Think i'm throwing in the towel....

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

Marry ann, how much of a break do commercial rabbitries get buying in bulk on average?

allot..there is a big difference in price because you are not paying for the bags and someone doing it. But you have to have large plastic container so the chute of the truck can fit in . You can also go to the mill and bring the container on a skid and they will fill it up for you. if they come to your home there is fee for that. as price. there is about 2 dollars a bag difference depending on the feed that you are getting some are more than that in savings.

 

[phillinley]

Mary Ann, did you have a contract with any companies to produce X amount of rabbits each month? The two commercial breeders I know in Iowa do it this way but they don't sell for meat they sell for medical purposes where they are required to produce so much a month and it has to be from a certain blood type so they have to have white New Zealands. From what they tell me the people they sell to use them entirely for medical products and don't even use the pelts or meat.

Anyway, these guys have about 2000 head give or take all year round. So bowbuild, if you're doing the math, you have to know that the math doesn't work unless you're working with 500+ rabbits with a consistent turn around on a monthly basis in order to turn a decent profit.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

I didnt matter if i had 50 or 500 they bought them all. THERE was no contract or anything like that. If i didnt have enought to ship that week ,.. Then they went the next week. This is not for medical.. It was all for meat... But you had to be in the right size. NOt over 6 pounds or you will get less money per pound. Not under 5.5 pounds. They would average your weight out in each shipping. There was a certain day of week you can ship your rabbits to and time. Depending on the time of year. You will get more money at this time of year than you do in the summer. It was at a plant that they killed them and had someone come in and inspect the meat. Then you got paid.. If you had a bruise leg ect. It would come of the price of the rabbit. It is still going on today and i still can do it if i want to. But i dont want to. Allot of work... You dont need anymore than 100 working does to start making money. You cant cut corners in this type of business as in cheaper food ect. The does will not produce. Also in order to make money you had to have at least 8 litters per year per doe..... That i didnt like. So in a year you are replaceing stock ... the list goes on and on.
They sell the rabbits to grociers store ect. You couldnt buy your own rabbits back after they will butcher and cleaned. But if you had bad livers all the time and sick rabbits ect. They will stop buying from you.
The way it worked for me. I put 10 rabbits in a crate. So every 3 crates that was shipped one crate was for food the rest was profit.

 

[MaggieJ]

If you can get cheap alfalfa or clover hay, you can cut the cost per pound of rabbit meat dramatically. When I used to feed pellets, the meat cost about $1.50 per pound to raise. With alfalfa hay at $3.50 a square bale, plus gathered greens, a bit of whole grain and a trace mineral salt block, it dropped to about half that. It is time-consuming to gather greens and does not work well in a large rabbitry for that reason.

Bowbridge, in your place I would cut back the number of rabbits and just raise them for your own use. If you can't eat poultry, rabbits are the ideal solution.

 

[NatureBunsRabbitry]

I honestly don't see how you can't make money with rabbits if you do it right. I only have 15 rabbits and with just one litter paid for 4 months worth of feed. I pay around $20 per bag and go through a bag every week and a half or so. There are different venues to make the money off rabbits you just have to do something else than just using them for meat. I personally have the meat rabbits who I feed my family and pets with and then the mini rexes who are for show/ fur. I use the pelts from all the rabbits (except the ones for my dog) and I use the poop for worm beds. The key is to use every single part if every rabbit. That is the way I learned to make money with a small operation.

 

[Dood]

Skysthelimit - I am in Ontario Canada and commercial broiler bird producers get $1.70 /kg or about $0.80/ pound for their birds. If you pay less than that you are getting laying hens who after only 1 year of laying an egg a day are no longer productive enough and hence disposed of. Your "commercial Meat growers/the Amish" are "factory" farming where they de-beaked and crammed 5 birds to a cage and they peck and de-feather each other or crammed in a barn so full of chickens you cannot see across to the other side because of the "dust".

Cattle are $ 0.89/pound for well muscled beef breeds likely finished on feed lots until their livers are so rotted their skin turns yellow and $0.44 for dilapitated dairy cows with foot rot, mastitis or nearly "down" for some unknown reason and who lived their entire life on concrete, getting milked every 12 hours or every 8 if they are lucky.

This is what I mean when I say I will not buy the cheap meat just to save a buck on my dogs food.

