| dc.description.abstract | Food security and availability is a challenge globally; making individuals, governments and
other stakeholders to seek for production alternatives. In the developing world; the poor are
prone to both starvation and food insecurity. Increase in the human population indicates a need
for increased production. Animal protein is scarce to the low income sections of the society due
to its high prices, raising the need for diversifying the sources. Rabbit rearing is one of the
options. The study dwelt with the demographic factors of the sample population, the attitude on
rabbit farming, their incomes, and rabbit products and benefits attracting farmers to rabbit
farming. The target population consisted of rabbit farmers in Abothuguchi West division of Meru
County, Kenya. There were 78 rabbit farmers sampled in this study. Data were collected using
structured questionnaires and observations. The response rate was 84.6%. Data was cleaned and
edited in Excel computer package and descriptive statistics arrived at using statistical package
for social sciences (SPSS). The findings were that contrary to expectations, 72.5% adult reared
rabbits, with 39.4% of rabbit farmers owning 10 to 20 rabbits and that the negative attitude
against rabbit keeping had reduced over time. It was established that rabbit farming keeping
thrived mainly because of being a source of white meat-food, income and manure as a
combination 78.8% of the farmers confirmed. It was recommended that information regarding
rabbit products and benefits be passed to the potential keepers. The study has revealed several
facts about rabbit farming in Abothuguchi West division so Livestock extension officers must
bridge as they avail these information through trainings. The Government could also use media
especially the local language stations since the study has indicated that some farmers got initial
rabbit farming ideas from the media, however, there should be an initiative to invite extension
officers to these stations so as to give appropriate message which when left to media people there
are gaps or misinformation released to the multitude. The suggestions included are due to
increasing pressure on land as a result of increased population, land is getting sub divided to very
small units, a research to compare traditional enterprises to these areas (coffee, tea and dairy) and
emerging enterprises (rabbit farming) need to be done to reveal how they could either
complement each other or replace one another. | |
