Land resources dept. identifies rabbit rearing potential

Based on available data, Nagaland reportedly has the highest rabbit population in India after Kerala. However, despite the high rabbit population in Nagaland there has been little effort to initiate rabbitry for gainful economic purpose in the state.

An article written by Dr. Kevizekhu Kar, watershed development team member published in ‘The Luminaire’, a bi-annual bulletin of the department of land resources, Dimapur has highlighted various aspects of rabbit rearing.

‘The Luminaire’ also added that farmers in Nagaland with limited resources for large scale agriculture must focus on industry like rabbitry which requires lesser resources compared to other livestock.

Rabbitry has been encouraged by food and agriculture organization (FAO) of the UN solely for meat production in developing nations because of its biological advantages.

According to the article/writer, rabbit rearing/farming has many advantages as they are a versatile animal and also has very prolific – high productive rate, because of its brief gestation (pregnancy) period-30 days, fast weight gain, early sexual maturity, ability to breed any time of the year, yielding more than one kit makes it one of the most important farm animals. Rabbit also has an advantage over poultry because it can produce its own fresh stock.

Rabbit meat is wholesome, tasty having high biological value with high protein. Rabbit meat also has lowest fat percentage among the meat animals — 4.5% in rabbit meat and chicken –17.9% and lowest calories-795 calories while in chicken 810 calories per pound.

These facts make rabbit a great choice for people trying to shed those unwanted weight and switching rabbit for chicken will provide even greater result in all diet plans where it is consumed.

Despite the fact of high meat value or nutritional value, generally people do not like rabbit mainly because it has ammonia smell, this is due to high content of protein and with proper seasoning the smell can be removed.

If at all to help the landless and small farmers in the third world nation, more focus must be given to poor people as they have neither space nor capital for large scale rearing livestock, added the bulletin.