Comparison of Hutch and Who’s Due Rabbit Breeding Apps
So, given the price increase with Hutch, I know a lot of us have been searching for more affordable alternatives. I recently downloaded the Who’s Due app and thought I would give y’all a comparison on the two. I don’t have any financial interests in either of these companies, I’m just hoping to give y’all information to help you choose what’s best for yourselves and your rabbitry before you spend any money. (Full disclosure I have a “legacy discount” on my Hutch app so until next spring it only costs me $72/year. I also downloaded the Who’s Due app at the current discounted price of $5.99. The prices I’m using in this post though are the regular non discounted prices that the average purchaser would pay.)
Hutch screenshots will be on the left, Who’s Due will be on the right.
So let’s start with the thing that caused everyone to go searching for other options…the price. As of this writing, the regular price for Hutch is $143 yearly membership for the option I use. Who’s Due is currently regularly priced at a one time purchase fee of $9.99.
This is the opening screen of each app. I haven’t transferred all my rabbits into Who’s Due yet, but I put a pair in with fake breedings so I could see what the screens looked like. Hutch’s dashboard shows me who is due, who I need to weigh, and who needs a nest box on one screen. Who’s Due let’s me toggle through based on when to palpate, when the litter is due, when it needs weaned, and when I need to process. These are based on dates I give it when entering the breeding, such as wean at 4 weeks. Who’s Due also sends me notifications of when to add nest boxes etc.
Next is breeder information. Hutch allows me to have all my breeders on one screen regardless of gender, or I can sort based on things like gender or breed. It also shows me how many litters they’ve had, a heart for a currently bred doe, and how many kits they’ve had. Who’s Due let’s you toggle between bucks or does, active or inactive, shows the rabbit’s parents, and the rabbit’s show information like legs and registration numbers.
These are the litter screens. On Hutch you see all the current litters, regardless of what rabbit kindled them. I sort mine by age. Total and average are for weights. Keep in mind I’m new to Who’s Due, and may be screwing up some of the features, but it appears to be able to find litters on Who’s Due, you need to go through one of the parents. In this pic I went through Broonie and it shows me all of her litters. I input the litters with only Mulligan as the buck option, but if each of those “breedings” had a different buck, I assume they would have the other buck’s name at the top of the litter record.
This is what the record for a litter looks like. Hutch allows you to enter info on each individual kit in the litter, including name, color, weight, gender, if you fostered it, and even a picture. It also allows you to “sell” or “cull” individual kits. Who’s Due lumps all kits in a litter into one group, but does allow you to easily note how many peanuts you produced, which is good if you’re breeding dwarf breeds.
You can print pedigrees from both apps. Hutch pedigrees print in landscape. You can add your logo and rabbitry info to your pedigrees on Hutch. And it doesn’t show in this screenshot, but if the rabbit’s photo is in their information it will also put that on the pedigree. Who’s Due allows you to print your pedigree in landscape or portrait. Portrait would be handy if you’re keeping them in a binder. Both programs have four generations on the pedigree.
These are the things each app allows you to track. As you can see Hutch does allow tracking of many things that are very helpful to know to improve your herds. Who’s Due allows you to track which litters were the largest and which ones had the most kits survive.
My final thoughts:
I can’t tell you which program is best for you. My personal opinion is they each have their own place. In April it will be 4 years I’ve been using Hutch. At the current price, that four years would’ve cost me $572. If I had used Who’s Due instead for those four years, it would’ve cost me $9.99. I’m honestly not sure I’ve gotten a $572 value out of Hutch in those four years, but I would’ve easily gotten a $10 value out of the Who’s Due app.
Hutch does have more features. Way more features. But the average meat or hobby breeder probably doesn’t need most of those features. It’s also highly unlikely that Hutch will ever cost less than it does right now, because prices frequently go up, but they rarely go down. So what would cost me $143 a year will likely steadily go up. Ten years of using Hutch and you’d be looking at having spent $1,430 at a minimum, without any future price hikes, on an app for breeding your rabbits.
Who’s Due doesn’t currently have as many features as Hutch, it’s true. But it’s also way more affordable for your average breeder who isn’t ever making a profit in breeding their rabbits. Most of us don’t actually make a profit, most of us are thrilled if we cover all our costs. And Who’s Due currently seems to be based on a yearly membership fee. So even if they raise the price of the app later to cover the costs of more features, it’s still just a one time fee to use it.
My personal recommendation would be, if you’re breeding rabbits for hobby or just meat? Go with Who’s Due. If you’re a show breeder selling lots of pedigreed rabbits each year, go with Hutch. Another option a fellow breeder mentioned was getting both the Who’s Due app ($9.99) and Evans Deluxe Rabbit Edition software ($89) to have the extra features you might want on a computer program, plus the mobility of the Who’s Due app, but for a combined one time purchase of only $99.
I hope this post was helpful in making your decision on what program you want to use for your own record keeping!