The firm rabbit pellets are a nitrogen-rich natural fertilizer which will not burn your plants. Rabbit manure also contains a large amount of phosphorus which is important for flower and fruit formation. Studies of rabbit manure find the following mineral levels: 2.3% Potassium, 2.4% Nitrogen, 1.26% Calcium, 1.4% Phosphoric Acid, 0.6% Potash, 0.4% Magnesium and 0.36% Sulfur.

Unfortunately, raising multiple rabbits means more excrement to deal with and some find they have too much on their hands. There is a market for those wanting to sell rabbit droppings (about $5 for a five-gallon bucket) and rabbit manure tea for the garden, but there’s one more thing you can do with it which requires very little work at all: feed it to your earthworms.

Instead of keeping pans for droppings under your rabbit cages which will need to be emptied and cleaned frequently, you can keep earthworm bins directly below cages and hutches with wire bottoms. The feces will drop right through the wire holes and into the waiting worm bins. The worms will then gobble up the feces, reducing odor and fly problems, as well as helping to eliminate disease which spreads when rabbits are hopping around in their own excrement.

The worm compost, which will be even richer than the rabbit manure, can then be thrown on your garden or you can sell the worm compost as dry material or worm tea. Much like rabbit manure, worm compost is extremely mild to plants and will not harm them. In fact, the plants just take the nutrients they need and the rest goes into the dirt.

Vermicomposting, or composting with worms, will require a small amount of extra time and attention from you (feeding the worms, keeping the compost moist, harvesting worms or compost) but it’s a minimal time investment given the rewards. And you will be spending less time scraping rabbit droppings out of trays.

This type of arrangement works best in open well-ventilated rabbitries located in moderate climates. Worm beds need to be kept moist and rabbits prefer low humidity. If you live in a cold climate or your rabbitry is enclosed without good ventilation, you may experience more problems until a proper balance can be achieved. Instead you might also choose to keep the worm bins just outside the rabbitry so rabbit manure can be dumped into the worm bins conveniently and quickly.

So when you find yourself sick of scraping up rabbit poop, remember that there are other great alternatives for getting rid of the manure. And if you end up with way too much worm compost, you can usually get a better profit margin on it versus rabbit manure. Covering the costs of running your rabbitry is always a big plus.

• Would you like to know exactly where the meat you are eating came from and what happened to it during its lifetime?
• Would you like to fully control the animal’s diet and whether it truly was fed organic feed and the best other foods possible, instead of just being pumped full of chemicals?
• Would you like to be certain that it lived in a cage or pen that was cleaned regularly, where it lived a content life and was culled humanely?
• Would you like to provide your family with warm clothing as well as put food on the table?
• Would you like to have meat, fur, rabbits and more to sell, trade or barter?

All that and more is possible if you begin raising your own rabbits for meat. Rabbits are quiet, clean and docile creatures which can even be raised in your home. Even most apartment dwellers can find enough space to raise a few rabbits and neighbors may never even know they are there.

People have been raising meat rabbits for centuries but breeding rabbits for meat and fur production didn’t become popular in the United States until the beginning of the 20th century. During the Great Depression, many families began raising rabbits for food to avoid starvation and provide a significant source of protein. Despite only feeding the rabbits table scraps and foraged greens, a family could still have decent rabbit meat production numbers although the rabbits were not at their ultimate protein levels.

The US Agricultural Department expects food prices to rise 3.5-4.5% in 2009, versus an increase of 5-6% in 2008. The average price of beef has increased almost 44% since 1996.  The price for a pound of chicken has increased 300% since 1998. Do you want to keep giving your money to big business or would you rather keep it at home where it belongs? There is no better time to take control of your own food supply chain and to being raising meat rabbits in addition to growing your own vegetables and fruits. Just a few minutes out of every evening are enough to keep your rabbitry running smoothly.

Active, growing and producing meat rabbits need about 1100 calories a day. A doe and her litter will usually eat 100–120 lb. of feed during an 8-week period. A variety of hay and straw must also be encouraged all day long (i.e. replenish available hay a few times a day) so that your rabbits get all the fiber and roughage needed. Be sure to also include plenty of twigs for them to gnaw on which keep teeth filed down. Rabbits can be fed twigs from apple, pear, fir, hazel, hawthorn, maple, spruce and willow trees or from blackberry and raspberry patches.

If your rabbit is leaving a lot of food behind from one feeding to the next, cut back on feed. On the other hand, if your meat rabbit seems to be hungry all the time, give it more food. Just remember that overfeeding can lead to poorly producing meat rabbits, especially does. Does start to build up fat which leads to breeding complications and makes it more difficult for them to give birth. If your meat rabbit suddenly loses its appetite or has no interest in food, it could be a sign of health problems.

