How to sell rabbit meat
Making Money With Meat Rabbits Part One: Selling Rabbit Meat
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hey guys sam from west meadow rabbits
here mixing it up today
we're doing it in my basement with the
ugliest wall i could find
it's freezing cold and wet out there i
just did a video on planting willows if
you want to check that out i'll link to
it in
the end of the video but uh this is
going to be a bit of a long one so i
wanted to come down here where i can get
a little comfortable
and sort of dig into this with you guys
so
number one thing i hear all the time
about people
you know when they want to get into meat
rabbits is there can you make any money
with it or can you break even with it
um and the short answer is
yes with a little star after
you're not gonna get rich certainly not
gonna get rich
um you might not even break even
and depending on what you want to do
that might not be a bad thing
and more importantly you really need to
evaluate why you want to get into meat
rabbits i think there are some
situations where it can be a
profitable venture but it needs to be
you know well thought out and like any
other really profitable venture it needs
to be
you know formal it needs to be planned
and it needs to usually be a part of
something else
so i think there is money to be made and
i would like to see the meat rabbit
industry actually develop into an
industry
instead of just a hobbyist thing but in
the short term
you can definitely make a little bit of
change and in some unique scenarios you
may be able to make a decent amount of
money
but don't go into this expecting you're
going to get rich and i really wouldn't
recommend going into rabbits expecting
you're going to make any money you
should plan to not be making money
unless you already have an existing farm
or you're in a region where a rabbit
farm could be a financially sustainable
business which we'll get into in a sec
so it's gonna be a big one i got my
notes here
so today we're gonna cover selling
actual
rabbit meat i think this is probably the
easiest place to start because we are
talking about meat rabbits after all
that's primarily what they're designed
for it's also probably the
the easiest way to make money um
with meat rabbits but it also is going
to be the most dependent on a lot of
different factors here
so first and foremost it's going to
depend on where you're located
i am really happy to say that a lot of
different people from around the world
watch this channel which i think is
freaking awesome um i love you guys from
all over the globe i love hearing from
you i also love everybody in the us
i appreciate all the views but um in
certain parts of the country this is
going to make a lot
more sense and in certain parts of the
world it's going to make a lot more
sense
so if you're in southeast asia or most
parts of africa
i think there's actually a really good
opportunity to make a legitimate farming
operation
selling meat rabbits i don't know too
much about these areas but i have talked
to people who say they have actual farms
with rabbits in these areas so i think
there's definitely something there
and a lot of this can apply to you now
if you're in europe
especially southern europe you already
know that it's pretty normal to eat
rabbits
especially in countries like france
italy and greece
these are countries that have had these
rabbits in their diet for a long time
and there's no stigma around it
and most of the international rabbit
industry is actually located there
so another interesting area but it's
western
and there's a lot of regulations in
western countries which we'll get to
next
that can make it a little difficult now
if you're in the u.s
all bets are off so a lot of interesting
stuff has been happening
in the us and i'm going to talk the rest
of this video
about the u.s although i think it
applies to other places
in the us there's a pretty strong stigma
about eating rabbit meat a lot of people
look at them as pets which is an
interesting thing we're a very rich
country you know whether anybody wants
to
get into the politics or not doesn't
matter relatively speaking we are a
ridiculously rich country
and we're so rich that we can look at
animals that other people would see as
food and we can see pets
which is fine i don't think there's
anything wrong with having rabbits as
pets i have
pet rabbits myself but you just need to
be aware that in many places in the u.s
if you say you eat rabbit people are
going to look at you like you have 10
heads
now this is changing a little bit
especially with covid there's been a
huge surge in people wanting to produce
their own food be more self-sufficient
and there's also been simultaneously
going on for a while now
moves towards local agriculture and
sustainable agriculture
and meat rabbits in my opinion sit right
there at the junction on all three
they're ridiculously sustainable i would
argue more sustainable than any other
common form of livestock we have in the
u.s you can do them at a small scale so
they're hyper local
and they are the ultimate food security
you know the reality is if you live in a
northern climate
you're not going to be able to live on a
vegan diet alone it snows
five months of the year and those plants
only grown for four months
so they're really great if you're
looking for a a prepping situation as
well
anyways i could go on that all day so in
the us you need to look
first and foremost before you sell
rabbit meat at which state you're in
and what are your regulations so
interestingly enough
rabbits historically in the us have been
eaten by very rich people
and very poor people um you've seen
spikes in interest in rabbits during
every major u.s crisis
the depression world war ii the 70s oil
crisis there was these huge spikes
in rabbit consumption and backyard meat
