Read John Dollarhite's hare-raising account below:
Our story really can't be summed up in a few sentences, but I'll attempt to do so.
From a couple of bunnies for our teenage son to a $3.9 million dollar fine. How does that happen? When the US government decides to pass regulations that to the typical person sounds unbelievable, and it is, but it has become our reality. We originally contacted USDA to determine what we had to do in order to produce meat rabbits and sell the meat.
To our dismay, we were told USDA didn't regulate the sale of meat rabbits so we didn't need a license. As with all ventures you quickly learn what is profitable and feasible and what is not. By the time we raised the rabbits to butchering weight, transported them to a USDA inspected facility and back, we had so much into them it wasn't going to be worthwhile for such little profit, or worse yet to be stuck with meat we couldn't sell.
Requests for small, pet breed rabbits became so frequent, we switched our focus from meat rabbits that took 12-14 weeks to be sold, to pet breeds that sold at 4 weeks. Less feed, labor, and time meant more profits. It never occurred to us if USDA didn't regulate a rabbit for human consumption that they would regulate a rabbit you sold as a pet.
We claimed our income on our taxes, along with our expenses and deductions. We had no idea we were in any violation of anything until a USDA inspector showed up one morning in the fall of 2009 with no search warrant, showed no identification and didn't offer a business card. Not having anything to hide, we agreed to talk with her, which we have since learned was a mistake.
To make a long story, short, she left leaving us no documentation or information. We heard nothing from USDA until 3 months later in January of 2010 an APHIS investigator calls and demands a meeting. By the end of the meeting our attorney asked if we got out of the rabbit business would that satisfy USDA and the inspector indicated it would. Immediately we liquidated all our stock and cages by trading them for other farm items.
We again heard nothing until April of 2011 that informed us we were being fined $3.9 million, but they would agree to settle for $90,643 and we could pay at pay.gov with our credit card as if we were talking about a parking ticket. Hence, our nightmare began!
