giants for meat

[champange]

So ive read y not to use flemish giants because of bone to meat ratio.but i recently seen checkered giants and y dont they get used for meat with there long bodies or at least put in the breeding program

 

[Zass]

Any and all large breeds get used for meat...by and by,
I suspect more of the small breeds are eaten than many let on too.


With breeding for meat, bigger isn't always better. It's all about efficiency.

Since there is so much variation between breeds and lines, it's hard to predict what will do well for you based on breed.

I mean, I couldn't even say "new zealands are good" at this point, since I've seen WAY too many people struggle to get decent growth with those. :shrug: If you like a breed, feel free to give it a try.
Just be ready to freezer-camp anything that isn't working out.

 

[Homer]

I have French lops and Flemish. I raise for quality rabbits and end up putting most in freezer camp. The biggest issue as I see it is the amount of food you go through with giants to get them to the age you can really tell what you have.

French are excellent for meat at most any age. Mine are usually 3-4 months old by the time I decide it's not going to be their day. With just two of us in the house we usually get 2-3 meals off one rabbit. The Flemish are about the same. There's a lot of meat there but you poor a lot of food down their pie holes too. :x

Like DBA says, "feed em, breed em and eat em" :chef:

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

I bought two Flemish does at auction once. THEY ATE MORE FEED AND WASTED MORE HAY THAN MY TWO DAIRY GOATS! not pygmys or dwarfs goats either! ya needless to say they didn't stick around long enough for anything other than that and I doubt I got enough back from selling em as the food they went through in the short time I had em.

but one of the best does I have had was 3/4 NZ and 1/4 Flemish. on the various groups and things I hear a lot of good about this mix as 'the best' breeding does. if my dutch doe i'd had would've kept her weight when she was nursing she'd be #1 doe I've owned and the 3/4 NZ 1/4 Flemish would be #2 doe. the #3 doe I would have to think on and it wouldn't be a close third!

 

[TF3]

I don't have a ton of experience
But having a 13 lb FG was enough of a feed bill and mess (although he was a lamb and a great breeder).
I have a litter of his with my FG cross (probably NZ) doe that are almost 5 lbs at 8 weeks but not a bit of it feels like meat LOL I do plan to send the remainders after sales to camp so we'll see how long it takes to compare to the litter before them which have less FG.
That said my FG cross doe has turned out to be a great producer, so I just bred her two daughters from that first litter to my Cali and Rex bucks to see what happens.

I realized quickly I don't want all FG but I really love the bit I do have!

 

[akane]

Checkereds are an arch breed so they have less capacity to fit meat on their frame and like flemish they will have thick bones and eat like pigs to gain weight. A little giant breed in there can help sometimes but I wouldn't do more than 1/4th. I actually like the small breeds. Mini rex and dutch may top out at lower weights but they grow faster as juniors and they have very light bone. The result is a lot of meat on a little package that takes little space and eats a whole lot less. Many of the original meat breeds weren't that big. Dutch were bred for meat for awhile. Standard chinchillas are 5-7lbs and were developed for meat. After importing them people then bred them up to make american chins at 9-12lbs. Then they crossed in some flemish to make giant chins which are not generally used for meat animals for the same reasons as the rest of the giant breeds. I would say the argente breeds are probably the largest originally used for meat at the same size they are now and not bred up in size at a later time to appeal to the newer ideas of what makes a good meat rabbit. Personally I put mini rex in with my champagne and cremes to start my meat mutts of a medium size with fine bone. I did later put some checkered x nz in there but that was more to up the size of one line for the dogs than to make efficient meat for humans.

 

[BirchLane]

Weeeell... I'll just let this one speak for itself.

 

[FourRingCircus]

Weeeell... I'll just let this one speak for itself.

I have seen that image floating around on Pinterest... a good visual, for sure! The one lingering question I wish they would have answered was what their live weights were...

 

[BirchLane]

On their original Facebook post, Raggy Bits Rabbitry said this:

I should have weighed live but I didn't. Sorry. Carcass weight was 4lb 3.4 oz for the checkered giant and 4 lb 15.8 oz for the NZW. The checkered giant has much heavier bone. I still have the skeletons (I use them for soup) since we deboned them for hamburger and could weight them for you but since the meat left on could vary, I'm not sure that would show anything accurately. But know, with no doubt, the checkered giant's bones weight more with no question.

