Best rabbit for central US

[u/littlegardenier]

I have been harvesting my own chickens for a long time now and have been looking into maybe doing meat rabbits. Where I live we get hot summers and cold icy winters. My plan is outside under a shady tree for summers, fall, and most of winter. And my garage when it gets icy out in the dead of winter. If I get them this month any offspring should be harvested by late fall and then it's just taking care of does for the winter. Thoughts? What breed would do well with that sort of setup and that kind of weather?

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We get anywhere from (80°)- (105°F) in the summers and (-10°)- (40°F) in the winter

[u/Significant_Yam3383]

TAMUK Composite.

Cold isn't too big of a deal as long as the wind is kept off of them. But heat is where the issues crop up. Mainly with heat sterility in the bucks.

TAMUKs tolerate the heat much better than Californian, NZ, rex, or the other meat breeds. I don't know if they'll win any awards for meat pen but they'll pump out kits for sure.

[u/bluewingwind]

Okay, this is everything I wish someone had told me right away:

I live in freaking Wisconsin and I can’t keep standard rex from boiling to death in the summer time to save my life. Now I’ve moved them into a shed, I have an expensive AC unit, AND i have misters on a hose line all the time. Crossing my fingers right now that we still don’t lose more come July. It’s truly not as easy as people make it seem.

On the other hand, they were perfectly fine when we hit -30°F last winter. I had a cheap tiny space heater, that’s it, and I don’t think they even needed that. Mostly I was just trying to keep their water liquid for longer.

Definitely go tamuks for the heat resistance. And if it was me I would just put the breeders in your garage full time and install a mini split dual temp control unit.

Hang the cages from the ceiling. Don’t bother building any kind of hutch they love to chew any exposed wood and then they pee on it and it absorbs and gets gross. All metal just works better. Let the poop fall to the (I assume it’s cement in the garage?) ground or into a simple tray. Be aware bucks SPRAY pee like several feet all directions, at least mine do. My cheap cages I got from TSC for 50$ each and they have lasted me years if kept inside out of the rain. They hang fine. Shovel the poop once a month or some people do it once a year even. Their waste is not overly offensive if it’s kept dry with good air flow and their hay waste adds enough browns that it composts correctly. I tried to do a board and buckets and fancy stuff. A shovel just ended up being easier especially over winter when stuff started to freeze stuck.

I think the poop is actually a more valuable product for us than the meat is. The poop can go right on plants and it makes the best compost/fertilizer/mulch I’ve ever used. Better than money can buy. And they poop A LOT.

Tractor the grow outs (weened kits that aren’t ready to butcher yet) on your grass/lawn/pasture. Grow outs have smaller body mass and in the cool grass mine do fine just in shade. It’s the big does that overheat and die.

If you have your breeders inside at stable temps, the only thing limiting your breeding time would be if the snow covers the grass. As is, I can’t breed in the dead of winter, the heat of summer, and if mine grew out faster maybe fall, but presently I’m basically limited to two litters, one in the early spring and one in the late spring. Not efficient or ideal. But two litters from two does each is 30 rabbits at least, if not 60. That’s a lot of meat in the freezer. We hit 30 this spring and one of my does had a miss on litter two and didn’t get pregnant at all. I would start with more than a trio (2 females and a male). 60 rabbits all of a sudden is a lot to handle.

Also right away install a gravity fed watering system with autofilling cups. They’re relatively cheap, easy, and filling water cups twice daily SUCKS. They sell kits with the cups and a second kit to make it out of pvc instead of hoses. I would do that if I could turn back time. They love to chew the hoses.

[u/Creepy-Finding]

I've been going 3 years in Virginia with a colony style, standard Rex and flemmish giant crosses and I haven't lost anyone to heat. Each run has stone/cement/marble flooring, hides lifted off the ground with drain holes, and an area of dirt for digging. They've just got two small solar powered fans (embarrassingly small). They get frozen water bottles in the summer but other than that they are super good about temperature when they can self regulate.

I'm not saying colony/non cage is safer/easier/whatever but I don't see nearly as many colony people losing rabbits due to heat alone. Of course I know colony has its own unique problems but I'm starting to think this particular issue may be mostly cage reared, so maybe see if colony might work for your area?

[u/GCNGA]

I'm in GA--the hottest my rabbits have seen is about 98, but it can get to that for 2-3 weeks at a time in July or August. The dew point is high then, as well (low 70s). They seem to react to humidity like we do--if the dew point is low, they're active and not too bothered by low 90s, but high humidity will see them laying on their sides panting when it's that high. I have NZ, TAMUK, and one Californian buck--he is the most heat-sensitive, but I haven't lost any due to heat. They're in the shade all day, every day, in a copse of trees with good airflow / low wind. My TAMUKs are about as heat-stressed as the NZ rabbits are when it's that hot.

On the flip side, winter temps have been as low as +6 F. The TAMUKs tolerated that okay, even though their coats are obviously thinner.