 

[bowbuild]

Phil,
I think with 50 head a person can make money, the more rabbits the better that is for sure. I am caught in a dilema, do I buy more cages, a better larger covering....last but not least...and the most important, I can't get a solid contract from the buyer. So without a contract of some kind I can't see spending more money on a possible losing venture....I am not a gambler by any means..... :?



Bowbuild

 

[Cindi Davis]

I have 1 Breeding buck and 3 adult breeding does and 2 Jr Doe's (not for sale)
and 2 Jr REW NZ bucks that I sell for $30 each. Just put 16 in the freezer. and plan to trade some for ELK YUMMMMM. I have them for the enjoyment and food. I sell some for 4H since thats a big thing here where I live. They manage to pay for 1/2 their food. I take into consideration that I have them for a food source. Im good with that

 

[skysthelimit]

Skysthelimit - I am in Ontario Canada and commercial broiler bird producers get $1.70 /kg or about $0.80/ pound for their birds. If you pay less than that you are getting laying hens who after only 1 year of laying an egg a day are no longer productive enough and hence disposed of. Your "commercial Meat growers/the Amish" are "factory" farming where they de-beaked and crammed 5 birds to a cage and they peck and de-feather each other or crammed in a barn so full of chickens you cannot see across to the other side because of the "dust".

Cattle are $ 0.89/pound for well muscled beef breeds likely finished on feed lots until their livers are so rotted their skin turns yellow and $0.44 for dilapitated dairy cows with foot rot, mastitis or nearly "down" for some unknown reason and who lived their entire life on concrete, getting milked every 12 hours or every 8 if they are lucky.

This is what I mean when I say I will not buy the cheap meat just to save a buck on my dogs food.

Chicken at stores here is between $.59/lb and $.79/lb. I used to go to value food stores and get frozen chicken quarters for $.39/lb, so it's not inconceivable that if we get 1000lb bulk chicken that it could cost $.33/lb, especially if we are going right to the source to get them. The smaller the amount the more we pay. If I went by myself and tried to get the chicken, I definitely would not pay that price, and the price is going up as the cost of everything increases.

Not that I mind year old laying birds, that's not too old for dogs to eat. That's pretty much all they are good for, better than going to waste.

I never said I was feeding beef, but tripe, and tripe is a waste product for everyone no matter what the source of the cattle, could be good conditions, you don't know that. Something else that has to be ordered in advance and bought in bulk, and is not always available. And they could be older past their prime, as I am sure many of us feed our older rabbits to our dogs as well. What's the difference? Because you think your meat is well cared for, and mine's isn't because the meat cost less? Or because I did not see it raised. There are quite a few people there raising a few cattle for meat, and pigs, the lady I get food is one, and after the meat is processed, we get innards for the dogs. They are lucky people want the tripe, they were throwing it away before.

I'm sure people have lots of politics about how their meat is raised, but I don't. People raise their own food for many reasons. I feed raw because it's better and more species appropriate than dog food, not because of some economical, social or moral agenda. If I spent more money than I spent now on packaged dog food, I'd still be feeding crap compared to what they are getting now despite the source. Sorry if I disappoint anyone, my food morals are not that high, and my pockets not that deep.

 

[dragonladyleanne]

Sky, when I asked where you got chicken at .33/lb, it wasn't meant to sound like I thought you were fabricating that price, it was meant more like "wow, you get chicken a LOT cheaper than it is here, yet your rabbit feed prices are higher or about the same". Except for the quantity fed per month, but I somehow missed what size rabbitry you had, which is why I asked if I were underfeeding my rabbits (because I only go through about 50 lbs a month, give or take a week), but your response about growing season sort of answered that. Our growing season here is long enough for some things to produce two crops a year, so fresh produce is cheap - but commercially made feed is sort of midrange, and meat of any sort is higher, unless you raise it yourself on homegrown produce. I am retired, so starting next Spring, I can produce my own meat very reasonably priced, plus I have oaks whose acorns can tan the furs, and I have a market for them as well. Even higher if I make stuff from the furs. But with your shorter growing season, I can see where the costs might reverse, since produce becomes both more expensive to buy, and also you have to provide more "store-bought" feed in the winter months, whereas I supplement by letting my rabbits graze. And commercial operations for chicken and beef would have the same issues, some years making it cheaper to slaughter and sell low than to keep feeding their animals.

