Rabbit Starvation

[blackeagle603]

I recollect from my yute that lb for lb rabbits are the most efficient stock in converting feed to meat. Pretty easy feeding and maintenance. Good droppings for the garden. Just gotta be careful in hot climes to keep them cool.

As for oil, depending on your climatic zone plant some nut, avocado or olive trees -- or all three.

I've got 6 mature avocados on our lot.

Had a prolific pecan that had to go due to danger to house. I'm trying to re-establish another one that's volunteered elsewhere on the lot. Problem with nuts is getting enough of them before the crows and mexican parrots gorge themselves.

Think I've decided on a spot to establish several olive trees.

[SeekHer]

The Inuit (Eskimos) have a saying: Eat rabbit for six die on seven...

There is a big difference between farm raised and wild rabbits--movement...Skin out a wild rabbit and there is no fat whatsoever because they run so much they burn off everything they eat...Farm raised there is fat because they can't move more a a few inches...

Rabbits are poor producers of feed to food--the best is farm raised cat fish--but what is beneficial with rabbits is that they can eat lots of stuff you can grow on your own like root crops and don't have to go the bought, pressed, feed route...

We raised rabbits on the farm and beneath their raised cases we had a cinder block lined pit with some soil and shredded newspaper and big red earthworms...The faeces would fall through the chicken wire bottom of the cages and the worms loved that...We would change out the bedding twice a year, beginning of spring and late in the fall and use the mulch for the flower beds etc. and had worms for fishing all year round...even sold the worms to a bait shop in the city...

As to rabbit for eating, the stuff you buy in the store--farm raised has some fat on it and tastes great especially under a creme sauce with mushrooms...

[308Mike]

I seem to recall from farming/raising them (several hundred) that they didn't take much care. Cages off the ground by 3 or so feet, rabbits coded by color clothes pins on the outsides of their cages as to their age, feed was real simple and they didn't mind. All the rabbit waste dropped through the wire cages to the ground where it could be scooped up by shovel.

When we wanted to pick one or two for dinner, we simply went down the rows looking for a plump one in the right date range (I don't remember what age we preferred). They got selected and taken (by their ears, those back legs can rotate like buzz saws and being on those wire cages their whole life makes those claws like RAZORS, and grabbing by the ears ensures those rear legs can't rip your forearm open like a knife), a good whack on the head with a lead pipe cured their struggling, then they were put out on nail boards to hold them up while you skinned, butchered and cleaned them. When you got done, they went into a pot for dinner.

I've NEVER had better or fresher tasting rabbit than when I was a kid and helped get them ready for dinner. NOTHING I've ever had the ANY grocery store, specialty store, or even butcher shop compares to what we had back then. Perhaps it was the feed and lack of additional stress that helped the rabbit taste so much better - I don't know.

It was GREAT. I can tell you that much!! I wouldn't trade those childhood experiences for ANYTHING. I learned a lot, experienced a LOT, and was taught a lot in those days.

I'd say if they wanted to institute a non-military conscription along with the military conscription (draft), I'd say, put them to work on America's farms!! Let them see, FIRST HAND what it takes to feed a nation, and parts of the rest of the world!! Let them see, feel, smell, and experience how all this stuff get to your dinner table BEFORE it hits the supermarket.

Oh, how I'd LOVE to implement such a program WITHOUT dhimmicrap oversight!! Just let them see how it's REALLY done down on the farm!!

[workinwifdakids]

Rabbit is GREAT food as long as you don't have to expend a lot of energy to get it, you know, kinda' like going down to your local grocery store (Vons, Ralphs, Kroggers, Wal-Mart, etc.), except you'll likely have to go to the local butcher shop since nobody else wants to carry BUTCHERED BUNNY (especially around Easter - "Hey kids, guess what we're having for dinner????!!? It's Peter CottonTail, isn't that GREAT????" - after they all get about 3/4 of the way through their meals and oooing and ahhhing about how good the meat tastes).

Properly fixed rabbit tastes GREAT!!! And no, I'm NOT kidding!

Oh, God, Mike! I am just drooling here. Did we talk before about this? There's this great little place out her called Sevilla's, which is authentic Spanish (no, NOT Mexican) cuisine. My favorite dish is conejo (rabbit), which is served like roast over split red potatoes and all doused with brown gravy. OH, MAMA!

[Netpackrat]

Soooooo what's the best oil for those of us that might leave food wintering in a cabin that could see [strike]-30F[/strike] -50F???

FIFY.

[Netpackrat]

Soooooo what's the best oil for those of us that might leave food wintering in a cabin that could see -30F???

You can freeze most oils/fats. Or you could store nuts, they're high in fat. A multivitamin would be a good idea as well.

If only you knew how funny that was.... My brother HATES nuts... And raisins, if I want to keep him out of my cookies I just buy the ones with raisins in them.

[Lokidude]

What's all this farm-raised noise? I want rabbits, I just head out past the city limits with a .22. I had friends when I was just out of high school that raised rabbits, and honestly, I'll stick with wild ones.

[AlaskaTRX]

Soooooo what's the best oil for those of us that might leave food wintering in a cabin that could see -30F???

You can freeze most oils/fats. Or you could store nuts, they're high in fat. A multivitamin would be a good idea as well.

If only you knew how funny that was.... My brother HATES nuts... And raisins, if I want to keep him out of my cookies I just buy the ones with raisins in them.

you, sir, are evil...

[Denis]

My brother HATES nuts... And raisins, if I want to keep him out of my cookies I just buy the ones with raisins in them.

you, sir, are evil...

But you still hang out here, despite the nuts...

Keeping rabbits for fun and profit.

Mrs Denis and I were in Vienna for the Easter weekend. We took the train to Bratislava to visit a friend - I have never seen so many hares as in the fields along the way. If only I had had a .22 with me...

[Fill]

If only you knew how funny that was.... My brother HATES nuts... And raisins, if I want to keep him out of my cookies I just buy the ones with raisins in them.

I had a supervisor who was an avid bow hunter. His survival food was a can of corned beef hash - because he hated corned beef hash. The trick of survival food is getting stuff that doesn't look good until you're starving.

As my grandpa was fond of saying 'If it's not good enough, you're not hungry enough.'