MEAT RABBIT UPDATE!!! YEAR ONE

On a side note about the Sheep, They are the easiest animal to raise and if you think a baby Goat is cute, wait till you get a look at a lamb!!
Billy goats can be aggressive, mine is always pretend rearing at me, once he even charged me. My Ram has never shown any sign of hostility. They are my favorite animals I own and they aren't always trying to get out ant eat all my roses, Grape Vines.....................................
When we first moved here I bought 4 goats and they had 7 acres to freely do what they wanted, the first thing they did was escape and eat $500 worth of plants we had just bought and planted, Alas, That was the end of the those goats and also the first time I ate goat meat.
Revenge is SWEET!!!!!!!

 

Rabbit Pie as follows. Bone out two 5 pound live weight rabbits. Remove all raw meat and put aside in a bowl then place the bones in large stock pot and boil keeping just enough water to cover the bones. Once boiled down remove the rest of the meat and separate small bones out using a strainer and put the stock with boiled meat aside. Step three go back to the meat you took off the bone raw and chunk that up into small pieces and brown in a frying pan with real butter and Grill mates Monterey steak seasoning. Once browned dump into in a crock pot drippings and all and add the stock and 4 chicken bullion cubes. Cook on low for 8 hours until rabbit is tender.

Now you have your rabbit meat and stock. We then add canned carrots and canned mixed veggies without the juice. Cook the mix down and thicken using a small amount of corn starch . Make pie crust extra thick in two large glass pans and fill with mix. Put top pie crust on and bake at 350 until pie crust is browning . Remove and let set 10 minutes then serve. My wife tweaks it every time , the trick to not burn the crust but get the bottom done. Also you dont want it too thick or too thin. Ill ask her to give me the actual recipie. This is just from observation. I do all the boning and making the stock and then crock potting the mix. She takes it from there and puts it into the pie.

 

I'm getting ready to butcher three 6 pound bucks . I been feeding them nothing but alfalfa hay and they getting nice and fat. Going to freeze half the meat amd the wife is making a pie. Ill have that recipe polished in a week or so. KF

 

I'll keep my eye out for the polished version. Good eating. Enjoy

 

OK!
I have had a couple of close friends that bought rabbits from me and started to breed them, now the have a Crap-load of Rabbits and are to FREAKING weird-ed out to butcher them.
If your not going to eat them you don't need more than one!!
I guess the one thing that strikes me is IT's Not That Bad!!
It does take a few times to get used to it, but after you eat a few of them you realize why your raising them in the First Place, and here are a just a few reasons;
1)Banned in 160 Nations, Why is Ractopamine in U.S. Pork? (Op-Ed) - Yahoo News
2)Estrogen In Chicken And Beef May Be Contributing To Hormone-Dependent Cancers - Food for Breast Cancer
3)The U.S. Food Supply: Danger in the Meat Department | Thorsnes Bartolotta McGuire LLP - JDSupra

I could put a list half a mile long of articles just like these!
The only way to truly know whats in your food, is to raise it, pick it, slaughter it, and cook it, yourself!!!

 

Gopher, You make your own treats as Well ?
Ice Cream Sandwich Won't Melt!

 

Yeah Like a said "I could put a list a half a mile long."

 

List's are always worth reading .
"WE" stumbled on flour with ADA , Used in Styrofoam for expansion & in flour to make it rise .

I can read list's , make us know what to look out for.
Sloth

 

Just put up a couple more sets of cages. I now have 15 does and 3 bucks. We are Pressure canning them and freezing them for winter.
Today I pressure cooked 2 of the rabbits we butchered this weekend and got 1 1/2 ponds of meat per Rabbit. That's a good size meal for a family when you use the meat in dishes.
I usually butcher them at 3 months or 3-4 lbs. Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy they make it another month. I am breeding all my does right now and should have 15 litters by the end of November, avg. 6 per litter, some larger some smaller. That's 90 Rabbits!
They do better in the cold than they do in the heat, but, infant mortality is higher when its really cold.
I grew out about 70 Rabbits this summer. I will probably not breed them again this year and cull the herd back to about 10 Does over the winter.
Power washed the cages getting ready for this next batch. To all those who are new to this, I hope your enjoying the experience. It will provide meat for you and your family indefinitely.
This winter I am going to try and build a really good Rabbit tractor and see what happens.
Good Luck Folks!