Long story short (yeah right, AFTER I have been this long-winded, LOL), if you were just venting, hope getting it off your chest helped, and sorry if some of us sounded preachy - if you were wanting ideas to make it cheaper, some folks have given ideas on that, while others were presenting less tangible though no less valuable reasons to not worry about the cost so much.
:bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop:

 

[skysthelimit]

Sky, when I asked where you got chicken at .33/lb, it wasn't meant to sound like I thought you were fabricating that price, it was meant more like "wow, you get chicken a LOT cheaper than it is here, yet your rabbit feed prices are higher or about the same". Except for the quantity fed per month, but I somehow missed what size rabbitry you had, which is why I asked if I were underfeeding my rabbits (because I only go through about 50 lbs a month, give or take a week), but your response about growing season sort of answered that. Our growing season here is long enough for some things to produce two crops a year, so fresh produce is cheap - but commercially made feed is sort of midrange, and meat of any sort is higher, unless you raise it yourself on homegrown produce. I am retired, so starting next Spring, I can produce my own meat very reasonably priced, plus I have oaks whose acorns can tan the furs, and I have a market for them as well. Even higher if I make stuff from the furs. But with your shorter growing season, I can see where the costs might reverse, since produce becomes both more expensive to buy, and also you have to provide more "store-bought" feed in the winter months, whereas I supplement by letting my rabbits graze. And commercial operations for chicken and beef would have the same issues, some years making it cheaper to slaughter and sell low than to keep feeding their animals.

Long story short (yeah right, AFTER I have been this long-winded, LOL), if you were just venting, hope getting it off your chest helped, and sorry if some of us sounded preachy - if you were wanting ideas to make it cheaper, some folks have given ideas on that, while others were presenting less tangible though no less valuable reasons to not worry about the cost so much.
:bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop:

I have 38 rabbits at current count. I culled 10-15 in the last month, to keep down cost. I too wonder why feed is less elsewhere, and I believe what TSC told me when they stopped selling MannaPro show--no one is buying. That drives up the price. Not enough rabbit people in the immediate region.

I also think Rex have a lower feed/meat conversion. They seem to need more to keep condition, and they take longer to raise to 5lbs, at least a month past other commercial breeds.

That too is the problem with raising food for personal or market. I can't truthfully see how anyone can really expects to make a profit, with good quality feed, larger cages, less intensive breed back schedules, large amounts of animals needed but giving optimum space, keeping cost down and working another full time job. Just to get 3 or so rabbits a month, for each dog, which is nothing towards what they eat, I would have to have quite a few working does, or breeding back to back, replacing every year, and that many does means the bare minimum sized cages in a small barn space. I'd like to think food is treated as humanely as my pets, but that's not reality. Nor is it possibly to raise enough food, meat or otherwise, in the Ohio climate, in the small urban yard I have, to last through the non growing season to feed myself much less the rabbits, and certainly not the dogs (especially if rabbit cannot be there main food source).

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Chicken comes from a place called Gerbers, in Kidron, Ohio, Amish country.

I have about 40 rabbits, 34 are 6 mos or older. I go through 6 bags of food a month, at around $19 a bag. I have two fur breeds and one wool breed (tiny woolys though. Gotta feed that Rex fur. One rabbit eats 6oz (slightly lower for bucks and dry does, but not by much) of food per day, but I free feed juniors, so as soon as I get hose coveted litters the feed bill will jump. I don't think there feed conversion is that great, the SF live off of nothing. Only place for me to get hay is TSC at $10 a bale. Growing anything between October and April is near impossible this close to Lake Erie.

:shock: say what???
maybe its just me, as i make all my hay for all my animals. we never had to buy hay. hate it when you are makin it but glad in the cold months when ya aint buying it.

i'm suprized there isnt anyone near you to buy hay from.... :shock: and good heavens $10 a bale? this better be a big bale!<br /><br />__________ Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:17 am __________<br /><br />

Skysthelimit - I am in Ontario Canada and commercial broiler bird producers get $1.70 /kg or about $0.80/ pound for their birds. If you pay less than that you are getting laying hens who after only 1 year of laying an egg a day are no longer productive enough and hence disposed of. Your "commercial Meat growers/the Amish" are "factory" farming where they de-beaked and crammed 5 birds to a cage and they peck and de-feather each other or crammed in a barn so full of chickens you cannot see across to the other side because of the "dust".

