Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: Sean Kelly on March 11, 2013, 02:31:27 pm
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Just born, a healthy litter of 6 baby kits!!!
I raise mutts. The mother is a California/New Zealand cross. The father is a Flemish+Satin/Champagne D'Argent cross.
Not sure what to call them, other than Bunny McNuggets!!!
Sean Kelly
(http://imageshack.us/a/img707/6312/newbabyrabbit.jpg)
(http://imageshack.us/a/img547/9559/rabbitnestbox.jpg)
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how old do they have to get before you can eat them?
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how old do they have to get before you can eat them?
Hi Kathy! Haven't talked to you in years!!!
I process at 5lbs. That gives about 3lbs of dressed young meat, usually around 8 weeks. I wean them at about 4 weeks and sex them at that time to separate boys and girls. They can get preggers not very long after they quit nursing.
Sean Kelly
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yeah..where have you been??
so that's pretty quick. even better than chickens. that must help keep the cost way down!
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yeah..where have you been??
so that's pretty quick. even better than chickens. that must help keep the cost way down!
I know, I know. I've been in hiding. lol.
To be honest, I actually kinda forgot about this place. Made some great friends on this forum and then disappear! What the heck is wrong with me! lol
Yeah, it's super quick. Chicken takes around 6 months or more (depending if they free range) before they're ready to harvest. My 10 hens go through a 50lb sack of feed every 3 weeks. I just bought a bag for $18 today. Do the math.
Now my 5 rabbits go through 50lb sack of feed about every other month when I'm not supplementing with grass clippings, dandelions, and table scraps.
One doe rabbit can produce around 350lbs of meet a YEAR, using 2/3 less commercial feed than beef. And the manure can be added directly to your gardens, doesn't need to be composted like chicken or cattle manure.
It's the perfect food, not sure why it went out of favor in the US after WWII.
Sean
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We're expecting kits here as well. Early next month. Your post on rabbits got me thinking and I now have breeders and they are setup so I bread them a few days ago.
2 New Zealand does bread to New Zealand bucks.
You started something.
Bailey.
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I throw the junk left out of the garden to my bunny to keep the feed down and to give him something besides pellets to eat. I cut a head or 2 of cabbage a week through the winter and the outer leaves and the base of the plant goes into the cage. Collards and broccoli that don't make the cut also goes into the cage.
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We're expecting kits here as well. Early next month. Your post on rabbits got me thinking and I now have breeders and they are setup so I bread them a few days ago.
2 New Zealand does bread to New Zealand bucks.
You started something.
Bailey.
Right on Bailey!!! Make sure you keep good records and take lots of notes. If you ever have any questions feel free to PM me! I'm seriously hoping to start a new (old) trend in home farming. I strongly believe meat rabbits are the answer to all our environmental and food problems! Join me in evangelizing the rabbit word! :-)
I throw the junk left out of the garden to my bunny to keep the feed down and to give him something besides pellets to eat. I cut a head or 2 of cabbage a week through the winter and the outer leaves and the base of the plant goes into the cage. Collards and broccoli that don't make the cut also goes into the cage.
AllenF, definitely what we do too! Makes less waste and the rabbits love it. I'm actually going to grow a section of my garden just for the bunnies. I like feeding my rabbits mint to help with digestion and it keeps internal parasites low.
Sean
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Ok, don't all kill me when I ask this, but how do you kill them? Do you take them somewhere or do it yourself?
I've always sworn I could kill a chicken. Not sure I could kill a baby bunny unless I was REALLY hungry. :(.
Just curious if you think rabbits would work for an urban farmstead with squishy city-slicker-farmers?
:D
love,
ziffa
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I will give you the easy way to do it.
Take 2 old deeps or 3 med boxes and stack one on the other on the ground.
Place rabbit mcnugget in the stack on ground.
Take trusty pellet rifle and ease down in. One placed between the ears and its all over. No fuss noise or struggle.
Quick and clean with no run always or rabbit squeals. The never know it happened.
Bailey
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Umm, it's the placing of the cold steel between the cute furry ears. :'(
Thanks Bailey! :-\
I know it is something I will need to get over if I ever reach my dream of self-sustainability. I like rabbit meat and I agree with Sean that it is a good way to raise meat all around. Just gah, my stupid urban sensibilities!
I'm a few years away from attempting this, so I guess I'll just have to try and grow some . . . um, determination! :-D
love,
ziffa
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ziffa,
Maybe you could let someone else handle that part of the process. There is a difference between knowing what happens and seeing what happens! :)
Good Luck!
