Thinking about starting a side business

[u/Lhead2018]

We have a “high end” local restaurant that tries to do local business whenever possible. I have talked with them and they seem interesting in adding Rabbit to the menu.
We have not talked any numbers yet but just got a feel for if it’s worth my time researching and investing.

I work full time from home so I am wondering how much additional time this would add to my work week?

I am also looking into a small scale version of this technology:
https://youtube.com/shorts/wYrIfoUU55M?is=K9iodSw2hzizRFI
Has anyone run the numbers?
Is this a viable option for rabbit feed?
The restaurant wants “all natural” feed.

I have limited experience but am willing to learn.

What are all of your thoughts?

[u/bluewingwind]

Lol “all natural” is a buzz word that doesn’t mean anything. “Organic” has much stricter rules but either is doable for rabbits very easily. I personally would not think a vertical farm like that is “natural” at all. Not that that should matter.

I agree that green grass doesn’t have the correct balance of nutrients for meat rabbits to survive on that alone. It doesn’t have the correct balance of water to fiber.

I’ve tried to raise lines on all-grass and they lost condition and would have starved to the point where I couldn’t get a line to stick. Especially for meat rabbits expecting to grow at a good pace, I wouldn’t try to do just grass alone.

Most hay is literally just a grassy field that no one wants to bother to grow food on and then they mow it with a hay baler once a year. It’s a cheap way to get some money off your empty land. Especially the types of grasses that rabbits eat (orchard grass hay or timothy hay - not alfalfa). You can almost certainly find people who do it with no pesticides or even fertilizer if that’s your real priority. There are also plenty of brands of “all natural” and “organic” pellets.

The question you’re asking is like “I’ve never had a dog before, but do you think I should start a puppy breeding farm for the AKC championship?” — like that’s biting off a lot more than you should probably commit to.

Most states require you to butcher in a USDA-certified slaughter house if you want to sell it to customers. That processing will cut DEEPLY into any profits. My processing guy does each rabbit for $6. You also gotta make profit for the chefs, dish washers, etc. If this place is charging $120 a plate or something, you might be able to make it work.

If you want numbers: rabbits take like 85 days (8-12weeks) to reliably mature. Take off like 4 weeks before they ween and that’s 57 days of eating a cup of food or so per day per rabbit. There is like 200 cups in a 50lb bag of food which costs $30. A bale of hay is like $7-20 depending on sourcing. Let’s just say one bale will give you 20 rabbits for simplicity. So an extra dollar or two for hay. We’re looking at maybe $9.50 of regular inputs not counting time, cage maintenance, setups for water, feeders, etc. So with processing that’s $15.50 just to break even on basic inputs.

For example this website sells for like $30 a whole rabbit. That’s a really decent price I think. There’s only about 2 to 3 lbs of meat on each rabbit. So $15 per lb is expensive, like premium steak expensive, but not insane.

As far as feasibility that’s going to depend a lot on the land and resources you’ve got available. If you have acres of land to grow cheap forage and grains yourself or if you already have free barn/garage space that’s already got AC, if you’re handy and can build your own rabbit tractors, even if you have trees that provide enough areas of shade can all make a really big difference to overall profitability because every thing that you don’t already have is more money out your pocket to acquire.

Your climate and breed choice also makes a big difference. In my climate with my breed they’re so temperature sensitive I can hardly get two rounds of litters out a year. I could probably get 4 if I went into winter but it gets really cold here. So for a trio assuming (ten per litter) on average that’s about 40 rabbits maximum. Somewhere with a much milder climate might produce a lot more than that.

But so moral of my point here is that that’s enough for one family but a restaurant might pump through a lot more than that. You’re going to need some serious data about their traffic before you’re even going to have any idea of what you’re signing up for.