Rabbits

There are few food sources that require less experience than raising rabbits for food. The average cost of a bunny is $30. You obviously need two; one male and one female. Woke genders have not yet made it into the world of the quadruped, so we need one of each. Two or three wire cages. You can find used cages all over facebook and Craigslist. Prices I saw just now were from $10 for a simple wire cage to $100 for a hutch. Now a water dispenser and a food dispenser. A fifty pound bag of grain is under $30 and will feed them for several months. It is currently November and we have spent a total of $90 on rabbit grain this year. That works out to about $8.00 per month for an average of five rabbits eating grain throughout the year.. All in you are looking at $200 to start raising them and about $6.00 per month to feed them..

Assuming you purchased mature breeding stock, you can have your first litter withing 45 days of bringing them home. 12 weeks to Slaughter weight and you are harvesting your meat after less than four months of saying, "self, You should raise rabbits."

One rabbit is a meal for our family of 5. To buy a butchered rabbit, you will pay about $35.00. Ground beef is running about $7.00/pound and pork chops are $5.00/pound. Your rabbit meat will run you about $1.30/pound not counting your time. Looking at the money alone, this is a great way to add quality food to your kitchen without paying "all natural" "farm raised" "organic" food prices.

Another reason to raise rabbits is the nutritional value of their meat. Rabbit meat contains high levels of Essential Amino Acids. It is also extremely easy to digest and absorb. Rabbit is processed by the body similar to lamb...our stomach can absorb the nutrients directly. This is a good thing, especially since Americans currently ingest more bad fat than almost all other nations. Rabbits are low fat animals. This poses a concern for those planning on rabbits as a prepper plan. We cannot eat rabbit without another fat source. Remember our bodies need fat and cholesterol. Eating nothing but rabbit meat will lead to a protein poisoning if it is not supplemented with fats and carbohydrates. Add boiled cattail roots to your rabbit diet and you will be good.

It is also possible to increase their fat reserve by providing them with unlimited grain and hay. Yes hay. I have read myriad posts on to feed hay or not to feed hay. It appears that many rabbit keepers don't believe that you are smart enough to know if your hay is moldy. All the don'ts seem to have this as their main theme. They are correct. If your rabbit eats a bunch of moldy hay, they will probably get real sick and die. You can also run into problems if you feed them late summer/fall second cutting with a high sugar content. Too much sugar will make your rabbit sick as well. First cutting hay properly stored will delight and fatten your rabbits nicely. We are lucky in having a hay supply at no cost. If you would have to buy hay bales at $5-$10 per bale, it will still be cost effective as one bale will last a month or more. The other fodder we provide is maple bows. Rabbits love maple. Fresh leaves in the summer and limbs during the winter. They can digest the wood without issue and it is a treat that they clearly enjoy. Most summer days with a large pile of leaves and sticks, your rabbits will not eat much grain. We also rake up the weed wacker trimmings all summer and feed that to our rabbits.

How do we eat rabbit meat? All kinds of ways. I grew up in a very Italian family, in a very Italian neighborhood. Rabbit was a staple and most of my friend's parents kept a few in their backyards. They were either roasted, braised, or stewed.

As I grew up, rabbit became difficult to attain ready to cook. If you could find it, it was $15/pound or more. I enjoy a roasted rabbit, whole. My family does not enjoy it nearly as much, but they will eat it. Stew and pot pie is much more to their liking and extremely easy to make. Cut up the animal in six pieces and place them in the pan, brown and cook as any other stew. For pot pie, poach or roast the rabbit, pull the meat from the bones and make just like chicken pot pie. You can use rabbit in any recipe that calls for chicken. We separate the legs and southern fry them. But my family's favorite is to use the meat ground just like ground beef. We make tacos and meatballs and meatloaf. Today, most of our rabbits are deboned and ground. We freeze it in 1 1/2Lbs packages and use it just like ground beef. I happen to be real good at deboning meat. If you are not, save the carcass and make a stew out of it.

We also save the bones for bone stock. At Farm Life Farm, we raise rabbits, pigs, sheep, turkeys, chickens, and ducks. We save all the bones and freeze them. I will make another post on our bone stock.

In conclusion, consider raising rabbits for meat. They are delicious, cost effective, and nutritious. For those that are feeling nervous about slaughter and butcher, Farm Life Farm is here to teach you how it is done!

gestation about 30 days

Litter size 1-12