Selling Meat Rabbits in NC

[paranursepete]

Hello,

My wife and I have a small homestead just outside Greensboro, NC. We raise chickens, ducks and rabbits. We raise them all for our own source of food, but recently were approached by a deli owner about selling out rabbits. I have been trying to find information about the proper licenses and inspections to be able to sell our rabbit meat. Does anyone know where to start or what sort of governing body controls this? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jersey Love]

Her is a link to a pdf that has all you need to know about selling and processing your own rabbits in NC

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw2VKNXWsdju4AiyLqYFnv0Y

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[paranursepete]

Thanks for the reply but the link you posted doesn't work.

 

[Jersey Love]

Sorry about that. If you go to www.ncagr.gov and search "rabbit processing" it will be the first on the list. Lots of information on that site take a look around whenever you can.

 

[Ridgetop]

Try your state FDA for rules about meat sales. Also, are they asking you to sell them slaughtered rabbits or live rabbits and they will slaughter themselves? The rules are different for each type. Here in southern California we can sell all the live rabbits we want without a license. Butchered rabbits come under a different set of laws though and we would have to have inspected grade A premises. We sold our rabbits alive to several outlets that would sell them live and butcher on the premises for the buyers. We also sold privately to certain clients and would butcher them as a "favor" to the purchaser. This was allowed without permits. If the deli owner will take the rabbits alive and butcher them himself, it will be much easier on you permit wise.

Make sure that you work out how much the rabbits cost to produce before agreeing to sell for a specific price. You need to take into account the amount of $$ it costs you to keep the buck and does as well as just feeding the kits to butcher age. Allow also for loss of litters in the barn, as well as water usage, nesting materials (shavings and straw)replacement of cages, feeders, waterers, nest boxes, and any other equipment like carrying cages, etc. If you have to transport them to the buyer, allow for that in gas money and time.

If this is to be a business, you need to keep good records. You need to figure out the cost of raising each kit to fryer size - this needs to include the cost of keeping the doe and buck as well. I priced out all the feed, for the entire rabbit herd, figured how many gallons of water a month it cost, figured in the purchase of shavings, straw, etc. Once I had all the figures I set up a mathematical computation on how many bunnies I produced for sale each year and the cost of each one. Then you want to add in a profit margin for your operation to reach the sales price.

We had a 100 hole rabbitry at one time selling both breeding stock and meat. It was profitable but you need to keep track of your costs since even though those little guys "breed like rabbits" you need to know to the penny how much they are costing you to produce by the lb.

God luck on your new business venture!

 

[Bunnylady]

http://www.ncagr.gov/fooddrug/food/documents/RabbitProcessing.pdf