When Thusoetsile Lobaleng first tried his hand at rabbit farming, friends and members of his community asked, “Thusoetsile, mara, why are you always being so weird?”
“Why are you always doing something that others are not?” was a question the 27-year-old from Tosca in North West had to answer quite often. But Lobaleng believes that to succeed, sometimes one must be willing to do the things that others don’t.
“If ever in life your passion is something that others are not doing,” he says, “you should not be scared to do it just because there’s no example for you to follow. Do it anyway. Change the system and introduce new ideas to your community.”
This is the mantra that Lobaleng lives by. It is a mantra that he had to adopt early in building his business. And he believes he has reaped tremendous benefits.
Today, Lobaleng is convinced that being “weird” has turned out well. His rabbit farming hustle, started in 2018, not only puts food on his table. It is also awakening the minds of young people who would never have considered agriculture as a viable career.
“More and more people are starting to buy from me because they want to know more and start their own thing. It’s young people from townships who buy from me. The rest of my clientele are people in my village and surrounding villages.”
Launching a rabbit farming business is no small feat and many of his customers struggle in the beginning. To help them, Lobaleng trains his customers in the care of the animals as much as he can.
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Musa the rabbit
“I have a huge love for rabbits. They are so cute and adorable. I love looking at them and observing what they do. Rabbits are very therapeutic. Sometimes I just go to my rabbit house to touch them and play with them. By the time I leave their cages, I’m very energised.”
Rabbits have always been Lobaleng’s “thing”. From a very young age, he has been obsessed with the furry, playful and inquisitive creatures. He befriended his first rabbit at the age of five.
His grandmother, Esther Keabetswe, bought him a rabbit which he named Musa.
“Musa honestly sparked my love for rabbits. But at the time I was confused. I didn’t know what the difference was between rabbits and rats. They all looked the same to me so I would catch them [rats].
“One day I was caught by my grandmother trying to catch rats and one [of them] bit me. My grandmother warned me that it would happen, but of course I didn’t listen,” Lobaleng laughs.
That was the last of his rat-catching days, he recalls.
Unfortunately, Musa ran away one day, which broke young Lobaleng’s heart. His next encounter with one of the furry creatures would only be much later, when he was in his twenties.
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Rent and grocery money
One day in 2018, while wandering the streets of Tosca, Lobaleng encountered a street hawker selling rabbits. It was his first sight of a rabbit since Musa, so Lobaleng didn’t think twice before buying.
Little did he know that it was the start of a rabbit farming business that would inspire many young people to follow suit.
“I couldn’t really afford it but I used some of the money that my father had sent me to pay my rent and buy groceries. I bought three rabbits and took them to my flat, but eish. They started chowing my furniture, so I had to send them to my grandmother’s home.”
“Rabbits are not expensive to farm with, nor are they costly to buy. I would suggest that people start small.”
The rabbits were doing well there and even started mating. Soon, Lobaleng had over 20 rabbits and started selling them.
In the beginning he had very little knowledge of rabbit farming. To him they have always been pets, so starting a business required some deeper research.
“Rabbits are not expensive to farm with, nor are they costly to buy. I would suggest that people start small. In fact, buy only two rabbits when you start. If you can look after those two, then you will know that you can do rabbit farming,” he explains.
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Plotting the road ahead
Besides marketing his rabbits as great pets, Lobaleng also sold them as raw or braaied meat at one stage. This strategy benefitted his business a great deal until he learned that he needed a license to sell the meat, whether raw or ready-to-eat.
In addition, he needed access to an abattoir to ensure the safety of the meat and prevent people from getting sick.
This side of the business was brought to a halt and Lobaleng refocused his efforts on marketing the rabbits as pets. Nowadays he sells to people interested in trying their hand at rabbit farming too.
“I am excited about the future. There’s so much that I still need to learn. Right now, I am breeding crossbreeds but I want to get to breeding pure breeds.”
But while he learns as much as he can, Lobaleng is already plotting his way forward and says that he wants to develop and grow his business. His biggest goal is to start his own rabbit park.
ALSO READ: Farmer’s guide: How to farm with rabbits
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