Rabbits

When Angie aand Heather were young we raised rabbits. They, of course, multiply so quicky you have more than you bargained for. That happened to us. I thought maybe we could sell them to people for food. I probably should have known better since I raised rabbits as a kid.

The trick is to have a litter and raise them to four or five pounds and then sell them as pets or for food. A female rabbit can produce 1000% of her body weight in food in a year. You wean rabbits after about 8 weeks and the female can then be bred for another litter. They usually have seven to ten babies per litter.

Dad helped me build a terrific two-section cage for the rabbits. The buck lived on one side and the mother and babies on the other. They were only allowed together when it was time to make babies. There was a door between the two cages that could be opened at the right times. The cages had narrow mesh wire floor and wider chicken wire on the sides and top. The floor mesh was wide enough to let the manure fall through but support the rabbits’ feet. I was pretty proud of the design and construction.

The cage was located just off our patio and under a small redbud tree. Feeding and watering were easy and rabbit food was cheap in those days. They also loved leftover lettuce and carrot and potato peelings.

Early one morning I heard a rabbit scream! It’s a horrible sound! We had a litter that was about six weeks old at the time. I went out to the cage and found that one of the rabbit’s had got a paw somehow twisted in the wider chicken wire on the side. The rabbits twisting and squirming had only made the situation worse. Its leg was broken and pulled out of joint. I had to cut the wire to get it out. The whole thing saddened me! I gave the rabbit to my neighbor who I am sure had it for dinner.

Shortly after that incident I decided to sell or give away the whole bunch. An old friend, Billy Jackson took the rabbits and cage and I thought I was done with it. That wasn’t the case because he returned it all the next day saying his landlord wouldn’t let him keep them. A few days later another guy took the whole thing off my hands and gave me ten bucks, too. The cage was probably worth twice that.

That was the end of my experience with rabbits. I often think I would like to have a rabbit. They produce the most incredible fertilizer that would be great for my garden. For a while I had a friend whose kids were in 4H and supplied me with a feedbag full of manure two or three times a year. I need to find someone like that again or start rasing rabbits to produce my own.