 

Just started breeding rabbits last month,1st litters born yesterday.
Over all 26 babies. More litters coming in a month. I hope to have all I need before Summer sets in. then around August I'll breed them again for winter meat.
Too hot or too cold, I have found higher mortality rates among the kits. Share your experiences especially you new folks to Rabbits. I'm interested to know how you like it.

 

I breed first weeks of March, April and May. Then they get a break for June-August. Bucks go sterile when the temp is over 90F for any length of time plus the heat is hard on everyone so I don't start up again until last week of September, then again October and November. They get December, January, and February off. Coldest months and sunlight is too low for any of them to be in the mood. I try to get everyone bred in the same week, that way if a doe has a huge litter or something happens there's plenty of other new moms I can foster the kits with.

In a survival situation I'd try to breed year round. No sense in feeding an animal that isn't productive. Wears your does out faster but you'd have plenty of replacements. For summer, once the temp goes too high not much you can do. But for winter kits, you can just bring the litters inside the house and then bring the doe to them twice a day to feed them for the first few weeks until they're big enough to handle the cold outside. Use a plastic rolling, drawer thing from Walmart like this HOMZ Medium 5-Drawer Cart - Walmart.com . Each drawer is lined with fleece and the kits go in that. Easy to keep clean, near zero mortality. Another breeder taught me that trick. Does really don't care. Rabbits are like the worst mothers of any animal. Kit gets drug out of the nest while latched onto a tit, she won't put him back, will just leave him out to die. One dies in it, she won't get it out so if you don't get it out the flies will find it and next thing you know you have a nest full of maggots and dead kits.

The majority of mine are more valuable sold as breeders, but occasionally one winds up in the freezer. I am rather fond of belly flap jerky, grilled leg quarters, and bunnychiladas.

 

I've been pressure cooking them and making rabbit fajita's Whoa!!!!

 

THAT's how to eat rabbit!

 

I was raised on rabbit six days a week, had a chicken (and we usually raised them too) on Sunday as a treat. No, rabbit does NOT taste like chicken! Chicken tastes like chicken!

Some areas of the country (such as the NW) do not have any rabbits as there is some sort of disease that kills them. Even pet rabbits that do not go outside.

 

Are you talking about wild rabbits? There are a ton of breeders up in the pacific northwest. The ARBA convention is in Portland, OR this year.

 

Losing your aim? [emoji15] [emoji33]

 

Raising my own meat is a huge part of my prepping plans. I've been looking into Chickens, Goats, Sheep, Rabbits and the like, but I just can't seem to find the best kind. Goats are mainly for milk and meat, sheep for wool and meat, chickens for eggs and meat and Rabbits for meat. I of course plan on using as much of the animal as possible when the time comes. Any suggestions for the types of animals I should get?

 

Get hair Sheep, Not Wool Sheep, I have both and believe me when I say Wool Sheep SUCK to deal with. I have to chase them down and tackle them to the ground and sheer them every year. I have a hair sheep and he sheds his coat every summer.
I am getting rid of my Big Wool Ram tomorrow and gonna eat him. I Have a hair Ram That will take his place. It sounds romantic spinning your own wool but TRY IT ONCE! Your better off hitting up the local Thrift store for wool clothing and vacuum packing them with moth balls.
Check out Gopher mans Little Farm and 2.0 I am doing everything your talking about doing and there are definitly pro's and con's to It. The Rabbits are by far the way to go.
Their quiet, don't eat much, produce readily usable fertilizer tats off the charts with nitrogen, they taste great, super fast turn around easily produce 200 or more a year if you wanted to.
Good Luck!

 

We had rabbits as a kid. My mom did the butchering. And we sold alot to the meat auction.

I do remember we had an occasional doe that ate her kits. Had to ask my Mother what we did about that as I don't remember.

She said if the doe was going off pellets before she welded that you needed to add fresh greens and sunflower seeds to her bowl so she wouldn't eat the babies.

In winter we planted the garden in winter wheat so we just clipped greens and added them. We also raised huge sunflowers.

I only remember the portable cage my dad built that we put the rabbits under to eat the wheat in the garden