Cattle are $ 0.89/pound for well muscled beef breeds likely finished on feed lots until their livers are so rotted their skin turns yellow and $0.44 for dilapitated dairy cows with foot rot, mastitis or nearly "down" for some unknown reason and who lived their entire life on concrete, getting milked every 12 hours or every 8 if they are lucky.

This is what I mean when I say I will not buy the cheap meat just to save a buck on my dogs food.

poppin in my 2 cents here...
i'm sure its not this way on ALL commercial farms. but there ARE commercial farms like that. and ya cant exactly buy it in plastic and know what meat came from the good farm or the nasty bad farm. or who's gettin paid when you buy it.

personally that is one reason i raise animals.
another reason being i want to know my meat isnt pumped with chemicals or hormones or its DNA played with, etc etc etc.
when its time for me to dispatch an animal i know that it lived a good life for itself. it didnt have the ritz or anything, but its a cow/pig/rabbit/etc and i'm a human takin care of it and i dont have the ritz and i'm doing great. but i have space to move about and so do my animals. when i am laying in my death bed i want to look back and know i did pretty much everything i could do. i have the same perspective for my animals. i know my rabbits have hopped around and played and eaten grass and been in daylight. and when it comes time i know that when i put them out it will be as quick and as painless as possible.
i have seen peta videos. i DO NOT like peta. but they cant exactly pull all these videos out of their rear ends or something. and i wouldnt doubt some were set up. but "commercial farm" is just that... **commercial**... you get paid by the amount of milk you put out then by golly who cares if the cow is half starved long as she's milkin gallons a day. i dont like that. i have also seen the amish veal barns around me. very popular here. ...never again will i set foot within 100yds of one of those. just yuck... and i'm not squeamish in the least.

there are other reasons but i wont ramble on...

i have 2 milk goats, 6 guinea pigs, and rabbits been from 2 bucks-3does up to 12 does-4bucks. now i'm going down to 4 does and 1 buck. since i started with the rabbits in february 2012 (this year) i have paid just about everything for all my animals (feed, more cages, more rabbits,etc) all with money saved from a job (lost in oct 2011) and then money made from rabbits. did i make alot, heck no. right now i'm downsizing because i got a bunch of does and half turned out bucks and most of the other half refuse to breed. right now i'm squeezing and adjusting with no money. still i manage to IOU the feed store (run by my neighbor thankfully) for goat feed a few times until i sell some rabbits to pay for it.

i suppose no matter what, you just have to want it. if you dont want it, its never gonna work out.

 

[skysthelimit]

Looks to be a standard sized bale. I was getting grass hay from a friend before TSC started selling it, (driving 45 miles to get it), she told me she bought the last load (this was September) and hope it lasted the whole winter, because the fella had no more, and she bought that at $6. Check out the CL ads in the Cleveland area. There are 3-4 ads, $8-10. The price would have to be at $4 a bale to offset the cost of going to get it. It goes back to demand. No one this close to the city is buying hay, so the price is high.
Without a large amount of land, growing anything for 35 rabbits is impossible. You can't raise that kind of food on a city plot.
You can want it all you want, but it's got to be realistic.

There seem to be a lot of people on this board that live in the country, on farms, near rural areas, in milder climates, but that is not what's happening in most of the country. The majority of the population is crammed into urban centers, and like the chickens on the farms, jammed into rows and rows of close together cookie cutter houses, nose to nose with the everyday affairs of everyone around them. Some of my neighbors should be debeaked and declawed, to make the neighborhood more livable. They are forced to send their kids to public schools because work schedules don't allow for the luxury of homeschooling, they are a single parent or need two person income just to make ends meet. They don't have time or space for a garden, and it certainly will not feed their family of five. Raising animals is out of the question. Rehoming dogs on CL is a big thing, they don't even have time or extra money for pets. Despite the horrible things that people would like us to believe about the food industry, the GMO's hormones, etc, there aren't many choice for the average person. Most city people are programmed for processed food because of lack of time. Offering rabbit or fresh eggs is not something they want to eat, and if you are not accustomed to eating fresh, even fresh vegetable, most will tell you it taste off.

I digress, but the point I am trying to make is if you want to make money selling meat rabbits, you have a strong market of people that really want to eat them. Outside of rabbit people, I haven't met anyone yet remotely interested in eating rabbit. I can't even raise enough rabbit to feed my own dogs, the price of the added amount of rabbits to get there makes the meat more expensive than anything I can buy. Sure it's more healthy, but being honest, I don't have that kind of money to pour out on dogs. I have to live as human being, and if I got rid of the dogs and the rabbits I could afford a better car, and live in a better neighborhood.

