MEKARN Workshop 2008: Organic rabbit production from forages |
The conventional animal husbandry usually includes only horse, cattle, goat, pig and poultry (chicken, duck, and goose) husbandry and so on. However, the special economic benefit of rabbit meat, wool and skin make it very important home and abroad. Therefore, rabbit farming has become a new animal husbandry. Rabbit farming is the predominant and special animal husbandry in China, which is increasing at the most rapid speed. This article is to introduce the rabbit farming resource of china, from the rabbit varieties, the distribution, the developing status and the positive strategies. It is concluded that rabbit farming will have a very bright future in China.
Until 2005, there are more than 190 countries where rabbits are bred. The general number of rabbits in the world is 15 million, which include 94% of meat rabbits, 5.8% of wool rabbits, and 0.2% of Rex Rabbits (Chen Yifu 2007). China is the country where rabbit had been bred firstly, and the original rabbit is called Lushilaus, which started 40 million years ago. In addition, China is also the country where the most rabbits are bred. The yield of rabbit meat account for one fourth of that of the world; the skin of Rex rabbit and the wool of rabbit have been monopolizing the market of the world at all times; as for the skins and products of Rex rabbit, China is the only export country (Du Yuchuan 2006).
In 2006, the amount of rabbit on hand of China is 235 million, the commodity amount of rabbit is 444 million, the meat product are about 636 million tons, the wool product of rabbit had achieved more than 20 000 tons, the skins of Rex Rabbits had been 15 million. Comparing with 2005, the amount of rabbit on hand per year had increased 2.67%, the commodity amount had increased 8.62%, and the rabbit meat had been increased 10%, the amount of skins and wool increased more rapidly. Therefore, the rabbitry has become the predominant and special animal husbandry of China, which is increasing at the most rapid speed (Liu Hanzhong 2007).
In the process of breeding rabbits, we had obtained some locality rabbit varieties which have special characters of China, such as high roughage-resistance and disease-resistance. The Chinese White Rabbits adapts to climate widely, resists to disease and rough-breeding and its reproductive performance is very good (Pan Yulai 2004). It is regarded as “the gene rabbits of china”, for example, the Japanese white Rabbits is cultivated from Chinese White Rabbits. Fujian yellow Rabbits have the traits of good maternity, premature and unusual medicinal function. Its special function is what other rabbit can not instead of. (Zhang Youquan 2000).
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Photo 1: Fujian yellow rabbit (2008) |
At present, the number of rabbit varieties is more than sixty and two thousand of Multiplication Strains in the world. There are about twenty varieties in China, most of them are introduced from abroad, and others are cultivated by Chinese. According to their different economic uses, they can be sorted into three kinds: wool rabbit, skin of rabbit, meat rabbit and both skin and meat rabbit.
Nowadays, the rabbit varieties bred in China are as follows: New Zealand rabbit, California rabbit, Belgium rabbit, Harbin white rabbits, Chinese White Rabbits. The basic producing requisition of meat rabbit is fast early-growth (weight: 2.5kg when 70~80 days), high feed efficiency, good meat performance, the adult weight come to about 4~5kg. The table is about the rabbit varieties in China.
Table 1: The brief introduction of meat rabbit varieties bred in China |
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Meat rabbit |
Adult weight kg |
Kitten /time |
Number /fetal |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
New Zealand Rabbit |
4~5 |
7~8 |
7~10 |
Well known for fast early- growth |
Low level of feed efficiency |
California rabbit |
3.5~4 |
6 |
6~7 |
Good reproduction Good maternity Steady kitten number |
Weak disease–resistance of young rabbit
|
Harbin white rabbits |
6.3~6.6 |
6~7 |
8 |
70days2.49kg;90days: slaughter rate 53.3% |
Less heat-resistance
|
Belgium rabbit |
5~6 |
8 |
6~7 |
Rough-feeding and High disease-resistance |
Worse reproduction mature lately, easy to get foot dermatitis |
Chinese White Rabbits |
2.0~2.5 |
5~6 |
8~9 |
Good adaptability Strong resistance |
Small body low Feed efficiency |
Angora rabbit is the most famous wool rabbit, which have Germany strain, France strain, Chinese strain and multicolor Angora rabbit. The wool rabbits usually bred in China is Chinese Angora rabbit, which are some new variety strains and high-yield groups cultivated by Chinese, called by a joint name Chinese Huge wool-rabbit. Its traits are: adult weight is 4.5 kg, huge body, strong four limbs, square and long head, wide and huge ears, with wool from head to foot, pink eyeballs, white wool, over 1.4 kg wool yield every year per rabbit.
