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Coinnin

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Sep 11, 2023
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Bowling Green, KY
Hey, I'm new to raising meat rabbits and have lots of questions. I did a lot of research before getting started but nothings as good as pointed advice from someone experienced. I've got a buck and doe each, both Palomino (pretty sure) and their first litter is about 9 weeks old.
The main reason I signed up is because what I've read is that this is around the age to harvest, but mine still look way too small. A friend of mine who raises rabbits as well, said that even my adults look small for meat rabbits, so now I'm questioning the breed. I'll upload photos as soon as I figure out how.
 
Hi :)

What's the weight of your rabbits, adult and offspring?

It's quite a challenge to get rabbits to a butcher weight of 10lbs in 10 weeks, can be done with the right rabbits, right feed (depending on what your rabbits can make good use of), environment and setup. At least I've heard that :D

It's not like the bigger the rabbit, the faster they grow, I think good meat rabbits are rather medium sized. Giant breeds can take long to grow out, and I had some Checkered Giant genes in my herd that made them grow bones and lanky frames first, and fill out later (see picture, that was my previous buck when I got him).

I feed mostly just green forage, and my random farm mongrels are free roam outside during daytime, so I'm there at about 20 weeks, not sure about my butcher weight though, it's when the growth rate noticeable slows down and social issues begin. At 10 weeks mine basically still are kits.

I would just keep them until they are a decent size, maybe experiment with different feeds, etc. . My preference is to feed them with what I have anyway, and I'm in no rush.
 

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Butchering age i hear is usually around 12 weeks and up to even 16, not 9. Now mine won't make 10lbs period, but i am happy if they make a generous 2.2lbs i.e. 1 kg liveweight by 12 weeks (adults are about 1750+ grams). Meaning about 500grams in the freezer (bones included). Untill 12 weeks their growth rate is highest compared to feed intake i.e. feed conversion rate is best. After this time restricting concentrates helps preventing them from getting fat and they won't gain enough size anymore to warrant so much feed. Here i stop twice a day concentrates and switch back to evening only at 12 weeks. They'll then just get one adult ration of pellet rather then 2. I do feed a fair bit of graspellet at 16% though, so what is the overal protein % in your total diet? Hay is pretty low most of the time and muscle i.e. the meat you are after is protein.
 
Hi :)

What's the weight of your rabbits, adult and offspring?

It's quite a challenge to get rabbits to a butcher weight of 10lbs in 10 weeks, can be done with the right rabbits, right feed (depending on what your rabbits can make good use of), environment and setup. At least I've heard that :D

It's not like the bigger the rabbit, the faster they grow, I think good meat rabbits are rather medium sized. Giant breeds can take long to grow out, and I had some Checkered Giant genes in my herd that made them grow bones and lanky frames first, and fill out later (see picture, that was my previous buck when I got him).

I feed mostly just green forage, and my random farm mongrels are free roam outside during daytime, so I'm there at about 20 weeks, not sure about my butcher weight though, it's when the growth rate noticeable slows down and social issues begin. At 10 weeks mine basically still are kits.

I would just keep them until they are a decent size, maybe experiment with different feeds, etc. . My preference is to feed them with what I have anyway, and I'm in no rush.

I haven't been able to weigh them, I need to get a scale. But the adults are around 8 pounds and the kits are still under 5 lbs., I'm guessing close to 3.

I definitely don't expect to get them to 10, what I read is that Palominos are normally butchered from 5-8 lbs. I give them as much Timothy hay as they can eat, the adults get 1/2 cup each of pellets and the 8 babies get 2 cups between them, and I'll give them all some greens from the kitchen here and there. That's just based on what I've read.

