Rabbit farming is not common in Nigeria but the demand for rabbit meat is growing in the country – same as it is in Europe and Asia.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), an estimated 1.2 billion rabbits are slaughtered annually for meat.
The South African National Agricultural Marketing Council, in June 2020, revealed that 1.48 million tons of rabbit meat were produced in 2017.
China was the leading producer, accounting for 62.9% of the global production, followed by North Korea (10.4%), Spain (3.9%) and Egypt (3.8%), among others.
“By the end of 2019, Hungary, China, France and Spain were the major contributors to the global trade balance of rabbit meat by value. Germany, Belgium and Italy are the leading importers commanding 21%, 19.2% and 9.3% share of global imports, respectively,” according to statistics.
Here in Nigeria, a farm, Wise Trust Int’l Ltd, is changing the narrative amidst huge and rising demand for rabbit meat and breeding stock in the country.
Driven by a passion for white meat, the farmer, Pastor Tayo Ayinla, said his first motivation for the rabbit business was basically the health benefit because people of his age medically have to cut down on consumption of red meat and move towards white meat, adding that the motivation further led to the discovery of its economic benefits.
The pastor has, perhaps, the biggest rabbit farm in the Federal Capital Territory. He has 17 different species of rabbits on the farm, which he started just a year ago in Karshi, in Abuja Municipal Area Council.
He raises them in cages, locally constructed hutches and in free-range.
This reporter, who was in Karshi, visited the farm where the pastor shared his knowledge of rabbit farming so that others can key into it. He also has rabbits on another farm in Kwara State.
How rabbits multiply
He said if a farmer has about 60 to 70 doe (the female rabbit is called a doe and the male buck) with an average of five births per rabbit, he will have a very good number per year. “For instance, on this farm, we have seen a doe give birth to 10, 11 rabbits but I want to be more conservative. So let’s say five rabbits as an average; then one rabbit can give a farmer between 25 to 30 rabbits in a year because with good management they can reproduce four to six times a year.
“So if he gets five in a year that’s 25, multiplied by the 60 that we are talking about that is 1,600 rabbits in a year. Of course, you can even get more than that.”
Demand for rabbit meat
The demand for rabbit meat is growing and according to Pastor Ayinla, at no time has the demand been fully met.
He told this reporter that he had received an order for 10 tons of rabbit meat from the Southwest but “It is very difficult to get even one ton,” he said.
“At times, you have a person requesting 2,500 rabbits for breeding but hardly will he get up to 500. There was a time we got a request for 2,500 rabbits for breeding stock in the whole of the North (the client organisation has a Northern representative in Abuja here), but in the whole of the North, we only supplied a little above 200 out of the order placed for 2,500.
“So rabbitry is an upcoming ATM money dispenser. Very soon it is going to be a money dispensing business,” he said.
The rabbit value chain
The farmer explained the rabbit value chain thus: “Most of us don’t know the benefits we have in rabbit rearing. Number one, there’s a lot of value in rabbit farming. As a farmer you can make money from selling the rabbits breeding stock to another farmer; you can sell rabbit meat to those that want it; You can also get income through the sale of their poo or from the conversion of their poo into gas for cooking, or generation of electricity and what is left of that process can be used as fertiliser.
“Most people use the rabbit wastes directly as fertiliser but that is not as effective as when you passed the poo through some processes. Also, the urine can be used as a pesticide in the production of vegetables.”
Cost of starting a rabbit farm
With just N25,000 to N30,000 a farmer can start rabbit farming. The good thing is that anybody can do it; an old person can do it because the management is very easy. You don’t need a particular place to do rabbit farming because they’re neat animals, they don’t smell. You can actually do it in your house even for a person with a two-bedroom flat. For instance, you can convert one of the rooms. They don’t smell.
The farmers can always come and buy from us; we will assist them to set up their farms. And like I just said, in our own little way, we started about a year ago.
Rabbit feeds
The good thing about rabbits is that their feeding is not demanding; they eat just about anything. For instance, the way we handle ours here, we usually go to people selling cabbage and collect the outer cover of the cabbage; it’s good for them. Also at the watermelon sellers, people usually eat the red part only and throw away the cover. The cover is medicinal for them. Also, we go to the market where they sell carrots to pick the leaves.
Virtually what rabbits eat is almost free, and it becomes much easier when the rain starts then we can get plenty of fresh leaves for them.
A word for the youths
“My advice to the youth is that they should understand that the government can’t meet all our needs. The reason we are having some of the problems is that so many people want government jobs and if you now look at government budget, a situation whereby 70 to 80 per cent of government income is used for recurrent expenditure, we can’t expect any magic from the government.
“First and foremost, you need to look inward: what can I do for myself. Until you’re able to do something for yourself you can’t do anything for the country. You should also understand that there are a lot of opportunities as far as this country is concerned.
“Some people will tell you that they want to do so and so but there’s no market so the question is: how can you be in a country with over 200 million people and you’re saying there’s no market? It is either you don’t understand how to market what you’re doing or you don’t understand how to do business.
“Like in rabbit, if you see how our rabbits are, the business will attract you, they’re looking so robust. So people say I have never seen a rabbit as big as this. It’s the way we have been able to manage them in terms of what we feed them and the environment that we have created for them. So people should begin to look inwards.’’
