A New Simplified Performance Referencing System Adapted To Organic Rabbit Farming

Summary

A referencing system to collect and analyse performances of French organic rabbit farms was created using an Excel sheet. Performances of reproduction were compilated on 6 farms over 3 years of production (2015-2017). Does are housed in movable cage on pasture or in individual paddock, the livestock size averages 33 does. The productive time of a doe averaged 374 d. and was variable (75%). Female mortality averaged 17% over the period, while culling reached 10%. With 4.8 matings, 2.7 parturitions per female/year were obtained (60% fertility rate), for a total of 21.6 rabbits born alive and 16.7 weaned (26% mortality from birth to weaning). The yearly turnover of a full-time rabbit farmer (80 females) would potentially be around 26.3k€/year. The database is actually extending to a larger number of farms, thanks to the deployment of a smartphone application (GAELA), that enable a management assistance of the rabbit farm and data collection, synchronized to a national securised database.