Thank you for the advice, it makes much more sense to judge them based on weight instead of age like you're saying. I've just worried that I'm gonna let them get too tough waiting for them to fill out. I'm also concerned about them getting close to breeding age.
Butchering age i hear is usually around 12 weeks and up to even 16, not 9. Now mine won't make 10lbs period, but i am happy if they make a generous 2.2lbs i.e. 1 kg liveweight by 12 weeks (adults are about 1750+ grams). Meaning about 500grams in the freezer (bones included). Untill 12 weeks their growth rate is highest compared to feed intake i.e. feed conversion rate is best. After this time restricting concentrates helps preventing them from getting fat and they won't gain enough size anymore to warrant so much feed. Here i stop twice a day concentrates and switch back to evening only at 12 weeks. They'll then just get one adult ration of pellet rather then 2. I do feed a fair bit of graspellet at 16% though, so what is the overal protein % in your total diet? Hay is pretty low most of the time and muscle i.e. the meat you are after is protein.

How young do they look at 2.2lbs? Mine still look like kits too. I think I must have been wrong about the 9 months, maybe a bad source or I read it wrong, lol. I'm not sure about the protien percentage, I'll have to check the feed when I get home. I buy it from a feed store that makes it themselves, the dog food I buy from there I know is very balanced and they're known around here as being high quality.
 
About that age thing, I have to seperate males and femals at about 12 weeks, that's one thing to be very cautious about, check genders several times, every week. Misgendering is one of the most common mistakes breeders - new and experienced ones - make. Redundancy helps, I'm lucky to have 2 other breeders in my road to get a second opinion.
 
I would say that you could increase the pellet ration for the kits if you want them to hurry up, but it will increase your cost of course, so sometimes faster is not actually better. I tend to aim for about 12 weeks in theory, but I might go to 15 if I get busy.
 
Hey, I'm new to raising meat rabbits and have lots of questions. I did a lot of research before getting started but nothings as good as pointed advice from someone experienced. I've got a buck and doe each, both Palomino (pretty sure) and their first litter is about 9 weeks old.
The main reason I signed up is because what I've read is that this is around the age to harvest, but mine still look way too small. A friend of mine who raises rabbits as well, said that even my adults look small for meat rabbits, so now I'm questioning the breed. I'll upload photos as soon as I figure out how.
Butchering age really depends on the breed, the genetic line, and to some extent how and what you're feeding. It also depends on whether your goal is fryers, roasters, stewers and/or prime pelts. All rabbits of all ages and sizes are made of meat :), it's just that most people want the most meat in the shortest time (or at least at a minimum investment of feed costs).

One resource for guidance is the American Rabbit Breeders Association standard on meat rabbits:
- Meat pens and single fryers have a maximum age of 10 weeks, and are expected to be 3.5 - 5.5 lbs each (at this age, pelts are still unfinished and if you keep them the best you can hope for is usually fur for trim, etc.)
- Roasters are under 6 months, minimum weight 5.5 lbs and maximum weight 9 lbs (this is the age at which you are most likely to be able to harvest prime pelts, as well)
- Stewers are 6 months and over, minimum weight is over 8 lbs

I have found that the meat is fine and tender up to about a year (after that the meat goes in a pressure cooker). After about 12-16 weeks, rabbits get a little more attached to their pelt and are a little harder to skin, but then it's worth it to wait till they're in prime coat (mine prime between about 3.5 -5 months)

For commercial Californians and New Zealands, harvest is generally at 8 weeks. Commercial rabbits are intensively bred for high birth weights and growth rates, and it can be challenging to replicate that in private herds, but it certainly can be done with close attention to breeding animals that produce kits with those characteristics (or working toward it.

Satins are known to be slower-growing but more feed efficient than the commercial breeds. I have found this to be true, as my Satins used to take 12 weeks to reach butcher weight (I harvest fryers and use 4-5 lbs as my standard) but in 12 weeks the Satins still ate less pellets than my Cals and NZs did in 8 weeks.

I have been working for several years on improving growth rates in the Satins and now usually harvest at 9 weeks, with some bunnies hitting fryer weight earlier than that. (I may have lost the super feed-efficiency in the process, but I have not looked into that yet.) From the charts below, you can see that in the two breeds I raise, growth rate continues more or less steady until 16 weeks or so. However as @Preitler mentions, rabbits can theoretically breed by 12 weeks, so most of us butcher by that age instead of separating all growouts into their own cages.

