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MEKARN Workshop 2008: Organic rabbit production from forages

Citation

Rabbit Resources of China

Rabbit Resources of China

Lai Zhiqiang and Cai Xiaoyan

Guangxi Institutes of Animal Sciences, Nanning  China 530001

caixiaoyan282@163.com  

zqlpa@126.com

 

 

Abstract

 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.

 

Keywords: Developing status, Positive strategies, Rabbit varieties.

 

 

Introduction

 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).

 

The rabbit varieties and distribution in China

 

The characters of rabbit varieties in China

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).

 

Photo 1: Fujian yellow rabbit (2008)

The rabbit varieties bred in China

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.

 

Meat rabbit varieties

 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

Meat rabbit

Adult weight

kg

Kitten

/time

Number

/fetal

Advantages

Disadvantages

New Zealand

Rabbit

45

78

710

Well known for

fast early- growth

Low level of feed

efficiency

California rabbit

3.54

6

67

Good reproduction

Good maternity

Steady kitten number

Weak disease–resistance of

young rabbit

 

Harbin white

rabbits

6.36.6

67

8

70days2.49kg;90days:

slaughter rate 53.3

Less heat-resistance

 

Belgium

rabbit

56

8

67

Rough-feeding and

 High disease-resistance

Worse reproduction

mature lately,

easy to get foot dermatitis

Chinese White

Rabbits

2.02.5

56

89

Good adaptability

Strong resistance

Small body

low Feed efficiency

 
Wool rabbit varieties

 

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

 

3.54

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

0.60.8kg

3.54.5

Twelve color

--

 

 
Skin of rabbit varieties

 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

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

 

 

Photo 2: The SzechwanWhite rabbit (2002) 

 
Meat and skin rabbit varieties (Zhang Zhangling 2007) .

 

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 )

Meat and skin rabbit 

Adult weight

Fetal/ year

Number /fetal

Advantages

Disadvantages

Medium Chinchilla Rabbits

4.55.4

kg

8

79

Good  adaptability ,

good  meat performance

High Survival rate

Low grow speed

Japanese white

rabbit

45

kg

79

68

Good maternity, good  milking Big ear, obvious

blood vessel ,experiment rabbit

Big frame work,

lack of meat

Huge Saibei  rabbit

565kg

7.58.0kg

78

1516

78

Good  adaptability,

Rough-feeding and

High resistance to disease

The color of

wool is not steady

 
The Multiplication Strains of meat rabbit

 

Table 5: The brief introduction of meat Multiplication Strains in China

Multiplication Strains

Main characteristic s

Feed/meat

Note

ZIKA

2.8~3.0kg/80 days, 

survival rate of fatten rabbit over 85%

2.61

Bred

in Szechwan

Hyla

2.47kg/70days,average\43g/day.

slaughter rate 58%~59

2.81

 

Photo 3: ZIKA Multiplication Strains

 
Distributing condition

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 , BejingShanghai, Liaoning, Jilin,  Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, Yunnan and so on

 

The current developing status of rabbit farming

 

The achievements of rabbit breeding

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 .

 

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 produce and sale of the rabbit production

 

The produce and sale of rabbit meat production

 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

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

1314

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.

 

The produce and sale of rabbit wool

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

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 product and sale of rabbit skin

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.

 

The rabbit used for experiment and medicine

 

 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).

 

The cooperating organization of rabbit farming in China

 

There are more and more organizations of rabbit farming.

 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.

 
The producing modes of cooperating tend to diversification

 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 technology level and extension in China

 

The scientific research of rabbit farming

 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.

The study on rabbit disease

 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).

 Feed condition of rabbit

 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 of rabbit

 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.

The aspect of producing breeding rabbit

 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).

Developing ways of the characteristic rabbit industry in China

 
Rabbit breeding (Zhu Manxing 2008)

 

Establish viable methods of protecting rabbit varieties resource

 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 protecting methods of the inherit resource of rabbit

 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.

 

Establish the station of determining capability of rabbit

 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.

 

The ways of developing science and ecological rabbit farming

 

Pay more attention to feed rabbit with forage in the districts where rabbit farming is not developed

 

The abundance forage provide a big room for developing rabbit farming

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]

 

The effect of feeding rabbit with forage (Huang Xiusheng 2002)

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)

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

2.301

Pnnisetum amerieanum XP.purpureum

1.28

1.72

14.7

2.44

3.261

local weed

1.28

1.60

10.7

2.44

4.151

 

Table 10: Analysis of the economic benefit by feeding rabbits with forage(kg, yuan/ per,%)

groups

Gain outcome

The cost of feed

The cost of forage

Grass profit

Compare to the control group

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.

 

The capability of per unit from forage to rabbit products is high

 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

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).

 

The positive developing strategies of rabbit product

 

Rabbit meat: green meat without pollution and frozen and fresh rabbit meat will be welcomed

 “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.

 

Rabbit wool: high yield and quality coarse wool rabbit farming, knit goods of pure rabbit wool

 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).

Rabbit skin: otter skin is to make wool skin collar, novel style closes made of fur is welcomed

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).

 

Pay attention to rabbits for experiment and medicine

 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).

 

Market: Develop market home and abroad at the same time

 
International market 

 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 rabbit meat market

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 rabbit wool market

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.

 

The Rex Rabbit skins

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

 

Intensify the national market

Year

Yield (ten thousand tons)

Aboard (ten thousand tons)

Home

(ten thousand tons)

2000

37

2.23

34.8

2001

38.6

3.3

35.3

2002

42.3

0.908

41.4

2003

43.8

0.443

43.4

2004

46.7

0.64

46.0

2006

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.

Conclusion

 

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.

References

 

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 Chen Yifu 2007: The developing tendency of rabbtry in the world. Science farming. 02: 8~9.

Chen Yifu 2007: The tendency of rabbit farming in the world. The extra information.vol. 05: 53~55.

 ChenYifu 2002: The Status and Developing Strategy of China rabbit product export. Analysis of economy. Vol.10: 32~33.

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http://www.00968.com/12345/s3/content.php?title=20426

 China grassland information net 2002

 Wang Tingting 2007: China succeeded in the world’s first transgentic rabbit. Xinhua News. http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-12/14/content_7247239.htm

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http://www.caoyuan.cn/newEbiz1/EbizPortalFG/portal/html/GeneralContentShow.html?GeneralContentShow_DocID=c373e905de01fd4c8feed0a621fe263d

 

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