If you want to sell pet rabbits, you gotta have a market for them. The pet store can do it cheaper than I can easily, for the few people that are interested in pet rabbits, and those want the dwarf breeds, not the meat breeds I am trying to raise. The dwarf breeds are hit or miss in breeding, and aren't worth my time as meat animals. Won't fill up my barn with them. If you are doing anything other than the bare minimum, you out price yourself. You will work very hard, and spend a lot of time and money before you can get high prices for show rabbits as well. I don't expect to make anything at all or sell anything. I just gave away three puppies, and sold 3 for a fraction of their worth, that's how bad the market is here for anything. I knew this when I started, so I am not disappointed when I add up the cost. When I am unwilling to accept the cost I will cull my herd down to smaller numbers.

 

[SatinsRule]

Sky, I'll tell you right now. If I could live in a rural area in a state which gets much colder than where I live right now and still be able to make a decent living? I'd be all over it like patent leather at a high school dance. Living in a warmer climated, especially as it relates to raising rabbits, isn't all it's cracked up to be. Between the heat of spring, summer, and fall (we hit the 90's for the first time in late February last year, and it stayed above 80 until well into October) and the insects (moquitos), there's plenty of downside to it.

 

[skysthelimit]

Sky, I'll tell you right now. If I could live in a rural area in a state which gets much colder than where I live right now and still be able to make a decent living? I'd be all over it like patent leather at a high school dance. Living in a warmer climated, especially as it relates to raising rabbits, isn't all it's cracked up to be. Between the heat of spring, summer, and fall (we hit the 90's for the first time in late February last year, and it stayed above 80 until well into October) and the insects (moquitos), there's plenty of downside to it.

One of the reasons I stay up north. As much as I hate the snow, I hate insects more, and could not live anywhere that I had to deal with them all year long. The flies were awful this summer. One visit to Alabama was enough for me. No snakes, no large lizards, no wilder animals, no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or costal flooding.

 

[bitterroot]

There seem to be a lot of people on this board that live in the country, on farms, near rural areas, in milder climates, but that is not what's happening in most of the country.

I really empathize with your situation. It wasn't until about a year ago that I got to move out of a situation that was exactly as you describe. Houses packed together like sardines in a can. I looked out any of my windows, and right into a neighbor's window, they were that close. People all up in each others' business, etc. It got to the point where the last five years I lived there, I didn't even go out into the yard, because I knew someone with nothing better to do was watching. It made me ... uncomfortable to be watched like that. I hate that about the city. Zero privacy. It's been a long, hard road to get where I am right now, on my little farm out in the wilds of Montana, but that's all the more reason for me to never take it for granted. For the last nine months, I've been living in a giant apartment complex full of college kids, with no animals other than dogs or cats allowed. But I hung on, and knowing that it would eventually end, and that kept me going. About three months ago, my dream came true when we bought this place. Now it's a whole different set of problems - previous owners ruined relationships with neighbors over communal fences, property taxes sky high, taking care of all that land, crappy internet, crazy expensive propane is only option for heat, etc.

I've been there, paying almost thirty bucks a bag for rabbit feed, and even then they had to special order it in for me. I never had any room to store hay, so I was buying a bale at a time of whatever I could get my hands on. I'm so, SO grateful that I live a few miles away from IMO one of the best rabbit feed producers out there. Hay is still crazy this time of year, but I bought before it got too bad. Heck, it's so bad out there that I hear stories all the time of hay being stolen. I bought enough so that if someone should come to me and need a bale or two, I can gladly give it.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in my roundabout and rambling way, is to not give up hope. You never know what's around the corner.

 

[SatinsRule]

Sky, I'll tell you right now. If I could live in a rural area in a state which gets much colder than where I live right now and still be able to make a decent living? I'd be all over it like patent leather at a high school dance. Living in a warmer climated, especially as it relates to raising rabbits, isn't all it's cracked up to be. Between the heat of spring, summer, and fall (we hit the 90's for the first time in late February last year, and it stayed above 80 until well into October) and the insects (moquitos), there's plenty of downside to it.

One of the reasons I stay up north. As much as I hate the snow, I hate insects more, and could not live anywhere that I had to deal with them all year long. The flies were awful this summer. One visit to Alabama was enough for me. No snakes, no large lizards, no wilder animals, no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or costal flooding.

