When we were first planning our homestead rabbits were not on our radar. To me they are too much like pets and I wasn’t sure we would be able to butcher them. I considered getting some just for the manure but it seemed like a waste of feed and resources just for manure. Eventually I could not ignore the benefits of keeping rabbits and we decided to try it and see how it goes. Originally I was looking at Silver Foxes but decided to try a cheaper breed for now until we know what we are doing. We picked up two New Zealand’s on Saturday and will be getting two more in a few weeks for a total of 3 does and 1 buck. When all is said and done we will have paid $55 total for all 4 rabbits.
We have set them up in our old duck tractor for now but we should have the rabbit tractor completed by the end of the week. We came up with the design ourselves and we are happy with it so far. A few aspects didn’t work out as planned but I think it might be even better this way. The rabbit tractor will be until they reach maturity (don’t worry the male will be separate) after that we plan to set up a rabbit colony and use the rabbit tractor for the grow outs.
What are these weird looking ducks?!?!
We picked out a variety of colors a black doe, a grey doe, a grey buck, and a broken red doe. This should give us a variety of pelt colors. The goal is to use as much of every animal as possible because of this the color of the pelts were important to us. Most people just get the New Zealand whites but we wanted color variations for things like ear muffs and moccasins. I’m particularly excited about the moccasins!!!
(This isn't one of ours but we couldn't resist getting a picture of this cutie!)
One 2018 Goal down!
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