Health Clubs’ Rabbit-Rearing Project

Rabbit rearing is a simple income-generating activity that teaches students about responsibility and will help them fund future projects, which promotes better health at their schools. It also reduces donor dependency, by empowering Health Clubs to be able to fund their own projects in a sustainable way.

HopeCore was able to supply eight health clubs with pairs of rabbits to rear as an income-generating activity for their health projects. Rabbit meat is very valuable, nutritious, and easy to produce.  More rabbit meat can be produced in a shorter amount of time and smaller space than any other meat. It is also worth more than chicken or beef, as it has a greater nutritional value. In preparation for the rabbits’ arrival, each club worked together to build a platform for the rabbit cage to stand on. (Elevating the cages helps protect the rabbits from predators and allows their waste to exit out of the small openings on the floor.) When the platforms were complete, HopeCore delivered rabbit hutches to each school with security lock on them. And a few days later, the children were thrilled to meet their new pets.

The students listened attentively, as HopeCore staff explained how to care for the animals. While rabbits love to eat a wide variety of plants that already grow near the school as weeds, each school was asked to supplement this diet with food pellets they could purchase in town. There is one type of weed, however, that is poisonous for rabbits to ingest; our team brought one to pass around as an example. The clubs were instructed to keep the rabbits in the two separate compartments of the cage until the rabbits would be old enough to mate (in 4 months’ time). Each school was left with an instructional pamphlet, issued by Kenya’s Ministry of Livestock, to refer to as questions arise.

Here are a few facts, provided by Kenya’s Ministry of Livestock, on rabbit rearing:

• Big enough for eating after just 3 months

• Reproduce at least 4x per year

  • 8-18 rabbits were produced each time

  • This means a pair of rabbits could produce 72 rabbits within the span of a single year!

  • 10 rabbits can be raised in a space as small as 5.6 meters squared

  • Rabbit manure is superior to cow manure for crops

  • Rabbits aren’t picky eaters

    • Wide variety in the diet

    • Many plants rabbits like to eat grow around the schools as weeds

Each health club will decide as a group how the money they earn from rabbit rearing will be used to improve the health of the school. Many of the clubs intend to purchase more seedlings for their vegetable gardens or “shambas”, to continue and expand upon the first Health Club project they did.