Eating rabbits: I am such a loser LOL

[1stepcloser]

I want to be self-sufficient. I swear I do. I can eat cow, love pig, adore chicken....but cannot bring myself to try rabbit. I keep kicking myself because it would be so easy to raise them and feed my family! I cannot get away from soft, fuzzy, snuggly bunny images though. SOMEBODY SMACK ME!

I am mentally prepared to off my chickens but cannot wrap myself around rabbit.

Advice? Seriously.

 

[Kgee]

Meat rabbits might look cute & cuddly, but they're NOT! ...Babies scratch the dickens out of you every time you pick them up...this definitely helps with attitude. Of course, if I had to do the processing, I'd be vegetarian...so I'm the caretaker & hubby is the processor...works for us.

 

[A1 Steak Sauce]

Get yourself some New Zealands, you'll have no problem butchering those little devils from hell, I gaurantee you. It's been a few years since I raised them and my fingers still hurt where they bit me. Best tasting rabbits I'd ever eaten though.

 

[saddina]

I can't do it either. We have pet rabbits, so it's not a line I can make right now "these ones we pet, these ones we eat". ours are also handled every few days and are quite tame.

 

[Southernbelle]

Agree. We have New Zealands for meat and Holland Lops for pets. The kids don't mind eating rabbit as long as it's not one of their pets. The Holland Lops are tiny, sweet, gentle and snuggly. They're great pets, since they're just the right size for the kids to handle them and they're very calm, so they make very satisfying pets.

On the other hand, the New Zealands aren't such great pets, especially for the kids. They're very heavy and hard to handle, they're more flightly and more prone to biting and scratching. Even the babies are hard to hold, they're squirmy and skittish. The kids don't want anything to do with them. It also helps that I raise the Whites, so all the babies look the same, so there aren't any "favorites."

 

[icrowther4iam]

I remember my dad raising and butchering rabbits when I was a kid. My mom, the great cook that she was, could prepare a wonderful rabbit dinner. My dad always made sure I ate the heart, kidneys and liver. I think that's why I grew so big and fast as a kid. It took me a while to get used to the fact that the bunnies would end up as meat, but I realized there would always be more bunnies later on.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Here a smiley slap for ya!

 

[journey11]

I hear ya! My husband wants to get meat rabbits. We shoot wild rabbits in the garden every so often and I cook them up for him. But I didn't grow up eating rabbit, so I think that's a large part of trying to get over the idea mentally for me! We did have several pet rabbits though. I'm sure it's good, it's just the thought of it.

I didn't have any trouble with butchering chickens, so far just meat birds and extra roosters. I hope I don't get hung up too bad when it comes time to turn over the old layers! I am very attached to the girls!

 

[Boyd]

Here's how I'm getting around it. My wife WON'T allow them to be butchered here. Period. My step mom won't allow my dad to devote as large of an area to a rabbitry as he'd love so.............. Going to let him have a 15x100 area for rabbits in the backyard behind the garden, and I'll probably take care of most of them... but we'd transport them to his house to do the deed and they come back to my house already deboned, ground etc. Pretty fair trade in my opinion

PS, we're looking into growing our own feed so.........

 

[Soccer Mom]

Quote:
This! Get these rotten little boogers and you'll be so ready to do the deed.


But I hear you. I can eat anything except my geese.

Who knew geese could be sweet enough to overcome my love of meat?