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Bailey's method is probably a little less up close and personal. :)
However, I had lunch with a co-worker today and the subject of raising rabbits came up, I hadn't realized it before but he told me he use to raise them. When I asked him of his preferred method, he said, lift them by their back legs, let them hang straight down, and give them a karate chop to the back of the neck. He claims it works like a charm....
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Ziff.
Hippy beek won't do it for you?
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To butcher a rabbit, I first give it a good klunk behind the head with a stout club which stuns them, then, holding the rabbit by the hind legs with the head dangling down my right side. Grasping the head with my fingers wrapped around the rabbits chin and my thumb over the head as near the base of the skull as possible I give the head a quick snap which severs the spinal cord. Quick and easy. Then it's a mere task of laying the rabbit across the chopping block and decapitating with a hatchet.
I agree with Sean, raising one's own food is not only gratifying but you get much better tasting food that is so much better for you without all the chemicals, etc. now added to our food chain. Not to mention that is also fresher as it's not shipped from half way across the world.
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Here's what I use. It's a little expensive, but super easy and fast: http://www.therabbitwringer.com/ (http://www.therabbitwringer.com/) (viewer discretion advised: some of the videos are a little graphic on their website and may not be suitable for children or weak at heart)
A pellet air rifle works great too. Very quick, but also not very sustainable. I like using methods that don't require buying stuff from the sporting goods store, just incase down the road there's a supply line problem. Call me a prepper or crazy, but I think the world is gunna get strange soon and I don't want to worry about not being able to buy lead pellets for my bunnies.
Ziffa, unfortunately there's nothing nice about dispatching something so cute and fuzzy. No matter how many times you do it, it still sucks. And if it makes you sad when you're dispatching your animals, then that means you're a good farmer and your heart is in the right place. There's no better food in the world than the stuff grown with love and caring. Meat raised in feedlots don't get that kind of attention.
Shedding a tear when dispatching your meals just makes dinner that much sweeter.
Sean
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Here's what I use. It's a little expensive, but super easy and fast: http://www.therabbitwringer.com/ (http://www.therabbitwringer.com/) (viewer discretion advised: some of the videos are a little graphic on their website and may not be suitable for children or weak at heart)
A pellet air rifle works great too. Very quick, but also not very sustainable. I like using methods that don't require buying stuff from the sporting goods store, just incase down the road there's a supply line problem. Call me a prepper or crazy, but I think the world is gunna get strange soon and I don't want to worry about not being able to buy lead pellets for my bunnies.
Ziffa, unfortunately there's nothing nice about dispatching something so cute and fuzzy. No matter how many times you do it, it still sucks. And if it makes you sad when you're dispatching your animals, then that means you're a good farmer and your heart is in the right place. There's no better food in the world than the stuff grown with love and caring. Meat raised in feedlots don't get that kind of attention.
Shedding a tear when dispatching your meals just makes dinner that much sweeter.
Sean
Sean,
Thanks for the link, very interesting. However, you are right, it's a little pricey. At that price, you could stock pile about 2,700+ pellets....that's a lot of dispatching. :-D
Then again, if you don't already have the gun, that changes the numbers game quickly. :)
Anyway, I think you closing point is spot on.
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I am starting meat rabbits for this spring, I got american rabbits during the fall, during the winter I built some nest boxes and fixed more of the rabbit cages I got for dirt cheap, so hopefully this spring I will have some baby bunnies too.
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hello Sean,
Shedding a tear when dispatching your meals just makes dinner that much sweeter.
I agree with you very much.
I visited my brother in New Zealand a few years back. His house, like many in NZ, doesn't have central air and heating is done by a wood burning stove. Works quite well! If you keep it fed. Which means chopping wood. A lot of it! I know this will sound wonky to some of you, but it was a very visceral eye-opener for me to the connection between earth, natural resources and warmth. My brain KNOWS that the warmth in my house, and the food on my table, comes from the world around me, but do I really experience that? No, it's just a button on my wall or a plastic wrapped package in the grocery. We are so far removed.
I really liked the feeling of connection chopping wood gave me. (even if I didn't like the blisters! :D) It is one of the reasons I want to be as self sufficient as I can.
Some day I will test that and see if I can dispatch an 8 week old bunny.
Thanks for your post! it has been a very thought provoking for me! And I appreciate your open responses.
love,
ziffa
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With no desire for bragging, I have been a gardener for over 30 years and home caner for about that long. I now have rabbits for meat, chickens for eggs and meat and garden bug clearer upper, three bee hives and a milk goat. I heat my home with a wood burning furnace. Why? It's a lot of work to be sure. Sometimes, REALLY a lot of work. But I like the feeling of independence. I like the idea that regardless of what come down the pike I and a few select friends will not go hungry. And I like being in touch with nature, if you wish.
Oh, and the manure from my animals are a great boost to my garden.