A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Rabbits

By E.P. Bell
Published on March 1, 1975
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The hare-raising business is adaptable to any location. Many owners use sheds, backyards, and old barns as sites for rabbit warrens (a high-class word for an area of pens).
The hare-raising business is adaptable to any location. Many owners use sheds, backyards, and old barns as sites for rabbit warrens (a high-class word for an area of pens).
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Building rabbit cages.
Building rabbit cages.
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Building rabbit feeders and waterers.
Building rabbit feeders and waterers.

With the meat situation what it is and the economy in a turmoil, now is a good time to consider the rabbit business. The best way I know to put good food on the table and a few dollars in your pocket, without a large investment, is raising rabbits. The profits can come in many ways: You can sell the urine for laboratory use, the manure for fertilizer or worm growing, even the feet for good luck charms. Meat, however, is by far the most important product.

What follows is a mini-manual that tells how to get started on a shoestring, without the costly items the so-called experts say you should have. I’ll try to cover all phases of a new operation and to help the novice avoid pitfalls that aren’t mentioned in books or other guides to this subject. Nevertheless, experience is still the best teacher.

Guide to Raising Rabbits

A RABBIT BARN

The hare-raising business is adaptable to any location. Many owners use sheds, backyards, and old barns as sites for rabbit warrens (a high-class word for an area of pens).

My herd is kept in a barn which I built — by the hit-and-miss method — especially for that purpose. The structure is 16 feet wide and 24 feet long, and was constructed from used and inexpensive material at a cost of less than $200. The roof rises to 12 feet at the center and slopes to 8-foot sides. Since rabbits do best in semi-darkness, there are only three small windows (cut high in the walls, above the four-foot level). On the back side — which faces south — a hinged, 10-inch-wide board runs the length of the building about four feet from the ground. This flap is raised and propped open during the summer. The opposite wall includes a Dutch door with a 36-inch fan in its lower section to move the air up and out.

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