Very cool thread!
You know its interesting that you asked about rabbits. A lot of us have been thinking about stuff like this. And we've done some research on this also. Our family had them years ago, and years and years ago there was a big business scheme going around to raise Rex rabbits for profit.
Haha...well anyway.
So what do rabbits do well...
A lot of people think that the meat in rabbits and ducks can be more nutritious than chickens. And people are starting to be concerned with the diseases that chickens can get and how stuff like bird flue can carry over from 'fowl' into humans as a germ elevator. So this is a big point in favor of rabbits (and ducks) over chickens. (Its also why people are very interested in raising & trying out quail right now also.)
Also, you can use grass more with rabbits than you can with these other small time ag equivalents mentioned in the paragraph above and that means more efficiency and saving money. Now the guy above says you they can get bloating from only grass. But a lot of people do claim that you get more efficiency with grass pulled tractors with rabbits than you do with some of the other small time livestock that i meantioned. And some people only raise rabbits in pasture enclosures and then rotate the fencing around them while reaping fertilization benefits as well as moving the enclosure around to not allow the pasture to become too stripped of vegetation. (And it looks like an interesting idea.)
Rabbits do have good weight gain for your meat early on, fast growth, multiply quickly, and they are more efficient with resources than say cows (which require tons of space).
Some things to consider or concerns;
Rabbits are VERY hard to sell. American culture can't get past the fact that rabbits are seen as pets. And their kids especially have a hard time understanding why their parents want to butcher cute things. This was why rabbit farming has never taken off. The meat is wonderful, and can be stored. Also the pelts can be used and turned into leathers or used for stuff but just the mental block of having people buy them for meat is something that everyone who has experience with rabbits will always say that this is why 'rabbit farming' never takes off because they have a hard time turning these wonderful products into cash. (And time and time again everyone still agrees that they can make great products, yet they always still also agree that turning them into cash becomes difficult right back at the main dead end.)
Another thing that people have trouble with in comparing ducks, rabbits, and chickens against each other is that with the other two you get eggs right away but rabbits haven't figured out how to 'can' eggs yet. So for some people they think there's less return on investment than these other things that use similar space, which deliver a food product early on.
And the funny thing is when you look at the numbers on a graph of the gains of rabbits and how fast they produce meat it doesn't make sense why people don't use them more. (Especially with chickens having recent diseases and being raised in poor conditions.)
Another consideration; I don't know if they overwinter easier than ducks (which are their alternative). And duck products are easier to sell (supposedly). (But who knows so many people are trying ducks now that, its possible those also might hit a dead end if too many people jump on it.) And out of chickens and rabbits compared I'm not sure which winter better.
Well there's all kinds of questions you could ask. I think it will help if you compare them to over small livestock. Stuff like; ducks, quail, and geese are the alternatives (and medieval alternatives) to rabbits. In the middle ages our ancestors also farmed geese heavily, and sometimes ducks. The hundred years war of Britain and France for example, when you read about it, farms had a quota of geese feathers they were all supposed to provide to the king for English Longbowmen. But at some point, Anglo Saxon derived cultures started to forget about geese and some of the other small ag livestock. (Odd right? Bigger isn't always better.)
People also say that quail eggs are much healthier and less disease than chicken eggs, and higher protein also for both quail and ducks compared to chicken eggs also. So I don't know why we don't use some of these other alternatives more.
Hope that helps in some way! :)
PS I'm aware of a channel on youtube that documents and does research on agricultural news. And what one of their videos is saying is that some of the big ag companies are strip mining US food processing in order to send it ALL over to Africa now. This seems really bizarre to me. And the way they are doing it they are basically leaving nothing left. They are talking about closing canning companies entirely like in Illinois, Wisconsin, and just taking all of that wealth out of the US (with foreign interest), and leaving nothing behind.
Its kind of crazy that you can't even make this stuff up. It sounds like Science Fiction. But its really happening.
There's not really any limits in the law right now on how much a US Corporation can strip mine wealth generated over 50 to 100 years in say the NE of the US, or the Midwest and turn ALL of it over to some foreign country (for whatever excuse) without oversight on how much is left behind!
So where I'm going with this...turning this back to the original thread. I think this is a really great idea to be thinking about what you can do on your own and do these small space small livestock things. People should be as self sufficient as they can and try to help themselves and not wait on government or foreign takeovered corporations to save them.