rabbits but it never stuck just like
we're seeing right now in covet i've
sold more rabbits this year than i have
in my life
so i really would love to see it stick
around this time because
there's also the benefits of like i said
sustainability and locality
so now how does this impact you well
if you're in what i would say a
left-leaning state you are probably
going to have stricter regulations than
somebody
in a more right-leaning state just
because the way they approach
agriculture and
animal rights which is a whole other
subject but on the flip side though
people in left-leaning states may
actually have a bigger market
especially the high-end market and this
doesn't even apply to states if you're
near a big city for example
there's a lot of foodies there there's a
lot of rich people there who are willing
to pay a premium
right now pastor ray's chicken is going
for thirty dollars for a five pound bird
let that sink in um and that's going to
primarily very rich people who can
afford to you know shop with their
wallet if you will
uh and interestingly there's also a lot
of farm to table stuff
in these areas where the food's a little
more expensive but it comes
directly from farmers or sourced locally
for example when i was in burlington
vermont there was a fabulous scratch
kitchen
and they they sourced everything that
they made from vermont
mostly and new england at large and
rabbit was featured prominently on the
menu and it was the most delicious
rabbit i've ever had i believe the name
of the restaurant was hen in the woods
or something like that check it out if
you're in the area
but if you're in close proximity to a
urban area and environmentally conscious
area
you're gonna probably be closer to
people who are willing to pay a premium
for rabbit at the same time
you'll also be closer to people who have
no experience with
livestock or agriculture and are most
would get most upset about the idea of
somebody eating a rabbit so you have to
take that with a grain of salt too
but ultimately your proximity to market
matters but what matters more
is your state's regulations um the meat
regulations in the u.s
are frankly disgusting i'm not going to
get too political about this
but safe to say every single major party
in the u.s
and every politician has not done
anything about this these regulations
were set up to protect meat monopolies
and they do just that thankfully in
recent years there's been a
an exemption at the federal level which
basically allows
up to 20 000 poultry chickens usually
or 5 000 turkeys depends on the bird to
be slaughtered
without a federal inspection great news
is rabbit is qua
rabbit is classified as poultry under
that exemption so you can
do it locally now the requirements are
pretty loose at the federal level
and um you know as far as that exemption
goes
but there's a couple caveats you can't
sell over state lines unless it's
federally
inspected um and you have to follow your
local
state regulations so a lot of states
have state inspected slaughterhouses
that handle chickens and poultry
and even some larger animals too if
you're in a more agricultural oriented
state you probably have more
if you're in a really urban state or a
small state you probably have a few
in massachusetts where i live we have a
few but
none of them really handle rabbit which
is something you'll run into
and the other problem being is that if i
wanted to do it myself in massachusetts
the regulations are ridiculously strict
it's it's absurd
i'd have to pay 500 for a license plus
thousands of dollars to build a state
inspected facility which i can't do in
my backyard
and you know at that point it's just
lost dollars but even if i
didn't have to and there was a place
that could handle rabbits most places
that process rabbits
only accept white rabbits they only
accept a certain age they'll reject
rabbit for any reason
that's aesthetically problematic because
it'll fail inspection and get them in
trouble
even though there's nothing wrong with
the meats and they charge an arm and a
leg
on a rabbit just because they're not
used to it they're not set up for that
you're going to be probably paying as
much as you would make
so that's something to keep in mind but
on the flip side if you happen to be
lucky enough to live right north of me
in new hampshire
or in maine and even vermont i believe
and also new york
the regulations are much looser and each
of those states does have
areas where they have you know markets
for the meat
as you can see in the u.s the meat
pitcher is complicated there are
some grassroots efforts to deal with
political reform but given the current
climate
i'm not optimistic on any federal
regulation relief so you have to do what
you can do at local level
and by the way if you want to get
involved i'm all for you getting
involved in your state's politics to try
to loosen up your regulations
and i also think it's great the more
people that sell meats uh the more
people that breed rabbits the more
normal
it will become and the bigger all of our
market will become
so even just trying helps normalize it
which helps everybody
so let's just assume you've looked into
your regulations and it's legal you can
find a way to swing it now what kind of
markets are we talking
i think there's three groups you really
can target well and i know people are
selling rabbit around the country so
it is possible the first group i'd be
looking at
is like i said health conscious
consumers but more importantly people
focused on local sustainable agriculture
and are comfortable eating meat
you're not going to be selling any
rabbit to a vegan so
farm to table restaurants are a great
place to find these
online groups and even just being in an
area where that's a big deal like i said
burlington vermont's the perfect mix