The easiest way to tell if you are giving your rabbit the right amount of food is to stroke its backbone regularly. If the ridge of the backbone is present but feels rounded, your meat rabbit is receiving the right amount of food. If the ridges of the backbone feel pointed and sharp, start giving your rabbit more food. If you can’t feel the backbone, decrease your rabbit’s intake. A quick weekly check while you are inspecting feet and other parts is recommended.

Generally, pregnant does, lactating does with litters and growing fryers (1-3 months old) can be fed as much as they will eat (until they start leaving food behind). Replacement meat rabbits being brought into the breeding cycle and bucks you are currently using for breeding should be fed about 6-8 ounces of pellets a day. Dry does and bucks which are no longer reproducing have lighter needs of about 4-6 ounces a day.

Some things that you might often think to feed your meat rabbits are lettuce, cabbage, spinach and other leafy greens. While rabbits can eat these foods, they should only be feed in small portions at a time. Otherwise your rabbits will get diarrhea and you don’t want to be scrubbing cages all day. Other foods you should be careful with are Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, corn, groundsel, kale, molasses, mustard greens, tallow and turnips.

Meat rabbits can also eat a large variety of flowers, but crocus, daffodils, irises, poppies and tulips are a few that are not edible. In fact, any flower that comes from a bulb should be kept away from rabbits. So if you occasionally let your meat rabbits out to roam in the yard to much some fresh grass, be certain that they don’t get a hold of any of these flowers.

Never feed meat rabbits chocolate, rhubarb, beans, potato sprouts or the leaves from a tomato, peach or plum tree. Any sort of evergreen tree should not be fed to your rabbits, whether it’s just the leaves or twigs to gnaw on. And keep ivy away from them as well.

In addition to all these plants and flowers which cannot be fed to meat rabbits, there is also a considerable list of twigs that need to be avoided to keep your meat rabbit healthy. Starting with fruit tree twigs, never feed branches from an apricot, cherry, peach or plum tree. As previously mentioned, you should also never feed your rabbit any sort of evergreen branches. Other twigs to avoid feeding your meat rabbits are azalea, beech, clematis, elder, holly, ivy, mistletoe, oak, oleander, rhododendron, rosewood and wisteria.

This is just a small sampling of common plants, vegetables and foods that you might think about feeding to your rabbits. For a complete list of foods that could kill your meat rabbits, join our mailing list. You’ll also get a list of safe foods too. They’re both in an easy to read chart that you can print out and put beside your meat rabbit cages so you never have to question what is ok again.

One local farmer, Nguyen Dinh Hoi, explains how the new system is working for him:

“My family consists of  my wife and four children; we earn a living mainly by raising chickens and pigs. However, we did not have enough money to raise many of them. We also do not know how to prevent disease or how to take care of these animals so that they can grow fast. Some months ago, I was selected to take part in the rabbit breeding model. The knowledge that I have gained from the meetings I share with my family as we all take care of the rabbits. So far, we have done well and been able to increase our family income.”

Forty households currently participate in the program which has been going on since February 2009. Each family in the program was given five rabbits of each sex and money for cages and vaccinations. Training courses have also been conducted to teach families about feeding and caring for the rabbits.

So far each household has earned an extra 2,000,000 Vietnam Dong ($112 or €79). In a place where most families live on about $1.50 (€1) a day, that’s a considerable amount of money in just a few months time. The extra income will be used to keep food on the families’ tables and send their children to school.

At the moment there is an incredibly high demand for rabbit meat and not nearly enough suppliers. More and more restaurants are adding it to their menus in an attempt to be more European, many supermarkets in America carry rabbit meat and Carnival Cruise Lines has been a large buyer of rabbit meat in the past. Hurricane Katrina put a damper on some of Carnival Cruise Lines’ purchasing power which forced many breeders out of business when demand suddenly dropped off, but there is still meat to be sold. Those willing to get a USDA certification will probably find themselves with more business than they can handle.

So with all this demand, why is it so hard to become rich off rabbits? One issue is that rabbit meat sales are often cyclical. And in the summer months, rabbits slow down their production and growth. This causes many breeders to try to increase their meat production by adding more breeding rabbits in the summer. But then they forget to decrease production or plan incorrectly and find themselves with way too much meat later in the year.

If you are hoping to become a millionaire off rabbits, try entering the market for rabbit serum, or blood which has been cleaned. It’s the animal blood closest to humans and therefore highly in demand for cancer research. It can be sold for $15,000-20,000 a gallon. But finding your way onto the list of  biomedical sellers is not easy.

In Alabama, there is a lot of initiative and encouragement being shown for rabbit meat breeders. The state has been allocating money to provide technical and marketing support. This has led to formation of Alabama A+ Marketing; coordination of better prices on rabbit feed; centralized pickup points to ship the product to the Kentucky processor; and even persuading a Birmingham culinary school and fine restaurants to develop more rabbit dishes.