Thankfully, we can make some inferences based on the ARBA standards of perfection for both breeds. The Checkered Giant, at 6-8 months of age, must be a minimum of 9 pounds to meet the SOP. The NZ, by comparison, should be at least 6 pounds, but not more than 10 pounds at 6-8 months of age. The better question would be "How does the meat to bone ratio compare between CG and NZ?" Scientists have already done that work for us as applied to NZ and Cali rabbits:

I have exactly no idea what the actual meat to bone ratio is on a CG, and I don't really know of anyone who uses them in a meat production program. I think the general consensus is that they, because they are a "full arch" type and have many of the same characteristics of hares, simply lack the overall composition to be ideal meat rabbits. You can just look at one and tell that it's probably not going to produce as much, meat-wise, as a commercial type rabbit.

Bunz of Steel's Long's Ramone provides a good example of the CG's hare-like structure. It should be telling that the CG is one of only four rabbits that is judged while running at ARBA rabbit shows. They're basically the sight hounds of the bunny world.

 

[Ramjet]

In terms of meat production , my best doe is a half Rex x NZB x Altex ... She's two years old , 13.7lbs a fantastic mother / milker and has litters ranging from 9-12 who's growth is much superior to my purebred Rex line reaching 5lbs in ~8-9 weeks on average while my pure Rex will take 12 or more weeks to reach the 5lb mark with a rex buck as the sire.

The resulting litters are generally half rex coated , half non rex coated and the non rex will grow out slightly faster than their rex coated siblings - a week to 10 days.


I have considered adding FG to my meat production herd with the intent of getting a larger hide as a result but I just don't have the cage space right now to add a FG and its resulting offspring with 11 holes , 2 bucks , 7 does and only 2 grow out cages and limited space for expansion.
The other issue aside from cage space , and probably a bigger issue is finding a pure FG. Every time I find someone with what they claim is FG they are crossbreeds or something else altogether. LOL @ an 8lb adult rabbit with lop ears ?!

 

[BirchLane]

I will say that my best-producing meat doe is a Flemish Giant who is on the smaller side, around 12 pounds. She consistently gives me litters in the double digits, with the average being 12 per litter. She raises all of them with very minimal interference from me, and produces enough milk to even be able to help out small kits from other litters with a little "midday snack." I love that she maintains excellent condition throughout the nursing process and doesn't look much worse for the wear when I wean her kits at about 5 weeks.

That said, her kits often take a bit longer to mature to the kind of dress weight I want and, man, they can EAT! :feed-plant:

 

[ilovehome]

Giant Chins are my favorite meat breed. They are close to five lbs at 8 weeks, and they eat less than my English lops. They are a little bigger boned than the smaller meat breeds, but I like that.

 

[Ramjet]

I will say that my best-producing meat doe is a Flemish Giant who is on the smaller side, around 12 pounds. She consistently gives me litters in the double digits, with the average being 12 per litter. She raises all of them with very minimal interference from me, and produces enough milk to even be able to help out small kits from other litters with a little "midday snack." I love that she maintains excellent condition throughout the nursing process and doesn't look much worse for the wear when I wean her kits at about 5 weeks.

That said, her kits often take a bit longer to mature to the kind of dress weight I want and, man, they can EAT! :feed-plant:

Sounds like a nice producer ... but kinda goes back to my point above about not being able to find quality , according to breed standard within the breed.
The breed standard minimum weight for a senior doe is 14lbs & a buck 13lbs with average weights being considerably higher (15+lbs).

Every time I've gone to look at FG's .... there is something about them that just isn't right. (size , lop ears , wrong color , the list goes on).
I cant complain about cross breeding because I do it myself with my Rex x NZB x Altex but her kits are all terminal - none of them will ever leave my barn alive.
Seems people will breed any two rabbits together and call them <insert name here> just to make a $$.

 

[BirchLane]

I haven't weighed Priss recently, but I seem to recall that right around the 12 pound mark was about right for her. Despite being purebred, she is definitely on the small side. I'm fine with that, since she's a helluva producer and I don't intend to show her or her offspring. (After being accosted by some people on a Facebook FG group because she comes from color-mingled lines, I have absolutely zero interest in raising FG as show stock. I had no idea that my rabbits were of such great concern to someone else!)