of environmentally conscious but they're
also an agricultural state so
there's a there's a great market there
so try to find places like that in your
area
the other option would be to find
restaurants similar situation
there's two different types of
restaurants you could target you could
target the really really fancy
high-end restaurants that serve like 50
duck
and try to sell them a luxury product uh
product
you know like luxury rabbit meat
basically and i'm sure you could get
very good margins on that
or you could go for a more farm-to-table
restaurant which is more focused on
connecting farmers and people
who are interested in knowing where
their food comes from different style
restaurants different marketing tactics
but they both fall under the restaurant
category
and the last thing you could check out
is look for immigrant communities in
your
area so if you have people coming from
countries that are totally cool with
eating rabbit
i find that typically they're the most
game
customers a lot of them are surprised
that you have to even have regulation to
eat meat they think that
if you're a grown adult you should be
able to make your own decisions i agree
they're great people i really love a lot
of the immigrant communities in my area
are from west africa
um southeast asia cambodia vietnam and a
lot of south americans who are also
depending on which country they're from
pretty into eating rabbit as well
usually i find these people really
awesome they're really excited to be
able to find
you know actual meats you know that
they're used to back home being able to
go to the market and get meat and talk
to the person who's selling the meat
and here they kind of miss that a lot of
old italian immigrants
they their eyes light up when they hear
that you have meat rabbits ditto for
greek people
um there's also a pretty good size greek
community in my area and they love
rabbit
so let's kind of seek out immigrant
communities and see if there's an
interest there
in um you know if you have any friends
or connections to floated out there my
girlfriend is greek and her whole family
you know i give them rabbits and they
they love it
so definitely check that out if it's an
option in your area and you can always
try to convert people you know i think a
lot of people are more adventurous than
you might give them
credit for so if you can maybe find a
good way to market it highlight the
sustainability aspect highlight the
ethical
aspect especially if you're doing
pasture raised or partially pasture
raised
and also you probably already know how
to cook rabbit because you're raising
them so if you have any really good
recipes any family recipes
i tried to get the recipe off of that
chef in the restaurant i was at
but i'm not too good with remembering so
i missed most of it
but if you can get give recipes to
people when you sell the meats
that's going to dramatically increase
the chance of somebody buying because
most people are just intimidated
they see a rabbit they don't know what
the hell they're going to do with it
they don't know what it tastes like
but it's a very mild meat as you'll know
once you eat rabbit yourself or if you
already have
and once you get it chopped up it
behaves almost exactly like a chicken
so providing recipes providing cut up
instructions any anything like that
will do a lot to increase your ability
to sell so
you've got your regulations squared away
you have an idea of your markets you
want to sell to
let's actually start talking money now
in any business venture which if you're
going to be selling
rabbit meats you should consider it a
business adventure if you're doing it
small scale you need to have your
numbers squared away and you need to
have at least some planning
so what i've seen typically is high-end
rabbit at retail prices goes for
seven-ish dollars a pound which is a ton
if you're selling to a restaurant you
can expect a half
to a quarter of that price somewhere in
there depending on what you negotiate in
the restaurant
but they'll be much more consistent
buyers a thing to mention here is
selling to stores
wholesalers and distributors is
completely off the table that is illegal
under the federal regulations the
exemptions only allow you to sell
directly to consumer
or directly to restaurant you cannot
sell to distributors or stores so don't
even think about it
but once you've got all that figured out
you can kind of ballpark what your
market will bear
and you can try either by selling a few
ask any other farmers you know in the
area
or just looking online and seeing if
there's any place around you that sells
it
and if you're planning on selling to
restaurants by all means reach out to
them but make sure you're doing it in a
professional way
once you have your rough idea of
what your sale price is going to look
like in your region now you can start
making some financial feasibility
decisions
you should already know by now uh unless
you're extremely new to this
in which case i would recommend doing
some research on
the feed conversion ratio of your breed
i rate i raise new zealand's which are
meat breed they were bred for commercial
production so they have a very high
feed to meat ratio which is how
efficiently they convert feed to meat
but you need to figure that out you also
need to figure out what the dress out
percentage is
for your breed that's what percentage of
the live weight
is left after you butcher it and then
out of that weight you want to figure
out your meat to bone ratio
and there's some information on this out
there for commercial breeds
so don't stress it too much and there's
also ways you can figure it out i mean
obviously the simplest way is way to
rabbit before
you butcher it and then wait after there
you go you've got your dress out
percentage so you need to make sure you
have all that figured out before you can
