# Economics of Rabbits vs. Chickens



## Shayanna

Anyone want to break it down for me? How old do chickens have to be to be butchered as opposed to rabbits? How much meat do you get per animal?
Overall cost to raise a chicken vs a rabbit to butcher?
We realize that when we start producing all of our own meat we will need some sort of white meat rather than just chevon and beef. 

We want to get set up WAY in advance so we can be 100% prepared. We have a well ventilated shed, and are thinking of keeping the buck in a hanging cage, and the doe in a hanging cage, and move the doe to a pen on the floor 2 weeks prior to kindling for space reasons. The pen on the floor will serve as a growout pen for kits, and we will make a tractor so they can eat fresh greens as well. This is if, when added up, rabbits are more economical than chickens.

Now, as far as food and buying hay for rabbits. Lets say I were to buy a bale of alfalfa hay, which is looking to be about 15 dollars for approximately 60 lbs. (estimating low), how long should this last, also giving rabbits scraps from veggies we eat and the tops of beets and carrots from the garden. 

Now, what are the economics of chickens for meat? I know you can free range, but what if your hens aren't broody and you don't want to buy an incubator? And don't you HAVE to feed chicks a starter feed and have heat lamps?

I guess I like rabbits better for meat and would like to just keep maybe 1 or two hens for eggs, but if chickens prove to be cheaper and easier, I would just do that.


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## Shayanna

I probably should specify that the hanging cages do have trays.


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## Bluefirephoenix

In winter bale of hay lasts 10 rabbits a month. I use it for bedding as well. .. or they do they prefer it over anything else. The price is the same. I use Timothy Alfalfa isn't available here. probably not economical to grow in this climate It takes longer to dry and thats not good in a place this wet. right now since I have mostly timothy growing ( and fresh alfalfa) my grain costs are very low and I only use hay when its pouring and I don't feel like picking. I would say CA $40 a month for the herd. Now chicks the feed is specialized for the meat kings at $27 for 35kg. 10 chicks go through a bag a week according to what my neighbors say. Chickens also graze after 2 weeks but also require feed. just as the rabbits do and give you a bit more meat per animal. So I'd say it's 50/50. I find the predators less attracted to rabbits because they're more used to poultry as domestic food source when they go raiding. I use hutches with floors. Cold is more of a worry than anything else here I need thick bedding in winter. I'm slaughtering at 16 weeks or so with the natural diet I have them on. Since they're not eating much grain I don't mind keeping them an extra month. I use a 1/3barley 1/3 oat 1/3 soy meal mix.

so CA$40/ month when there's snow on the ground and probably less than CA$20 right now.


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## froebeli

I haven't been raising rabbits and chickens for years, like some people here have, but I have raised rabbits and chickens for both eggs and meat. 

I would have to say, as far as meat cost per pound, you can't beat raising cornish x ... Feed to meat conversion is supposed to be close to 2:1. My batch I just raised(15)was at about $2 per pound cost. Maybe less since that included feed for the other layers I was growing out and I didn't weigh every chicken I processed.

Rabbits on the other hand are said to be a 4:1 ratio of food pounds to meat pounds. I find the rabbits much more enjoyable though. 

Chickens are raised and done. Rabbits are a continuous process year round. You " might" be able to sell enough rabbits to help offset the costs. Around here everyone raises chickens. I also have more barter power with rabbits because not many people raise them for meat.

Hope you get some responses from more knowledgeable folks.


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## tentance

it all depends on how much you grow your own feed. do you grow grains for the chickens?


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## scarlet812

We decided to do meat rabbits instead of meat birds more because of difference in easy processing than anything. Plucking is such a pain.  I want to make some rabbit tractors and get my growing-out bunnies on grass, too, and that will save some feed cost. 

If you want to hatch eggs, I recommend getting a couple of Black Australorps. Ours are crazy broody all the time! We have a recently matured offspring from one of them [rooster is a Polish mix] who just started laying first of the year, and _she_ has gone broody already. 

For the rabbits, everything I read says to use grass/timothy hay, not alfalfa, because the pellet food is made from alfalfa and too much is not good for them. I don't know if that kind of hay is any cheaper where you live, but look for orchard grass hay or timothy hay to find out. I just look on Craig's List with those search terms and always find some listings.


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## unregistered168043

We raise a good portion of our chicken feed. Feed corn and beans is their primary diet so the costs of raiseing chickens for us is almost nothing. Rabbits eat mostly hay from our fields, but we still suppliment with pellets. Chickens can free range, and hence, they can obtain quite a bit of their own feed.