Table 2: The brief introduction of wool rabbit varieties
Angora rabbit |
Wool type |
Wool yield (g/per) |
Adult weight(Kg) |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Germany |
fine wool |
Buck 800g female1100g, |
3.5~4 |
Bushy, tangle a little, high yield , density |
Not rough resistance |
France |
coarse wool |
800g |
6.5 |
Good maternity; Good reproduction ; good adaptability |
Small economic benefit |
China |
coarse |
>1.4kg |
4.5 |
Good reproduction, maternity; Early matured , good look |
Low growth speed Smaller body |
Multi-color |
coarse |
0.6~0.8kg |
3.5~4.5 |
Twelve color |
-- |
Usual skins of rabbit, varieties are Bright rabbit, Havana rabbit, Champagne silver rabbit, Rex Rabbit. The Rex rabbits are bred most widely. There are many colors of Rex Rabbit’s wool, and the usual color is white in China. There are also USA strain, France strain, Germany strain, Hesperus strain and Szechwan white rabbits.The SzechwanWhite rabbit is the first skin rabbit bred by China in 2002, and it has been extended to over twenty cities including more than 120 countries (Region) , such as Ningxia, Jiangsu, Beijing and Guangxi, which has make economic profit of 60 million Yuan.
Table 3: The performance of Szechwan white rabbits |
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Skin rabbit |
Main advantages |
Long of wool (mm) |
degree of fineness (average) |
Proportion % |
Proportion of coarse wool |
Density (one/cm2) |
Szechwan White rabbits |
Rapid speed, good quality skin Good reproduction Steady transmissibility |
17.5 |
17.5 um |
>92% |
<8% |
22935 |
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Photo 2: The SzechwanWhite rabbit (2002) |
The usual double use rabbits are Chinchilla Rabbits, Japanese white rabbit and Saibei rabbit.
Table 4: The brief introduction of double use rabbit in China (Du Yuchua 2006 ) |
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Meat and skin rabbit |
Adult weight |
Fetal/ year |
Number /fetal |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Medium Chinchilla Rabbits |
4.5~5.4 kg |
8 |
7~9 |
Good adaptability , good meat performance High Survival rate |
Low grow speed |
Japanese white rabbit |
4~5 kg |
7~9 |
6~8 |
Good maternity, good milking Big ear, obvious blood vessel ,experiment rabbit |
Big frame work, lack of meat |
Huge Saibei rabbit |
5~6.5kg 7.5~8.0kg |
7~8 15~16 |
7~8 |
Good adaptability, Rough-feeding and High resistance to disease |
The color of wool is not steady |
Table 5: The brief introduction of meat Multiplication Strains in China |
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Multiplication Strains |
Main characteristic s |
Feed/meat |
Note |
ZIKA |
2.8~3.0kg/80 days, survival rate of fatten rabbit over 85% |
2.6:1 |
Bred in Szechwan |
Hyla |
2.47kg/70days,average\43g/day. slaughter rate 58%~59% |
2.8:1 |
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Photo 3: ZIKA Multiplication Strains |
The areas where rabbit farming developed well mainly concentrate on one third of provinces in China, the east (Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhwei, Fujian, Chekiang); the north (Hebei, Henan, Shanxi) and the southwest of china (Szechwan, Chongqing), where the amount of rabbit on hand and rabbit production make a proportion of 92% of that in China. In 2006, the ten districts (no data from Beijing), the amount of rabbit on hand is 16 899.32 ten thousand, 71.85% of the total in China; the commodity amount of rabbit is 33 650 ten thousand, 75.78% of the total. There are 16 027 rabbits in Szechwan and that is the most. The list according to the amount of different kinds of rabbit, meat rabbit: Szechwan, Shandong, Henan; otter ranbbit: Szechwan, Shandong, Anhwei; wool rabbit: Szechwan, Shandong, Jiangsu. Szechwan habited in the primacy of three kinds (Tan Fusheng 2006).