Here is an example of the growth rates I see in my Satins. This is one of this year's meat pen bunnies; you can see that he hit the minimum 3.5lbs just before 7 wks, and was at maximum fryer weight of 5.5lbs at 10 wks:
Black Box growth chart.JPG

For comparison and to show how growth rate changes by age in rabbits raised past fryer age/weight, here are two Champagne D'Argent charts. The first, a buck named Killian, hit minimum weight before 8 weeks and was at max at 10 weeks. Killian had a fabulous growth rate and is my current herd sire. (He actually had to be shown as a Senior while he was still technically a junior because of his weight.) You can also see the diminishing growth rate at about 16 weeks.
Killian Growth Chart.JPG

Here is a chart from Realta, a Champagne doe with a less impressive growth rate, making fryer weight between 10 and 12 weeks. She actually continued on her growth curve until 22 weeks. The slowdown between 12 and 13 weeks was due to a move from the growing cage to a single pen; most changes tend to result in a very temporary slowdown or even slight weight loss, so keeping your growouts in a steady situation until harvest is a good idea.
Realta Growth Chart.JPG

I have also found that butcher weight is not the only metric to use when deciding to harvest. You will probably find differences in the dressout percentages (meat-to-bone and -fat ratio) among your bunnies. Weighing your dressouts after boning is a good idea, so you can choose breeders that produce the most efficient meat bunnies.

Feeding practices also change both growth rate and meat percentage. In the summer months I often put my meat growouts into a tractor that I move around the yard. The bunnies in the tractor eat greens and free choice pellets, and they end up eating about half the amount of pellets than the bunnies in wire cages eating free-choice pellets alone. In the end, the tractor bunnies weigh less than the caged pellet-only bunnies, but at harvest I see that the tractor bunnies have quite a lot less fat than the pellet bunnies. Ultimately, I get about the same amount of meat for about half the amount of pellets when I can tractor them. I can't do this for more than a few months since once it starts raining it is difficult to keep the tractored bunnies from developing coccidiosis, but it's great while the season lasts!
 
Welcome! I have Nz with a bit of rex...i have chosen to raise my growouts on grass. I'm consistently butchering 5lb juniors at 14 to 16 weeks. I'm willing to sacrifice that extra month for the savings in feed and the exceptional leanness and quality of meat. I end up with 3 to 3.5 lbs of meat.

I also always think they are still too small on butcher day...but i swear they look twice as big skinned out!

I am terrible at sexing. No trouble yet but im only a year in 😄
 
Thank you so much for the in-depth response! You've given me a lot to consider. This being my first litter, I'm not concerned with cost just yet, I'd like to concentrate on keeping them healthy and happy, then tighten up on expenses once I know I'm doing things right. But this is going to be extremely helpful once I get down to making it economical! Graphing is a great idea, I love using Excel for this sort of thing.
I would say that you could increase the pellet ration for the kits if you want them to hurry up, but it will increase your cost of course, so sometimes faster is not actually better. I tend to aim for about 12 weeks in theory, but I might go to 15 if I get busy.
I'm not worried about getting them bigger quicker, I don't mind waiting and letting them grow at the pace they should. I just want to make sure I'm getting the times right. I'm going to wait until the 12 week mark, that's what it seems like most of you are saying is the minimum, thanks for the help!
 
Not sure if I should make a new thread for this or if it's appropriate to ask another question in this thread. I searched the catalog and didn't see another post about it. So I have my rabbit cages and runs directly on the ground, and move them every couple of days, where I see most people having them off the ground with a mesh bottom to allow droppings to fall. For the off ground pens, how are people allowing access to the cecotropes?
 
Not sure if I should make a new thread for this or if it's appropriate to ask another question in this thread. I searched the catalog and didn't see another post about it. So I have my rabbit cages and runs directly on the ground, and move them every couple of days, where I see most people having them off the ground with a mesh bottom to allow droppings to fall. For the off ground pens, how are people allowing access to the cecotropes?
Most of my rabbits are in wire-bottomed stackers with trays underneath, and I don't usually find that many cecotropes so I assume the clips are too big to fit through the wire or they hand them on whatever flat things they have to sit/stand on
 
Not sure if I should make a new thread for this or if it's appropriate to ask another question in this thread. I searched the catalog and didn't see another post about it. So I have my rabbit cages and runs directly on the ground, and move them every couple of days, where I see most people having them off the ground with a mesh bottom to allow droppings to fall. For the off ground pens, how are people allowing access to the cecotropes?
Most of my rabbits, who live in wire cages, just reach around and grab the cecotrope from their vents as it's produced. I do occasionally see one (it looks like a cluster of tiny grapes, softer and wetter than a regular poop) on the wire or sitting board, but I've never seen a rabbit pick up one of those and eat it.
 
