Final Report for FS06-202

My husband and I operate a small cattle and row crop operation, but that is his operation, and I wanted one I could manage as a woman. So in an effort to have my own agribusiness I started a small limited resource rabbit operation. I was also interested in developing my business.

One project goal we realized was to assist growers, especially women, to become more aware of the rabbit business and work toward setting up operations on their farms. As a result the following result occurred:

Another goal was to establish a home based business utilizing USDA inspected products from my farm. This part of the project did not work because the local small food stores could not afford to stock the product on consignment and my community consists of very low income families that could not afford to purchase high price meat products. In addition I did not have adequate freezer facilities at my farm to accommodate a home based business.

During the project period I found out that a lot of small farmers across the country are interested in the rabbit business but they are not willing to grow into the business without spending a lot of money. In my opinion, first of all you got to want to do the business and you must be motivated by caring for animals and willing to grow slowly using what you have at hand around the farm.