Table 6: The main producing area of rabbit farming in China |
The first area |
Shandong |
Szechwan |
Hebei |
|
|
26% |
18% |
12% |
|
|
|
The second area |
Chekiang |
Jiangsu |
Anhwei |
Henan |
Fujian |
7% |
6% |
5.5% |
5% |
5% |
|
The three area |
Shanxi |
Heilong river |
Mongolia |
Sinkiang |
|
3% |
2% |
2% |
2% |
|
|
Other area |
Shanxi, Gansu, Guangxi, Guangdongm, Jiangxi, Tianjin , Bejing,Shanghai, Liaoning, Jilin, Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, Yunnan and so on |
Through about ten years effort, some new varieties and strains with high-yield and excellent performance have been bred, for example, the WanXi long wool-rabbit, the variety of Zhenhai country long wool-rabbit, Pearl wool rabbit Szechwan white Rex rabbit, Hesper Rex rabbit. Particularly, the wool yield per year of some wool-rabbit strains have exceeded the international advance level; as for the reproduction and biological technology of rabbit, artificial fertilization had been applied and extended widely, Sperm-frozen, embryo-transplant, test tube rabbit, and Transgenic Cloned rabbit had succeeded .
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Photo 4: The left is the Transgenic Cloned rabbit, the right is substituting pregnant rabbit (Wang Tingting 2007) |
As early as March 13th 2002, the cloned rabbit has been cloned by Professor Shi Deshun in Guangxi university, which was 82g when born, and 125g two days later. In September 14th,2007, China has succeeded in the World's First Transgenic Cloned rabbit. in the Shanghai Xinhua Hospital. All of this will make great society and economic benefits.
The general rabbit meat yield has been increasing for years. In 2005, the general rabbit meat yield of China had achieved 51.06 ten thousand tons, account for one fourth of the whole yield, 210 ten thousand tons. In the new century, the average rabbit meat/person consumed is 385g, which has exceeded 350g, the world level. However, there is still some distance to the developed countries, such as Italy 5.3kg, Spain 3kg, France 2.9 kg, Belgium, 2.6kg.
Rabbit meat is the “Key product” which earns foreign exchanges a lot of money for China. They are sold to more than ten countries such as Europe, USA and so on; reside in the primacy of world tradition. Blow is the export conditions of China:
Table 7: The exporting condition of China |
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Year
|
Yield (ten thousand tons) |
Export (thousand tons) |
Export price (dollars/kg) |
RMB (Yuan/kg) |
Money (ten thousand Dollars) |
2000 |
37.0 |
22.3 |
2.05 |
16.8 |
4580 |
2001 |
40.6 |
33.0 |
1.64 |
13.5 |
5410 |
2002 |
42.3 |
9.08 |
1.25** |
10.3 |
114 |
2003 |
43.8 |
4.43 |
1.35 |
11.1 |
599 |
2004 |
46.7 |
6.40 |
1.53* |
12.5* |
765* |
2006 |
46.0 |
13~14 |
2.26 |
-- |
-- |
|
Figure 1: The yield and export changes of meat rabbit in China Note: yield: ten thousand; export: thousand. |
Before we had joined the WTO in 2001, the yield of rabbit meat is about 2 0000 tons per year (32998 tons, in 2001), but the export amount begin to decline Sharply from 2002. There are many reasons which resulted in the phenomenon, the main factor is that some countries insist on green trade in order to protect the profits of local farmers and consumers. Therefore, they refused to import rabbit meat from China. Fortunately, the export amount begun to come back from 2003, reached 8 925 tons in 2006, which showed that the export is developing positively.
