How Many Rabbits Do I Need to Feed My Family
Because getting into meat rabbits to feed your family? Nifty choice! You'll be surprised at how much meat you can raise in your yard!
At present the big question: how many rabbits volition you need?
A family of four will need half-dozen convenance does (adult female rabbits) that raise 48 kits each per year to eat rabbit 5 times per week and 2 breeding does to eat rabbit one time per week.
| Rabbit Dinners (per week) | Does Needed (one fryer per repast) | Does Needed (two fryers per meal) |
| ane | 2 | iii |
| ii | three | five |
| 3 | 4 | 7 |
| iv | five | 9 |
| 5 | 6 | eleven |
| 6 | 7 | 13 |
| 7 | viii | sixteen |
Does needed are rounded up, for instance iv.33 does needed is rounded up to 5 does.
For this article the first part is a simplified instance using average rabbit production.
The 2d part of the article gets much more detailed for anyone who wants to explore more options.
Cost To Get Started Raising Meat Rabbits goes over the costs of the rabbits and equipment you'll need to buy to get going with raising your ain fryers.
How much rabbit do you lot plan to eat?
We'll have to prepare some basic guidelines here to effigy this out. You'll need to decide:
- Times per week you will be eating rabbit
- Rabbits needed per meal
I'll pick some numbers to use to help make this clear. Experience costless to redo the numbers with amounts you take picked for you and your family.
Backyard Rabbits shows you how y'all can fit raising rabbits into your yard, even if you lot have a small ane!
Example with 5 rabbits per week
For this example, we'll utilize v rabbits per week total.
An average meat rabbit doe with moderate production should be able to produce 48 fryers (young meat rabbits) per year.
For the sake of simplicity, 48 fryers a middle ground number that should be doable.
(For a detailed explanation of breeding cycles for meat production, click here.)
Y'all would need 6 does to feed your family
To eat 5 fryers per calendar week, you'll need 260 fryers total. With each doe having 48 fryers per year, you lot'll demand to have half-dozen does.
(The exact answer is 5.4166, only where practise you lot get .4166 of a rabbit? 🙂 )
Delight, think about what y'all need and redo the numbers to arrange you and your family.
This is a very simplified version, yous can produced more or less fryers per doe per year.
The residual of this commodity is more than detailed and goes into more of your choices.
You can get anywhere from 32 fryers per year per doe to 64 fryers per year per doe, depending upon how you manage them. Read on for the full scoop!
Determining how much rabbit you consume
Before you know how many rabbits you need to have to feed your family, you lot need to know how much rabbit you are planning on having per week.
Effigy up how oftentimes yous plan to eat rabbit per calendar week
Are you thinking of having enough fryers for two meals of rabbit per week or are you thinking bigger, more like ten meals per calendar week?
Really take some fourth dimension and retrieve this 1 through. In that location is no right or wrong answer here, just what you and your family unit want to consume for the week.
Consider your schedule and how often yous actually melt. Not certain? Write down your normal calendar week and where you ate.
Nothing wrong with eating out in one case in a while.
I'yard pointing out that if yous actually simply cook 3 meals per week then why are yous running the numbers on having ten meals of rabbit per week?
No need to over complicate this, work with how you lot melt/handle meals now.
How many rabbits per repast?
Aside from how often per week you'll have rabbit on the carte, you'll also need to think about how many rabbits you are going to cook per repast.
2 adults with picayune kids: If you have a family of iv with two little kids, then one rabbit will be plenty.
Adults with kids that are large eaters: If your family has numerous hungry teenagers, you'll need to cook more like 2 rabbits per repast.
Big families: Chances are good that you'll need more than than one rabbit per repast, as well.
Bulk cooking: Anyone who likes to majority cook will need to figure up the number of rabbits per meal, besides.
I like to cook extra to have handy leftovers. I'm not a true bulk cook, I'yard more of a "leftovers are like shooting fish in a barrel and fast" cook.
Either fashion, cooking once to have multiple meals works.
Apply rabbit meals/week to detect number of rabbits to raise
Now accept the number of meals per week that you desire to brand from rabbit and the number of rabbits per meal and multiply them together.
# meals/calendar week eating rabbit 10 # rabbits eaten/meal=rabbits needed per week to feed your family
Now multiply the rabbits needed per week past 52 weeks to get the rabbits needed for your family per year.
# rabbits needed per week x 52 weeks=# rabbits needed per year
Let's see some examples to brand this clear
Here are a few examples to make this more than clear:
Case 1: You decide you want to have rabbit for 3 meals per week and yous volition just need to melt 1 rabbit per meal.
For each week yous'll need three rabbits and for the year you'll demand 156 rabbits.
1 rabbit per meal x three meals per calendar week=3 rabbits per week
3 rabbits/week x 52 weeks=156 rabbits for your family per year
Example ii: You have a few of big eaters at dinner, and then y'all'll need to take 2 rabbits per meal. Y'all want to eat rabbit for 2 meals per week.
