Monthly Archives: October 2014

My Rabbits Bought my Keurig

Meat Rabbits, Pet Rabbits, Show Rabbits October 30, 2014 Comments: 4
Our rabbit money purchased a Keurig for our family this fall.

Our rabbit money purchased a Keurig for our family this fall.

People will often ask if it’s possible to make money on rabbits.

 

No. (Kinda.)

 

Raising rabbits is a lot like the blogging world in some respects. There are some people, like the Pioneer Woman, who make money on their blogs because they have a massive following and sponsors. But for every Pioneer Woman there are 5,000 people who opened their free blog account and post on occasion and make nothing.

 

Kinda like rabbits.

 

There are people who run commercial rabbitries who are able to make money for themselves selling meat rabbits. There are some people who have worked very hard on their lines and can make money on sales for their rabbits that actually support them in their retirement.

 

But for the average person, rabbits can be a bit of a money pit, especially if you’re addicted to buying new stock all of the time and you haven’t clearly stated your objectives.

 

For our family, we have three priorities for our rabbits:

 

1. To provide a healthy meat source for our family, where we know what is in the food we are eating. In this respect we are paying about $3/lbs for rabbit meat when we process on a 10-week schedule. That takes in to account the amount of food consumed by mama while nursing the litter and the amount of food consumed by the individual rabbit until butcher time.

2. To produce show animals that pay for themselves. We enjoy showing. I get it that not everyone does, but we find it to be a lot of fun for our whole family. Showing a rabbit is not terribly expensive, but it does take money in gas, entry fees, purchase of carriers to get them to and from the show, and incidental costs while there, like a soda. If we are able to sell stock to cover the cost of our show experience we consider that a fun experience that pays for itself… and that’s a win-win. As time has gone on our rabbit sales have also slowly chipped away at the initial purchase cost of our cages and supplies. We have a depreciation schedule for this so I’m not expecting to break even but, it’s happening slowly!

3. To allow this hobby to bring our family together. This is a purpose that doesn’t have a price tag, but so many of the hobbies we see as options are not whole family events. We love to go snowboarding, but now that we have kiddos it’s a bit of a scheduling nightmare to figure out how to manage all the childcare so we can hit the slopes. Rabbits aren’t like that for our family – we come together to take care of the daily husbandry tasks and when we go to shows we are often en masse with the kids and have found rabbit people to be extremely welcoming to well-behaved children.

We also recognize that rabbits have become our family hobby. Hobbies of all types exist in the world, but usually you expect to have a bit of expense involved whether it’s buying a specific size of knitting needle or yarn, or a special rope perfect for bouldering. Hobbies come with a price tag – ours also comes with fur!

 

The first year we had rabbits I fretted quite a bit over the monthly budget allowance we had going to the animals, thinking we would never break even. We sell our animals to people for show and starting their own meat operations, and have gotten a fairly steady stream of people who are interested in purchasing the poop — ‘bunny berries’ — for their gardens, which brings in a little extra cash. Now that we’ve been at it awhile, we also have been able to scale back our regular costs significantly to basically food and shows.

 

That has left a little extra room on occasion to save for bigger upcoming expenses. Dollar by quarter we are able to set money aside… and just a few weeks ago I was able to completely pamper myself by buying a Keurig coffee maker using our rabbit profits! So now we’re caffeinated as we pet our bunnies, a crazy combination! Ha!

 

I suppose when it comes down to it, it’s about your priorities. I would never recommend rabbits to someone as a money-making proposition. If you’re interested in a rewarding hobby with lovely relationships with others and potential to make a healthy lifestyle choice, this might be right up your alley!

How Much is Too Much to Spend on a Rabbit?

Pet Rabbits, Show Rabbits October 30, 2014 Leave a comment
Yep. Been known to Happen.

Yep. Been known to Happen.

The ARBA national convention is this weekend and I’ve been having several discussions with different breeders about their purchasing budget.

 

Convention is a two-edged sword, because on one hand it’s a wonderful opportunity to spread bloodlines across the country and have access to livestock you can’t normally get because of distance. On the other hand, a rabbit purchased through Convention is typically much more expensive – maybe double the price or more – than a rabbit you can get locally once you add up the purchase price, transport cost, care cost, and entry fees.

 

So what’s the right choice? To buy… or NOT to buy? This is the question!

 

Everyone will have to come to their own conclusions, but this is how we look at it.

 

1. Gene Pool. We are raising rare breed rabbits. The ability to mix up bloodlines is pretty important – over generations sticking to the same gene pool will lead to a smaller sized, genetic abnormalities, and type characteristics that won’t help the breed long term. So getting new blood is worth the expense to us in that respect.

