot quicker. I could more easily pick up a NZ flemish cross or NZ pure or silver fox or chinchilla pure or mixed than I could another purebred rex.

And I polyeurythaned and mostly assembled the rabbit tractor. But I think I noticed some people put hardware cloth or some type of wire inisde their hutches to discourage a bunny from eating its house. Should i do that? I have hardware cloth, chicken wire, rabbit wire, and livestock wire.

Alaska Satin said:

I just shovel up what's under the cages and bag it. I do make some effort to distribute the hay/wood shavings/fur/dropped rabbit food kind of evenly among the bags, partly to give the buyers a better fertilizer, and partly to make the weight more even for me to handle (it's a bummer to try to move a 100 lb bag of wet poo while other bags are 30lbs because they're mostly hay).

I just note on the craigslist ad that they are "50lb feed bags full of rabbit poo, also containing varying amounts of rabbit pellets, hay, pine shavings, and shed rabbit fur." I also note that the feed is no "corn/no soy" if that's what I've been feeding them.

I have waiting lists both spring and fall for bags of manure; I generally can't shovel fast enough. Last year I sold 106 bags, roughly 5,300 lbs of fertilizer. Makes me tired just thinking about moving that much weight by hand, shovelful by shovelful... and that doesn't include what we used in our own gardens. But my bottom line is happy.

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WOW I am SO GLAD you posted this. I have been putting off selling manure because of it being a mixture and somehow I imagined that was a no no EVEN THOUGH it is what I use on my own plants.