Given our feed model, chickens are more economical. I will not raise any animal whose feed I can't provide right here...bag feed makes it very hard to make a profit.


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## FarmerStina

It really does depend on your feed. My rabbits cost me between $1 and $2 per meat animal to raise, and dress out around 3# each, because I scrounge 75% of their food and feed hay from my fields. If I had to buy pellets, they'd be way more expensive. Right now, chicken costs me more than rabbit to produce because I buy feed for chickens.

I would say that you should try doing both your first year. See which is easier and cheaper for you and then stick to it.


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## LFRJ

Bit of a toss up here. The chickens give us eggs along with meat, the rabbits don't. Rabbits offer pelts, chickens require nasty plucking. Less meat on a chicken maybe, but the carcass is good for stock.

The chickens cost us more in losses, the rabbits in a sturdy hutch are safe ....but you gotta factor in the cost of a good hutch. The chickens eat darn near anything we give them in the way of chicken scraps. The rabbits only eat green leaving from the kitchen. I can give the chickens left over cafe scraps when I can get them - not so the rabbits, but sometimes I can talk the produce guy into giving me the throwout from the grocers.
Chickens need protein feed for eggs, while in contrast, I can feed the rabbits a salad on my own and they do okay, so long as I offer a wide variety of greens. I do not expect either of them to produce meat any earlier than 6 months since I don't feed accordingly - could, but there goes costs again. So it really is quite a toss up. We keep both.


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## Treewhisper

The chickens win out for me. My 30 chickens free range so they hardly touch the pellets when they're outside. My feed costs are almost nonexistant in fall, spring and summer when they're free ranging. They hatch out their own chicks on average about 3 per hen so i have enough in yearly replacements and stocking up meat for the year. I installed automatic door openers for morning and night so i only see them once a day if i want to go collect the eggs. I fill up their water once a week. If i go on vacation for a week i dont need to worry about them or have someone check on them because they take care of themselves. If i get overrun with eggs i let them go broody and set on the eggs which slows down production. Waters and feeders i made out of an inexhaustable supply of food grade plastic buckets of icing of all sizes from the bakery dept of my local grocery store (they're free!) 

Rabbits on the other hand i have to feed pellets at $13 per 50 lb bag year round and add in hay costs. Somebody has to be around once a day to feed and water them so i have to arrange someone to take care of them if i go away for a week. Start up costs i for me are more for cages, waterers, feeders. In summer with the heatwaves rabbits die, chickens find shade under the coop, in the bushes or under the trees. In winter rabbits need lots of hay to keep warm as the hay falls through the cages. 30 chickens bunched together keep warm and dont need hay.


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## FloridaHillbill

First, locale will affect your costs. And economics are only part of the equation, unless you consider that time = money.

*My setup:*

I'm on a 1/4 acre in town in Florida, zone 10a. We get a light frost ever 10-20 years here. Temps get into the 90's every day for about 8 months a year. (and incidentally, I never lost a rabbit from heat in my 3 years of raising them here.)

I raise rabbits (currently have about 30), chickens (6 hens), Muscovy ducks (17), and Coturnix quail (40 or so birds). Incidentally, I also have 5 4x8ft raised beds for veggies.


*Inputs:*

Since I'm on a small piece of land in town, I have no choice but to buy 90% of my feed. For me, feed, rabbit, chicken, or quail, all costs $18 per 50 lbs. 

I get to use some scavenged weeds for rabbits, but not usually enough for daily feedings. Rabbits also get some table scraps and garden extras. Rabbits need 6-8 square feet per animal, depending on breed size.

Chickens can free range in the yard, but normally stay penned up due to egg loss (my faithful guard dog is an egg sucker), my Muscovy drake has killed a few chickens from his amorous advances and the fact that chickens are hard on a raised bed garden. Chickens require 6 square feet per bird, roughly.

Coturnix quail are fed a high protein feed 100% of the time, normally a 30% game bird mix. Quail require 6 square inches per bird.

Muscovies are not fed directly, preferring to graze. They have almost zero input though. Muscovies require a lot of open space.


*Production times:*
Rabbits are 30 days gestation plus 8 to 10 weeks, depending on breed (Mine are New Zealand + Altex crosses). From start to harvest is 12 to 14 weeks. Outputs are meat, hides, and some of the best fertilizer you can find..

Chickens are 5 months til egg production, though you only mentioned eggs in passing. Cornish X are a fast growing breed, but require a high end feed. A self sufficient bred that is good for both eggs and meat, as well as being able to hatch its own eggs and forage on its own (Cornish x normally cannot do either) would take 4-6 months to start laying eggs, but would be ready for the table in as little as 2-03 months (great time to cull roosters). Eggs, meat, and feathers are the end result. They also do a pretty good job in fertilizing and turning soil for bug removal. 