 

However, we don’t want to buy just anything willy-nilly. When we were first starting out I was interested in buying stock from anyone that had rabbits available. Now that we’ve gotten our feet wet and know our own lines, we can selectively choose animals that will (hopefully) add a specific trait to our herd. No herd is perfect! Part of what makes rabbit breeding so fun is seeing the changes in quality in your herd over time. Convention provides a perfect opportunity to gain access to a wider spectrum of rabbits.

 

2. Cost Analysis. From a purely practical standpoint, each rabbit has a cost/benefit. Let’s say a rabbit’s purchase price is $100. (That’s a nice even number). It’s a doe and she has a litter of 7 – of those you sell 2 and cull the other 5 for meat or such. Even if you sell the two babies for $50 each and the culls at $5 apiece you’ve made your purchase price back off of just one litter, while your original rabbit might produce ten more litters for you in her lifetime… or you might sell her as a proven doe at some point later in her life, recouping some of her original purchase price.

 

With that in mind, I find it easier to spend more on a Convention rabbit, as long as I keep a longer-term outlook about it. Over time rabbits will pay for their own food, the cost of physical rabbitry (cages, water bowls, etc.), any miscellaneous costs, BUT it’s not going to happen in six months. It’s a multi-year process and in the meantime you have to guard your own reputation and make sure you’re keeping your rabbitry clean, rabbits healthy, and selling stock buyers are excited to have and can (hopefully) win for them or produce great litters for their own livestock operation.

 

3. What’s Practical Now. When we were just getting started I practically mortgaged one of our children to get stock! Well, that’s overstating it quite a bit, but at that season I felt we had to snatch up the opportunity to get animals out here, since no one in our area was breeding some of these breeds. Fast forward a few years and now I’m staying within my budget and passing on animals I wish we could buy because I already said yes to some offered earlier.

 

Just a piece of marital advice, stick to your budget! My husband told me I could only buy rabbits with money rabbits made this year and it’s caused a few pains when I passed on a great animal… but a whole lot of peace with my spouse! There will always be more rabbits, I only want one husband!

 

So there you have it! It’s not a straight up  answer to how much YOU should spend on your animals, but at least a glimpse of how it’s working for us right now. May all your purchases be positive!

Silly Wabbit, Jokes are for Judges!

Show Rabbits October 2, 2014 Comments: 3
Laughter is good for the soul.

Laughter is good for the soul.

When we go to a rabbit show I am always very eager to hear what a judge has to say about our rabbits. I’m interested in all the comments, because if I can start seeing what a judge is seeing when they evaluate, I will only get better at breeding toward the Standard of Perfection at home.

 

There are many times I begin to feel a little sorry for a judge, however. When faced with a table of multitudes of rabbits that are practically identical, how on Earth do judges come up with something to say about every single rabbit?! Those judges who come up with creative descriptions get my kudos – and a nod toward a legacy with their words being immortalized in the blog-o-sphere!

 

Here are some of the most memorable judges comments shared by other rabbit breeders:

“This buck poses like a football player because he leans forward and braces like a linebacker.”

“This doe has shoulders like a quarterback.”

“Flat as road kill…”

“The head is just horrible but behind that, it’s Disneyland!”

“This doe just isn’t wearing her party dress today.” (with fur flying from molt)

“(I’d) only like Lionheads if they had a long tail with a broom type fur at the end & fangs!”

“(She’s) so little she still had milk on her breath.”

“Very nice buck, but the color is Yuck!”

“Nice arse.”

{Rabbit molting} “An outstanding individual but just needs a fresh coat of paint.”

“This rabbit would look great, (big pause) in a big pot right next to some potatoes & carrots.”

“This is a movie star rabbit – she’s got the body of Marilyn Monroe and the head of Phyllis Diller.”

English Spot who was congested: “And the hunter didn’t quite get him.. The pellets all hit here.”

“You can bounce a quarter off that rabbits back.”

A judge kissed one of my Florida Whites and asked her, “As cute as you are, I wonder if you would be just as tasty?!”

“This one seems to be a little over conditioned.”

“This doe has a butt ‘SMOOTH AS BUTTER!”

“This guy has such incredible fur, I just want to rub him all over me.”

Years ago someone asked a breeder how she got such nice, big rear ends on her Satins after winning BOB and BOS. Her response: I walk down the barn and tell them “Look at momma!”

“Really nice coat and not a lick of sense.”

“Lacking color…” (on a REW!)

A judge back a {my rabbit} and said “pick another one to love.”

“Looks like moths got to this one.”

“This animal’s coat is so dense that if I stuck my face down next to it, it would literally punch me in the face!”

 

Thank you, judges, for keeping us entertained – we look forward to the next round of fun descriptions!