Culling, what this means.

Culling....to some like the ARA's this is cruel. When in essence culling isnt always terminal. To Cull is to remove. There are more than one way to remove a rabbit from your program. And it doesnt always mean to destroy it. Culling is essential to every serious rabbit breeder in hopes of building good quality stock.


Every breeder needs to have a plan in place to take care of the over-burden of young and older stock that is no longer useful for your programs. If you do not have a plan in place, then you will become overloaded and stressed out. It's always good to have more than one plan in place, a back up, because the first one may not always work.


Listed below are several different ways to Cull your herd:


1.) Sell: By selling your stock you are allowing another breeder/exhibitor to add to their lineage and improve qualities in their own herds. A person could want to purchase your stock for a variety of reasons. Such as to improve quality, color, or lineage. But be careful, your not going to want to sell a super crappy animal just because of color, especially if your name is on it, and you are wanting to build up a good reputation and lineage that people later down the road are going to want. Which brings us to pet sales. Your less than quality animals could possibly be sold as pets to pet owners for less, without papers. But is that a road you are going to want to go down? Sure that extra $10 pays for half a bag of feed. But take into thought what happens to the pet. Sure baby bunnies are cute and fuzzy, and they are easiest to sell the younger they are, because they are cuter than. But what is going to happen to this rabbit that a person paid $10 for when it gets older, when it no longer has that cute and fuzzy factor?


2.) Butchering/Terminal Culling = Death. So what do you do if that rabbit does not sell? Are you willing or able to hold on to it, allow it to take up space, stop breeding until you find it a home, and continue feeding it? If it's a stellar specimen, I would. If not, and that cute and fuzzy factor is no longer there, finding it a pet home is going to get harder and harder the older it gets. What about those rabbits that are just not good specimens of the breed? Are you willing to let them go out into the public? Potentially with your name on them? Even if you sell it for a pet, and a person asks where they got their pet from, your name is going out there, pedigree or no pedigree. There is not a home available for every single rabbit born, simple as that. I am a firm believer in terminal culling for many reasons. But I am also a firm believer that a life should not be wasted!


If you are wanting an additional meat source for your family, rabbit is an excellent source of low fat protein. You can use rabbit in any chicken dish and it is just as tasety. There are many safe and humane ways to put a rabbit down, and cleaning only takes a few minutes. Depending on how often you breed, you can have an endless supply of meat for your family.


If you do not think you can handle the whole aspect of home butchering and eating what you have raised, you can also check into other resources such as a zoo or raptor rescue. These places will take your healthy culls and feed them to other animals in need. Some may even give you a bit of money for your rabbit culls. Always check first to see what sizes, and if they will take them live or need them already down.


On occasion you can find a local cull buyer at local shows. These buyers usually have a price per pound. They purchase your culls and take them to their USDA processing plant to butcher, clean and dress for meat supply.


Other resources are those who own large snakes, or feed their dogs/cats a RAW diet.


3.) Retirement. Everyone has that lifer in their barn. Some have more than one lifer. That favorite doe or buck that you just cannot get rid of. Even if he/she is taking up cage space, no longer showing or part of your breeding program. I have seen where one breeder actually has a cute little outdoor community set up for her retired stock. They all live happily in a colony type setting that is fenced off with plenty of grass to graze and housing available.






Let's face it folks. Your not going to support your family on bunny sales, not each and every bunny is going to find that perfect forever home. Not each and every rabbit is going to be that show stopper that will eventuallty sell for 100s of dollars. You cannot continue to keep each and every retired rabbit....well you could, but is your barn big enough?


Before you breed, have a back up plan in place! ​