Meat Rabbits!!!

[Sean Kelly]

Hey guys!
Anyone else raising rabbits for meat?  I can't believe how simple and earth friendly rabbits are compared to pretty much all other meat livestock.
The benefits are incredible:  lower fat and cholesterol than chicken, more protein than beef, faster producing and cheaper to feed.  Rabbit manure does not need to compost before being added to your garden.
We've been raising turkeys for meat, but after discovering the costs, time, and labor involved with raising turkeys compared to rabbits we've decided to put all our efforts into the rabbitry.
Anyways, I'm pretty excited about this adventure and wanted to see if anyone else in this great group is doing the same!!

Sean Kelly

[Vance G]

i raised a lot of rabbits when I was a kid and we ate them.  I was always happy when I sold one for a pet.  It is way easier for me to slaughter a bird than a wabbit.  Though it is indeed easier to slaughter a rabbit than a turkey.    We put a 30 gallon barrell in the middle of the strawberry patch for all the frozen weather accumulation.  Great fertilizer.

[PLAN-B]

Raised them for a while and yes they are fairly inexpensive to raise til slaughter. I haven't raised any in about two years because I've been pretty busy with work, goats, chickens and bees... Wish i had more money and more time to get back to playing around with them....

[Bee Happy]

I had a doe when I was a kid - wound up moving right after breeding her and leaving her with the guy I bought her from. I did get a letter from him saying she had 13 bunnies, but I never got into rabbits again.

[Joe D]

We used to have cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and rabbits, oh and dogs and cats.  Right now just have bees. 




Joe

[danno]

I raised flemish giants for a few years.  They are soooooo huge but slow growing.  I then switched to californian's.  These grow to butcher size quicker.   One buck and 2 does will produce alot of meat.   I also kept them at the edge of the garden for free fertilizer

[Haddon]

I have had rabbits love them they are worth keeping for just the poop.
I dont think I have time right now to keep them or I would get some more and start back up. Next time I will make freeze proof waters first. I found the I idea online for a cheap and easy no freeze auto water system. but any way have so many home impovement projects and bee things to get done this year I will be lucky to just get the garden planted.

[Lone]

Do you still have bees and banjos, Sean?

Lone

[jaseemtp]

Sean,
I have not kept rabbits yet, but we are starting this year.  From what I hear one buck and two does will provide plenty of meat for us.  As of now me and my two boys will be eating them.  I do not think the wife and my daughter are going to give in any time soon.
We start our rabbit project next month.

[asprince]

I love rabbit and have hunted and eaten many but I don't think I can raise them and then kill and eat them.


Steve

[Sean Kelly]

Do you still have bees and banjos, Sean?

Lone

Hey Lone!  I'm surprised you remember me!  It's been years since I posted anything on this forum.  Yep, still keeping bees and picking the banjer!

Sean

[bailey]

Alright Sean!  Your post got me interested and now I'm keeping rabbits too. 

Cooking the first cull buck tomorrow. 
Deboned him and plan to slow roast his butt

Bought a package and wound up with too many males.
Have 3 breeding age does and will cull down to 2 bucks.


The good news is the bud 5 jambalaya will now include rabbit!!!

Bailey

[Lone]

Hey Lone!  I'm surprised you remember me!  It's been years since I posted anything on this forum.  Yep, still keeping bees and picking the banjer!

Sean

I never forget a banjo player.  Are you ready for St Paddy's Day yet?  It's only a week away.  We're playing at a club and I am allowed to tell one irish joke every half hour. I can't play a jig on a 5 string so I'll mainly fiddle. I play every so often in an irish band, a bush band, a gospel band, and a group that plays only australian fiddle tunes, so I get a bit busy and my tendonitis objects to it a bit.

I remember you got diabetes and I was wondering how you're managing that.  How much honey do you eat now?  It would be a real blow to a beekeeper, but I'm glad you're still at it.

In regards to rabbits, do you know that it's illegal to keep rabbits in Queensland?  I'm not sure about other states. Where I live the ground is actually too hard for them to burrow, so I don't think they have ever been a problem. There is the odd one around. But the mixo and then calicivirus have knocked them down everywhere.  They were brought to australia initially for hunting but soon bred like rabbits.  They put up a rabbit proof fence which the rabbits thought was so funny as they were on both sides of it.  Henry Lawson wrote a story about a buck rabbit that laughed so hard he picked it up and it was still laughing when he put it in the pot. (look up "Henry Lawson: Hungerford) There is a good movie called rabbit proof fence.  Consequently, I hadn't eaten rabbit since I was very young and was missing it badly, but went back to Victoria at Christmas and had rabbit stew.

Lone

[Sean Kelly]

I never forget a banjo player.  Are you ready for St Paddy's Day yet?  It's only a week away.  We're playing at a club and I am allowed to tell one irish joke every half hour. I can't play a jig on a 5 string so I'll mainly fiddle. I play every so often in an irish band, a bush band, a gospel band, and a group that plays only australian fiddle tunes, so I get a bit busy and my tendonitis objects to it a bit.

I remember you got diabetes and I was wondering how you're managing that.  How much honey do you eat now?  It would be a real blow to a beekeeper, but I'm glad you're still at it.

