#50 5 Best Meat Rabbit Breeds + Getting Ready for Winter | Rabbitry, Bees & Deer Season

Welcome, everyone, to the Rabbitry Center Homestead Podcast, where we'll discuss all facets of running and operating a rabbitry.

This podcast is intended to be your go-to source of information as we answer all your rabbitry questions and more.

And now, from Bath, Michigan, your host, Bobby Jimenez.

So let's start with New Zealand.

Obviously, I'm pretty familiar with these rabbits.

We've raised New Zealands for years at the Rabbitry Center, and there's a reason.

They're probably the rabbit most people picture when you start talking about commercial meat breeds.

They're good-sized rabbits.

They grow quickly.

They're generally good mothers, and they have commercial body types.

They dress out well.

They're fairly abundant, easy to find.

Depending on where you live, you're generally going to have a better chance of finding good New Zealand breeding stock than some of the less common breeds.

And remember, New Zealand doesn't automatically mean white.

You've got different varieties of colors, including the reds that we're very familiar with.

So you've got some choices.

And that can become important if you're selling breeding stock or selling rabbits to families who simply prefer a particular color.

That's why we sell blues, reds, and whites.

Now, often, you know, if we're selling breeding stock, I don't recommend, you know, mixing colors.

But if you guys are starting out and people don't care, but in the future, you know, I always recommend keeping things pure, keeping colors pure, because that makes for consistent results.

So it's good to have multiple choices, multiple colors, multiple breeding lines.

And to me, the New Zealand is an all-around workhorse of a meat rabbit.

I mean, they've got good growth, good mothering, good body, good production.

They're just relatively easy to find.

So, you know, that's why I would rate them absolutely number one.