#get sun?? as in go outside???
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celestial-jesters · 24 days ago
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i think they should be allowed to see the sun ☀️
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tetedurfarm · 6 days ago
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get started in meat rabbits masterpost!
yesterday i accidentally hijacked a friend's post and got way more engagement than i expected, which is both amazing and exhausting. so today i present to you: a big post full of resources and answers to the most common questions i've been getting! please refer to this now before dming me with questions <3
information below the cut!
why rabbits?
because they're one of (and in my opinion, THE,) best small-scale meat animal out there. they are relatively small, extremely quiet, can live in cages and therefore do not take up much space, and have a higher feed conversion rate (meaning they make more meat per lb of feed) than chickens, and their poop is AMAZING for gardening! in the footprint of a washer and dryer you can have a trio of breeding animals and space for growing out their litters if you use stacking cages. you just can't beat that.
what do they taste like?
like chicken or turkey. domestic rabbit meat is a very mild, white meat, and can be substituted for chicken in almost every meal. most of my rabbit i grind into mince and use it in place of ground beef. my rabbits, at least, get enough fat to make it unnecessary to cut the mince with pork or beef fat, so even the burgers are really juicy!
will you sell me some meat?
unfortunately in the state of washington it is illegal to sell meat that has been processed at home. at best i could sell you a whole rabbit but you'd have to butcher it yourself.
how much do they cost?
this depends heavily on where you live, though imo they have a fairly low upfront cost relative to other livestock. your biggest upfront expensive will be cages, though you can find good deals on cages and other equipment at livestock auctions/swaps and craiglist/kijiji/similar. the rabbits themselves can be anywhere from free to $100+, though i personally would not pay more than $30-$35 USD for a meat animal (but again, your average prices may vary.) after that, it's all in the price of feed.
feed costs vary from area to area and brand to brand - generally a locally milled feed will be a bit more cost-effective but they can also be lower quality so do your research. depending on your area, you can also feed rabbits partially or even completely on forage or pasture, just make sure you keep an eye on your parasite loads and weights to ensure they are eating enough.
this is a good site that discusses rabbit safe forage: https://riseandshinerabbitry.com/2012/02/26/safe-food-list-for-rabbits/
and this is a good site discussing hay: https://hoppyharlequinsrabbitry.weebly.com/hay-chart.html
this page is focused on other larger livestock but is a decent basic rundown on reading a feed lablel: https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2070/2023/03/FS138E_Reading-a-Feed-Tag.pdf
and a basic overview of rabbit nutrition: https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/rabbits/nutrition-of-rabbits#Pelleted-Diets_v54343534
i do not personally believe that feeding hay is necessary for rabbits to be healthy, which is contrary to what most of you may have heard from online sources. we'll talk about that in a minute. all commercially-available pelleted rabbit feets are made with hay, and the 'long-stem' thing you read about is based on studies in ruminant animals that DO need a 'grass mat' to digest properly...but rabbits are not ruminants. they chew up their hay into fine dust, which is basically what pellets are anyway.
what other equipment do i need?
obviously, your first step should be cages. i prefer cages that are either 24x24 or 30x30 inches depending on the size of the rabbit. you generally want a cage big enough for the animal to lay flat on its belly with its legs out and not touch at least one of the sides (i prefer them to be able to touch none,) and tall enough that they can sit up comfortably. i like to err on the side of larger for breeding does, since their nestbox will take up floor space for a few weeks, and the kits need room to run around and grow before they are weaned. weaned kits need a larger cage or hutch to grow out in until they are eating size.
these cages can be wire bottomed or solid bottomed, just be aware of the hygiene differences between these styles of cages. wire cages are not evil, and will not harm a rabbit's feet provided it has proper density of fur. you can avoid foot problems by buying and breeding rabbits with well-furred feet.
other necessary equipment includes: feeders (j-feefers or pro-b feeders are my favourites), some way to provide water such as bottles, crocks, or an automatic watering system, a hay rack if you want to provide hay, grooming tools such as combs and brushes (if applicable; most rabbits will not need much grooming,) nail clippers, a first-aid kit containing things such as scissors, vet wrap, antibiotic gels and drops, saline solution, fenbendazole (brand name panacur, a dewormer,) gas medications such as simethicone/gas-x, critical care (a specially formulated powdered feed that you can mix into a gruel and syringe feed rabbits that won't eat on their own,) probiotic powder, electrolyte powder, and of course, toys!
make sure any provided toys are edible (so avoid plastic,) and will not get turned into mush and cause dirty mats in the cage when peed on. toilet paper and paper towel tubes are great, as are just chunks of untreated lumber offcuts, wooden baby blocks, or soda boxes. if you have some splurging money, bird toy websites like abirdtoy.com have amazing selections of things that rabbits love destroying. i recommend the refillable skewers!
what about vet care?