Quail take 17 days in an incubator (simple enough to build for under $20) since they almost never get broody. Then 21 days in a heated brooder to feather out. Another 21 days to harvest size. That's 59 days from egg to table. If you plant peas the same day as you put quail eggs in an incubator, the quail are ready for harvest before the peas! Add in the fact that they start to lay at 4-5 weeks, and you find egg and meat production in less than two months. They also require about 1/10th the space that chickens require, and are almost silent. These are a great stealth bird option for in town. Outputs are meat, eggs, feathers, and manure.

Muscovies take about 2-3 months to grow to eating size, depending on diet. They are GREAT mothers, and can produce 2-4 broods a year. I've gone from a male duckling and a female duckling to almost 40 birds in about a year, culling for the table along the way. Outputs are eggs, feathers, manure, and duck fat. I listed duck fat because it is sooo tasty when cooking. They are also good for bug control.

*Conclusion:*
If money were the issue, I'd go with Muscovies completely. Unfortunately, they are a pain to harvest and dress out.

Chickens are the baseline for me. They take longer to produce than quail, but give larger eggs. They can free range 100 % for food, but then require more space.

Rabbits and quail are the easiest to process, virtually silent, and take up less space. Rabbits take me 5 or so minutes, quail take about half of that. I prefer them over the other two options. I have far less time inputs required for quail and rabbits. 

Costwise, Muscovies are the best option. If convenience is an issue, I'd go with rabbits and quail.

If times got tough (tougher?), rabbits could still be weaned to grow out on foraged greens and table scraps. Chickens and ducks could also. Quail would have a hard time being a self reliant producer more than the rest. 

*The biggest thing to keep in mind is that without high quality feed, no matter what the animal, your production rates will slow way down.*

But if I can do all this on a 1/4 acre, why not do a little of everything yourself, and see what works for you? I know if I were in a different place, I"d have different results from what I've had here.

Check out my blog, I write about this kind of stuff on a regular basis. 

Peace,
db

(Can you tell I just had my morning coffee??)


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## HayBabies

For us we also have to buy %100 of the feed. We live within the city limits. We are allowed poultry (no roosters) and rabbits. I currently have coturnix quail, meat rabbits, a few OEG Bantams for fun. The bantams are tucked away in a well insulated awning. They make very little noise and both don't take up a lot of space.


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## snowcap

It was hit and miss if our rabbit bred with out comercial pellet feed. So we are trying poultry now. our 4 baties are keeping us in eggs for just a little corn.
You don't have to winter your meat stock with chickens. Right there your going to save.
Keep a few banties to incubate eggs for you.


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## Fetherhd

A lot of it depends on what KIND of chicken you are raising for meat. If you are using dual purpose birds that free range and are getting eggs and meat...and you are supplementing you rabbits with yard and garden greens and hay....then it is probably six of one half a dozen the other. IF you are having to buy the cornish rock X meat birds...then your costs on the chickens just skyrocketed as they do not reproduce themselves and they require large amounts of commercial feed to reach their full potential...along with having to factor in the costs for buying the chicks. I have done both and prefer the rabbits for their ease of butchering. I do NOT like cleaning chickens...neither the dressing out or the plucking. I still raise of few of the cornish rock cross a year as I do like roast chicken sometimes.


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## Fetherhd

FloridaHillbill said:


> Muscovies are not fed directly, preferring to graze. They have almost zero input though. Muscovies require a lot of open space.
> 
> Muscovies take about 2-3 months to grow to eating size, depending on diet. They are GREAT mothers, and can produce 2-4 broods a year. I've gone from a male duckling and a female duckling to almost 40 birds in about a year, culling for the table along the way. Outputs are eggs, feathers, manure, and duck fat. I listed duck fat because it is sooo tasty when cooking. They are also good for bug control.
> 
> *Conclusion:*
> If money were the issue, I'd go with Muscovies completely. Unfortunately, they are a pain to harvest and dress out.
> (Can you tell I just had my morning coffee??)


 I tried the muscovys last year for the first time and I must say I agree with you...what an awesome meat animal!! Other than the plucking I truly love the muscovys...and they are one of the tastiest poulty I have come across!!


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## JoshRonin

I have chickens, rabbits and quail, though I'm just getting into the meat production side of thing. Here is something I was thinking about just a few months ago.