really price out whether it's going to
be a financially feasible
thing to do at the very least you don't
want to be losing money on the rabbit
meat you sell
unless you're cool with that if you're
fine with that i think that's great you
know more people eating it the better
but just understand you're basically
going to be giving away meat
which is pretty tough for most people to
do
now once you've sort of got an idea of
what your numbers look like
it's probably really important now to
take a good hard look at how far you
want to take this
because there's going to be a huge
difference between somebody just selling
a few
rabbits out of their backyard to some
friends and family if you're in a state
that allows you to do that
just to make a little extra cash and try
to offset the feed bill
and somebody who's selling hundreds of
rabbits to
restaurants or uh farmers markets and by
the way i know people who do that
they're still not making a full-time
living off of it
so keep that in mind but it is
definitely possible however
the level of planning and financial
thought that's going to need to go into
that is going to vary wildly
obviously if you only have a few rabbits
right now you should not be trying to
plan
a 500 whole rabbit operation in case you
don't know whole is the
hole in the cage that's how we measure
you know how big a ravager is
anyways i digress at the same time if
you have no rabbits right now
you should not be even worrying about
selling meat you should be getting a few
rabbits for yourself
practicing your butchering skills
practicing taking care of them and
really getting the learning curve mask
when you sell rabbit meat
in our country it's really important
that you provide a
professional polished experience even if
you're doing it small scale even if it's
only five or ten
and even if it's out of your backyard
because it's such a
a uncommon thing in the u.s if you mess
up when you're selling meat
you make us all look bad you can turn
off somebody from
you know the entire idea of rabbits meat
by giving them a bad experience which is
the last thing we want so it's your
responsibility especially when you're
selling food to people
and your responsibility to the rabbit
community the people who raise
rabbits to do your best and make sure
you're doing this 100 professionally
that means planning ahead running your
numbers and bringing us to my next point
you need to make sure your butchering
skills are on point especially if you're
selling to restaurants
it's good to know what the standards are
in a federally or state inspected
facility
they do not allow any fur on the corpse
any fecal material any
you know basically major defects major
cuts in the meats
any a lot of blood improperly bled
all that stuff will get the carcass
disqualified and you should have the
exact same philosophy
for your own meat you're producing
unless you've talked to your customers
ahead of time and unless they explicitly
agree that they don't mind getting
a meat that's a little bit meh you
should not be bringing that to farmers
markets you should certainly not be
bringing that to restaurants because
that'll get you
out of there in five seconds flat um and
i really recommend you take a lot of
time and you practice
getting really good at butchering before
you start offering rabbits for sale
and again this applies all the way from
a few rabbits to a few hundred
if you're lucky enough to live in a
state where you have a
facility that will handle your rabbits
and they
you don't mind raising white rabbits and
you've got a good uh
price point there by all means go ahead
and do that it'll save you a lot of
hassle especially if you're doing
hundreds of rabbits
but otherwise for most people it's
probably gonna be like
five or ten rabbits a month maybe more
if you're a farm and you're integrating
this
as another enterprise but it's still
something to
make sure you've got down pat i'll link
to down below
a video of joel salads and son daniel
salton and how he butchers rabbits
and they sell a good amount of rabbits
on polyface farm you can check that out
polyfacefarm.com
their diversified farm that sells a lot
of different meat products but they've
actually integrated rabbits there
into a nice you know profitable little
line of business and i think
especially if you have a farm that's a
whole other subject but i think it's
really awesome
to integrate rabbits if you can because
you already have an existing base of
customers
and they complement a lot of other
enterprises nicely two other things to
consider here
is selling the live rabbits themselves
i've heard this before
in the south there are a few pel freeze
facilities that's the largest
distributor of rabbit meat in the u.s
and if you're within 100 miles or so
from them you can usually
offload a lot of rabbits you know
they'll buy a ton you know basically all
you can sell
as long as they meet the requirements
they're white and everything um
and they will then buy those rabbits
butcher them you know in a federally
inspected facility and sell them their
customers
if you're lucky enough to be in another
part of the country and you can find an
arrangement like that
that's great but just keep in mind for a
live rabbit you are getting
bottom of the barrel prices the real
value you add
when you're selling rabbit meat is the
butchered product think about it most
people don't want to butcher the rabbit
that's the hard part that's the part
where the money is made
so if you're selling live rabbits
whether that's to customers
directly because there's no law anywhere
about selling a live rabbit to a
customer and then them going home and
butchering it
or to a facility you shouldn't expect
more than five dollars an entire rabbit
compare that with seven dollars a pound
retail
for um a dressed out rabbit so there's a
