All The Different Ways to Use Rabbit. Pets, meat, pelts, and manure.

There are so many different ways that a rabbit or rabbits can be useful to you. Are you thinking about getting a rabbit? Rabbits can be used for so many different useful things. As a farm animal and breeding them, they may offer more then if they are just a pet. Rabbits do make great pets but we will mainly be discussing how breeding rabbits can help support a small farm business. Rabbits can make a profit for you especially if you use all that the rabbit has to offer. In our second year of having rabbits they started making a profit for us. Here is a list of the different ways to use all of your rabbit.

1. Pets. Rabbits do make great pets. As a farm we do our best to keep away from just having animals as pets but many people will buy our bunnies as a pet for themselves or children. Rabbits can be litter trained and kept in the house. Now we have never done this but we know of one of our rabbits that is a indoor pet and is litter trained. They can be super friendly if raised with enough human interaction. Some breeds of rabbits make better pets then other breeds as their temperaments are more chill then others but from our experience it also has to do with how they were raised. Rabbits are fun to watch jump and hop around and will offer many hours of entertainment for your family.

2. Meat. Some people may feel uncomfortable with this but rabbit is a great source of meat. Common meat rabbit breeds are New Zealand, Standard Rex, Californian, Sliver Fox and Flemish Giants. We raise meat rabbits (New Zealand, Standard Rex, and Flemish Giants) but we also sell them a pets. The Rex are cool because of their super soft fur and the Flemish Giants are cool because they are so big. The New Zealand are the most common meat rabbit because they have a great meat to bone ratio where as the Flemish Giants have more bone. We wrote a whole blog about meat rabbits and the benefits of eating rabbit meat. So feel free to check that out as rabbit meat is the healthiest meats to eat.

Benefits of Rabbit Meat

3. Pelts. If you are butchering rabbits for their meat you might a well save their skin as this can be sold as well. We have still not perfected the process of preserving their pelts but this is what we do. So if you have any tips please leave them in the comments as we are still learning.

Obviously, if you plan on saving the pelts from your rabbits you will want to be very careful when skinning the rabbit to ensure that you do not rip the pelt. Rabbit pelts are delicate so saving their pelts take quite a bit of time and patience. After skinning the rabbit (and taking care of your meat), you will have a tube of skin so you will want to cut the hide down the center on the belly side of the skin. Lay the hide flat and fur facing down. You will have to cut the leg hole so the hide can lay flat. We then trim any small extra pieces from the edges to make the hide a rough rectangle.

The next step is to sprinkle salt on the hides. You will want to put enough on so that you can no longer see the fleshy part of the hide and be sure to get the edges. We place ours on an old picnic table and bench but any flat surface will work to lay the hides flat and put the salt on them. Place them in a safe place to let the salt work and dry the hides out some. How long to wait will depend on where you have them and the temperature. After a day or two (or whenever you have time) it is time for the next step.

Now it is time to flesh the hide. This is probably the most difficult. Fleshing the hide is separating the flesh from the actual skin. This takes time and a lot of patience. If you plan on doing a lot of rabbit pelts it would be good to get a fleshing knife. However, if you are just trying it out you can start off with a metal spoon. Dump off the excess salt and carefully use the spoon to scrap any flesh off the hide. Be very careful! Rabbit skins are very thin and can rip very easily.

After you get all the flesh off the hide we put the yokes of eggs on them. Slightly dampen the hide and then get your egg yokes.1-2 egg yokes per rabbit (it depends on how big your rabbit hide is) should be enough for an average size rabbit. We mix the egg yoke with a little warm water and brush over the entire skin side of the hide. Let this sit on the hide for 24 hours.

After the 24 hours it is time to hand wash the pelts. We used a small tub and a small piece of plywood as a wash board and a soft scrub brush. You still must be gentle with it as you are scrubbing the hide to clean it.

After washing, squeeze out the excess water and stretch out to dry. When the skin side of the pelt turns white in color rather then being transparent you have stretchered it enough. Rabbits pelts are made up of a bunch of small fibers. The goal in stretching the hide is to separate and loosen these fibers so the hide will stay soft and supple when completely dry.

Once dry they can be used, however, but they are never truly tanned unless they are put through the smoke process. This will water proof them. You do not need to do the smoke process as long as you never let the hide get wet. If it does get wet it will return to the same raw state and you will need to stretch it again as it dries to keep the fibers loose.

4. Manure. Rabbit manure is sometimes called garden gold. It is considered the best manure for fertilization. We have moveable rabbit pens that get moved around the yard and our yard grows beautiful lush grass. We also use it in our garden from the other rabbit pens. Cow, horse, and chicken manure are considered a 'hot' manure and should be composted before using or they may burn the plant's stems and roots. Rabbit manure is a 'cold' manure. This means it can be used right away and it will not harm the plants. Rabbit manure is a great natural fertilizer made up of 2 parts nitrogen, 1 part phosphorus, and 1 part potassium. It is great for seedlings and the full growth cycle of plants.

5. Garden Munchers. Nobody wants a rabbit munching in their garden but rabbits loves garden excess. Just remember everything in moderation and stay away from the things that are not good for them. Instead of wasting your excess food from the garden feed it to your rabbits. Our rabbits love their special treats from the garden. They get cabbage, old corn, overgrown lettuce, carrot tops, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon rinds, cantaloupe rinds, sunflowers, and peach skins. In the fall and winter they get apple sticks to munch on as we slowly prune our apple trees and give them the branches. They prefer fresh cut rather then dry ones.

Rabbits are a great small farm/ homestead animal that can potentially make a profit if done right. Do you raise rabbits for profit? Let us know how in the comments!