When my husband and I purchased our first meat rabbits and cages, we immediately put them out on pasture. However, now, a couple of years later, we don’t pasture raise our meat rabbits for several reasons.
We all know that pasture-raised meat is better for you! It seems like a no-brainer to have our rabbits eating fresh grass, and living their best life. But, pasture-raised rabbits are often far more romanticized than what it is truly worth.
And to be clear, we don’t colony raise our rabbits. They all live in their own separate cages, but on the ground at the time. We also feed timothy hay all year as an alternative!
A few months after our first rabbits were out on pasture, we started to notice one of our males always falling over, being off balance, and tipping its head to the side. Since it was still young we figured it was just a phase it was going through.
However, when it didn’t pass, we took it in to the vet and self-diagnosed it for E. Cuniculi. There was no treatment and eventually, the rabbit passed away.
Losing one rabbit was not enough for me to give up altogether on pasture-raised rabbit meat. But, several other factors began to come into effect as well.
Let me dive into the details…
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Collecting The Manure
One large problem with raising rabbits on the ground is that it is so much harder, if not near impossible at times, to collect their “gold,” otherwise called manure!
Rabbits manure is called “gardener’s gold” because it can be directly applied to a garden without aging like most other animal manures. Collecting the manure is a huge asset for our homestead.
When rabbits are on the ground the manure starts to pile up and seep into the ground, whereas now, we keep our rabbits in cages above ground. The manure falls through and is collected to be used on the garden or sold to other gardeners.
If you choose to pasture raise your rabbits you can certainly move the cages daily to avoid a manure pile-up. But it would be quite hard to harvest the manure each day without also scraping up dirt, bugs, and other natural things.
We don’t pasture raise meat rabbits because we love their manure!
Related Post: How To Produce Enough Delicious Rabbit Meat For Your Family Each Year
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We Consume The Livers
Another big reason we don’t pasture raise our rabbits is that we have chosen to consume their livers as part of our diet. Organ meat has wonderful benefits to the body’s systems!
However, when you pasture raise rabbits, I would not recommend doing this (especially if it is consumed raw as we do).
Rabbits are susceptible to tularemia. It is rare but somewhat dangerous, especially for children and animals. It can be identified most often by white dots on the liver but not all the time. Freezing or freeze-drying it does not completely kill it either.
Wild rabbits and pasture-raised rabbits are extremely susceptible to this because they come in contact with ticks and other disease-carrying bugs. Please do your own research before you consume farm-raised rabbit liver!
We have chosen to raise our rabbits in our barn, off the ground, to offer this extra layer of protection from bugs and other disease-carrying animals.
If you are curious about how we are consuming them, we are currently freezing the livers after we harvest them on butchering day for two weeks. Then we freeze dry them, powder them, and encapsulate them. We take a pill capsule every other day.
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Too Many Illnesses And Diseases
My story of our pasture-raised rabbit that caught a disease from who knows where at the beginning of this blog post is actually a more common story than you may think!
Pasture-raised rabbits are extremely susceptible to disease and illness. And losing a rabbit to disease means you can’t consume it, so you are at a huge loss after a huge investment of time and money.
Since we have moved our rabbits up off the ground, we haven’t had any disease or illness problems!
And yes, while it is true that over time your rabbits can build up genetic traits that are less susceptible to specific diseases, is that initial trade-off of losing your investment worth it? That is something each rabbit owner will have to evaluate.
Another point to also remember is that if your rabbits are coming off of pasture in the winter when they go back on pasture in the spring, the disease problems will hit harder because they have been away from them all winter long.
Keeping rabbits off the ground and in a structure with some shelter from the wind, but still, access to the sun at times, is what we recommend. A horse stall in our barn has been the perfect solution.
Related Post: 6 Super Simple Ways To Make Money From Your Meat Rabbits Today
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Predator Problems
This is another reason why we don’t pasture raise meat rabbits. When your rabbits are out on pasture, they are much more likely to get attacked by a predator.
Rabbits are prey. They always scurry away in fear and try to hide. Almost everything else, including the neighborhood dog, would like to get a hold of your rabbit.
Of course, you can set up very secure places for your rabbits to graze, but there is still no guarantee they will stay safe.
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Breeding Is Safer And Easier
When we bred our rabbits out on pasture, we noticed that the mothers would choose to not use the nesting boxes and instead, gid large holes into the ground. It was their natural instinct.
With that came its own challenges. The babies were born out in the cold night air several times and died because of it.
Since breeding our rabbits in cages above ground the kits (baby rabbits) have been safer, healthier, and stayed alive! Basically, you have much more control over the breeding process when it is in cages above ground. And it is another reason we don’t pasture raise meat rabbits.
Related Post: 7 Meat Rabbit Books You Need To Read To Start Your Rabbitry
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The Trade-Off Isn’t Worth It (In Our Opinion)
We honestly didn’t notice our rabbits consuming that much grass when they were out on pasture. They did here and there, but they weren’t chowing it down every time they were moved to fresh grass.
I think a huge part of that is just their breed – New Zealand/Californian mixes. They are very large rabbits that have been bred to produce a lot of meat. They enjoy grass, but it isn’t what satisfies them and bulks them up.
Along those lines, we noticed that after winter was over and they could eat grass again, they would lose their interest even more in the grass and choose hay over it. Perhaps your rabbits are different than ours!
Another annoyance was the waterers. They would constantly grow algae from being in the sunshine and required a lot of maintenance. It can also be difficult to keep your rabbits cool in the summer if you live in a hot climate because there is no place to plug in a fan and ice packs will quickly melt.
Overall, we find that the trade-off of keeping our rabbits in cages above ground is so much better. What do you think about the fact that we don’t pasture raise meat rabbits? Let us know in the comments below!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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