China has become the country who obtains the highest yield of rabbit wool (2 tons per year), the most exporting amount of rabbit wool (average 5000 tons per year) and the most trading amount (above 90%). And because of the effect of fluctuating market, the yield of rabbit wool changed frequently. The most wool yield is 220.000 tons in 1997; the current yield is about 10000 tons, which makes the proportion of 83 of that in the world (Chen Yifu 2005).
Table 8: The wool price exported and sold in China |
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Year |
Export Yield (ton) |
Money (million$) |
Unit price Exported ($/kg) |
(RMB¥/kg) |
Price in the domestic market (RMB¥/kg) |
1998 |
2808 |
4.04 |
14.4 |
118 |
86.0 |
1999 |
5185 |
5.49 |
10.6 |
86.8 |
81.6 |
2000 |
4990 |
6.12 |
12.4 |
101 |
97.2 |
2001 |
4065 |
4.71 |
11.6 |
94.9 |
84.3 |
2002 |
4722 |
4.67 |
9.89 |
81.1 |
76.3 |
2003 |
2815 |
2.87 |
10.2 |
83.6 |
74.7 |
2004 |
2970 |
4.39 |
13.7 |
112 |
118 |
The price of skin is rising, when the Rex Rabbit farming develops steadily. The whole skins are 1 billion currently, which contain Rex rabbit skins 110 million. In 2004, the yield of Rex Rabbit skins is 5 million, when 4 million otter skins and 400 million meat rabbit skins. We had 140 thousand Rex rabbit skins sold in 2004, obtained 12.49 million Yuan; 4.62 million meat rabbit skins, 115.5 million Yuan; rabbit blankets more than 2.03 million, worthy of 159.44 million Yuan. The seven rabbit fur markets are ChongFu in Chekiang, Bright Red Door and Yabao Road in Beijing, the Shancun, Liushi, Dayin and Xinji Villages in Hebei.
Currently, the rabbit used for experiment and medicine become a new item of rabbit farming. The demand in China is increasing. The main countries import from China to Japan, Korea and so on. In 2006, the import number is about 1 million, and 3 million in 2007(Chen, Yifu 2007).
Liu Hanzhong had investigated 17 organizations, three in Szechwan, five in Shandong, two in Henna, two in Fujian, one in Chekiang, four in Jiangsu. There are about 49 881 households joined in them. The biggest cooperating organization is the Rabbit farming Association in Yilong country of Szechwan, which has 15 800 households.
Nowadays, the producing modes of rabbit farming in our country tend to diversification, for instance, the Shandong Kangda Group not only develop the meat producing mode assimilated to scale outside, but also build famous quality breeding bases and non-pollution bases, which make it became a “key enterprise” of producing meat rabbit. Shandong Haida Food Corporation and Zhong`ao holdings group Co. have carried out “key enterprises +scale rabbit warren + Standardization and scale production” mode. There are 610 enterprises with asset of 10 million Yuan, 160 enterprises with asset of 10-50 million Yuan. There are 82 processing enterprises among them. The benefit of all enterprises had broken through 10 billion Yuan.
The scientific research of rabbit farming developed latter than other animal husbandry, but it gets along quickly and makes rapid progress. The rabbit farming had been ranked into the specialty in colleges and universities. 20 years ago, which have cultivated many science and technology persons for rabbit farming in the society (Yi Kexian 2003). At the main producing rabbit districts, such as Shandong, Chekiang, etc., institutes for rabbit farming study have been established, and some scale enterprises have established some departments of rabbit farming study.
Some scholars have succeeded in protecting rabbit from Rabbit Virus Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD), as “plague of rabbit”. They discovered the cause of that disease and manufactured the vaccine, the protecting effect of which reached over 95%. Otherwise, they had also worked out the vaccine of Pahsteurellosis, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Clostridium Welchii disease, colibacillosis and staphylococcus, etc,. The protecting methods of coccidiosis of rabbit have also been gotten (Sheng Jinglin 2008).
As for feed, grain feed is applied widely complying to the standard nutrient demand of rabbit. The most rabbit holders produce feed by themselves. There are also some grain feed are being selling in the market produced by large rabbit feed companies.