Not sure if I should make a new thread for this or if it's appropriate to ask another question in this thread. I searched the catalog and didn't see another post about it. So I have my rabbit cages and runs directly on the ground, and move them every couple of days, where I see most people having them off the ground with a mesh bottom to allow droppings to fall. For the off ground pens, how are people allowing access to the cecotropes?
this is fine, but if you have made the effort to search and still are not finding what you need, please don't hesitate to make new threads! Some people like to have all their stuff together, and have a long running thread almost like a blog, but if you have a question it might get more attention if it has a title that indicates what you want to know!
 
Hi, welcome. I butcher at 10-12 weeks. This time will be next week at 10.5 weeks because they are always bigger looking once butchered. I have found when they get bigger you can break a leg or injure it. I use the bop and bleed method and well, they can still jump around. I don't weigh, no scale. Never saw one yet I like. I sold one and am keeping a female so will only have 2 to process. I love them and until they get to be a pain in the *** it's hard for me to do it. Have fun with it, rabbits are awesome animals. Very smart.
 
Not sure if I should make a new thread for this or if it's appropriate to ask another question in this thread. I searched the catalog and didn't see another post about it. So I have my rabbit cages and runs directly on the ground, and move them every couple of days, where I see most people having them off the ground with a mesh bottom to allow droppings to fall. For the off ground pens, how are people allowing access to the cecotropes?
Cecotropes, apart from those dropped in the nestbox for kits, are eaten straight from the source. If a rabbit doesn't do that it is either to fat to reach or ill.
 
Having cages off the ground are for security. Think about hanging or building 4 feet off the ground. You have the same critters I do and I built hutches 4 feet up with wire bottoms. Nothing has ever gotten to my little darlings. Have fun, enjoy this beautiful fall weather.
Back when I was a teen, my homemade wooden hutches had wire floors about 2.5 feet off the ground. Dogs came through the yard and tore apart just about every rabbit I had, grabbing the rabbits through the wire from under the cages. It was horrifying and put me off rabbits for years. So I agree, higher cages are safer. Although for a big German Shepard or Husky (that's what got mine) 4' might not even be enough...😢 I am now blessed to have my all-wire cages in a barn.

Hanging cages are also for preventing crippled old rabbit raisers. :ROFLMAO: Mine are actually a bit higher than 4' up, so that I can reach in and pet/pick up rabbits and change out water crocks without having to stoop over at all. Yeah, I have an old back injury, but anyone might end up with back trouble if they have to pick up 10-12 lb rabbits off the ground for long enough!

However, if your cages/runs are basically on-the-ground tractors, they can be every bit as secure as high-hanging cages. Our rabbit and chicken tractors are just about bomb-proof. Even ermine don't seem to be able to get in them. If could use them all year, I would. It's just that in the rainy falls and then in the frozen winters, which can last for about 9 months of the year, they're hard to move to clean, dry areas often enough to prevent coccidiosis.
 
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I had the same thing happen with dogs when I first started. For wire floored hutches, I add a second floor, with 1 x 2 wire six inches below the first.
 
Butchering age really depends on the breed, the genetic line, and to some extent how and what you're feeding. It also depends on whether your goal is fryers, roasters, stewers and/or prime pelts. All rabbits of all ages and sizes are made of meat :), it's just that most people want the most meat in the shortest time (or at least at a minimum investment of feed costs).

