A rabbit is a burrowing animal, which has long ears and a tail. A male rabbit is called a buck, a female rabbit is called a doe and the children are known as kittens. They are usually reared for their meat, wool, fur and even urine/manure. Their meat is considered as white meat and more suitable for special diet people. The rabbit meat is high in demand because:
Cholesterol and fat levels in rabbit are much lower; almost zero (nonexistent). For this reason, rabbit meat is being used and is suitable for special diets such as those for heart disease patients, diet for the aged, low sodium diet, weight reduction diet etc.
Rabbit meat has the highest in protein percentage compare to other livestock.
A rabbit can produce six pounds of meat on the same amount of feed and water it takes a cow to produce just one pound. Thus, high returns are expected. The space required to build a rabbitry is quite small thus lower cost and since they reproduce very fast, there is always room for expansion.

The starting stock can be bought from local breeders. Rabbits start to breed at the age of between six and seven months and give birth after a gestation period of 30-31 days. A female rabbit can produce more than 50 live rabbits per year at the average rate of 8 kits per birth.
Some of the already established local breeders include:
Kezgeal Nig. Limited
Oakland farms
JF Rabbits [url]jfrabbits..com.ng[/url]

The initial capital requirements are minimal because once you have a good structure in place, you can start with a few mature rabbits which will reproduce fast and increase your stock. The initial budget can be less than N50,000 depending on the number of mature rabbits the farmer starts with.

Food for the rabbits is relatively cheap since vegetables are cheap and everywhere, while pellets go for about N2,800 for 25 kg. This will last the farmer for a whole cycle. In addition, the rice farms abound in rice straws, which could serve as hay (free food)

The cost of acquiring a mature rabbit of any breed that is ready for breeding is between N2,000 to N4,000. The price of a mature rabbit is largely dependent on its weight and size. One hutch which can house either pregnant mother and kits, one male or kits from one mother cost N1,500 to build and between N3000 – N5000 for ready-made ones.

The market for rabbit meat is mainly in large hotels and restaurants.
The common breeds of rabbit kept in Nigeria are Chinchilla, California white, New Zealand white and Flemish giant. They have unique features as shown below:

Chinchilla:
Have brown grey fur
Upstanding ears and brown eyes
The buck and doe attain weight of 6-7 kg at 5 months
Meat yield is 4-5 kg

California white:
Have a dense white fur
Upstanding black ears and black nose
The buck and the doe attain weight of 3-3.5 kg at 4-5 months
Meat yield is 2-2.3 kg

New Zealand white:
Have dense white fur
Upstanding ears and red pink eyes
The buck and the doe attain weight of 4.5-5.5 kg respectively at 4-5 months
Meat yield is 2.1-2.3 kg

Flemish giants:
Have brown fur
Upstanding brown white ears
Brown eyes
The doe and buck attain weight of 5-5.5 kg at 4-6 months
Meat yield is 2.5-3.0 kg
Flemish giants may have various colours. Black, blue fawn, light grey, sandy steel, grey and white.

Eastern cottontail:
Have brown fur
Upstanding brown black ears
Brown eyes
The buck and the doe attain weight of 3-3.5 kg at 4-5 months
Meat yield is 2-2.3 kg

Hare-raising business is adaptable to any location in Nigeria. 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 fertilizer production and 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.
Rabbits are livestock, and very good livestock, too, (the cleanest and most disease-free of all).

There are few religious or other taboos on rabbit meat (except in vegetarian cultures). Islam does not prohibit eating rabbit meat, for example.

Rabbits can be kept in any part of the country as long as they are housed properly and protected from predators and the elements.

The rabbit's basic shelter needs are modest. It is fortuitous that a variety of locally available building materials used in the construction of simple sheds, hutches, nest boxes, hay-racks and feeding and watering equipment are generally abundant in tropical developing countries like Nigeria. Suitable shelter for rabbits can be made in an outdoor shed, veranda or spare room, or a complete hutch (cage) can be constructed. Because they are noiseless, rabbits can be raised in garages and servants' quarters in urban centres without infringing on the peace of the neighbors. Very little space is usually needed.

Rabbits do not require routine vaccination or medication for the prevention or treatment of specific diseases. This is an important factor since, in other livestock species, a lack of appropriate drugs is sometimes a major constraint to successful production. When a disease does occur in rabbit farming, local remedies can often be effectively used in treatment. One common disease condition, referred to as ear mites and caused by an external parasite, Psoroptes cuniculi, can be both prevented and treated by applying drops of an oil-kerosene solution directly inside the ear canal. Vegetable oil, red palm oil and even clean engine oil may be used. For the control of digestive disorders, diarrhea and constipation for example, various medicinal herbs and green vegetables have been observed to provide similar therapeutic results in rabbits (Lukefahr and Goldman, 1985).

Rabbits are herbivores and will consume large quantities of forage (greens), which people do not eat and convert this forage into valuable meat for human consumption. Practically, rabbits can be fed anything from the garden, forest or kitchen including banana and papaya (paw paw) peels, pineapple cores, corn stalks, weeds, vines from pulses, leaves (cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, carrots etc. This indicates that unlike chickens, rabbits compete minimally with humans for grains.

A profitable meat rabbit business can be started with just 3 to 4 does and 1 buck, some basic equipment, and a buyer.
Every product of the rabbit is valuable; fur, pelt, foot, meat, urine, manure, and bones can all be converted into money if you can find a market for them.
There is great potential in this undertaking because of the increased lifestyle change of most families towards healthy living. This is evidenced by the preference to white meat rather than red meat and increase in the demand for rabbit meat since it is the most nutritious of the white meat. This is a trend that shows future growth of the industry and thus increased future cash flows of early entrants to the industry. The opportunity is immense based on the change in trends in the market coupled with the gap in the supply of the product.
Jobless youths can start this project with as little as N6,000. There is no need of youths idling with the excuse that they cannot acquire a loan to start big businesses, when they can start with a project like rabbit keeping.
We fail to advice our boys to start with such small projects and so when they grow up and lack jobs, they start engaging in criminal activities, becoming a menace to the community. Such projects may keep young men occupied and at the end help them achieve their dreams in life leading to a reduction in crime rate.

I urge men who are reading this to help boost consumption of rabbit meat in their homes. Men should make a point of buying at least a kilo of rabbit meat for their family in a while as the meat is classified as white meat, which is healthy and prevents various lifestyle

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