The producing level has been improved greatly, and the yield of long wool rabbit has been improved from 200g in seventy decades to 600 g at the moment. Some rabbit varieties bred by ourselves has achieved or exceeded the advance level of the world. The fatten time also has been shorten obviously, the days coming into the market from 120~150 to 90~100, the percentage of eviscerated yield has been promoted from 40~43% to 48%~50%. Besides, scale companies with specialization and systematization are becoming more and more.
There are two national breeding rabbit warrens, cultivating and producing wool rabbit, meat rabbit and skin breeding rabbits. Some breeding rabbit warrens have pay more attention to characteristics, from which good effect was obtained, such as the Zhenhai Breeding rabbit Warren in Chekiang is a good example. The long wool breeding rabbit bred by that warren have huge body, dense wool, high-yield ( the yield of strains can achieve 1500~2000g per year).
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (2006) report (The U.N. FAO 2006), the proportion of rabbit varieties in severe danger are 20% among the mammal livestock, only inferior to cattle and horse. There are two kinds died out until 2006. So it is urgent to implement effective protection methods.
The first way is to protect in alive body; the second is to protect by biological technology in different places; the third, to establish the rabbit gene library. Inherit resource is gene resource; the rabbit gene library can be established by gene clone to conserve some special resource for a long time, then it could be used afterward by transferring genes when needed. Finally, protect the resource by modern biological technology. For example, in order to conserve rabbit resource we can construct the rabbit cell library by the technology of cultivating cell and cell biology.
Determining capability of rabbit is one of the important symbols of the modern breeding rabbit, is an indispensable basic work, and is the basic means of supervising the quality of rabbit. So we should erect two or three stations in every main district, for the purpose of determining the rabbit capability quickly and exactly.
It can be seen from the distribution of rabbit farming that the rabbit farming in more than fourteen provinces, such as Shanxi, Guangxi, Yunnan, etc., have not make the proportion 7% of the whole country. In fact, the light, heat and water condition in some of there are very well, especially the grassland yield is twice or three times to the north part of China. Therefore, these districts have great potential to develop rabbit farming because that forage is basic and cheap feed of rabbit.
Take the Guangxi province for example, the commodity amount of meat rabbit is 2.26 million in 2006, rabbit meat 3.7 thousand tons, all of that had just account for 0.6% of the total in China. In other words, the number is just equal to a country of one province where rabbit farming is developed. Hereby, Guangxi falls behind in rabbit farming greatly. The supply of 280-300 thousand rabbits per year falls short of the demand about 60 thousand in Nanning (the capital of Guangxi), when the gap have to be filled by importing from Szechwan, Henan and Chongqing and so on. There is no doubt that the price is high. Depend on credible data; the demand of rabbit meat will be increasing for years in Nanning. The need gap will be 200-250 thousand only in Nanning, if added in the great market of its neighborhood Guangdong, the need would be 800~1200 thousand. So there are great potential to develop rabbit farming in these areas, there are great market to satisfy and a lot of benefit to gain.