this is a fairly divisive topic. most vets do not know much about rabbits, and those that do are typically operating on outdated or simply untrue information that aligns with animal rights groups. therefore, a lot of meat and show breeders do not trust or use vets unless the situations are dire or there is disease testing to be done, and then generally we'll go to our state's ag exstension or college lab. i don't want to come off as anti-vet, i am far from it. but i and most people i know have not had good experiences with vets treating rabbits.
in general, exotic animal vet care (and yes, rabbits are considered exotic pets,) is extremely cost-prohibitive in general, much less when you have multiple animals. like most farmers, rabbit breeders typically handle basic medical situations ourselves.
medirabbit is a great resource for rabbit medical information including illnesses and medication dosages: https://www.medirabbit.com/
how many rabbits do i need?
the average litter size is between 5 and 8 kits, and rabbits can breed montly (though i recommend giving the girls breaks between litters depending on how they kept condition.) a trio of one buck and two does can produce a very good amount of meat for a one or two person household. my spouse and i lived on five or six litters a year for a very long time, using rabbit as our primary meat source!
do they need friends?
no. despite what house rabbit circles tell you, rabbits do NOT need companions and in fact having cagemates can stress them out unnecessarily. rabbits live in warrens in the wild, yes, but that is a survival tactic and the warrens are usually very violent and only work because they can run away when they need to. in capitivity, rabbits that are cohabitated can and commonly will KILL one another. it is much safer and less stressful to keep rabbits in their own spaces. i promise they won't mind.
rabbit colonies, where they are raised together in more 'natural' systems, are becoming very popular with homesteading circles but you should not jump into colonies as your first way to keep rabbits. they require just as much if not even more time and effort to manage than your typical cage setup. plus, you have to have the space to do that, which not everyone has.
can you help me find rabbits?
maybe! if you live in the united states and are comfortable sharing your local craigslist, i can take a look and link you to any rabbits or equipment i think would be worth your time. if you are local to me in western washington's i-5 corridor counties, i may have rabbits i can sell you for the price of feed and gas, but that depends on availability. if you are on the olympic peninsula in kitsam, jefferson, or clallam counties, hit up my buddy ren @buttonbuckfarm for similar services.
arent't they really fragile?
yes and no. rabbits are prey animals with an extremely specialised digestive system. if you are familiar with horses...same deal. if a rabbit stops eating, it will die, and they love bloating/colicking just like horses. there are also a few diseases that are common in rabbits that you should keep an eye out for, especially if you pasture or forage raise.
that being said, rabbits are not made of glass. you can flip them, you can poke them, prod them, put them in a car, drive them across the country, and squish them into weird shapes on a show table. as long as you take precautions during stressful situations and desensitise them to things like handling and transport early, they're shockingly physically hardy despite their sensitive guts.
i'm scared to kill them...what if i mess up?
it's perfectly understandable to fear the end of the process of raising rabbits. and accidents do happen. slaughter is a skill that must be practiced, and maybe you can take solace in knowing that we have all messed one up at some point or another. when this happens, the only thing you can do is try again as quickly as you can until you can confirm the animal is dead. and then take a minute to decompress.
it comes easy to me, but i know that is not true for everyone. but i am a firm believer that if you are going to eat meat, you should know where it comes from and how it gets to your plate. the best thing we can do for our food is to give it a wonderful life, kill as kindly as we can, and use as much of it as we are able.
here is the AVMA's list of approved humane slaughter methods: https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/Guidelines-on-Euthanasia-2020.pdf
and you can find pretty good videos of the various methods demonstrated on rabbits specifically on youtube:
broomstick, choke chain, bunny ballista, hopper popper
please be aware that the above videos show animals being killed. though if you are reading this i imagine you are prepared to see that.
how do i process them once they're dead?
this is another one you can find pretty good videos of online. visiting a local rabbit show may get you in contact with someone willing to teach you in person, as well!
i am working on a big project website that is basically all i think you should know about raising rabbits, which will include detailed slaughter, skinning, and butchering videos, though as of now these are not available. i plan to have this project at least usably done by the end of the year!
ok so what's the thing with pet owners vs breeders
you may have noticed that i've been doing some 'as you may have heard' debunking in this post. that's because there is a very huge divide between the beliefs and practices of pet rabbit owners versus show and meat breeders and owners. why? well, that's complicated, but the big bad evil guy that is the first place to point at is the House Rabbit Society, or HRS.