*Rabbits*. Depending on breed, a rabbit doe takes 6-9 months before you should breed her, then you have a month for gestation, and depending on how you feed the young, 8-12 weeks before you butcher. So it takes over a year before you get your first harvest. Harvest weight should be around 3-3.5 lbs for each kit, and you would want at least 6 kits per liter and 6 liters per year. I'll take 3.25 lbs x 6 kits x 6 liters = 117 lbs of meat from 1 doe.

*Chickens* With chickens you'll wait 6 months till they lay, but their eggs are small, so it's 8 months before they are fully mature. You can hatch out smaller eggs, but its best to wait. Most of the breeds I've had, will net you 4 or more eggs a weeks, which is good for hen who is broody. I would rather combine eggs from all the chickens and use an incubator. $45 for a still air little giant at TSC.

So we take all eggs for a week from one hen, and spend 21 days in an incubator. 3 out of 4 hatch. Now we spend the next 12-20 weeks growing out those chickens and get 4-5 lb bird. So 3 birds x 4 lbs = 12 lbs of meat, but we could repeat this cycle every 21 days from spring till fall. Lets say we do this from March-October, so we can do it 11 times. 11 x 12 lbs = 132 lbs of meat for the year.

The other option is to buy the cornish X every year. $1.50 per bird, plus 15 lbs of feed, and 5-9 weeks till you harvest. I just did some and averaged my cost to be around $6 per bird and I did not weigh the final product.

Final thought.

Rabbits need cages or hutches and can cost $30-40 each cage. With chickens, you don't have to do much. Heritage breeds can roost in trees, and be allowed to fully free range, though I don't suggest this. I have more problems with predators with chickens. Last fall I had a raccoon kill one pullet, this spring a hawk got a pullet and a cornish X. Then here last week something tore a hole in my chicken run and killed 24 chickens, both cornish X and pullets for laying. I had dead chickens around my rabbit cages, but the rabbits where untouched. I've raised chickens for 3 years, and I'm constantly fighting predators.


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## o&itw

I used to raise chickens. Here I raise rabbits because I don't have room for both, I raise about 250 fryers a year. Personally, I would rather clean 20 chickens than 20 rabbits. Of course, an old chicken is a bit different to clean than a young Cornish-rock cross.

One can't reasonably raise Cornish-rock crosses without high protein commercial feed. but If one has a freezer, one can raise a bunch of them in a couple of months and be done with it, especially if they get them early in the spring when it is still cool. Dual purpose chickens are great because they can eat almost anything, especially if they free range. However, they are not terribly tender and are usually good only for stews, dumplings, noodle, and pot pies.

Raising rabbits without pellets is possible but not easy, and if one has to raise rabbits till they are past 10-12 weeks old they toughen up pretty quick.


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## Shayanna

Update: We are picking up 3 Orpington hens and a rooster today. We will raise them for eggs and maybe next spring let one go broody, to test out how fast the chicks grow compared to rabbits. The chickens will be free ranged during the non snowy months, and fed table scraps, garden scraps/butcher scraps and whatever organic chicken grain I can find in the winter. We will also, this summer/fall, get a two either californian or new zealand does (proven breeders) and a new zealand buck and raise litters for meat. We'll feed them as much hay and forage as they can eat, but will supplement with some grain as well. Now I'm just debating what their grain should consist of and how much each should get. I'm thinking BOSS and Oats? Or is that too rich? I would just really rather stay away from all of the processed stuff. Its awful difficult to find organic pellets.

PS. I already have all of the hanging cages/feeders/ and waterbottles, that I got for free from my mother, and all the supplies to build the growout pen.


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## PlicketyCat

Climate, location, and local resources are huge factors. Breed selection also makes a significant difference.

I live off-grid in Interior Alaska, in the middle of the forest, with a very short growing season. Because we have serious land & aerial predators, no small animal can be truly "free range" and must be pastured in fortified tractors during the warm months and housed in maximum security quarters through the cold. We can't leave animals unattended for this reason, so daily chores aren't a factor. They both use the same tractor design, and I can run them in tandem inside a larger portable electro-net perimeter. 

Growing hay for the rabbits is just as difficult as growing grains for the chickens here; they both eat garden scraps and weeds, but we have more flexibility with alternate chicken feeds (namely, bugs and salmon & dairy byproduct). Purchased feeds cost about the same for both... insanely expensive, although local hay is usually less expensive than local grains (oats, barley, wheat.. NOT corn or soy $$$$$). 

For personal reasons, I'll only raise non-production breeds, so both will reach slaughter weight in 12-16 weeks, dressing out 3-4#. Since Ill be canning most of our meat, I'll only pluck a handful of freezer chickens to roast with the skin on, and just skin the majority which makes processing go much faster and easier.

