How To Breed Rabbits In Your Backyard

Helpful Tips on Backyard Rabbit Breeding

Know all about back yard rabbit breeding

Breeding rabbits in your backyard can be fun activity for the whole family. Regardless of the reason, breeding rabbits or any other animal might even be necessary in the coming tough economic times.

The benefits of rabbit breeding versus other small livestock

Breeding rabbits in your backyard has many benefits especially for those of you who live in municipalities where raising livestock might be against your local ordinances.

Furthermore, if you are the type who wants to raise rabbits for meat, you can get around the restrictive ordinances because rabbits are quiet, unlike certain farm fowl, like chickens, turkeys, ducks, or geese.

Rabbits are also small unlike pigs and other animals that could be kept in your backyard. The fact that rabbits are small means that their cages can be placed in areas where they are out of sight from nosy neighbors.

The benefits of breeding rabbits for meat

One of the greatest benefits of raising rabbits for meat is that you have control over the meat that you consume. Most of the meat that you buy in the stores may be excessively injected with hormones and other genetic altering chemicals to grow the animal bigger and produce a larger meat yield. There are several reasons why growth hormones in processed meats are harmful to humans who consume the affected meat.

1. Obesity in very young people can be directly attributed to growth hormones in meats. Obesity in young people is becoming a growing problem in the United States and Western Europe, and especially in the United States, most processed meats bought in stores or cooked in fast food restaurants is very likely to have growth hormones.

2. Children growing larger than their parents can also be attributed to growth hormones. Since the late 1980s, when growth hormones were being first used on a large scale, each generation has been growing larger in stature and weight than their parents.

The hormones are hormones and their action in the animal does not stop when the animal is slaughtered and the meat is processed. The hormones are still in the meat and as we consume the meat, the hormones work in our own bodies.

3. Adult obesity can also be attributed to growth hormones and other health issues, since adults have already completed the growing process.

4. The early onset of puberty in children under thirteen years of age could possibly be attributed to eating meat from animals that are injected with growth hormones.

The four above-mentioned reasons should be compelling enough for someone who is concerned with what is in the meat they consume to breed rabbits in their backyard.

How to breed rabbits in your backyard

Rabbits are one of the easiest animals to breed in your backyard. The rabbits are also one of the most affordable livestock to breed with breeding stock costing in between $10 to $20. There are a few things you should know about breeding rabbits in your backyard.

1. Have a shelter built for your rabbits. Rabbits need shelter from the elements and the cages should be well lined with soft organic material such as saw dust. This makes the cages easier to clean.

2. You should have at least two males and two females to breed rabbits. Rabbits multiply fast and do not make any noise that could annoy neighbors as chickens do.

3 Rabbit droppings are not messy as the droppings of other livestock might be. Rabbit droppings appear as brown pellets and are usually dry. Furthermore, rabbit droppings are excellent fertilizer for your vegetable garden.

4. Rabbits do need daily care and they need vegetarian diet. This should be kept in mind when feeding your rabbits. Give your rabbits a variety of vegetables such as lettuce, carrots, cabbage, etc. This will give better flavor to the meat if you choose to breed them for meat.

The breeding process

The breeding process is relatively easy. Rabbits develop fast and can start to breed at six months of age. Furthermore, if you would like to breed rabbits for food and need to have a rapid breeding stock, the average female rabbit will breed four to five litters of rabbits a year, but four litters would probably be easier on the females. Each litter contains about 10 to 20 babies, so you could have up to 100 new rabbits each year.

Breeding rabbits can be beneficial as a production of food with high proteins in hard times, saving money in times when the economy is not the greatest. Furthermore, the breeding of rabbits can be great fun and an enjoyable time-pass.