You also like to take friends over for BBQ a few times a yr and want to serve rabbit for the party, so we'll need another 8 rabbits for each of your parties. We'll say 3 prissy weather parties.
For your family you need four rabbits per week, which is 208 rabbits per twelvemonth. For the parties you need 8 rabbits for iii parties, which is 24 grilling rabbits. 232 rabbits are needed for your family and friends to eat for the year.
Family: 2 rabbits/meal 10 2 meals/week=4 rabbits/calendar week, four/calendar week x 52=208 rabbits per year
Party: 8 rabbits/political party x iii parties=24 party/grilling rabbits
208 family unit rabbits + 24 political party rabbits=232 rabbits per twelvemonth
These are two of many possible examples, so y'all can get the idea to figure up your own needs.
Other possibilities y'all may want to consider including in your estimates are selling rabbit meat, selling some rabbits live, raising rabbits for friends or relatives, selling a few fryers commercially, etc.
Make up one's mind how many rabbits you lot will need
Using the numbers you have from the department above at present you lot decide how you want to heighten the rabbits you will be managing.
I take an in depth article going over How Much Meat Volition A Pair Of Rabbits Produce Per Twelvemonth. Check it out for sample production schedules and pitfalls to exist aware of!
For anyone who has not still read that article, here is a quick summary of the three levels of production from your rabbits and why it matters to you.
Intensive production system produces 64 fryers
This is the most productive system. It is also the nigh demanding of both your breeding stock and you lot, management wise.
An intensive breeding schedule will put the doe having kits every 45 days (viii litters per yr) and yous raising 64 kits (224 pounds of meat) per doe.
Intensive production demands top quality genetics, nutrition and management.
Moderate production organization produces 48 fryers
The moderate product organisation is a bit more than relaxed than the intensive, yet yet very productive.
This arrangement has the doe on a lx 24-hour interval cycle (half dozen litters per year) and producing 48 kits (168 pounds of meat) per year.
Y'all will still need to take dandy care of your rabbits and have groovy genetics for your doe to kindle six times per twelvemonth.
Y'all nonetheless get a lot of fryers for the freezer, only information technology goes a bit easier on the doe.
Average production system produces 32 fryers
The average product system has a doe kindling 4 times per year.
This is a much more relaxed schedule than the previous two, but allows for a picayune more "jerk room" when you slip up.
On this schedule your doe volition have four litters per yr and produce 32 kits (112 pounds of meat) per yr.
How many rabbits do you demand?
Now we work out the final numbers!
All we are doing here is taking the number of fryers your family needs (from the get-go part of the article) and comparing that with the production abilities of the doe under the different production systems.
Allow's so some math using the examples above.
Example 1 (continued): In the kickoff example your family unit needs 156 rabbits per year.
If you look at the convenance schedules above y'all'll notice that none of the breeding systems will produce 156 rabbits per year from one doe. And then how many does do you need?
4 does kindling 6 times per yr would requite you 192 rabbits. three does would produce 144 fryers, so a picayune under what you need.
If you want a few actress fryers, go with four does. If you want to get a few less fryers than you had hoped, go with 3 does.
Instance 2 (continued): In the 2d example you need 232 rabbits for your family for the year.
You would need 5 does on the moderate (6 kindlings/year) bicycle or 4 does on the intensive (8 litters) plan to produce the 232 fryers yous demand for the yr.
A rabbit trio will produce 112 pounds of meat
If yous simply want to eat the fryers your pair or trio of rabbits produce, that's great!
Even one doe on an average production schedule of 4 months volition still accept 32 kits per twelvemonth. That'due south 112 pounds of meat!
Practice a bit of math and see what y'all tin expect from your rabbits this twelvemonth!
Apply numbers that fit your rabbit management
Work out what you are willing to do and how much effort yous are willing to put into your rabbits before y'all decide which production system you want to follow.
If you lot but want to have an easier time of it and be less demanding on your breeding stock, use the average breeding system of 4 litters per yr.
If you are willing to go peak of the line breeding stock and provide them excellent care, including nutrition, try the intensive schedule and encounter if it works for you.
If information technology proves to be as well much for your does or the time y'all want to put into your rabbits, merely back off the rebreeding time to later and follow a less stringent plan.
You may take to follow a less demanding plan if your area does non have higher protein (18%) rabbit feed.
Read my article How Long Does It Take To Grow A Rabbit For Meat for more details.
If you are interested in more than of a vintage perspective, read The Guide To Raising And Breeding Rabbits For Meat, which is an article from 1970 in Mother Earth News. It's a good article, just realize the prices are not electric current!
palaciosfrand1961.blogspot.com
Source: https://familyfarmlivestock.com/how-many-rabbits-do-i-need-for-a-family-of-four/
0 Response to "How Many Rabbits Do I Need to Feed My Family"
Post a Comment