huge price difference there
and for all except the biggest of guys
it's not that practical
and i don't think it's that helpful for
you as a breeder
most of you i imagine are probably just
looking to offset the costs
of you know having some rabbits around
and we're gonna cover some other ways to
do that in the next two videos
but it is possible with meat
again i just want to emphasize if you
already have a farm the discussion is a
little different i think it's a
profitable enterprise that you could
integrate
if you have the market for it for
everybody else
in the us at least it's going to really
depend on your location
if you can find the market great i say
go for it just keep it professional
plan ahead and try to find a price
that's good for you but the market will
also bear
i think seven dollars in that range is
pretty reasonable for rabbits if you can
find somebody who can afford it if you
can do it cheaper by all means
okay but what if you are in a market
where
it's basically impossible to sell the
meat you have some customers who are
interested though but because of
regulations you can't
uh you're not planning on getting rich
you're not planning on doing this large
scale
just a few people you know who want to
give you some money for it
now i'm not advocating anything illegal
this is a purely hypothetical scenario
but i am of the opinion that if a law is
unjust
it's your job as a citizen to do a
little civil disobedience
on that law i think the founding fathers
would be totally down with that
and i also think it's very safe to say
that the meat laws in the u.s
are beyond unjust a consenting adult
who knows what they're getting into and
is fully informed of the risks
should be able to do what they like when
it comes to purchasing
food and if somebody was inclined to
undermine some ridiculous
federal or local regulations i would say
keep a couple things in mind
number one everything i said before
still applies
especially doing a good job keeping
hygiene
clean organized and professional
that goes for every step of the process
in addition i think it's really
important that you let your customer
know
if you were in this situation exactly
what's going on and what the arrangement
is
and i recommend not advertising this
except to people you know
or people you've established a
relationship with because there are some
people out there who just have a real
big problem with people eating meat
and rabbits in general and just want to
make your life miserable and that's the
last thing you need if you're in a state
where
they've sort of influenced unjust
regulations so definitely try to
maintain a low profile
and remember there's other ways around
this too you can sell
butchered rabbit meat to people without
any regulations
for animal consumption for example a lot
of people feed their dogs the raw diet
and while that in and of itself is a
great market especially for organs
ears are a fantastic dog treat
especially if they've been dried
organs are also like i said great
trimmings all that kind of stuff but
people will actually buy the entire
rabbit to feed their dogs however if
somebody
bought a rabbit for their dog and then
wanted to eat it themselves
you're not really responsible for what
they do after they buy it
so you can definitely make a point of
informing people when you're
doing things especially if you were in
our hypothetical situation breaking any
regulations
you could very clearly say to them
listen i prepare this meat the exact
same way i do for my own table
however under current regulations i'm
not legally allowed to sell this to you
for human consumption
so i am selling this to you for
consumption by animals
and you're acknowledging that that's
what you're using it for however what
you do with it is your business
and i think that's really interesting
and awesome way to go about it
and if you have a relationship with
people and you're doing a very
professional job you shouldn't run into
too many issues
so i know this has been a super long
video and i sort of steamrolled right
through that
because it's a big subject and meat in
particular is really complicated and
it's really going to depend on where you
are locally
again know your markets know your
numbers
know your regulations and have a plan
that's the best advice
i can give you now in part two of this
series we're going to talk about how i
primarily make money with rabbits
and personally i have sold meat in a uh
hypothetical situation kind of way
for human uh non-human consumption
animal consumption only
but it's not a huge income stream for me
which again is fine i don't think
everybody should be selling meat unless
they really want to do that
and again i really don't think you
should be doing this if you're trying to
make money in the first place
part two we're going to talk about
selling breeding stock now breeding
stock is a whole different animal
pun intended i guess we'll get into it
there it's going to be probably as long
as this
but either way regardless of which which
path
you choose just remember this is not a
get-rich-quick scheme
professionalism is the rule at all times
and if you're just getting into this
hobby to try to break even
it's going to make it a lot less fun and
a lot less enjoyable the main reason you
should be doing this is for your own
family and for your own health and maybe
your friends
unless you already have a farm or you're
planning on starting a diversified farm
and want to make this a part of that
otherwise there's really no reason to
try to be making
absurd amount of money or even a lot of
money with rabbits it's just not
it's not going to work it's going to
ruin it for you and it's just going to
set you up for disappointment
but anyways on that note i'll see you
guys over in part two
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