This report outlines my brother’s small business, including its target market, financial plans, and marketing strategies. I have strived to maintain a neutral perspective throughout the report, only including my own thoughts and opinions in the conclusion.
The whole idea of my brother owning a business started in early March of 1998 when a neighbor jokingly suggested he should raise chickens and sell them. A few days later, he realized it could be easily done and profitable. From mid-March to September, we raised and sold over 600 chickens. We wished we could have raised more. In March of 1999, we were considering how many chickens to buy when the person we bought them from told us about the possibilities of rabbits. Since rabbits are a yearlong project and I was leaving in the fall, it became my brother’s decision and ultimately his project. He started with 20 baby doe (females), 3 baby bucks (males), and a small borrowed hutch with all 23 rabbits crammed in tight.
His investment in rabbits, although considerable, was still surpassed by the ones in hutches and feed. He essentially spent all profits from chickens the previous year and then some. His project now consists of 20 mature does, 3 mature bucks, and approximately 60 babies. He has taken over a section of a large barn and turned it into a 30+ hutch rabbitry system with a circulating automatic watering system.
Recently, my brother acquired a large weaning cage. When I asked him how he felt when he was getting started, he said he didn’t like spending all that money, but he knew he would get it all back someday. I then asked him if he was afraid of competition or of there not being a big enough market. He said he knew of nobody else selling rabbit meat in the area on any scale and that because rabbit meat is practically the healthiest meat, he couldn’t see any problems in the market. He then said that if personal selling fails, he can sell them through his chicken provider” on a per pound basis. One thing I have always known about my brother and his rabbit business is that he is very confident in its success and that even though he knows there will be small problems, he is very sure of overall success.
When I asked him who he sees as his typical customer, he said that first he would talk to people that bought chickens last year, and then possibly put an ad in the Kearney Hub (an area newspaper). He then said that because rabbit meat is so healthy, he saw the health-conscious as his primary customers. He also said that because it wouldn’t be real cheap, they would be people with money to spend on special health food. He didn’t have any demographics, psychographics, or geographics, but he knew there was a supply and that all demand would be his. I asked him if he saw any reason for his market to shrink, and he said he didn’t see any reason for it not to grow.
Most of the funding for his business came from our chicken profits, from me (expecting to be paid back plus some) and from his savings. While he did not have a concrete business plan, he had some basic numbers that he thought would be attainable and some ideas on how to attain them. He did not receive funding from a bank. Profit margins for his business are somewhat unpredictable. The number of kits (baby rabbits) a doe has a year can greatly affect the business. He tries to conservatively figure his profits.
Here, I will try to give you a little information on the possible income of a 20-doe rabbitry. If the average doe has 12 kits per litter and has a litter every 1 ¾ months or 9 litters a year, then each doe averages 108 babies a year. Take this number times the number of does, which is 20, and you get 2160 babies a year. If each baby weighs 4-6 pounds (we’ll use 4) when sold on a per-pound rate, you are selling 8640 pounds of rabbit a year.
Take this number and multiply it by $0.95 (a conservative price for rabbit meat per live pound) and you’re bringing in $8,200.00 a year. Subtract the estimated $900.00 a year in feed and $500.
After deducting $200 for other expenses, you are left with $6,800.00.