One resource for guidance is the American Rabbit Breeders Association standard on meat rabbits:
- Meat pens and single fryers have a maximum age of 10 weeks, and are expected to be 3.5 - 5.5 lbs each (at this age, pelts are still unfinished and if you keep them the best you can hope for is usually fur for trim, etc.)
- Roasters are under 6 months, minimum weight 5.5 lbs and maximum weight 9 lbs (this is the age at which you are most likely to be able to harvest prime pelts, as well)
- Stewers are 6 months and over, minimum weight is over 8 lbs

I have found that the meat is fine and tender up to about a year (after that the meat goes in a pressure cooker). After about 12-16 weeks, rabbits get a little more attached to their pelt and are a little harder to skin, but then it's worth it to wait till they're in prime coat (mine prime between about 3.5 -5 months)

For commercial Californians and New Zealands, harvest is generally at 8 weeks. Commercial rabbits are intensively bred for high birth weights and growth rates, and it can be challenging to replicate that in private herds, but it certainly can be done with close attention to breeding animals that produce kits with those characteristics (or working toward it.

Satins are known to be slower-growing but more feed efficient than the commercial breeds. I have found this to be true, as my Satins used to take 12 weeks to reach butcher weight (I harvest fryers and use 4-5 lbs as my standard) but in 12 weeks the Satins still ate less pellets than my Cals and NZs did in 8 weeks.

I have been working for several years on improving growth rates in the Satins and now usually harvest at 9 weeks, with some bunnies hitting fryer weight earlier than that. (I may have lost the super feed-efficiency in the process, but I have not looked into that yet.) From the charts below, you can see that in the two breeds I raise, growth rate continues more or less steady until 16 weeks or so. However as @Preitler mentions, rabbits can theoretically breed by 12 weeks, so most of us butcher by that age instead of separating all growouts into their own cages.

Here is an example of the growth rates I see in my Satins. This is one of this year's meat pen bunnies; you can see that he hit the minimum 3.5lbs just before 7 wks, and was at maximum fryer weight of 5.5lbs at 10 wks:
View attachment 37109

For comparison and to show how growth rate changes by age in rabbits raised past fryer age/weight, here are two Champagne D'Argent charts. The first, a buck named Killian, hit minimum weight before 8 weeks and was at max at 10 weeks. Killian had a fabulous growth rate and is my current herd sire. (He actually had to be shown as a Senior while he was still technically a junior because of his weight.) You can also see the diminishing growth rate at about 16 weeks.
View attachment 37110

Here is a chart from Realta, a Champagne doe with a less impressive growth rate, making fryer weight between 10 and 12 weeks. She actually continued on her growth curve until 22 weeks. The slowdown between 12 and 13 weeks was due to a move from the growing cage to a single pen; most changes tend to result in a very temporary slowdown or even slight weight loss, so keeping your growouts in a steady situation until harvest is a good idea.
View attachment 37111

I have also found that butcher weight is not the only metric to use when deciding to harvest. You will probably find differences in the dressout percentages (meat-to-bone and -fat ratio) among your bunnies. Weighing your dressouts after boning is a good idea, so you can choose breeders that produce the most efficient meat bunnies.

Feeding practices also change both growth rate and meat percentage. In the summer months I often put my meat growouts into a tractor that I move around the yard. The bunnies in the tractor eat greens and free choice pellets, and they end up eating about half the amount of pellets than the bunnies in wire cages eating free-choice pellets alone. In the end, the tractor bunnies weigh less than the caged pellet-only bunnies, but at harvest I see that the tractor bunnies have quite a lot less fat than the pellet bunnies. Ultimately, I get about the same amount of meat for about half the amount of pellets when I can tractor them. I can't do this for more than a few months since once it starts raining it is difficult to keep the tractored bunnies from developing coccidiosis, but it's great while the season lasts!
Thanks for all the helpful info!

So I guess my kits aren’t behind in weight. We have 4 NZ CA mix kits at 8 weeks and they weigh about 2-3 pounds. I thought they were under weight but maybe not… most sites say you can butcher at 6-8 weeks but I guess that’s just wishful thinking. I was considering giving them a more caloric feed like alfalfa, rolled oats or even some baby rabbit feed. We have them currently on 18% pellets and Timothy. Should we just wait till 12 weeks to butcher? Is fast growth rate more so connected with feed or genetics and selective breeding?

Thanks!
God bless you all
 
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