the house rabbit society is basically rabbit PETA. i am not joking. here is a big masterpost on all their bullshittery: https://www.tumblr.com/o-i-have-too/185596917579/a-masterpost-of-house-rabbit-society-bullshit
i know this comes off as me having an agenda, and i guess i can't say that i don't, but i believe that the HRS' rules and rhetoric are not just wrong they are actively dangerous to follow. i have owned rabbits for nearly a decade and have produced more somewhere in the 1,500 range of animals in that time. i have owned a LOT of rabbits and have experienced all the different ways they can thrive and die and have done a lot of experimenting to find what works. just about everything the HRS says about caring for rabbits is blatantly false according to my experience. proper wire cage floors do not destroy feet. rabbits do not need hay if they eat a good pelleted diet. pellets are not evil or 'fattening' or the main cause of stasis. rabbits do not need leafy greens or veggies. rabbits do not need to be bonded. they are perfectly happy living alone, in cages. flipping a rabbit is not torture and is in fact sometimes necessary for many reasons. meat and show breeders are generally not contributing to the 'overpopulation' problem - if we don't want an animal most of us just eat them. breeding for meat is not evil if it's done appropriately and they are killed humanely.
unfortunately the HRS won the google SEO game and so their website and the sites of others that believe their rhetoric are the only thing that comes up on the first pages of search results. i'm not saying you have to blindly trust me, but i have the experience, and the combined experience of many of my peers both online and offline, that says that basically everything they believe in and preach is just...not true.
anyway that's it, hope this answers most of your questions! i may add to this in the future depending on what other questions i may get. stay tuned for updates on my website project and in general more farm content, rabbit and otherwise :)
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royaltea000 · 29 days ago
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I love Bai Long Ma he truly don’t gaf
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cat-b0t · 2 months ago
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They aren't long distance, taiga is just dramatic
Was not expecting to finish this so fast when I posted the wip, oops. The idea was just too compelling.
Alt version without text and inspo from over on twitter! :3
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velveteen-vampire · 10 days ago
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my updated iterator lineup for use in a project somewhat soon...
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albino-parakeet · 3 months ago
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Guess who finally got Wi-Fi again!!! Now I can make videos yay! Anyways this is based on Heidi’s stream when we were talking about Ben sleeping outside.
Song used: Andromeda by Weyes Blood
It was gonna be the whole song... but that song is 4 minutes long lol.
hope the sound mixing is okay.
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seagull-scribbles · 9 months ago
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Happy valentines! what says ‘love’ like two smelly, unwashed teen boys?
Drew this after a lovely convo with @less-depresso-more-espresso, who also gave me this song to listen to 💕 so this one’s for you bestie aha
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qprpbj · 24 days ago
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thinking about ponyboy dying at the fountain au again… sigh
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canisalbus · 1 year ago
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IDK if I'm phrasing this correctly, but in my brain, Vasco is, like, the personification (caninification?) of an afternoon chilling on a back porch swing.
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#ah#that's adorable#I can totally imagine him doing that#answered#anonymous#Vasco#to me he usually conjures the feeling of being warmed by sunlight#winters in northern Finland where I'm from tend to be pretty rough at least for me they are#they last about six months or so#sun starts to set earlier and earlier until it gets dark before 2 pm#in december the sun barely rises at all it's like this brief moment of twilight at noon between two 22+ hour nights#it gets harder to wake up in the morning and your energy levels plummet you go into battery saving mode#polar night messes up your brain seasonal depression gets really bad#and the cold and dark goes on and on and you feel like you'll never feel warm or happy or properly awake again#but eventually it starts to veer towards spring and on one day you notice that the sun is shining??!?!#not like bleakly and weakly but proper sunlight with warm hue and capability to actually warm the things it touches#you've forgotten what it looks like when it's truly light outside#and it's the craziest feeling to see bright natural light it blinds you and pierces right through into your very core#being kissed by the sun for the first time in months feels unreal it feels SO GOOD#I don't know it's probably not that big of a deal for people around me#but I personally react to things like changes in temperature and the amount of daylight pretty massively#I like to think that Vasco is a first ray of sunlight hitting you after you've spent what feels like an eternity in someplace cold and dark
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strawberrystepmom · 4 months ago
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cortisol face gut biome parasite cleanse hormone imbalance blah blah what yall need is a patio and a cocktail and this shit will mean nothing
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hauntedpotat · 4 months ago
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Preview of something I'm working on! I can't get DCI uniforms out of my head so I'm kinda rendering some of my favorites, except I love them all soooo idk how many I'm going to do :P
This is from the 2024 Wyoming Troopers "Dance with the Devil" show. The reference isn't pictured, but it was from their Instagram :3
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jamandjazz · 3 months ago
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I fear I am actually insane
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landwriter · 7 months ago
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me, wondering why my legs are still sore two days after a three hour hike
my camera roll:
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me: mmmm guess we’ll never know
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arttsuka · 5 months ago
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Quick doodle
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renaissancefailmarriage · 11 months ago
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francois is so enamored with his silly fantasies of hausfrau gilbert until he's living it and gilbert is an evil haufrau who makes him get up at the disgusting hour of 9 AM to walk the dogs
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bogkeep · 3 months ago
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TODAY i got my swimmies in a beautiful sunset
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