Assessment on Status and Challenges in Rabbits Farming in Rwanda

Abstract

The survey was carried out in all Provinces of Rwanda. Using a stratified sampling, one district was chosen from each Province and a purposive sampling was used based on the higher number of rabbits per District; those are: Gakenke, Muhanga, Ngororero, and Bugesera. To select the respondents, a snowball sampling method was used and rabbits farmers were interviewed if they possess at least 10 rabbits and have been in rabbit farming for at least a year. A set of questions were answered by the respondents and data on breeds, feeding, demand/supply, and challenges were collected using telephone/face to face interviews. Using SPSS software version 20, data from survey were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The study found out that respondents have few years of experience in rabbit farming and keep less number of rabbits because they are demotivated by some challenges like diseases and death of young rabbits. Most of respondents mainly raise crossbreeds from New Zeland white, Calfornia, American Chinchilla, Angora, Mini Lop and local breeds. The feeding is mostly based on local forage and kitchen residues and the maturity of rabbits among respondents varies from 4 to 12 months. The demand of rabbit products is higher than the supply and all respondents said that rabbit farming is a profitable business.  Identification and training of rabbit farmers was recommended; import pure breeds and initiate specific programs that will work closely with rabbit farmers in the entire value chain was also recommended at the end of this study.