Meat Rabbits
 

Anyone raising rabbits for meat? I've been thinking about getting something started like yesterday!

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

just getting restarted myself bought 12 does and 2 bucks plus lots of cages and gear i much prefer to butcher a rabbit than pluck a chook

a mix of breeds some californian some new zealand white and some other

was very hard to find meat rabbits for sale in my area payed between 15 and
20 dollars each for them mostly depending on age.

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was reading on another board that 6 to 8 rabbits can produce as much
meat as a cow plus there droppings are very good for the garden which
was one of the main reasons we went for rabbits.

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Funny, I've been hearing about this for decades but the only rabbits I have ever eaten were shot in the wild. Does anybody actually eat rabbits regularly? Is there any market for the meat?

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I havn't eaten rabbit in a while - but I much prefer rabbit over chicken.

I raised a few before - but did not eat them - they were too damn cute - but I have shot plenty to eat em. I hav ea great Rabbit curry recipe around here somewhere.

there aint much to raising rabbits - couple raised cages and you are set.

You can buy rabbit in some markets that have some european foods - think most come out of Auzzie land or NZ.

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I ate plenty of rabbit when I was a kid. Taste and texture similiar to chicken, but never as good.

They are pretty easy to raise if you have a garden, and their poop is the best fertilizer.

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I understand there is not much fat on wild rabbits...

is that true for domestic?

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Wild rabbits have almost no fat..... farmed rabbit..... dunno.

Sorry this post is no help at all.

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Domestics have more fat than wild rabbit, but a lot less than chicken. I prefer rabbit over store-bought chicken. Not to go OT, but it is a crime on what is passed off as "chicken" in the grocery store. I bought some farm raised chicken last year and my daughter did not believe it was chicken. Much larger and actually had a taste, she thought it was some mutant turkey!

When we spent summer "vacations" on my Grandpa's farm in South Dakota (as child slave farm labor), 1 chicken fed 4 adults and 2 kids for dinner (what we call lunch).

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We ate rabbit yesterday. We have one of those chest freezers full of rabbits and chickens. It doesn't take too many breedings to fill up a freezer either. I hear it's not good to keep rabbit & chicken for more than a year in the freezer. We have stopped for now until we can eat them down a bit. Still have laying hens though.

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When we grow eating chickens we order "Jumbo Cornish X Rocks" from the hatchery. http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/
Day old chicks. They grow real big, real fast. Almost to the size of a small turkey.
I haven't eaten store bought chicken in years, but i'm sure those are all pumped up with hormones and other BS.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

we have wild rabbits in the yard all the time...especially early in the morning and just before dark feeding on the lawn...

wild rabbits here run through a high and low population cycle which seems to affect the population cycle of fur bearing predators that feed on them...wolves, lynx, etc...

anyway here's a rabbit in the yard the wife spied this summer dining in her wild bird feed....

thanks for the pose, bugs...

.....

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

Thursday was rabbit night when I was I kid. Think that we always had three-four does and a buck and that would produce enough year around for a family of six to have a big meal a week. Would come home from school and butcher one. That and raiseing them was one of my jobs. Remember takeing a little red wagon down the road and cutting sweet clover for hay for them out of the ditches. As tastee as what you get for chicken in the supermarts today, but surely not as good as free-range chicken.

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In NZ ...i was bought upon the family farm ..Rabbits are a bloody pest and a big problem with erosion....plenty to shoot....

They used to pay you for tails ...possums were good money when i was a teen ager.

When shooting them in the wild ...be careful they haven't been exposed to cyanide...

I dont mind Rabbit ..makes a good stew..better than eating these hormone injected chickens....

I actually love wild duck and Duck shooting in NZ is great ...Pheasants are good eating..I love Quail but they are a pain in the Arse to pluck

Where do you go for good duck shooting in the States...wouldn't mind heading up to Montana for some duck shooting and fly fishing

one of my favourite movies was always "A river Rins Through It"


TJ


TJ

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

We just started raising rabbits for meat. I read one buck and two does will produce 280 lbs of meat in a year. (if you breed as much as possible).

We got one buck and two does. One of our does had her first litter a couple of weeks ago. 6 little ones. Had 7 but one fell out the cage and the chickens got it. Anyway, will let you know how it goes.

I read that rabbit is the most nutritious meat you can get. Also read that rabbit was a main staple until about the 50's or 60's when the chicken industry cut a deal with the government and basically put the rabbit business out of business.

Rabbits are easier than raising chickens!

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Wow that sounds like a great way to grow up. Thanks everyone for the input!
Think I'm going to have to spring and build some cages this weekend! :applause_

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Local demand here runs from $2-$4/lb for tame dressed rabbit.

We raise and eat domestic whites. I personally prefer tham to wild rabbit. More meat and much more tender. Currently have about two dozen or so. I typically butcher 2-3 a month, but we're gonna pare them down to about 10-12 before winter.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

Do you have any pictures of your setup? That would help quite a bit :)
btw stranger:
love your sig!

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

Sorry, no pics. Will see what I can do about that soon.

