Are Rabbits Right for your Homestead?

Are Rabbits right for your Homestead?

I am so excited to be hosting this great post on homesteading with rabbits by Kathryn (from Farming my Backyard). I have thought about adding rabbits to my homestead, but I have not been able to take the leap. This will give those of you who are interested, a look into homesteading with rabbits. Please check out Kathryn's page and give her a shout-out on social media!

Rabbits are often considered one of the most practical animals to add to a very small homestead.  They certainly have a lot of advantages that make them ideal for small spaces. However adding any animal to your home is an additional responsibility with special care needs and considerations.  If you are thinking about getting rabbits it's a good idea to research the breed and care requirements, decide what kinds of rabbits will best fit your purposes, and get your housing set up before bringing home your first animal.

Benefits of Rabbits

Rabbits can be multi-purpose homestead animals.   Their poop is a very useful fertilizer especially because it can be used immediately without composting unlike other manures.  Angora rabbits can be kept for fiber.  Rabbits are also useful as a sources of meat and fur.  They have relatively small space requirements compared to other homestead animals.  A rabbit can be kept in as small as a cage as just 6 square feet, although as with any animal more space is always best.  If you are attempting to be completely self sufficient a large amount of the rabbit's food can be grown in the home garden or foraged.  Some breeds of rabbits are excellent meat producers, and others make friendly and engaging house pets.  They can be kept in hutches, cages, house trained, or kept in small, well designed colonies.

Basic Rabbit Care

Caring for rabbits is not difficult to learn.  Of course they need protection from the weather and potential predators.  Cleaning chores can be as minimal as raking the poop under the hutch every few weeks to as involved as emptying litter boxes daily.  Rabbits need fresh food, hay, and water daily.  The most common feed is a well balanced pellet feed with the occasional leafy treats, but there are alternative feeding methods that some people have success with, especially if trying to avoid traditional soy and corn based feeds.  If you will be raising baby rabbits the does will need nest boxes and the babies should be checked on several times a day to make sure they are all in the nest, have enough fur, have not fallen out, and are growing as they should.  The more time you have to handle all your rabbits the friendlier and calmer they will be around you.

Downsides of Rabbits

Just like any animal there are always some downsides.  The biggest and most obvious one is if you are raising your animals for meat or fur that means at some point you will have to kill them or hire someone to do it for you.  One of the most practical benefits of rabbits is keeping them for meat, and this is why I originally decided to keep rabbits.  This has become the most difficult part of raising them.  I'm still trying to figure out the emotional drain is ultimately worth it or if I should just decide to be vegetarian instead.

Of course caring for animals involves financial costs such as the animals themselves, their housing and ongoing feed costs.  Raising baby bunnies is fun until something goes wrong and you lose some of them, which can be heartbreaking, but unfortunately sometimes happens.  And of course taking care of rabbits does take time.  It is not difficult to fit caring for rabbits into a few minutes a couple times a day if you only have a few, but the more you have the more time investment you will need to make.  Caring for rabbits is a daily commitment and if you plan to take a vacation will need to arrange for someone to care for them while you are gone.

Rabbits can be an excellent addition to the small homestead and with a little forethought and planning you can decide if the time and financial commitments makes sense for you, as well as the emotional investment in caring for and raising an animal.  An excellent and comprehensive book to read is Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits for preliminary research about all the ins and outs of rabbit keeping.  I also find it helpful to chat with other people who raise rabbits, watch videos, and even visit other rabbitries if possible before making the ultimate decision.

Kathryn Robles has an urban farm on her 1/10th of an acre in Portland, Oregon. She and her husband are the parents of 3 girls with another on the way. She also has two Nigerian Dwarf does, 3 American Chinchilla rabbits, a dozen chickens, a goofy black lab, and two cats. She tries very hard to overcome her black thumb, and writes about her urban homesteading adventures at Farming My Backyard. You can also find her on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.