[Food] Production - Rabbits

Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5434 Location: Oklahoma

This information is also posted in the backyard chickens thread, but since I couldn't find a meat rabbit thread I thought I should start one.

Some of you may know I recently bought a breeding pair of meat rabbits. They are in hutches right now and I feel really sorry for them. All they get to do is sit around all day in the heat. Sad

So I decided to see if it was okay to keep them with chickens. I found this:

http://www.blackmesaranchonline.com/animals/rabbits.htm

and apparently it works out pretty well. I'm going to give it a try. If there are any problems I'll let y'all know.

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1395

Shannymara,
Please do. I also recently acquired some rabbits - and I've been seriously thinking about a colony style setup for them. My one concern is that rabbits are diggers and burrowers by nature. I wouldn't want them escaping all over creation (and ending up dinner for my dogs). How do you plan to handle this and prevent them from digging out of your rabbit pen?
Kathy

Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5434 Location: Oklahoma

Ludi · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:53 pm Post subject:

Joel Salatin in You Can Farm describes a way of raising rabbits on pasture in moveable pens. They first lay down chicken wire over the grass so the rabbits can't dig out.

Getting overheated is a major problem for rabbits. They should always have access to shade.

RonMN · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject:

We have alot of rabbits (zillions of them) in the neighborhood and i need help...

Somebody told me you can only "harvest" rabbit in the late fall/winter...somebody else said that is BS they can be shot/eaten at any time of year.

Anybody got some good advice for me? I don't wanna be eating bad meat post peak!!! (although it doesn't make much sence to me, that you can't shoot/eat them at any time...advice would be appreciated!)

Ludi · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 7:20 pm Post subject:

As I understand it, the only problem with wild rabbits is they can carry a disease transmittable to humans, which is supposed to be less likely during the winter. It's recommended you wear rubber gloves while skinning and cleaning wild rabbits. Don't eat any wild rabbits that seem unhealthy, and don't eat the animal if it has white spots on its liver. (This from Carla Emery's Encyclopedia)

Also, if you hunt rabbits during the warm time of the year, you may kill a mother rabbit and so leave her babies to starve.

mizzou · Coal Joined: Apr 04, 2005 Posts: 9

Wild rabbits can be infected with tularemia. This is a bacterial disease that can cause septicemia and death in humans that eat the rabbits. It usually infects the liver of the rabbit and usually you can visualize white spots all over the liver.

JohnDenver · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 29, 2004 Posts: 1866

I used to raise rabbits, and I've skinned and eaten them many times. I kept them in pens on the grass which I made by wrapping a length of cage wire into a circle, and securing it to the ground with tent stakes from army surplus. I moved the pens around frequently as they ate the grass down. I never had any problem with the rabbits burrowing under the pens. I also brought them in at night, and kept them in cages in a shed. Be careful though when you're moving them around. I had a particularly aggressive and big doe who could bite really quickly and hard, and she took a chunk of flesh out of my hand a few times. You have to watch out for owls and other other birds which will eat them. Some customers who came to buy rabbits from me came to replace children's pets who had been eaten by owls. (It never happened to me, though). There definitely were a couple of dog incidents where one of the dogs came around the house with a dead rabbit flopping in its mouth. I skinned those rabbits and cooked them up for the dogs. In the winter, I kept the rabbits in cages in the shed, or in the sun room if it was particularly cold. I also fed them lots of weeds from the garden, but you have to be careful and know your weeds. Hemlock is a common weed. Dandelions, plantains and wild lettuce are rabbit favorites. Be sure to harvest the rabbit crap because it's great for getting your compost heap cooking at a good temperature.

Forgot: Definitely get them out of the heat and into the shade. Lots of peoples rabbits die in hutches from the heat. Also, you can keep rabbits in the house and even housebreak them like cats. I used to let my rabbits run around in the house a lot.

buffy · Tar Sands Joined: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 42

This site has a whole forum about raising meat rabbits. Great info!
http://homesteadingtoday.com/vb/

The main problems with rasing rabbits in a pen is that you cannot control thier breeding and there are diseases in the dirt that can wipe out all of your rabbits real fast!

Riverside · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 4:01 am Post subject:

I "neighbor" up the road from me raises "pet bunnies", in the summer time he keeps the does in large moveable cages in the yard, with several does per cage. The bucks are kept in cages alone so he can keep track of breeding and prevent fighting. In the winter he moves all cages under an aluminum carport, and wraps with a tarp for wind protection. He also houses a large population of bantam chickens with them.

When we had our pet Hopper, I would take his cage out daily in nice weather for him to eat (I also did this with the guinea pigs Embarassed

) Once I get some rabbits I will probably do the same for them. I would be worried about a fenced area for them to run just because of predators. Even my cat has cought several young rabbits this year. Maybe a rabbit tractor would offer more protection.

Carla

RonMN · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 5:25 am Post subject:

I can't believe i forgot to look in carla emerys book! bad bad me!

countrysidegirl · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 9:55 am Post subject:

Once you start a colony, you cant control the breeding and its alot harder to catch them. I would go with what JohnDenver said and maybe setup some sort of moveable pen for the daytime. I fixed hay troughs on the sides of my cages so they could pull the hay thru the wires of the cage and usually pulled some greens for them when I went out to tend to them. I definitely prefer the cages, I always reached in and petted them all every day. That would be kinda hard if they were in a pen.

If your rabbits aren't used to being fed greens or weeds, make sure you start them off slowly or you could give them diarrea. A good cure for that is to give them strawberry or blackberry leaves, or dandelion greens.

kelee877 · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject:

for the newbies to wild game...be prepared..the taste is so different..I am a big city girl, who moved to the North 5 years ago and I have just started eating..moose,deer, and rabbit..it takes awhile to acquire a taste for it..and when you change your eating habits, your body also changes..introduce it to yourself now and slowly..if you are looking for these meats to be a survival..start now..

countrysidegirl · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:36 am Post subject:

For those who dont know, tame rabbits are all white meat. Wild rabbits are dark meat. As for wild, I've heard you want to hunt them in cold weather, so they dont have the fleas and ticks on them. Not sure what the science behind that is, it's just what I've been told.

As for eating wild game, we hunt deer and I personally think there isn't hardly any difference in deer and beef (except less fat in deer). If you dress the game quickly and in the right way (there are scent glands on male and female that must be cut off) most wild game wont have too much of that gamey taste everyone is always talking about. (ie...you cant drive around with the deer on the hood of your car for a couple hours and expect it to still taste good)

I_Like_Plants · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:42 am Post subject:

To get used to the wild meat, I've heard you can cook with some beef fat, or bacon, etc to make it a bit more familiar. There's a sort of underground book out there called "The Roadkill Cookbook" which is half joking and I think half serious, it may merit a look if you get the chance.

That's probably a good idea to get used to wild meats if you plan to use them in the future, a lot of exotic or "european" markets may sell rabbit, even squab (young pigeon) etc.

It's always best to practice what you think you might be in for, and it might be fun - personally I like the idea of knowing I could live off the land if I had to or chose to.