One producer's dream - a rabbit in every pot

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Michelle Sanders believes that rabbits, which are prolific breeders and cost little to feed, have a bright future in agriculture, if Canadian consumers can be persuaded they are a meat product and not a pet

by MIKE BEAUDIN

Rabbit producer Michelle Sanders dreams of the day when "there's a rabbit in every crock-pot."

But the president of Ontario Rabbit admits that before rabbits can share supermarket shelves with pork, chicken and beef, Canadian consumers first have to get over the idea that the rabbit is not a pet.

Sanders says it's not an impossible task, especially when health-conscious consumers learn that rabbit meat is lean, easily digestible, lower in fat than chicken and higher in protein than beef.

Although the rabbit is still considered a niche product by most, there's a strong and growing Ontario market for the meat among ethnic Canadians in larger cities, she says.

Rabbit also yields consistent prices and healthy profits for the 180 or so commercial producers in Ontario. After 13 years of producing pigs, Sanders and her husband sold their pig farm in 2008, bought another property and started their rabbit operation from the ground up. It comprises a 32-by-80-foot shed and a 42-by-100-foot finishing barn.

"When we were in pigs, it cost us $300 a hog space. It's a couple of bucks for a doe space," says Sanders who also cash crops wheat, soybeans and corn on the Sanders' 500-acre Guelph-area farm. "You need a cage, a waterer and away you go."

Rabbits deserve their reputation as prolific breeders. Most producers get an average of 35 rabbits per doe per year and a single doe can produce a litter every six weeks. Eleven days after they kindle, they are bred again. A doe is often pregnant and nursing at the same time.

Sanders says it costs an average of about $5.50 to $6 to raise a rabbit to maturity. Her largest input cost is for alfalfa feed pellets – about $4.25 per animal. She buys 18 tons of pellets at $400 a ton every five weeks for a total annual feed cost of around $75,000.

The year-round operation also drives up heating costs in the winter. The Sanders' outdoor wood furnace used almost 40 cords of wood this past winter.

Prices range from $7.50 to $10 an animal depending on their weight and the time of the year, peaking around Christmas and Easter. With her does producing about 40 animals a year on average, Sanders ships about 24,000 rabbits a year.

Pricing has remained stable for the past five years and consumption is creeping up. The latest Agriculture Canada report shows that rabbit consumption per capita in Canada grew from 18.7 grams in 2008 to 24.9 grams in 2013.

Michel Dignard, a producer from Embrun, east of Ottawa, switched to rabbits from dairy six years ago on a second-generation, 1,000-acre farm. Dignard applied for an import permit and two years later was producing rabbits imported from France. "We started six years ago with 15 does and this fall we had 300 does and continue to grow," says Dignard, who together with his wife Jeannette and children also grows blueberries and raspberries and produces honey.

His Lapiniére J&M Rabbitry also sells the French breeding stock which, he says, can reach market weight faster than most Canadian breeds. "I sell at the slaughterhouse every two weeks and I sell a lot of breeding stock because I'm the only one who can import."

Rabbit production also brings its share of challenges. All those rapidly reproducing rabbits require a lot of attention and they're susceptible to disease if proper biosecurity measures aren't followed.

Dignard shares the sentiment that the only thing stopping the rabbit from moving into the mainstream market is its image. "I stress to people that it's a rabbit, not a bunny. It's meat. As soon as you get the word bunny out of there, that's 50 per cent of the job done."

Ontario Rabbit is now working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on a code of practice. The first step is finding all the commercial producers in Ontario to conduct a formal survey on their practices.

"Rabbit producers have been doing it very well, but nobody has documented it yet so that we can tell consumers this is what we are doing and we are doing it right," says Sanders.

Ontario Rabbit presumably wants to follow the lead of European producers who regulate minimum cage sizes and other production standards. Sanders says they hope to implement the voluntary code of practice, already followed by many producers, in the fall of 2017.

"We need to find all the producers. We need research done. We have absolutely nothing here in Canada. Our biggest challenge is marketing. We are hoping that, with our code of practice, it will become a news item and consumers will see that our animals are raised in a good way."

Rabbit producers interested in participating in the survey, can contact Brian Tapscott (brian.tapscott@ontario.ca) at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. BF