Add to that list all the heat, mosquitos, fire ants. Yeah, if it weren't for family in this state, I would have gladly either stayed in Alaska or moved to an area when it wasn't so stinking hot for 9+ months out of the year.

 

[garden lady]

Sky, I'll tell you right now. If I could live in a rural area in a state which gets much colder than where I live right now and still be able to make a decent living? I'd be all over it like patent leather at a high school dance. Living in a warmer climated, especially as it relates to raising rabbits, isn't all it's cracked up to be. Between the heat of spring, summer, and fall (we hit the 90's for the first time in late February last year, and it stayed above 80 until well into October) and the insects (moquitos), there's plenty of downside to it.

One of the reasons I stay up north. As much as I hate the snow, I hate insects more, and could not live anywhere that I had to deal with them all year long. The flies were awful this summer. One visit to Alabama was enough for me. No snakes, no large lizards, no wilder animals, no tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or costal flooding.

Add to that list all the heat, mosquitos, fire ants. Yeah, if it weren't for family in this state, I would have gladly either stayed in Alaska or moved to an area when it wasn't so stinking hot for 9+ months out of the year.

I spend half my time dreaming of warm climate until it gets summer and then I say, remind me never EVER to complain about the cold weather again. I was born on the Oklahoma/Texas border and I know about heat, mosquitos and fire ants and I will stay in the snow.<br /><br />__________ Mon Dec 10, 2012 1:18 am __________<br /><br />

There seem to be a lot of people on this board that live in the country, on farms, near rural areas, in milder climates, but that is not what's happening in most of the country.

I really empathize with your situation. It wasn't until about a year ago that I got to move out of a situation that was exactly as you describe. Houses packed together like sardines in a can. I looked out any of my windows, and right into a neighbor's window, they were that close. People all up in each others' business, etc. It got to the point where the last five years I lived there, I didn't even go out into the yard, because I knew someone with nothing better to do was watching. It made me ... uncomfortable to be watched like that. I hate that about the city. Zero privacy. It's been a long, hard road to get where I am right now, on my little farm out in the wilds of Montana, but that's all the more reason for me to never take it for granted. For the last nine months, I've been living in a giant apartment complex full of college kids, with no animals other than dogs or cats allowed. But I hung on, and knowing that it would eventually end, and that kept me going. About three months ago, my dream came true when we bought this place. Now it's a whole different set of problems - previous owners ruined relationships with neighbors over communal fences, property taxes sky high, taking care of all that land, crappy internet, crazy expensive propane is only option for heat, etc.

I've been there, paying almost thirty bucks a bag for rabbit feed, and even then they had to special order it in for me. I never had any room to store hay, so I was buying a bale at a time of whatever I could get my hands on. I'm so, SO grateful that I live a few miles away from IMO one of the best rabbit feed producers out there. Hay is still crazy this time of year, but I bought before it got too bad. Heck, it's so bad out there that I hear stories all the time of hay being stolen. I bought enough so that if someone should come to me and need a bale or two, I can gladly give it.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in my roundabout and rambling way, is to not give up hope. You never know what's around the corner.

I have lived rural and then town, rural, town, always moving and I hate to have close neighbors and people watching, their dogs barking at me, but I hate the problems now that I am older of driving so far. I finally gave up and decided living in town was not that bad, but tomorrow I will be upset and want to move. It is hard to have it all, and then I think I should move south where it is cheaper and could have the land and be closer to town and no mountain driving, but then I remember the tornados, fleas, heat, snakes :x

 

[ottersatin]

I have thrown in the towel,
but it seems to keep bouncing
back. Where does it land?
Right back in my hand!
Face it, once you get bitten by the bug,
[Were talking about rabbits] remember?
YOU CANNOT quit the rabbits! They will not let you,
they will not allow it! If you DO, [finally make
your escape] they will find you and attache to you
as quickly as a Leach. You see once you inter this
Prison of sorts, there is no way out, no forgetting
the thrills , the FUN, the trials and trepidations
of Rabbit raising. Try as you will, you may have a brief
moment of freedom, but you WILL be back!
Ottersatin. ldtimer:

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

you may have a briefmoment of freedom, but you WILL be back!

yup , and that is exactly what happened with me. I got rid of all my rabbits. Then a year later. I am doing it again. But different. ..