So, in my situation, chickens and rabbits will cost about the same, yield about the same, and take about the same amount of time/effort/space. The only things different between the two are seasonal, which equal out over the course of the year:

Chickens don't do so well in our extreme cold and dark winters, so we'll only be able to raise meat birds in the summer, and overwinter only our laying hens in a minimally heated barn with a supplemental light. That means we'll only have chicken in the summer and less for the freezer/canner, but we can supplement the rest of the year with eggs. We can also sell eggs to offset the costs of buying in meat chicks in the spring. And harvest red wrigglers, mealworms and soldier fly for their extra protein in winter via indoor vermicomposting when our outdoor compost pile is frozen solid.

Rabbits do much better in our extreme cold, and thrive in our comparitively cool summers. Fryers will grow out just fine together during early winter in an unheated barn; but it's too cold to kindle for 2-3 cycles. So we'd have meat rabbits mid-spring through late-fall, but their litters are large enough to carry us through winter especially since we don't have to slaughter them all before the cold sets in like the chickens. We can sell furs to offset the costs of extra hay and alfalfa.

#1 Chicken Pro: they eat anything, including the squadrons of mosquitoes we have every summer.

#1 Chicken Con: they require supplemental heat and light in the winter and extra fuel for the brooder heater in spring.

#1 Rabbit Pro: they can handle winter just fine even if we can't breed them then which means we don't have to slaughter all of them before winter or heat the barn

#1 Rabbit Con: more limited feed choices and availability (having to sex & cull/separate the bucklings earlier than the cockerels is #2)

So we've decided to raise them both so we have better long-term & year round self-sufficiency... especially since we have to grow forage and grain for the goats and sheep anyway. We'll also be raising ducks and geese since they are more cold-hardy than chickens and yield larger carcasses (but less eggs)... a frozen pool is the worst of the winter problems with them.

I'm sure that your mileage will vary  

From my experiences in the South, if you live in a really hot climate... get chickens and/or other poultry and forget about the rabbits! Rabbits suffer horribly in the heat and often get sick or die. It's more difficult to keep rabbits cool in summer down South than it is to heat a chicken coop in the winter up North.


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## FloridaHillbill

PlicketyCat said:


> Rabbits suffer horribly in the heat and often get sick or die.



Get long-eared varieties link New Zealands and AlTex's....preferably from someone thats been doing it for a while (established bloodlines that are acclimated to heat)...and lives closer to the equator than you do (your place should be a little cooler on average).

I've raised upwards of a thousand rabbits here in south Florida, and never lost one to heat, and not even had any suffer heat stress. My rabbits are located in the shade, on the north side of a block building, have unlimited water, and have lots of ventilation and a fan (old truck radiator cooling fan) running off a solar panel/battery setup (no electric bill).

Here is my town location to show how far south you can succesfully raise rabbits:
http://goo.gl/maps/w8Qft
And keep in mind, I know of lots of other rabbit breeders that are south of me...

We have wild rabbits that flourish around here with no human intervention. There is no reason domestic rabbits can't flourish here as well (if not better) than the wild counterparts in the same area with some simple logic and planning.


Just sayin'
db


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## RitzieAnn

We breed rabbits on small scale. Their pellet intake isn't bad in the grass growing season. 100lbs lasted me over a month. That fed 1 buck, 1 pet, 1 bred doe & 9 kits in grow out. Give them orchard hay & pick greens daily for them. They are easy to keep, easy to care for. I have the doe in a hutch (or sometimes a 3x6 stall in the barn) when shes pregnant. My pet (grandma to my doe!) Lives with the girls in grow out, and my buck lives with the boys. They live in ground pens that I rake out every few days. I grow them out longer, since they are used for dog food.

This is our first year doing meat chickens (freedom rangers) they are in a tractor that I move daily. They use no bedding (once they are feathered & out of the heat lamp) but they dont eat as much grass as i t expected. We have 2 layer pullets in with them & they eat the grass more. The chickens go mext weekend & should be 8 weeks. They are HUGE, but also go through a bit over 50lbs a week. There are 18 broilers & 2 (hopefully hen) layer mix breeds in there.

My husband likes the chickens. They are polite & funny. They eat a ton & poop almost as much. I am SO glad I built a tractor for them. If I had to clean up after them in a yard/coop, I would never do it again. Lol.

My husband prefers chicken meat. Our friend (who butchers for us & helps out if i need it) feeds his great danes a raw diet & loves the rabbits because he can feed it hole & knows exactly where they came feom, so we will continue to raise both.


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