At present, the main problem to develop rabbit farming in these areas is the hot climate, while rabbits disperse heat slowly for their bushy wool. But only if the warren could be ventilated and lowered the temperature by overshadow, it is easy to resolve the problem. In addition, there are some leguminous forages, such as Leucaena leucocephala, Stylosanthes spp, Tephrosia Veglii hook, ect., high nutrient content and high yield of which make them to be high quality feed of rabbit, which should be planted, applied and extended[13-14]
In 2000, the State departments Over-seas Chinese Affairs Office Of The State Council and All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (AFROC) carried on “effective and ecological agricultural demonstration by science technology”, which introduced the “woods-fruit trees-forages-herd-natural pond” ecological mode. The effect of feeding with forage under orchard is very well. The following are the effect and economic benefit:
Table 9: Analysis of the effect by feeding rabbits with forage (kg/per rabbit) |
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Groups |
beginning weight |
Last weight |
Average weight (g/day) |
Average feedstuff |
Feed/meat |
Arachis pintoi+ Digitaria smutsii |
1.24 |
1.89 |
21.7 |
2.44 |
2.30:1 |
Pnnisetum amerieanum XP.purpureum |
1.28 |
1.72 |
14.7 |
2.44 |
3.26:1 |
local weed |
1.28 |
1.60 |
10.7 |
2.44 |
4.15:1 |
Table 10: Analysis of the economic benefit by feeding rabbits with forage(kg, yuan/ per,%) |
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groups |
Gain outcome |
The cost of feed |
The cost of forage |
Grass profit |
Compare to the control group |
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Weight gain |
Unit price |
Money |
Fine feed |
Unit price |
Money |
Forage |
Unit price |
Money |
|||
1 |
0.65 |
14 |
9.10 |
1.50 |
1.60 |
2.40 |
10.15 |
0.20 |
2.03 |
4.67 |
283 |
2 |
0.44 |
14 |
6.16 |
1.44 |
1.60 |
2.30 |
9.85 |
0.20 |
1.97 |
1.89 |
116 |
3 |
0.32 |
14 |
4.48 |
1.33 |
1.60 |
2.12 |
7.05 |
0.10 |
0.71 |
1.65 |
100 |
Note: 1: Arachis pintoi + Digitaria smutsii; 2: Pnnisetum amerieanum XP.purpureum; 3: Local weed |
It can be concluded that, the effect is very well and the economic benefit is twice of the control group by feeding rabbits with planting forage.
Take the meat yield grassland for example, it is higher than that of other domestic animals:
Table 11: The comparison of capability from forage to rabbit products of different animals |
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Animal |
protein (kg) |
energy (million calories) |
Meat rabbit |
180 |
423 |
Poultry |
92 |
263 |
Pig |
50 |
451 |
Lamb |
23~43 |
120~309 |
Meat cattle |
27 |
177 |
Note: Source: Peng Dahui, etc. 1993, <<Rabbit Breeding Manual>> |
Furthermore, rabbit could utilize the protein and fiber of forage more effectively than others domestic animal (Li Xianglin 2003).
“Green meat” means healthy meat with no drug remained and no pollution. Approximately 80% of rabbit meat are exported to the European Union market, a little to Japan, Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong and Macao, etc., When the European Union refused to import rabbit meat from China, the exporting amount descended a lot. In 2001, the export amount is 32.998 thousand tons, but after we entered the European Union, that descended to 28 828 tons from 2002 to 2005, average 7 207 tons per year.
Now Agricultural Ministry has worked out the criteria about product and sale of rabbit, which has already been executed in most places. Therefore, in order to satisfy the market demand, we must insure the quality of meat from choosing warren to feeding stuff and feeding management.
Frozen and fresh rabbit meat has taken the advantages of both “fresh meat” and “frozen meat” and overcome their disadvantages, which will be the consuming mainstream and necessary direction. 80% of meat is frozen rabbit meat in the international market, such as France, 9% in 1994, 43% in 1999, more than 60%. At present, frozen rabbit meat has took up the rabbit market abroad. We have also begun to export frozen and fresh rabbit meat now.
Agora rabbits could be classed into two kinds, coarse wool and fine wool, when the former is used to make fur coat, the latter is used to make underlines. The international market demands more coarse wool than fine wool, such as Japan, Korea and southeast of Asia, and the price is higher. The new hair rabbit kinds such as TangXingxi wool rabbit, WanXi wool rabbit and YuXi wool rabbit are all coarse wool and high yield rabbits. The biggest market of coarse wool rabbit is in the Xieqiao town in Yingshang country of Anhwei (Wang Yongxiang 2007).
The purpose of breeding Rex Rabbits is to use their high quality skin, because the value of meat is only the percentage of 10~20% of the whole value. They can be sorted into wool collar, dresses, knit closes, ticks according to their different purpose. There are much difference between the prices of high quality and bad quality. A good quality collar skin can sell for 60 Yuan, but it worth only 10~25 Yuan and still difficult to sell if bad quality. Many brand dresses need good otter skin for collar band. Japan or Korea an so on which import a lot of Rex rabbits fur from China, so does Russia. Therefore, the demand of quality Rex rabbits fur are in urgent need, so we should pay attention to it.
