I like watching "village life" videos because the people living in those places have to use their brains and native materials to achieve their goals. They usually don't have the means to whip out their credit card and order "gear" from Amazon.
Raising rabbits, a pragmatic approach.
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They have a tin roof but are beneath an apple tree for shade.
The water bottles are fill-from-top, repurposed pop bottles. Similar item here but still more expensive than what the owner paid. He does not waste a lot of time as he rakes out the old hay and reloads the feeders and water.
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The owner feeds them green-chop, wheat and unshelled corn. Based on what I saw, he was feeding them cut oat-plants when the video was recorded. The greenery he feeds them probably changes through the year based on availability.
We raised rabbits when I was a kid. We had fresh rabbit for meals and I learned to tan furs.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that is amazing about rabbits is how quickly a small-holder can scale up production.
DeleteA heifer might produce her first calf at 20 months of age and then one calf every year after that. Those calves will take 20 months-to-24 months to reach optimum size under a no-concentrate, pasture oriented system, less time if the pasture is intensively managed, more time if it is poor pasture and the cattle are not moved.
Pigs are fast but require human-quality feed. For the most part they are either competing with humans for food or tearing up the environment.
Chickens are fast and can eat bugs but they need some human-quality feed to grow quickly.
Rabbits...they can eat what you cut from the road-side verge or the lambsquarters, amaranth, foxtail and Echinochloa that you pull from your garden. In a pinch they can eat willow and poplar twigs. And they make babies fast.
The only really "trap" that I see are that the most popular rabbit breeds in the US are small and have cute facial features. Those cute feature can result in nasal problems and impacted teeth.
When your home feeding rabbits a few rules to live by.
DeleteOne as much as possible START with a good breed of rabbit. Cute baby faced ones are pets not breeding rabbits.
Second if a rabbit isn't up to speed even with good breeding stock EAT IT. Don't breed it. You CAN improve your breeding stock pretty fast this way. Only breed the best (KEEP RECORDS) at health, meat gain and good mothering skills.
Third ALL RABBITS need something hard to chew on. Those teeth continue to grow constantly. That NEED tree branches or as the above pictures show they will grind down their teeth on your cages and such.
Forth no matter how FRIENDLY your loveable Golden is NO DOGS in the Rabbitry. Rabbits see them as THREATS and pregnant does will abort and nursing does might start eating their kits in panic attacks.
I found this out as I was visiting a friend's new rabbitry and she was having troubles with does failing their litters. I pointed out that her Dog although a goofy loveable Golden was scaring them half to death.
Dog gone from Rabbitry and rabbits happily breeding away now.
It's NOT wrong if it works... and fancy doesn't always work...
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