Basic pen layout is 8' x 24' I built out of cedar posts cut from my place. Walled in 1" chicken wire and clad around the base with sheets of tin. Covered it with 1" wire also to keep out hawks, owls, etc. I also laid out wire flat on the ground extending inside and outside the pen by about a foot each to discourage the rabbits digging out or predators digging in. I built rabbit hutches, but they seem to prefer digging burrows and nesting there. I have three elevated breeding pens inside the pen with the rabbits, but I've got young quail in two of them right now. The rabbits also share their pen with a dozen ringneck pheasants right now, but I'm working on a separate pen for them. Also, as the rabbit pen was a sort of scabbed on addition, and the younger rabbits can slip through the fencing on the interior wall and get into the pen with the chickens. I haven't gotten motivated to fix it, and the chickens don't seem to mind too much.

My whole set up is pretty basic, and consists of a complex of four pens (fifth to come) with a central hallway giving access to each pen door. I ran an electric fence around the perimeter to discourage predators. Red Golden pheasants (decorative only), rabbits, chickens, ringneck pheasants, and quail occupy the pens. Each has a tin roofed portion, and a wire cover over the rest. I have a sectioned off part where I keep feed barrels, and I water everything an electric fountain pump and water hose in my pond. In the worst part of the winter, I add extension cords and drop lights for the birds.

I'll try to take some pics and get them posted here if you all would like to see them.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

thanks man.

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Awesome thread!

I'm going to look into this asap. Sounds perfect.

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What do they eat? The quality of the meat will depend on their food source.

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most comercial rabbitry is dependant on rabbit pellets
but they can be fed on a lot of different green feed

some ones that may not be so obvious like blackberry leaves and vines
cattail leaves and stalks, clover, grass even some form of opuntia cactus
i think the spineless variety?

just introduce a change of diet slowly and give plenty of variety to make sure
they get all the vitamins they need.

i used to be told and i guess i believe that you can starve to death if you
just eat rabbit meat alone because it is lacking oils/vitamins or something
that your body needs to digest but this is not a problem if you are eating other foods along with them which are high in vitamins and minerals.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

I do supplement with pelletized feed in winter, but spring, summer, and fall they get garden scraps, wild vegetation like honeysuckle etc, and crops I grow specifically for the birds and rabbits. We plant corn, milo and brown top millet for our birds. The rabbits love corn chops and the millet and milo stalks. We also plant several food plots each year for deer, and I hand harvest green wheat, clover, oats and ryegrass from time to time during the winter. (at least when the deer don't keep them mowed down.) Right now, they are enjoying turnip and mustard greens from my fall garden. It's pretty easy to overplant the greens and use them for our animals.

The only feed we consistenly buy is the medicated starter for our quail and pheasant chicks, but we only hatch through the summer, and by fall most are at least 7 weeks old and eating the same foods as the larger birds.

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My Sister in law just accidentally killed her four pet rabbits by tossing them some fresh cut branches off an Avocado tree we just pruned. Dead within a day. Who knew Avocado leaves, bark, and skins can kill rabbits, chickens and even horses. Not me.
You'd think a rabbit would be instinctively smart enough to stay from poisonous vegetation, but I guess not.

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note to self.
sheesh glad it wasn't a necessity having those rabbits for food. now we all know. :)

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I hear the Koreans are going to raise giant ones to help solve their food problems. Check out this giant rabbit raised by some German breeder

http://www.neatorama.com/images/2007...ant-rabbit.jpg.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=6865800

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Say hello to my tasty friend!!

My wife's family feeds us these. Fed with hay, raised in wooden cages.

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This is about the most liberal site on the web, but still has great specific forums on raising rabbits and other livestock. Good info there.

http://homesteadingtoday.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

OK, say I wanted to breed rabbits for food at my BO place. And I know nothing about rabbits.
A friend's father keeps rappits to train his dogs - the dogs won't eat them, just give them a nudge to get them running to be shot. Then the dog gets all the parts of the rabbit that we don't eat as a prize.
These are young rabbits - if I put them in my BO place now, will they die or breed? Ireland by the way - hard frost but rarely snow. I love eating rabbit, but all the mink on the BO place have eaten them. I have shot most of the mink. Plenty of grass etc. for bunnies to eat.
Any help?

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Not true, it made me laugh, and that is worth a lot these days. bancha

OK, so maybe it is true, but it is of value anyway.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

Talked with a friend of mine at work today, he's a good 'ole country boy who was raised on a farm. While not much of a net surfer he shares many of the concerns of most who post here on GIM and definitely "gets it" when it comes to the possibility of TSHTF.

He's thinking about starting to raise some meat rabbits again (he did it years ago) and I told him I'd be glad to come visit and help out. Only problem he lives about 50 miles away so I could only go out on weekends and probably not every one of those.

But if he really starts up I will be welcome to help out when I can and would be to learn how to properly slaughter and clean the rabbits, skills which will be valuable to know. And I could trade my labor for meat.

Only problem is I just mentioned this to my wife and she has zero desire to eat rabbit; she thinks of them as cute pets :( But if this happens I'll bring some home and cook it and maybe get her to change her mind.

Me, I've only had rabbit a few times in my life but I remember enjoying it.

Re: Meat Rabbits
 

i actually think its only going to take you an hour to learn how to butcher a rabbit. its realy not hard.
changing your wifes mind wont be so easy but hunger and necesity could do that for you.and untill her mind changes you will have a tasy meal to share with your friends.