As the aspect of Rex Rabbit dresses, if only the style is model and novel which satisfy the consumer’ demand, it would be easy to sell with a good price. According to the information from Fur Limited Liability Company of Xingjia of Ji’an city in Jiangxi province, fur dresses processed by the company is exported to Japan, American and so on. They can produce 1 million per year and make a profit of 2000 million Yuan. The Inspection and Quarantine Bureau in Yang Zhou city of Jiangxi province had exported 265 batches of fur dresses to Japan and European Union, obtained 7.59 million dollars in 2005( Chen Yifu 2007).
Rabbits are also ideal animal for experiment and medicine, because their small body, gentleness temper, big ears with wide and nakedness blood vessels are good for get blood. Hereby, they have been indispensable for physic and bio-engineering science. The most rabbits for experiment and medicine could also be used as skin of rabbit and meat rabbit. The businessmen from Japan want to purchase quality of live experiment and medicinal rabbits from Shandong. Now the contract has sustained to 2008, worth of 128 billion Yuan. So this market has a bright future (XiaoHe 2004).
The international market should be expanded by multi-trench export. On one hand, to consolidate the tradition markets such as Western Europe, Japan and Korea, etc., On the other hand, we should exploit new importing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain islands, Kuwait, Libya and so on, because of these countries begin to eat rabbit meat too (Chen Yifu 2002).
The yield of rabbit meat is 1.85 million tons, concentrated in China, Italy, France and Spain, etc, Where the yield take a percentage of 70~80% of the world. Most of them produce and consume by themselves, such as Czech, Poland, Jugoslavia in Middle Europe and east Europe. In other words, their rabbit products are only for national market. The countries who need to import are Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden, where the rabbit product consumed take the proportion of 50. But the need of international trade is very limited, approximately 3 thousand tons. The amount in China is about 17 thousand tons, and Argentina (5.2 thousand tons), Denmark (3.2 thousand tons), and Czech (200 tons) are the countries who compete for the international market with China.
The countries engaged in rabbit wool processing are China (3.5 thousand tons per year), Italy (2 thousand tons per year), Japan (2 thousand tons per year), Korea (1 thousand tons per year), and France (600tons per year). Almost all of them produce and consume by themselves. China exports 5 thousand tons every year. Other export countries are Hungary, Chile, Argentina, etc., the export amount of which are about 100 tons. They compete for the international market with China.
It is said that the need of market in American and Japan is 10 million, and is increasing gradually. But China can provide only 800~900 thousand. So the empty is very large. We should try to produce more and more Rex Rabbit skins to suffice the demand.
Table 12: The meat rabbit consumed home and aboard |
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|
Intensify the national market |
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Year |
Yield (ten thousand tons) |
Aboard (ten thousand tons) |
Home (ten thousand tons) |
2000年 |
37 |
2.23 |
34.8 |
2001年 |
38.6 |
3.3 |
35.3 |
2002年 |
42.3 |
0.908 |
41.4 |
2003年 |
43.8 |
0.443 |
43.4 |
2004年 |
46.7 |
0.64 |
46.0 |
2006年 |
46 |
1.2 |
44.8 |
Although the international market is large, the amount is limited. There are many other countries compete with us. So it is necessary to exploit the national market. There are populations of 1.3 billion, who can be great consuming groups. The National Custom Office Stat., the export amount is 14 thousand tons in 1999 19.6 thousand tons in 2000, whereas, the yield is over 500 thousand tons (ShengYifei 1994). Then the most rabbit meat has to be sold in the national market. So does rabbit wool, the yield is over 20 thousand tons, but the export is 4 thousand tons. 80% rabbit wool need to be consumed in the national market. Good new is that the profit of rabbit wool closes exported to Hong Kong has achieved 100 million Yuan. All above information showed that the potential internal market is much tempt, which should be exploited rapidly (Tan Fusheng 2002).
|
Figure 1: The yield and export changes of meat rabbit in China Note: yield: ten thousand; export: thousand. |
Rabbit farming will has a more bright future in China, if only we can take the advantages and avoid the disadvantages what we find out in the process.
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