In regards to rabbits, do you know that it's illegal to keep rabbits in Queensland?  I'm not sure about other states. Where I live the ground is actually too hard for them to burrow, so I don't think they have ever been a problem. There is the odd one around. But the mixo and then calicivirus have knocked them down everywhere.  They were brought to australia initially for hunting but soon bred like rabbits.  They put up a rabbit proof fence which the rabbits thought was so funny as they were on both sides of it.  Henry Lawson wrote a story about a buck rabbit that laughed so hard he picked it up and it was still laughing when he put it in the pot. (look up "Henry Lawson: Hungerford) There is a good movie called rabbit proof fence.  Consequently, I hadn't eaten rabbit since I was very young and was missing it badly, but went back to Victoria at Christmas and had rabbit stew.

Lone

That's awesome!  Yeah, I'm actually going to be meeting with a bluegrass band later this week to try out for their banjo spot.  I've been away from the music scene too long now and feel it's time to get back in the swing of things.

My diabetes is pretty much non-existent now.  My wife and I canceled our cable tv and joined a local gym.  We took a diabetes nutrition class at the local hospital and changed our eating habits drastically.  I lost over 60 lbs and my A1C is now 5.7%.  I also quit smoking and I feel like a million bucks.

Yeah, I heard about the rabbit problem in Australia.  We have too many predators here in the US for a feral rabbit problem to exist.

Alright Sean!  Your post got me interested and now I'm keeping rabbits too. 

Cooking the first cull buck tomorrow. 
Deboned him and plan to slow roast his butt

Bought a package and wound up with too many males.
Have 3 breeding age does and will cull down to 2 bucks.


The good news is the bud 5 jambalaya will now include rabbit!!!

Bailey

That's awesome Bailey!  Welcome to the club!!!  Justin Wilson has some great rabbit recipes if you're looking for a good Cajun flavor.  But pretty much any recipe that calls for chicken can be substituted with rabbit.  I've actually found that a lot of chicken recipes actually turn out BETTER when rabbit meat is used!

I love rabbit and have hunted and eaten many but I don't think I can raise them and then kill and eat them.

Steve, it's not easy raising something so cute for food.  But I personally feel the benefits outweigh the killing cute food factor.  Especially when a doe has her first litter, and the babies fit in the palm of your hand.
But when you have 3 does, cranking out a litter of 8 every other month, there's an endless surplus of baby rabbits.  You get used to the processing really quick.  The more you have, the easier it gets.

[kathyp]

are you processing the hides as well? are they worth messing with?  that probably makes a difference in your method of...execution? 

[Sean Kelly]

are you processing the hides as well? are they worth messing with?  that probably makes a difference in your method of...execution? 

We're not yet processing the hides, but that's something I do want to get started with.  It's pretty simple with pre bottled tanning solutions.  I'm not sure of what methods of dispatching would harm the hides, unless you use a gun which is kind of wasteful.  Rabbits are extremely easy to dispatch, using several different humane methods.
Look up the Rabbit Wringer.  Very cool device and super quick.  If you have the stomach, they have demonstration videos of their product on YouTube.
There's also the "broomstick" method (google that too), a quick bop behind the ears with a tire thumper, and there's also some people who use a pellet rifle point blank behind the ears, where the spine meets the skull.
The most important part is to bleed the rabbit immediately after dispatching it, otherwise there'll be too much blood in the meat.  The best way to skin the rabbit (while it's hanging from it's feet) is to cut around the knees and a line down the leg and back up the other.  From there, it's just a quick pull straight down, inside out, like pulling off a sock.  It keeps fur from making a sticky mess all over the meat. 
Once you get to the front legs, you might need the help of your knife to remove skin down to the elbows.  Cut the feet off at the elbows and leave inside the fur (you can remove these later if you plan on tanning).
pull down until you get to the neck and cut the head off, leaving it inside the skin (I like this so I don't have to see their cute face after the dirty work is done).
From there, it's just a matter of opening the abdominal wall, splitting pelvis, removing viscera, and quartering.
I can process 10 rabbits in the time it takes me to do one turkey.  Super easy, like peeling a banana.
If you feel you need a gun to dispatch your rabbits, then I suggest you not waste your time and stick to supermarkets.
With ammo shortages and high costs right now, I'll stick to one of the older proven methods of breaking it's spinal cord.

Sean

[Bee Happy]

I did a bunch of deer hides one year for a jacket that never happened (the butcher usually throws them out, so you can get a bunch on opening day.) - It's pickling salts - Alum which you can get cheap from a feed store as aluminum potassium sulfate (I think they call it potassium sulfate) enough to tan hides with off the grocery shelves is stupid expensive. It's been a LONG time, and I've long since lost the book. If you look up "tanning with alum" there's bound to be something.
I did several with Hair-on for gifts and several more straight leather.  - I have ONE hair on hide left and my wife hates it, so I have to guard it.
My point was it's not real difficult to mix up your own tanning brine for about 1/10th the price of "tanning solution".
Hope that helps.

[Lone]

Good to hear about the diabetes, and the bluegrass band, Sean.

What on earth do you use rabbit skins for?  Jackets for chihuahuas?

Lone

[stella]

I find it interesting when I have a new idea in my head and then stumble upon a forum to feed my new interest.  (This is the first time I have looked at any other forums here other than general beekeeping)

I was reading on rabbits raised for meat during the depression. People back then even raised them in their basements. Im all about wild game and home grown meat. We live mainly on venison, wild turkey, fish, squirrel, our own chicken eggs, etc. I have raised meat chickens, meat turkeys. But I got to thinking about how "easy" it would be to raise rabbits for meat. I would like to try it sometime.

I read about a device used to harvest them with a simple pulling method that separates the vertebrae in the neck making a quick and humane harvest. I think it was on Mother Earth news.

Anyone care to share their harvest method?

[Moots]

Stella,
I think the Rabbit Wringer is what you're describing....

Rabbit Wringer website!